In 2008 the Village Voice published a column by playwright David Mamet called “Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal.” In it, the master dramatist walks the reader through his evolution from a JFK-worshipping 1960’s liberal to a Thomas Sowell-reading embracer of The Tragic Vision of man.

I thought of Mamet’s op-ed during my recent appearance on The Andrew Klavan Show, speaking about conservatism’s failure in valuing the arts. My frustration (expressed harshly here and thoughtfully here) inspired me to borrow Mamet’s title and declare to Mr. Klavan that my refusal to relinquish my pro-arts proselytism is “Why I Am Not a Brain-Dead Conservative.” Many might find this confusing.

I emerged into the public consciousness during the madness of 2020, voicing strident criticisms of pandemic policy and railing against progressive identity politics. Eventually I found myself on shows like Timcast IRL, Triggernometry, Friday Night Tights, and The Dr. Drew Show. I started a podcast where I interviewed guests like Douglas Murray, Gina Carano and The Critical Drinker. Naturally I attracted a substantial conservative audience. But I’ve never assigned myself the label. I never will.

Every Personality Assessment I’ve taken reveals that I score extremely high in Openness and Neuroticism: I’m drawn to the fresh and new and novel, and prone to intense, often negative emotion. It’s a natural psychological profile for an artist (especially an actor)1. It’s also a typical profile for one who lands on the liberal side of the political spectrum. But that no longer guarantees professional safety amid the hyper-politicized milieu that permeates modern cultural institutions.

Openness includes the ability to entertain and empathize with multiple points of view. But we live in a world where the personal is now unbearably political, and where the liberalism of the creative class has been usurped (or hijacked) by a more radical vision. Survival for the modern artistic professional now hinges on passing a battery of Progressive purity tests, and the liberals of yesteryear find themselves tiptoeing on eggshells around peers they mistakenly took to be ideological bedfellows, who would ruin them for the smallest heresy.

As someone whose training emphasized the importance of curiosity and empathy, it’s been a genuine shock to witness how little of either is employed among creatives when it comes to politics. Worse, there is nothing fresh or new or novel being said, and nothing brave in declaring one’s hatred for racism, or how disturbed one is by injustice and inequality, or how much one loathes Trump. Nothing is being said in these circles that hasn’t been said for the past ten years (regarding Trump), or the past 60 years (regarding identity politics), or the past 300 years (regarding injustice).

For the artist who is genuinely Open, genuinely aroused by the exploration of ideas, the atmosphere is not only full of potential professional hazards, but insufferably, heinously stale2.

And yet, so is life on the “other side.”

Conservative peers and leftist haters alike have asked me why don’t you just say that you’re a conservative? The more fitting question is why would I?

While the abundance of Openness typifies the liberal, the absence of it typifies the conservative3. Such a profile does not lend itself to bold, creative exploration. The rare conservative who sincerely values the arts tends to confine themselves to reverence of “the classics,” satisfying their instinct to preserve important traditions, but divorcing them from pop culture, thereby crippling their cultural relevance and impact.

Things looked to be turning a corner in the wake of the 2026 Super Bowl, when conservatives found the halftime performance so obscene that it finally prompted some of their biggest voices to openly consider that influencing culture might actually involve creating it. Twitter lit up with debate among rightists about the nature and importance of art. Had the self-proclaimed “Culture Warriors” (who create no culture) finally begun to come round?

Alas, no. The discourse died within days. As did any desire I have to continue preaching to the deaf.

I refuse to attend to any more conservative complaints about how far left art and entertainment have become. I’ve zero use for YouTubers churning out slopcasts about “Woke Hollywood.” It’s gotten old, as old as the bottomless Trump Derangement from the left4.

The obvious cure for our stagnant culture is investment in a vibrant, viable and competitive cultural infrastructure; independent-minded creatives must accept they are on their own, and work from there. This is the dilemma for the Open, liberal artist in a polarized world: despised by leftists for refusing to surrender sanity; dismissed by rightists for refusing to surrender their vocation. That is a good thing.

The artist is a rogue figure, at a remove from society while painfully sensitive to it. The most interesting work comes from those who let nothing cramp what actor Michael Chekhov called “creative individuality.”

In a world which continually demands that one “choose a side,” the artist must find the strength to stand tall, shut out the noise, and follow his intuition.

Therein lies liberation.

CD

In the wake of conservative tantrumming over the 2026 Super Bowl performance—mirroring similar outrage in the wake of Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 showing—Twitter has been ablaze with right wing personalities, including Christopher Rufo and Matt “Videogames and Comic Books are a Waste of Time” Walsh, suddenly snapping to the realization that the “right”1 should perhaps rethink its approach to culture (here defined as a society’s creative and intellectual output). Such rethinking is long overdue

Liberals and progressives have zombified the arts. Given their relentless discrimination against non-leftist creatives, they and they alone control America’s cultural institutions, therefore they and they alone must own the stagnation and unpopularity of said institutions. Meaningful change would require their developing a tolerance toward divergent visions, the capacity to see proponents of those visions as human beings, and the humility to consider that perhaps they have some things wrong.

These things will never happen. But there is also no reason to expect a renaissance of “right wing” art, as some might hope.

A culturally astute right wing would have realized long ago that culture is up for grabs in a way never seen before. Champions of the “marketplace of ideas,” they’d have been savvy enough to understand that art is the greatest vehicle for ideas humanity has ever devised. They’d have acted on their zeal for the creativity inspired by competition and their knowledge of the need for parallel structures to create an armada of institutions with which to effectively wage a “Culture War.”

A culturally astute right wing would have realized long ago that the unapologetic far-leftism of America’s arts industries has created severe Celebrity Fatigue and a massive market of alienated Americans seeking exciting new work that speaks to them. Instead of pouncing on stories of “cancelled” artists for views they’d have capitalized on what Andrew Breitbart knew nearly 20 years ago, that “there are a lot” of non-leftist creatives who would welcome the work (and the freedom) if viable professional alternatives were available.

Instead they’re reduced to raging about a man who calls himself Bad Bunny, or kvetching about songs called “Wet Ass Pussy.” They pour their time, energy and resources into content creation, but not culture creation.

This expenditure of resources is understandable, given the demonstrated power of New Media. But a culturally astute right wing, no longer ghettoized into talk radio and Fox News, would long ago have moved beyond endless “Anti-Woke” slopjockeying and Based & Black-pilled memeing and howling about our impending communistic collapse. They’d have long ago realized the importance of profiling and patronizing artists.

But the right wing is not culturally astute. They are light years behind their left-wing counterparts—and there is a real possibility that they will never be truly competitive in this arena, for one simple reason:

Art is sacred to the left in a way that it is not to the right.

The importance of art is taken for granted in the left wing vision.

The regular attendee of the opera or the ballet, or the avid museum-goer, is not an outlier in liberal circles. Even if there is only one lone arts enthusiast in a left-wing social group, he won’t be seen as unusual. Should he resist pretentiousness there is a fair chance he’ll be admired, as arts knowledge (and patronage) boosts the left’s self-conception of superior sophistication and intellectual enlightenment.

For the liberal-minded individual, arts engagement is as much ego validation and identity reinforcement as it is a sincere appreciation of culture.

Right wing disinterest in art is not due to a lack of sophistication or intelligence (as is presumed in the left wing vision), but to the prioritization of the practical. They forego the chaotic and unpredictable life of an artist; they urge artistically-inclined offspring to get “real jobs.” This is pragmatism from smart people who embrace what is stable and normal. Careers in the arts are not stable. Artists are not normal.

The lone artist or arts enthusiast in this milieu is not embraced as he would be among liberals and progressives. He would be fortunate to garner much respect at all. If a successful artist manages to find themselves in a group of conservative-minded individuals, they will not be given any particular esteem; art is not a “real” job and produces nothing of tangible use or value. There is nowhere near as much admiration for the singer who sells ten million albums as there is for the farmer who feeds one hundred thousand people, or the married father whose family is healthy, happy, and well-provided for.

In short, right wing disinclination toward the arts is not a question of education or sensitivity, but of a different value structure.

Rightist pragmatism also explains the market mentality they often misapply to the arts. It’s understood that in a price-based economy capital flows to where it is most valued. This approach does not work as well in evaluating the arts: history abounds with geniuses who died penniless, with classic films and albums that were commercial failures, and with disposable pop slop minting generational wealth.

The left-wing valuation of art transcends money. They are much more willing to invest in the arts, even with little or no promise of a return. They may wrestle with the conflict between art for art’s sake and art for commerce—but the central importance of art is never in doubt. Where a more practical vision is logically focused on monetary investment, the left-wing vision regards the arts as a social investment2.

For the right to be true contenders in America’s cultural landscape, it must not only expand its self-concept, it must radically rethink what is truly valuable: to humanity, and to a thriving civilization.

The significance of rightists finally engaging openly and seriously with the necessity of the arts should not be ignored.

In an era wracked with cynicism and nihilism—where politics is woefully inadequate to address what ails us and where those who control our cultural institutions have turned those institutions against the public they’re meant to serve—the recent shift in right wing discourse to grappling with the purpose and meaning of art indicates a shift in values that has potential to push America’s stagnating cultural output in a bold new direction, satiating a society yearning for revivification.

In that light, debates about “right wing art” miss the mark. The public may be sick of art produced by left wingers, but there is no need for “right wing” art. What does that even mean? And do the pontificators not see the potential trap in intentionally creating art through an ideological lens—exactly the problem that has poisoned progressive arts institutions over the past decade?

Why threaten the public with more politically correct art—only now from a rightist perspective?

To paraphrase poet Isidor Schneider, no artist need be politically correct if his work is faithful to reality3. Schneider was writing in 1945, warning his peers of the pitfalls of using art solely as a political weapon. Schneider was a Marxist, writing in a communist periodical; today such commentary would win him accusations of right-wing adjacency, by the left-wing artists who’ve failed to heed his advice. Repeating their mistakes would be foolish.

Americans are appalled by a myriad of issues: a deteriorating moral code; falling educational standards; rising political polarization; glorification of the drab and ugly; collapsing social mobility; a brazenly inept and horrendously corrupt ruling class. That is the reality. Addressing it with aesthetic and compositional élan—and continuing to explore timeless human themes—will thrust non-leftist creatives into the national psyche far more effectively than a masturbatory mission to create work that merely appeals to one’s own tribe.

Of course, intelligent artists already know this. What remains to be seen is if the right is truly ready to evolve past posters and podcasters, and finally fight the “Culture War” with the proper army.

CD

Dear Conservatives:

You bitch about Hollywood because you lack the will, the skill, and the drive to compete with it. You treat art and entertainment as an afterthought, now you’re aghast that the culture has been monopolized by hacks who hate you.

And all you do is complain.

Their “Culture Warriors” produce movies and music and literature and drama that will last forever—even if it sucks. Your “culture warriors” are posters and podcasters, whose product is as disposable as yesterday’s news.

Your patriotism ignores the legacy of American artists that made this country an entertainment superpower. Your conservatism does nothing to preserve or continue that tradition.

Where are your production companies and publishing houses and talent agencies? Your theatres and museums? Your studios and conservatories? Your movie stars and pop icons?

You don’t build them. You don’t want to build them. Because you don’t care.

You instead choose to surrender the whole of America’s cultural output to incompetents who despise you, then complain about how there’s nothing good to watch or read or listen to, flummoxed by how crass and garish and ugly everything has become, inexplicably shocked that nothing changes.

All the while, gifted artists languish in relentlessly hostile work environments. They spend their careers tiptoeing on eggshells, silencing and shrinking themselves to avoid offending the zealots with which they are forced to work, because there are no viable alternatives.

They are decent, smart and conscientious people struggling to stay afloat in shark-infested waters, while their ideological peers watch from ashore, haughty and huffing that art is useless because it neither builds boats nor makes them float.

Every year there’s a divisive Super Bowl halftime extravaganza. Every year there are award shows with intellectual invalids weighing in on Current Things they know nothing about. Every year you are astonished that cultists continue to behave like a cult.

And every year you complain and complain and complain and complain.

Then you wonder why nothing is entertaining anymore, why life feels so empty, why your society is circling the drain, and you continually fail to make any connection between decaying cultural institutions and civilizational rot.

But fret not:

There are a litany of podcasters on hand to talk about it.

With warmth,
CD

What was once a subterranean movement is now unmissable.

As women found liberation through eschewing traditional gender roles, men are now reciprocating the revolution.

Conservative women are flummoxed that men refuse to marry; liberal women wonder why men refuse to date; conservatives claim men are choosing “gooning” and gaming over protecting and providing; liberals claim men have lost their way now that patriarchal norms are disrupted.

None of the commentariat considers that what’s popularly portrayed as male dysfunction might in truth be male disenchantment—an emotional response to a society perceived as beyond saving. Even further beyond their ken is the notion of male discernment—a rational rebellion against a society that’s made no secret of its contempt for them and their needs.

Were anyone truly interested in untangling the “mystery” of modern male nihilism, they’d find that the subject has been explored in-depth for decades:

• Warren Farrell (ex-president of the National Organization for Women) published “The Myth of Male Power” in 1993.
  

• Feminist Christina Hoff-Sommers published “The War Against Boys” in 2001.
  

• Dr. Helen Smith published “Men on Strike” in 2013.
  

• Cassie Jaye chronicled her abandonment of feminist presumptions in her 2016 documentary The Red Pill.

Boldest of all is Norah Vincent, who employed weight training, a vocal coach, a psychologist, and costume and makeup professionals to transform herself into “Ned.” Over 18 months “Ned” joined a men’s bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with multiple women, visited strip clubs, infiltrated a monastery, and joined a men’s therapy group.

Chronicling her experience in “Self-Made Man” (2006), Vincent—a lesbian and radical feminist—began her experiment clinging to “Power and Patriarchy” presumptions which have become common in popular discourse. She ended her experiment markedly changed, concluding that “men are suffering” and that women have “no clue” what they’re experiencing.

But women aren’t the only party guilty of apathy and ignorance regarding the life of modern man. The disease is endemic to all of society.

From boyhood, men are scapegoated for a range of global, political, social and interpersonal ills; they’re told by women that they’re no longer needed; told by educators that they’re the problem; told by popular entertainment that they’re toxic; told by employers they won’t be promoted (if they’re even hired) for the sake of “equity”; told by liberals to open up and act like women; told by conservatives to shut up and act like “real men.”

The tellers are then confused and horrified by the popularity and influence of the “Manosphere,” the much-maligned realm where men across nations and generations air grievances and express themselves openly and honestly. But here, too, in this unabashedly pro-masculine space, the concept of male identity is tragically shallow.

To the sexual right-wing the primary prescription for male happiness is simple: make money, build muscle, get pussy. It is as one-dimensional a view of manhood as any proposed by “smash the patriarchy” progressives or “protect and provide” traditionalists. It’s a cynical, hedonistic materialism dressed up as empowerment—a masculine mirror to the feminist narratives they deplore, which frame female empowerment in terms of status elevation and sexual license.

No assessment of modern man seems ready to view him as an intelligent being, blessed with depth and dimension. There’s a correspondent collective neglect of his boundless imagination and vivid inner life. Subsequently none of the intelligentsia/influencer ilk concerned with the crisis of modern man has highlighted—or even acknowledged—what is far and away the most awe-inspiring aspect about him:

He is overwhelmingly responsible for the most groundbreaking, beautiful and transcendent art that humanity has ever known.

Modern man isn’t broken. His self-concept is compromised.

His artistic genius is downplayed by liberals, derided by progressives, dismissed by conservatives, and mocked by “red pillers.”

It occurs to none of them that men seeking purpose and identity might be refreshed and renewed if reminded of their creative capacity: reminded that their forebears crafted compositions of staggering beauty, and boldly explored life’s big questions via timeless drama and literature. It never dawns on them to highlight that the genius of a Mozart or a Michael Jackson was so great that it will not only outlive those men, but the civilizations in which they were born.

Perhaps men should be reminded that it was one of their own who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy and Hamlet; that it was he who created Swan Lake and War and Peace; that men from Cervantes to Joyce to Hemingway revolutionized fiction-writing; that men from Carvaggio to Picasso revolutionized painting; that men like Nijinsky and Baryshnikov revolutionized dance.

Perhaps men should embrace that their forebears, from Sophocles to Shakespeare to Chekhov, innovated and transformed dramatic art; that men from Mayer to Zucker to Disney and Diller made Hollywood an entertainment superpower; that men from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim and Fosse elevated the Broadway musical into high art; that men like Joplin and Ellington and Gordy permanently transformed America’s musical identity.

If modern civilization has forbidden male chauvinism, surely an exception is warranted when highlighting the vast, varied and endlessly enriching contribution of male artists throughout human history.

Were such a taboo broken, it would vaporize any argument about male superfluity. Any notion of man’s emotional unintelligence or intellectual dullness would wither in the shadow of multiple millennia of contrary evidence. And a society which remembers to value the splendor of male artistry might inspire a phenomena sorely needed in an era of brain rot and crude social discourse:

The return of the Renaissance Man.

As comedian Chris Rock accurately observed, “only women, children and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.”

Men are frequently lectured to about what a “Real Man” is; constantly judged according to whether they are “High Value” or not. No matter which term is used, both center around the question of what use a man is. This is a healthy metric for a man to measure himself by; none are treated with more disdain than useless men—except for artists.

Our view of ourselves as an educated and advanced civilization is falsified by our inability to embrace the value of art and culture. Civilizations past were more barbarous and less technologically advanced than ours, yet produced aural, visual and literary wonders that have provided spiritual and psychological succor for civilizations they could never have known would exist. Men were the primary creators of these wonders.

Yet in a modern and progressive era christened “The Information Age,” with centuries of advancements at our backs—our conception of the male animal has strangely regressed: he is “High Value” only if he makes $100K a year and benches 225 lbs; he’s “modern” only if he renders himself helplessly malleable to woman; he’s a “Real Man” only if he works himself into an early grave on behalf of his family. None of these traits or achievements are negatives in and of themselves, except that they are needlessly reductive.

Would not a more “Progressive” vision of modern man embrace male cultural contributions, instead of deride them? Were Melville, Van Gogh, Schubert, or Poe “Low Value” because they died penniless? Was Ernest Hemingway—who saw three wars up close, and whose body bore scars and fractures from multiple scrapes with death—not a “Real Man” because he chose the life of a writer?

In an era where the social engineering of the past 60 years is fast losing its luster, and as the Baby Boomers who enforced said paradigm begin to pass on, we would do well to redefine our vision of man. As long as his only options are to be portrayed as an obstacle to progress, or as a plow horse, or as a meat-headed libertine—he will continue to wander and withdraw.

Better to stoke within him burning passion, electrifying wit and vivid imagination, so that such gifts can be channeled into courageous creative endeavors that might endure long after he is gone.

For boys and men seeking meaning, take this to heart and never let it go:

Real Men Make Art.

CD

If New Yorkers were truly smarter than everyone else, they’d quit electing people who are dumber than everyone else.

Zohran Mamdani—the favored candidate for mayor of the City Formerly Known as New York—is not a politician. He is an actor. He is not even a good actor. But the winsome, fresh-faced 34-yeard old hits all the right notes, and manufactures all the right emotions. He projects all the necessary romanticism pined for by a bruised and battered bluegeoisie.

Given such theatrics it’s natural that Mr. Mamdani would be championed by the entertainment community: Jon Stewart compared him to Jackie Robinson; actor Mandy Patinkin released a gushing video endorsement; the Actor’s Equity Association—beleaguered union for stage actors—endorsed Mamdani months ago.

The orgy of adulation for Mr. Mamdani by New York’s entertainment professionals reveal they’ve learned nothing over the last decade (and they’ve still never quite recovered from—much less taken accountability for—the bad decisions made in 2020).

Sadly there’s no shortage of slop coming from anti-Mamdanians, certain that he’ll force niqabs onto the woke white women who adore him. But there’s no need for such buffoonish demagoguery.

All that’s needed is a brief examination of key policy proposals to understand why his mayoralty will be a blight on the Big Apple—and a catastrophe for the cultural workers blindly supporting him.

ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

The heart of Mr. Mamdani’s campaign is New York’s ballooning cost of living.

Top of this agenda is “affordable” housing.

As a “Democratic” Socialist, Mamdani’s proposals reflect the presumption that heavy intervention from the “public sector” (the state) is key in solving New York’s mounting problems. Immediately a question arises:

Do entertainment professionals, self-avowed #Resistance to authoritarian governance, fail to see the irony in electing a mayor whose platform explicitly revolves around expanding state power?

Even if Mr. Mamdani’s policy proposals were wise, they would require an efficient state apparatus free from bloat and waste to affect meaningful change. But here another issue arises:

Mr. Mamdani proposes spending $100 billion dollars over 10 years to build 200,000 “affordable” housing units while freezing private development until certain “affordability” metrics are met. Leaving aside the conveniently vague definition of “affordability”, New York’s existing public housing projects already have a staggering backlog of repairs totaling $78,000,000,000 across more than 177,000 units. Thus another question arises:

Adding 20,000 new units annually for a decade may enrich union workers and contractors—but how does it help New Yorkers already languishing in deteriorating public housing?

And yet deteriorating living arrangements, even those not in subsidized housing, are a feature and not a bug in a cornerstone of Mamdani’s campaign on housing, that being rent stabilization.1

Such policies benefit some in the short term. But tenants are incentivized to cling to rent-stabilized spaces, creating lower turnover; lower turnover means fewer vacancies; fewer vacancies mean less new construction; less construction + lower turnover = lower supply, and higher prices for fewer available units.

Ironically, despite Mamdani’s intention to benefit working people and penalize the rich, his housing policies will likely have the opposite effect, creating scenarios like the following:

“Leo Katz, a 27-year old acting student and doorman, rents a small studio apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for $1200—with two roommates. Two sleep in separate beds in a loft built atop the kitchen, the third on a mattress in the main room.

Across town on Park Avenue, Paul Haberman, a private investor, and his wife live in a spacious, two-bedroom apartment with a solarium and two terraces. The apartment in an elegant building on the prestigious avenue is worth at least $5,000 a month, real estate professionals say. The couple pay around $350, according to rent records.” 2

The problems with rent controls are neither unique to New York, nor to the United States:

• San Francisco’s rent control policies contributed to higher rents, lower housing supply, and gentrification (another bane of left-wing politics).
  

• In Berlin, a recent rent freeze moved landlords to withdraw properties from the market, reducing housing options and forcing out-migration to neighboring cities.
  

• In Stockholm, Sweden’s long-entrenched rent control has created an average wait time of nine years for a rent-controlled property (a scenario that actors in New York are intimately familiar with).

By contrast, when Cambridge, Massachusetts ended rent control in 1995, it saw the overall valuation of its housing stock increase by $1.8 billion from 1994 – 2004. Within four years Cambridge saw new housing and construction increase by 50%. Tax revenues from construction permits tripled.

As Mr. Mamdani’s platform calls for more aggressive tax collection, he might bear such results in mind.

MINIMUM WAGE

It’s a balmy summer evening in upper Manhattan.

I’m on a munchies-driven (and guilt-ridden) mission for a Bacon McDouble cheeseburger and a large fry.

I eavesdrop on three young Latinos in McDonald’s uniforms, commiserating in front of the restaurant during a smoke break. In accented English they complained amongst each other of hours being cut, of shifts disappearing, and of earnings vanishing.

One of the men, after a long pull on his cigarette, sighed with a resigned sarcasm:

“Fifteen dollar minimum wage.”

New York’s $15 minimum wage law had passed just months before.

People aren’t stupid. An individual doesn’t need to grasp basic economic principles to understand the trade-off between higher base pay and diminished economic advancement. He must live that trade-off, while the bluegeois Progressives gleefully passing (or endorsing) such legislation will not.

The impact doesn’t stop at employees, but also affects consumers in the form of higher prices.

Paying 25 cents more for a cheeseburger may have meant nothing to privileged legislators, but surely it meant something to the teens who swarmed the restaurant after school, to the elderly patrons living on fixed incomes, to the homeless who’d scraped enough dimes together for a meal, and to low-income parents seeking to feed their children.

Again, one need only look at the consequences of the $20 minimum wage law recently imposed in California, which led to an estimated 16,000 job losses in the fast food sector, and price increases of 14.5% (compared to a national average of 8.2%).

Zohran Mamdani wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour.

If one is to judge future impact by past results, the perennially unemployed actor scrambling for a survival job will see himself priced out of a shrinking market in what is already one of America’s most relentlessly competitive economies.

EPILOGUE

The vulnerability of the artist is a blessing and a curse.

It enables them to more easily align with those they perceive as marginalized by society—and indeed, artists themselves are routinely marginalized in our utilitarian, commodity-driven world. But the same openness that inspires their work leaves them susceptible to swindle by nonsensical policy.

The sensible person might wonder how abolishing bus fares will lead to safer and faster bus service, rather than to overcrowding by the kinds of people they know to avoid on the subway. The sensible person might then question Mamdani’s commitment to “public safety,” given the progressive left’s well-documented disdain for law enforcement and criminal justice measures.

The sensible person might also wonder how Mamdani’s plan to restore NYC’s “Sanctuary City” status for immigrants—which will impact multiple sectors from housing to employment to crime to government subsidies to, yes, traffic and transit—will make an already dense and diverse city “better” for struggling native New Yorkers.

But artists are sensitive, not sensible. And entertainment professionals (actors in particular) are even less so.

And when their cost of living continues to rise while their standard of living continues to decline, they’ll never connect their utopian voting to their deteriorating reality.

As always, they’ll trot out the same tired excuse:

“Trump did this.”

CD

On a bitterly cold evening in early 2012, I contemplated murder.

On the surface all seemed brilliant: a lead role at one of America’s top regional theatres; a cast stacked with New York veterans, including a Tony nominee; a noted director who’d go on to win two Tonys themselves. It was a great gig for a young actor. Until it wasn’t.

The rehearsal process was difficult. One lead was fired and replaced after one week. The script was opaque. New Haven was (presumably still is) cold and depressing.

We were deep in ‘Tech’—technical rehearsals, the final chaotic sprint before opening night. Actors stumbling over lines and blocking. Designers testing choices. Stage manager directing chaos. Director managing egos.

Morale was so low the director felt moved to assure us “we’re not gonna do a shitty show at Yale Rep, you guys.” And on this particular night, during a complex scene that involved smoke, lighting and sound cues firing in concert, the actor with the least to do—he was only in one scene—kept fucking up his lines, holding up the process and transforming what was merely tedium into torture.

Eventually I snapped—but not on the performer. I poured my self-righteous rage into my character. Out came a high-pitched, unhinged tantrum that had never come out in rehearsals.

I dreaded the post-rehearsal notes session, knowing I’d be shredded by the director. ”So,” they began when reaching this part of the show, “this section here—”

I cut them off: “I’m so sorry, I dunno what—”

”Everyone needs Clifton’s level of intensity at this point in the show.”

My childish tantrum turned out to be a happy accident. Abandoning all professionalism and channeling my emotions at the right moment actually improved the work.

And I was reminded of a crucial lesson I’d learned in conservatory:

What makes for a good citizen often makes for a boring artist.

In that spirit, here are five ‘bad behaviors’ you can adopt to ignite creative freedom:

1. BE SELFISH.

2 o’clock on a beautiful afternoon in northern California.

A troupe of moving men rapped on the door of a beautiful home in Palo Alto, and received no answer. They knocked again. This time there was a response:

“Go away!”

They would be refused entry for four hours, as the resident refused to allow his work to be interrupted.

The resident was Dr. Thomas Sowell.1

In polite society, sharing is caring. But those engaged in serious endeavor—be it creative, corporate, or intellectual in nature—must be ruthlessly selfish in protecting their work:

Selfish in protecting their process, selfish in protecting their time, and selfish in protecting their talent and vision.

Beyond selfishness, cultivating an “Arrogant Generosity” is also key: arrogant enough to believe your work is worth sharing, yet generous in pouring yourself into it…and, ultimately, in giving the work away.

2. BE MESSY.

If normal people lacked emotional regulation we’d all be having a very bad time.

But artists are not normal.

The blessed curse of the artist is the emotion roaring within; a beautiful fire threatening to consume him and others if allowed to rage unchecked. Feelings are the artist’s main currency; normal people work not to feel.

The responsibility of the artist is not to “control” emotion—which in polite society means “suppress”—but to feel it fully, regardless of discomfort, and guide it into useful channels.

Such sensitivity carries a cost. One must have tools and techniques to deal with the heightened suffering and neuroses that come with aching vulnerability. It’s no accident that genius and madness are linked—the genius may be suffering on a level the civilian cannot imagine, their soul possessed by the ideas and visions driving them to create.

The creative must welcome, integrate, and form a healthy relationship with his pain, demons, and manias.

It is by braving the storm within himself that the artist taps into a power greater than himself.

3. BE CHILDISH.

“Maturity” is boring.

It means mastering the managerial aspects of life, and dealing with horrors like obligations and responsibilities. Every functioning adult must do this. But the artist must cling to the child within: open, curious, bold, and present; acting with vivid imagination; careless of reputation.

Little girls create social gatherings with collections of dolls; little boys stage great wars with theirs (that’s why those dolls are “action figures”). For the child, “Hide and Seek” can mean life or death. A loss in “Red Light, Green Light” might crush them for a day.

They embody a valuable creative principle coined by one of my teachers:

”Playfully serious, and seriously playful.”

This level of fantastical abandon and investment would attract odd stares at the dinner table or the office. But like an electric emotional life (another well-known trait of children), it is essential to bold, free expression.

4. BE OFFENSIVE.

“That’s offensive!”

The perennial cry of the religious conservative and the puritanical progressive: the former distraught as their old taboos are shattered; the latter apoplectic (and violent) when their new taboos are refused.

Fear of causing offense has been weaponized to especially devastating effect in our cultural institutions, resulting in work that’s sanitized for everyone’s “safety” yet worthy of no one’s interest2.

But to quote revered comedian Patrice O’Neal:

”The mean shit is funny.”

It’s said that he who is a friend to all is an enemy to himself. For the artist, to obsess over not harming others is to straitjacket the creative self.

Harmlessness is seen by many as a virtue; for those who seek excellence, it is a vice.

5. FUCK PERFECTION.

”Is it not worthwhile to raise the whole question whether in poetry and prose we should prefer sublimity accompanied by some faults, or a style which—never rising above moderate excellence—never stumbles and never requires correction?”

— From “On the Sublime” (attributed to ‘Longinus’, 1st century AD)

Shakespeare was a genius; he also wrote Titus Andronicus.

Thriller is a masterpiece; “Baby Be Mine” is a skip.

Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are legends. Yet they made Ishtar.

Imperfection in engineering could mean death. Imperfection in archery could cost medals.

But for the artist, imperfection is a byproduct of ambition.

Aim for the stars. No one will care about the times you missed.

Anyone striving to be better than average is already cutting against the grain.

For creatives seeking excellence, the rebellion is twofold.

They not only experience the loneliness inherent in doing things differently from their peers; to retain full access to their creative powers they bear the further burden of doing things differently from their entire society.

Venture forth anyway:

Be selfish. Be emotional. Be childish. Be offensive. Fuck perfection.

People will call you difficult. Unprofessional. Problematic.

Let them.

Your job isn’t to be liked.

Your job is to create something unforgettable.

Yours,
CD

Tribalism is killing any chance of artistic revival.

Leftist spoliation of our cultural institutions has inflamed right-wing demands for a “return to tradition.” Rightists demand art that reflects more “conservative values,” which has an unclear definition outside of patriotism and Christian moralism.

Some say all art is political.

Others says “just entertain me and shut up.”

I say they’re all wrong.

We’re tired of “left wing” art.
We don’t need “right wing” art.

We need bold, imaginative, free-thinking artists.

Here’s how you can become one.

Zelda Fichandler was a titan among culture warriors.

The mother of America’s regional theatre movement, she also built the finest actor-training program in the country.

I was among her final crop of students.

Zelda sought out not just to train actors—but to nurture smart, soulful artist-citizens. Always urging us to think outside the box, she loved to pin science articles on one of the main billboards in the 5th floor hallway at 721 Broadway, HQ of the vaunted Graduate Acting Program.

(For example, it was she who introduced me to the concept of the connection between stomach and the brain, bolstering her view that the most visceral and exciting acting—and living—emerged not from the intellect, but from the gut.)

She stressed that Curiosity and Empathy are foundational to the craft of acting. In truth, they are foundational to any artistic discipline. They are the artist’s bread and butter, what sets them apart from the civilian population.

And they’ve become rare in today’s atomized, hyper-partisan climate.

Artists who want to matter moving forward must reject being pigeonholed—by others, or by themselves.

I don’t condemn post-modernism or deconstructionism.

They may wear away at a functional society as water weathers stone, but they are useful philosophical approaches for creative exploration.

It’s creatively useful to poke and prod various pillars of the social order, as a way of asking questions and developing new ideas and theories, eventually manifesting them in challenging and provocative new works.

For creative work, maintaining a critical eye (dare I say Theory) toward the status quo isn’t just useful—it’s essential. After all:

The artist who accepts everything questions nothing.

At the same time, I’m nowhere near as militant an atheist as I was 15 years ago.

I recognize that much of humanity’s greatest art was inspired by a devotion to God; I respect the poetry and rich symbolism in sacred texts; I see the hubris, cynicism, nihilism and resentment at the heart of leftist politics as cancer to the creative psyche.

I’ve developed a respect for the transcendent and the unknowable, and their potential to elevate an artist’s work beyond the now and into eternity.

Where the ignorant might smear me as a “fascist” for my policy preferences, for the sake of artistic freedom I embrace what I call psychological—perhaps even spiritual—liberalism, honoring my creative individuality and maintaining an appetite to explore the carnal, the uncouth, and the unsavory aspects of life and living.

I embrace the importance of strong families, but understand that infidelity and relational strife make for fascinating drama. I think conservatives are correct that unchecked promiscuity is harmful to civilization, but understand that sex and sexuality are powerful, primordial forces, and will never shy away from them in creative work.

While I’ll be the first to condemn the “problematization” of classic literature, I just as readily condemn the reflexive (and elitist) rejection of popular entertainment; those who finger-wag at jazz and hip-hop, or who sneer at comic books and videogames—itself a multibillion-dollar industry that has evolved into a potent storytelling medium, buoyed by technology that allows for breathtaking creative expression.

Some might say I’m a bleeding heart centrist; that I’m a coward who sits on the fence, or who won’t take a firm stand.

Fuck those people.

They’re not artists.

It is cultivating these inner tensions, not avoiding them—rejecting black-and-white thinking, living within the discomfort of the grey, inhabiting divergent realities within one self—that makes for fascinating, multi-dimensional art.

Many modern artists seek to “engineer” society.

But their true power lies in standing outside of society, while still feeling its pulse, and evaluating it from as many angles as possible.

Even if such dimension never makes it into a finished project, the dimension will live within the artist and inform all of their work. As Zelda once said, “the work we do as artists and the lives we lead are not separate things.”

The artist who maximizes their ability to empathize, and who cultivates a rigorous intellectual curiosity, will set themselves apart from those locked into imprisoning partisan or philosophical narratives.

This is especially valuable in today’s world, where algorithms and outrage drive so much discourse. The artist who can escape these brain-melting traps will put themselves in an echelon far above the rest.

As the public grow evermore tired of the bitching and bickering—and as they grow evermore sick of AI slop—they’ll be looking to real artists, who transcend boundaries and who can speak to the totality of the human condition.

The challenge therefore isn’t to create more ‘conservative’ or ‘right wing’ art in reaction to woke bullshit.

The challenge is to create art so powerful it makes ideology irrelevant.

And that’s how you become unforgettable.

Enjoy your weekend,
CD

The left is done.

Their political power is destroyed.

Their ideals, as manifested in social and institutional policy, have fallen from favor.

Critical information and idea-generating institutions under their command—namely the press, the academy, and the humanities—have collapsed in credibility. Consequently their near-monopoly over national discourse has been busted.

Their racial politics are reviving segregation. Their gender politics are driving men and women apart. Their attempted “queering” of society is turning what was becoming a remarkably tolerant public against sexual minorities.

Their abandonment of all sense and sensibility during the COVID era, the froth-mouthed authoritarianism they embraced, the revelation that they are willing to drive society off a cliff with no thought to the second and third-order consequences of their hysteria—is permanently disqualifying.

Worse, as they’ve made the personal political, relationships have died, friendships have dissolved, and families have disintegrated, all due to politics.

In the decade since Donald Trump rose to power we’ve watched in despair and astonishment as people we once knew to be reasonable and decent have succumbed to “ROID” Rage—Rapid Onset Ideological Deterioration—all for the sake of a #Resistance that has failed to accomplish little other than social division and the derangement of everyone involved.

There are few places where this derangement is more concentrated than in our cultural and arts institutions.

Recently I learned:

- A friend who crushed his competition for a top spot in a symphony orchestra had his guaranteed job offer rescinded after “certain things came to light” (i.e. that he is conservative).

- Another friend, a successful and award-winning choreographer, informed me that she has trouble hiring dancers and booking venues, thanks to pressure and threats from gender activists.

- Another insinuated they are contemplating suicide after being chased out of Portland, Oregon and relentlessly hounded by terrorists masquerading as theatre artists.

Anyone who believes “Woke is Dead,” who believes that one election wiped the slate clean, is not only naïve, but a fool.

And such naivete and foolishness ensures that meaningful and lasting cultural change will never occur.

For all the political pendulum-swinging, and for all the growing public disdain—particularly among young men—for anything with the slightest whiff of “woke,” the arts and humanities remain a blind spot for the ascendant right. They typically take interest in art and entertainment only to mock it, or to seize on high-profile cancellations for viral views.

They build no infrastructure, develop no talent, invest in no institutions, patronize no creatives.

They despise pop culture yet offer no alternative; they force talented, like-minded professional artists to live and work “in the closet” for fear of blacklisting; they remain mired in market mentality, deeming art of little “use” and therefore little value—as they complain about how all the movies suck now or how the music their kids listen to is trash.

They rue the “Closing of the American Mind,” seemingly ignorant that investment in the arts and humanities would encourage and inspire American Minds to remain open, inquisitive, creative, and wise.

For all its flaws and failures, the left is vastly superior to the right in one aspect:

They understand and revere the power of art. As such they are, by default, America’s mightiest Culture Warriors.

The left offers artists prizes and prominence and paths to prestige. They’ve built conservatories and concert halls to train and showcase them. Their “Culture Warriors” include filmmakers and movie stars, novelists and pop icons whose vocation literally is the creation of culture, and who exert profound social influence.

The left’s whole-hearted embrace of the utility of the arts—their knowledge that man is at his boldest and most brilliant when engaged in the act of creative expression, and their understanding that the arts are the most effective delivery mechanism for their ideas—makes them far more powerful than any politico in inspiring social change—or revolution.

Meanwhile, the self-professed “Culture Warriors” on the right are X “poasters” and podcasters, more accurately described as “Custom Warriors:” proselytizing for the preservation of old norms, but useless in fostering the creation of new culture.

This asymmetry means that no matter who wins elections, the left will always have a direct line into the heart and soul of the people.

And those people will vote.

While the pragmatism and Godliness so highly-prized on the right—“we are too busy working jobs and worshiping God and building businesses and rearing families to care about art and artists”—is highly valuable in terms of preserving the infrastructure of a functioning society, it means surrendering culture creation to those who do not share those values.

It’s also a poor excuse: previous generations of God-fearing, callous-handed Americans managed to produce some of the world’s finest actors, directors, dancers, composers, musicians, singers, novelists and more, rapidly establishing America (still a young nation) as an international cultural superpower.

Black America in particular—classically religious, disenfranchised, and held to menial and labor-intensive jobs—puts haughty conservative pragmatism to further shame. It was poor and working-class blacks that gave us the Jazz that eventually permeated Broadway’s Tin Pan Alley in its Golden Age; it was their Blues that inspired the Rock & Roll that took the nation by storm.

The progenitors of Hip-Hop were people who had nothing—yet they managed to birth an international movement that has dominated pop culture for the last 40 years.

The arts are the final frontier in the “Culture War.” That’s why prominent arts professionals would sooner destroy institutions like the Kennedy Center than cede such territory to conservatives.

Yet those who are fully aware of the “long march through the institutions,” who understand the necessity for “parallel institutions,” who fully believe in the creative force unleashed by competition, make no effort to erect parallel and competitive cultural institutions1. Those who claim to be patriots ignore America’s place as an art and entertainment superpower which has introduced the world to some of the most popular artists and art forms in human history.

No—far easier (and, frankly, more remunerative) to be a content creator than a culture creator.

This is even more galling, considering that conservatives—whose religiosity leads them to value the sanctity of human life; who recognize the tragic nature of man and the human condition; who embrace the transcendent and the spiritual; who pine for a return to the beautiful; who hold a “classically liberal” bias toward individuality and free expression; and who respect the discipline, industriousness and conscientiousness required to do meaningful work—could be ideally suited to revivify the cultural landscape.

But conservatives are also “facts don’t care about feelings” people, and feelings are the artist’s fuel. They are “grow up and get a job” people, where artists must remain young at heart. They are “why can’t everyone just be normal?” people, and artists are not normal people.

Alas, it must fall to artists themselves to pave the way forward.

Artists are uniquely positioned to unite a polarized public. It is artists who can bring total strangers together—into concert venues or galleries or theatres or stadiums—be those strangers left or right, religious or irreligious. And great art transcends all boundaries, including time: the paintings, music, literature, architecture and sculptures of centuries ago remain with us now, while the civilizations that produced such works have faded into history.

Today’s artists must learn to wield technology to share and distribute their works; they must embrace entrepreneurship and extroversion; they must become as “value focused” as the businessmen that they are often inclined to mistrust. They must get over their aversion to money matters and market mentality, abandon the romance of being the Starving Artist, and learn to attract investors and donors and philanthropists on their own.2

And of course, they must dedicate themselves to lifelong education, practice, and—like Ernest Hemingway—never stop working.

The Great American Renaissance must happen. There has never been a better time. And those who claim to care about America’s future need to support those actually creating culture.

Otherwise, you’ve surrendered American culture to those who’ve destroyed everything they’ve touched.

CD

Ernest Hemingway lived to write.

He packed entire lifetimes into decades. He saw three major wars up close. His body carried the fractures and scars of multiple scrapes with death. By the time he invited it, at only 61 years of age, he had revolutionized American writing.

But how did he achieve such outstanding results?

By the end of this short article you’ll have a window into the creative process of one of the greatest writers who ever lived—and a framework with which to attack whatever project you’re working on (including a spectacular tip for destroying writer’s block).

You’ll never run out of ideas again.

EXPLORE YOUR SENSUALITY (A PROLOGUE)

Stop living on social media. Get unstuck from the news cycle. Stop grousing about the state of the world, cradling your smartphone from sunrise to sunset, and numbing yourself with cheap dopamine. Such counsel is cliché and obvious to many, but for creatives it is essential.

Become present in the world, not numb to it. Its sights, sounds, smells, tastes. Savor them. Remember how they make you feel. Experience living in richer detail. Normal people spend their lives trying not to feel; the artist has no such luxury.

Joy and sorrow, sexual ecstasy, furious rage—these are not to be repressed but integrated. These sensations—pleasurable and painful—remind you that you are alive. You must leave the channels of experience as open as possible.

That will make it easier to...

FILL YOUR “WELL”

Hemingway: A writer can be compared to a well...The important thing is to have good water in the well.

When asked about who he’s learned the most from, Hemingway rattled off a list of artists that included not just writers (Shakespeare, Chekhov and Mark Twain), but painters (Cezanne and Van Gogh) and composers (Bach and Mozart).

Pulling inspiration from all corners was a no-brainer:

“I should think what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint would be obvious.”

We are blessed and cursed to live in an era of constant stimuli. There is inspiration everywhere—and more than enough “slop.” Therefore it is crucial for the artist to curate the quality of what he consumes.

Fill your reservoir—your “well”—with meaningful material. Rich music, moving cinema, great literature, penetrating nonfiction, incredible paintings, dance, drama. Never fail to enrich yourself with the genius of others, for that is truly inspired living.

Moreover, your world will drastically improve as your personality deepens. Over time more layers will accrue within you. You’ll develop a depth of emotion and sophistication of which you never knew you were capable. You’ll bring this newfound texture into your relationships, into your work, into each aspect of your life.

You’ll set yourself apart from everyone else.

SET A STRUCTURE

Hemingway: When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and you warm as you write.

Non-artists and hacks believe that creatives laze about, and wait for inspiration to strike before they can work. Of course, Hemingway—and any great artist—knows this is absurd.

This write up by George Plimpton gives insight into the discipline with which Hemingway attacked his work:

...early in the morning Hemingway gets up to stand in absolute concentration in front of his reading board, moving only to shift weight from one foot to another, perspiring heavily when the work is going well, excited as a boy, fretful, miserable when the artistic touch momentarily vanishes—slave of a self-imposed discipline which lasts until about noon when he takes a knotted walking stick and leaves the house for the swimming pool where he takes his daily half-mile swim.

The above was written after Hemingway had cemented his reputation as one of the 20th century’s most important writers.

The true artist never stops working. To do so would be the same as death.

But here’s an interesting counterpoint:

STOP BEFORE YOU’RE FINISHED.

Hemingway: You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again...if you stopped when you knew what would happen next, you can go on. As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come.

This may be Hemingway’s most powerful idea.

You’ve developed your sensuality. Your “well” is full of quality water (or “juice”). You’re bursting with vitality and ideas, and have a system in which to apply them. The temptation now might be to implement all your ideas at once, to work to exhaustion. To Hemingway, this was counterproductive.

He would stop the day’s work before he was drained dry, so he would have something to look forward to the next day. This avoids the anxiety of “running out of ideas,” counteracts the dread of having to restart the engine at the next session, and runs counter to the endless churn of “Hustle Culture.”

When you leave the work behind, it still lives within you. There is no need to tend to it. Your psyche will continue to grapple with whatever creative problem you’re working through. Trust it, and attack the next day’s work fresh, bursting with new energy—and even more ideas.

And you’ll never run out of “juice.”

EPILOGUE

It’s neither necessary nor advisable to find wars to fight in (although you’re in one right now).

Hemingway was an extraordinary man, who lived through extraordinary times. But his brilliance as an artist belies a simple, repeatable approach to process that anyone can incorporate into their lives, whether the nature of their work is creative or corporate.

Anyone can live more sensually, fill their “well” with quality “water,” incorporate a disciplined approach to their work, and stop before they run themselves ragged.

That means you, too.

Now go forth:

Become unforgettable.

CD

Trump made artists angry (again).

True to the brash garishness (or garish brashness) that defines his style, in February 2025 the 47th president announced:

He followed up with a "Best" which is dubious at best:

In the wake of the 2024 election an ascendant right wing has convinced itself that "Woke" is “dead.” Trump’s Kennedy Center seizure—an invasion of enemy territory—is seen as yet another nail in the coffin. Those of us who understand the proudly progressive artist community know better, however: all Trump has done is piss them off even more.

Cue the protests: prominent actress and filmmaker Issa Rae cancelled a sold-out show; Shonda Rhimes—one of the most powerful producers in television—stepped down from the Kennedy Center’s board; Jeffrey Sellers, lead producer of Broadway’s Hamilton, took the extraordinary step of cancelling an entire run of the hit musical slated to perform at the venue. Force may work when negotiating with cutthroat businessmen or foreign adversaries, but it will not compel artists to work on behalf of a president they despise.

And how does state intervention nurture art and culture? Doesn't MAGA want a reduction in the scale and scope of government? And if under prior administrations organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts could be criticized as ideological weapons for leftist radicalism, is federal support for ideologically-driven art from the other end of the spectrum any better?

The prospect of a "Golden Age of American Arts and Culture" should be unifying cause. Complaints of cultural stagnation are not merely right-wing railings against aesthetic decadence or the abandonment of classical forms and norms: in 2023 Jason Farago, arts writer for the New York Times, devoted 5,000 words to the subject of why "ours is the least innovative century for the arts in 500 years."

Everyone recognizes the problem. But no one can force a renaissance into being. Moreover, given the collective attitude of the right wing* toward art and artists, the probability of Trump or MAGA or any non-leftist/non-liberal faction catalyzing a “Golden Age in Art in Culture” is next to nil.

"NO ONE CARES."

Those three words—tweeted by Megyn Kelly in response to Seller’s Hamilton cancellation announcement—go beyond sneering ownership of a sanctimonious, smugnorant liberal: they sum up the right’s attitude toward art and artists perfectly.

In today’s infantile zeitgeist “right wing” can mean anyone from disillusioned (ie “old school”) liberals to libertarians to conservatives. Through that lens there are far more right-leaning—or, at least, non-leftist—artists than anyone wants to acknowledge. But where leftist denial of the existence of these creatives is easily attributed to hubris and ideological bigotry, the right’s tragic flaw is pathological apathy.

Conservative journalist Mark Judge has called again and again and yet again for his ideological brethren to get in the game; outspoken conservative opera professionals Emilio Pons and Christopher Macchio are pleading for a post-woke Renaissance; the incendiary Heather Mac Donald is a passionate defender of art and culture, even devoting a surprisingly substantial portion of her most recent book to a depressing account of the “progressive” thrashing of America’s cultural institutions. Even self-proclaimed transgender feminist and atheist Camille Paglia has been urging conservatives to engage with art for two decades.

To the frustration of artists who reject Progressive fundamentalism—and there are many—such voices have fallen on deaf ears. How could they else, when the mere fact of being an artist seems so constitutionally opposed to being a rightist?

Rightists seek order, a career in the arts is chaos; rightists chase stability, artists chase dreams; rightists crave normal, artists defy normal. Artists live in emotion while the right asserts “facts don’t care about feelings.” The artist stays young at heart, the rightist demands we “grow up.” And where artistic libertinism may fuel excess profanity and prurience, rightist religiosity leads to excessive prudery far more often than to masterworks like The Lord of the Rings.

The issue is not lack of intellect or sophistication, contrary to leftist presumption. The artist is uncommonly sensual, the rightist preserves common sense. As one of my followers on Twitter asked bluntly: "how does art create roads, buildings, dams etc?" The question is annoying but far from stupid—a question any rational, practical person would offer: How is art useful? What does it do?

Such pragmatism is obviously vital to a functioning society. But the right’s dedication to consequential knowledge comes at a cost: the left has the pride, privilege and prestige of controlling such vaunted institutions as Juilliard, the Metropolitan Museum, the Metropolitan Opera, and Carnegie Hall (each just miles from one another, in a single city)—to say nothing of owning the music, entertainment and publishing industries. The right has zero cultural clout.

It doesn’t have to stay that way.

6 THINGS THE RIGHT CAN DO.

Rightists claim to love the “Marketplace of Ideas.” Yet the arts are humanity’s most effective vehicle for ideas, and the right has abandoned them. Simply bothering to take the arts seriously has enabled the left to exert sole authority over the hearts and minds of the public. In effect the left has become the soul of the American society—whether society likes it or not.

In dismissing the arts the right has crippled their capacity to contribute to American culture in a profound way—at a time when America not only clearly craves a change in the culture, but a time when [real cultural change is more possible than ever before:

The young (particularly men) and minorities are becoming immune to the far left lurch; corporations are dropping DEI initiatives; Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have created sharp ideological shifts in the tech space; Jeff Bezos has forcefully directed The Washingon Post to embrace free market ideas; celebrities are rocketing toward irrelevance. The time for a Renaissance is right now.

While content creation—posting, podcasting, independent journalism—has proven effective in breaking the left-wing monopoly over national discourse, culture creation is the next crucial step. If the arts don’t come naturally to the right, there is plenty that it can do to contribute to America's rich cultural tradition that are completely within its capabilities:

• STOKE COMPETITION
  The right understands the value of competition in sparking innovation and creativity. Many talented creatives are starving for heterodox institutions where they can ply their trade and take real risks without fear of cancellation. Audiences are desperate for such institutions as well. Those who invest in the creation of these institutions can not only enrich themselves, but all of society as well.

• INCENTIVIZE NEW INSTITUTIONS
  The right understands the value of incentives. If the self-interest of producers, investors, private donors, business owners, realtors and more can be piqued—perhaps through tax breaks and credits—the capital for these competing institutions can more easily materialize.
  

• SUPPORT INDEPENDENTS
  The right is sensitive to the problems of bureaucratic bloat and the stifling nature of rules and regulations. While new institutions are key, they risk running into the same problems. Fortunately enthusiasts can also support enterprising independents, such as Brandon Sanderson and Eric July, who’ve raised millions—in Sanderson’s case tens of millions—to create new culture.
  

• REVITALIZE EDUCATION
  The right are sticklers for classical art and education. Prior renaissances were sparked by renewed interest in great works of antiquity; reviving classical liberal education—such as teaching the Trivium and exploring the great masters of old—will inspire a new generation, and cultivate broader artistic interest from a young age. The internet makes this possible at a scale never seen.

• MAKE ART MASCULINE AGAIN*
  The right understands the value of men and masculinity. But young men as seeking identity, rejecting progressive and traditional labels, while the “manosphere” offers little more than nihilism, hedonism and materialism. Give men the gift of reminding them that they are among history’s finest poets, painters, playwrights, sculptors, novelists, filmmakers, composers, and beyond. As samurai and artist Miyamoto Musashi once wrote, a warrior must be as effective with a paintbrush as with a sword.

• RESPECT THE ARTS
  The right understands the value of learning a trade. The arts are a trade. They require study, skill, practice, perseverance, discipline and vision to achieve excellence. They are also a manifestation of free expression and individualism; rightists who embrace these values should embrace artists as embodiments of these values—and realize that a society in which these concepts are denied the artist is not a free society.

You cannot bully a Golden Age of Art and Culture into being. Still, it’s refreshing for a Republican president to at least acknowledge the arts, and Trump’s instinct for sparking a revitalization in them positive. But you cannot force culture, it must be allowed to flourish.

The proper approach is not to bulldoze buildings.

Better to plant orchards instead.

* Yes, I know the acronym spells MAMA. Yes, it is funny.

Imagine losing to literally Hitler.

Such was the fate of soon-to-be-ex Vice President Kamala Harris—a brown woman who inspired antiracists across America to form whites-only advocacy groups without a shred of self-awareness.

But Madame Harris and her white saviors didn't suffer defeat alone—the stars who gave their all to ensure her triumph over Donald Trump also lost bigly. It was a valiant effort: Hamill harangued; Ruffalo ranted; Deniro raged; JLo cried; Cardi B powered through a reading assignment. And so on.

Alas, America overwhelmingly preferred Hitler to Hollywood. Defeat was decisive: Trump would not just take the electoral college, he would become the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, and the second president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms.

But how could the electorate shun the cast of The Avengers? How could Julia Roberts' appeal to politically closeted (presumably battered) wives fail to win more women? Why did Meghan Thee Stallion's cheek-clapping not mesmerize more black men? How could George Clooney—who helped raise millions for Joe Biden (weeks before urging him to step aside)—make so little impact?

There has always been some animus against “Actorvists”—people generally prefer not to be condescended to by soft-handed and obscenely rich entertainers. Still, Stars were far more tolerated before than they are now. Many were even liked.

That’s not the case anymore.

Here’s why.

It once meant something to be a "Star." Not a "Leading Player" or "Principal Character."

A STAR.

"Stars" were different from the rest of us, and different from other actors. They were blessed with unnatural beauty, profound magnetism and presence, prodigious comedic instincts, an incandescent je ne sais quoi. Most combined several of these traits. Many could even act.

Stars were integral to the health of show business. Their success meant more work not just for themselves, but for everyone in and tangential to the industry. Ushers, snack vendors, ticket-takers, carpenters, seamstresses, custodians, caterers, restaurateurs, hair and make-up specialists, security personnel, drivers and chauffeurs—all and more benefitted from business generated by the Star’s pull.

And pull us they did—from the comfort (or chaos) of home and into aging playhouses and dark cinemas to tolerate the company of strangers for a few hours. Stars anchored romantic evenings and outings with friends, made memories for our children, and provided companionship for lonely souls at sparsely-attended matinees.

Ideally the Star’s value transcended box office returns. She allowed us to temporarily forget ourselves and the drudgeries of the day. She dazzled, amused and aroused us, perhaps soothing unseen wounds. But crucially—in a multi-ethnic melting pot fraught with religious, political, economic and historical tensions—she had the capacity to bring people together.

In other words, the Star’s true worth lay in fostering social cohesion.

But that was the past.

Fame means little today. Anyone with a phone can attain it. Amateur and professional influencers alike can build audiences and annex the attention once commanded by traditional entertainers. The Star is now a minnow in an ocean of "Content,” no longer wielding the cultural clout they once commanded.

This diminution of the Star has been accelerated by advancing technology. Show business is just another app, or a browser tab. The inaccessibility that elevated the Star’s mystique is gone; she’s now available “On Demand.” She’s even portable—always with you on some device, stuffed inside a backpack or suffocating in a breast pocket.

If technology has crippled the Star’s mystique, social media has proven its executioner. The Star’s cultural importance diminished, traditional media on the wane, online platforms are pivotal for connecting with fans and staying relevant. Rather than experiencing the Star via promotional interviews and PR professionals, social media allows unprecedented access to anything on the Star’s mind.

Now everyone knows why it’s said that actors are better seen than heard.

Zelda Fichandler—former chair of NYU's elite Graduate Acting Program and a key figure in America's regional theatre movement—stressed empathy and curiosity as cornerstones of the actor's craft. Legendary acting instructors Uta Hagen and Stella Adler stressed the importance of education for the actor (the actor’s life is ideally one of endless autodidacticism).

In the Internet Age—particularly with the advent of social media—the public could be forgiven for believing such wisdom ignored.

Empathy is reserved solely for proponents of a particular politics. Any doctrinal deviation risks ruination. Intellectual curiosity is thus disincentivized, impeding the acquisition of knowledge. What’s even considered “knowledge” becomes dependent on the biases it confirms or challenges.

As Christopher Lasch noted decades ago in The Revolt of the Elites: "Once knowledge is equated with ideology, it is no longer necessary to argue with opponents on intellectual grounds or to enter into their point of view"—precisely what any curious and empathetic artist should do—"It is enough to dismiss them as Eurocentric, racist, sexist, [or] homophobic"—precisely what today’s entertainment professional typically does do.

Consequently the public—loath to abandon reality to indulge in the prevailing ideology of show business—have become the “opponents” referred to by Lasch. The industry’s mission is no longer entertaining masses but educating “fascists.” Maintaining the approval of professional peers now takes priority over winning the approval of a backward and bigoted public. The public is no longer an audience:

They are an obstacle to the fulfillment of a greater social mission.

The Stars—show business’ most volatile and vocal ambassadors—now embody this paradigm. They reinforce it consistently, pressured internally and externally to “use their voice” to speak out on “issues” they may or may not know anything about. The internet has magnified and amplified this phenomenon, and retains receipts forever:

Stars scolding Americans as stupid.
Stars wishing ill on 76+ million voters.
Stars spewing egregiously anti-factual tirades.
Stars making racist statements about black conservatives.
Stars unironically claiming Americans don’t dwell in reality.

And so on.

Never before has the collective psychology of show business been so exposed. Never before has the clash in values between the majority of America and the minority cloistered within its cultural industries been so apparent. Stars are no longer filtered through spokespeople and carefully-chosen interviews, and never before has it been so apparent why such filters were necessary.

In an age that threatens total mechanization, Stars could stand as a shimmering ideal of the human spirit. In a utilitarian nation obsessed with commodification, Stars could foster respect for the sublimity of the arts in a society inclined to dismiss them. In polarized times, Stars could do society a service by drawing an atomized populace into one orbit.

Instead the Stars have chosen to be political prostitutes, thereby choosing disdain for the public they’re privileged to serve. They’ve chosen not to foster social cohesion; they’ve chosen to be active agents of social dissolution.

Yet they are shocked that the public has chosen “Hitler.”

CD

_

Four years ago, I was on the brink of stardom in a field I'd given half of my life to—until Fate intervened.

At first I was a shy, geeky Army brat. In time, however, I went on to earn my MFA from America's top acting conservatory, and eventually found myself starring Off-Broadway opposite Tony Award-winning actors, starring on Broadway in a beloved British comedy, and starring on TV with veteran actors like Scott Bakula and Jimmy Smits.

The pandemic changed everything.

The entertainment industry imposed COVID vaccine mandates, and on principle I refused to comply.

The consequences were as predictable as they were devastating:

My management dropped me.
My reputation was ruined.
My career was destroyed.

I went from holding my own among some of New York’s best and brightest to waiting tables in Atlanta, GA—from being a rising star to having no future whatsoever.

There were many days where I wanted to end it all.

But then I remembered the old adage:

If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.

In that vein, I’m now endeavoring to pour my 20 years of training and experience into undertaking the greatest acting challenge of my career:

Becoming Thomas Sowell.

Born during the dark days of Jim Crow, Sowell rose from humble beginnings to eventually establish himself as one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th (and now 21st) century.

Courageously cutting through conventional wisdom, Sowell has spent almost 60 years providing insightful, incisive, and often countercultural commentary on a vast array of subjects, including race, culture, history, and the tragedy of the human condition.

But incredibly, many still don’t know who he is.

It’s time to fix that.

In 1977 the great James Earl Jones brought Paul Robeson to life in the one-man play Robeson.

In 2011 Laurence Fishburne played a fiery Thurgood Marshall in Thurgood (which you can watch here).

In 2014, award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson gave a tour-de-force as Louis Armstrong (and others!) in Satchmo at the Waldorf.

Now it’s Sowell’s turn to be brought to life on stage—by one of America’s most gifted actors.

Together, we can make that happen.

Dr. Sowell has published 45 books, written thousands of columns, and hundreds of hours of his interviews and speeches are available online.

My goal is to:

• Immerse myself in Sowell’s life and work

• Develop a first draft to share with patrons for feedback

• Head back to the drawing board for further development

• Hone the piece by touring it around the country

• Upload the polished work to the internet, for all to enjoy in perpetuity.
  

With your support I can finally return to doing what I excelled at for 20 years:

Bringing joy to audiences starved for great entertainment.

But the potential impact of this piece is bigger than myself or Dr. Sowell.

People across America feel alienated from her cultural institutions, and theatres across the country are struggling like never before.

It’s time to change the paradigm.

It's time to challenge the zeitgeist.

It's time to serve audiences beyond NY and LA.

It’s time for a new age of exciting and relevant American theatre.

To join me on the first step of this exciting journey:

CLICK HERE!

Or visit www.sowellplay.com.

I’m ashamed to confess that I’d never heard singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car in its entirety until just today.

I was not ready.

The song’s simplistic and repetitive structure belies its immense emotional power; it’s a softly disarming work of art, whose poignancy is especially potent for any who’ve endured life at the bottom and yearned for escape. It’s a tragedy told in 5-minutes, a life-cycle of bright hopes and broken dreams, with a hint of danger underneath.

The work is an example of a piece of art that connects with something larger than itself, a piece that feels both personal and universal, and which will live on long after everyone reading this has passed onto the next realm.

One person who was clearly moved by Chapman’s brilliance is country music megastar Luke Combs.

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Born and raised in North Carolina, Combs’ resume includes three Grammy Award nominations, four Academy of Country Music Awards, and six Country Music Association Awards (which includes being crowned “Entertainer of the Year” in 2021 and 2022)… not to mention a whopping 16 consecutive #1 hit songs.

Combs’ 2023 album Gettin’ Old featured a cover of Chapman’s masterpiece that went viral, eventually reaching the top spot on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, and peaking at number 2 on the all-genre Hot 100.

The performance netted an estimated 6-figure royalty check for Chapman, and in an era obsessed with firsts earned her the (somewhat tortured) distinction of becoming the first black woman to score a number one country song as sole writer, per The Rolling Stone.

In response, the typically taciturn Chapman graciously stated: “I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there. I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced ‘Fast Car.’”

Sadly, in the roaring 2020’s neither Chapman’s renewed cultural relevance and success nor her statement matters anywhere as much as the hurt feelings of narcissists bent on hijacking the limelight to air their own grievances.

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WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

It’s uncertain if Washington Post entertainment journalist Emily Yahr knew she’d get ratio’d into oblivion, but her 11:52am tweet on July 13, 2023, set the social media site ablaze.

Choosing violence for lunch, Yahr linked to a lengthy article accompanied by the following:

As Luke Combs's hit cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" dominates the country charts, it’s bringing up some complicated emotions in fans & singers who know that Chapman, as a queer Black woman, would have an almost zero chance at that achievement herself:

Tracy Chapman—possessed of a wisdom that is rare among popular artists—is notoriously private. She has never divulged her sexuality.

One might presume her legions of fans never cared very much.

Additionally one might think the sextuple platinum status of her self-titled debut album, or her quintuple-platinum fourth album, or her career-total seven Grammy nominations and four wins—including a nod for Best Contemporary Folk Album—might count for something, but apparently not.

One might also notice that Ms. Chapman doesn’t appear to have had any designs on being a country singer in the first place. Speaking as someone who has been black for over four decades—it must be said that very, very, very few black Americans aspire to be country singers at all.

But in the age of professional grievance-mongering the accolades of successful minorities and women of the past are highly inconvenient to less successful artists of the present, and so they must be ignored. Doing so makes artists like Chapman far more easily employed as tools to repair something never considered broken.

But after a decade of unceasing racial unrest, political turbulence, and Covidian hysteria—America herself feels very broken at the moment.

And that is why Chapman and Combs’ performance of Fast Car at the 2024 Grammy Awards, beautifully cathartic, may be one of the most significant cultural moments of the decade.

NATIONAL CATHARSIS

The lights bathed Chapman in an amber glow as she strummed the opening chords on her acoustic guitar. The electricity was immediate, the ovation from the star-studded audience nearly drowning out the first few lyrics.

Chapman—whose perfectly-coiffed silver locks are the only evidence she’s aged at all—exuded a soft radiance, an inviting warmth that drew us in like a close embrace. Her power, as always, lies in her transparency and simplicity, unadorned by melisma or vocal pyrotechnics.

Combs is the stronger vocalist. But his reverence and respect for Chapman, his kid-on-Christmas-morning glee, shining through as he shared the stage with the woman who’d made such an impact on him in his youth, made clear that there was no competition—and if there was, his worshipful bows at the song’s close made clear who he considered the queen, and who the subject.

For five minutes, they created magic that eclipsed the entire event. For five minutes, time stopped, and a nation currently eating itself alive watched a (possibly gay) black female and a straight white male unite—and all that mattered was the power of music to transcend all boundaries.

The performance quickly went viral, instantly flushing the rest of the awards show down the memory hole. It was a catharsis that America sorely needed, a moment which further shamed the Emily Yahrs of the world, shamed all activists masquerading as artists, who prioritize divisive politics and inferiority complexes over bringing beauty into an ailing world.

America is sick of divisive culture wars.

Just a few precious minutes of magic achieved more unity than any influencer, pundit, podcaster, politician, or Diversity consultant could ever hope to achieve.

Such is the true power of art.

Karma can be cruel, but never wrong.

After 2 years of self-erasure from the public consciousness under the guise of saving people from COVID-19, America’s theatre industry finds itself in a lurch it can’t seem to shake.

Since theatres re-opened in August 2021, donations are down. Revenues are down. Roughly a third of the audience has not returned, and theatres across the nation are truncating seasons or shuttering altogether. This, as other forms of live entertainment—such as pop music and pro wrestling—continue to thrive.

In terms of winning back audiences, the theatre’s transformation from a space of magic and meaning into a blunt tool of sociopolitical revolution doesn’t help—but that is only one part of the problem. The other aspect is something no one in the industry will dare acknowledge.

The harsh truth is that the American theatre’s extreme overreaction to SARS-CoV2—an extension of the prolonged and histrionic anti-Trumpism which preceded it—inflicted profound, lasting damage. It exposed the industry as intellectually bankrupt; it exposed it as lacking in self-worth; it exposed it as spineless; it exposed a vicious totalitarian underbelly.

But ultimately, it exposed the institution as fundamentally unsalvageable.

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THE DEATH OF REASON

Nothing better exemplifies the hubris and self-delusion endemic to the American theatre—and subsequently its reaction to the pandemic—than this 60-second excerpt of actor Billy Porter:

”As you all know, what the arts does is it cracks open your mind. And it creates critical thinkers out of us. We become leaders, and not followers—so why do you think that’s the first thing that fascists want to take away?…We know how to make the world a better place, because that’s what we were called here to do.”

These remarks were made in March 2023—three years after the theatre began cannibalizing itself by abandoning “critical thinking.”

During the COVID era, its “leaders” became fanatical followers of dogma which it mistook for science, inexcusably ignorant of the organized skepticism and debate which the scientific process demands.

If artists truly believed that they are “called here” to “make the world a better place,” as Mr. Porter claims, they would not have allowed the state to denigrate them as “non-essential”—especially not in New York, the headquarters of art and culture in the United States.

Artists who shrieked about Trumpian fascism for four years demanded that the state “take away” the arts, and the #Resistance was nowhere to be seen when the state began dictating that they cover their faces, dictating who was allowed to work, dictating private gatherings, or dictating that citizens inform on each other.

These nominal antifascists said nothing as the state imposed curfews, attempted mass surveillance (aka “contact tracing”), and even set up checkpoints for private citizens foolish enough to believe they could travel freely inside the “democracy” they keep telling us they wish to save.

Worse still, upon the theatre’s long overdue return, it then imposed fascistic mandates which violated bodily autonomy, did little to prevent outbreaks and show closures, but did much to normalize the demonization, dehumanization, segregation, and exclusion of a minority of the population—an unfathomable irony coming from the faction for whom defaming others as “Nazis” is as natural as drawing breath.

“We were living in a once in a century pandemic!” they cry.

Except we weren’t.

Authorities and the press embarked on a massive campaign to convince Americans that we were living through a repeat of the much deadlier Spanish Flu epidemic, pretending that there hadn’t been 100 years of advances in medicine and healthcare technology since, and pretending as if the Infection Fatality Rate of the illness was far higher than it actually was.

A rational and multipronged approach in lieu of cancelling society—ie focusing protection on the vulnerable, urging lifestyle improvements and proper nutrition, pursuing treatment protocols to help people stay out of the hospital, all in addition to making vaccines available—was considered murderous.

This fascinating research from the Brookings Institute suggests just how much Americans—especially Democrats (the “party of science”)—overestimated the true dangers of the virus, meaning that the theatre’s most loyal patrons have terrorized themselves out of attending it.

Yet industry leaders seem mystified as to why audiences are slow to return.

THE DEATH OF CURIOSITY

Curiosity is the cornerstone of the actor’s craft—indeed, it is the currency of any artist. Unfortunately incuriosity became a defining tenet of the Covidian fundamentalism which seized the American theatre industry:

They were incurious about the wisdom or efficacy of lockdowns; incurious about why prior pandemic preparedness protocols were abandoned; incurious about why masks transformed from virtually useless to essential survival tools; incurious about why immunity acquired from prior infection was dismissed despite the abundance of scientific literature indicating its robustness.

They never pondered why prominent politicians such as Lori Lightfoot and Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom were permitted to violate the restrictions they imposed on everyone else.

They never wondered why certain protests were condemned or even banned, while politically expedient protests and riots which claimed dozens of lives were not only permitted, but endorsed by the public health establishment.

It never occurred to them to question why, long after the non-sterilizing vaccines were known not to prevent transmission, and long after CDC guidelines were updated to suggest that niggerizing unvaccinated individuals was pointless, the shots remained mandated for theatre workers for another year.

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There are plenty more questions that could’ve been raised: about the misapplication of PCR technology; about why two senior FDA officials resigned in protest after the approval of COVID boosters; about why an outlet such as the British Medical Journal felt compelled to criticize clinical trials for the vaccines.

But no questions were asked. None were allowed to be asked. Anyone who challenged Covidian orthodoxy was eviscerated. Even those who (mostly) followed the rules were destroyed.

No one dared question anything after that.

Consequently the American theatre insulated itself from any feedback which could have prompted a course correction.

Like all such totalitarian regimes, collapse is imminent.

WHY DID NO ONE STAND UP?

By the time the world shut down in March 2020, I had been tracking the progression of SARS-CoV2 for months.

I’d spent weeks stocking up on food and supplies. I’d stopped shaking hands at auditions. I’d been self-isolating. I annoyed friends and family with statistics and warnings. I manically sanitized everything from my keys to my groceries. I was mocked for masking and gloving on the subway. I was stunned and angered at everyone’s nonchalance.

I understand why the industry reacted the way that it did:

But as I watch the zombified husk of the industry I dedicated half of my life to shuffle along, a shell of its former self, I can’t help but ask even more questions:

Why was I seemingly the only artist capable of weighing the costs and benefits of Coronaphobia?

Why was I the only bleeding heart Liberal who understood that there’s much more to being alive than merely staying alive?

And why did so-called “Liberals,” self-proclaimed rejecters of authority, so zealously embrace authoritarianism?

But the one question which keeps me up at night:

Why did no one stand up for the industry?

Unless and until the American theatre honestly confronts this critical question, it will suffer the same fate as the tragic protagonists of old.

Only in this case, no tears will be shed by spectators of the demise.

Over a decade ago, I was cast in a searing play called Ruined, by Pulitzer-winning titan Lynn Nottage, at Arena Stage, one of the most respected theatres in Washington D.C. (a city that rivals—and in some ways surpasses—New York as a “Theatre Town”).

Set in a bar and brothel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruined centers around three women, chief among them matriarch Mama Nadi, who must weather the increasingly explosive political turmoil between government and rebel forces on the outside, in a region where the rape and torture of women is a commonly used tactic of war.

Despite the grim subject matter, the play pulsates with life, balancing its tension, danger, and creeping dread with music, humor, and a life-affirming love story at the play's center—the startling work premiered at New York's Manhattan Theatre Club in late January of 2009, and was such a sensation it was extended over and over again, running for nearly seven months before finally closing in early September.

To this day, it is a mystery as to why the play never transferred to Broadway.

Jenny Jules, hot off of her award-winning performance as Mama Nadi London's Almeida Theatre, again assailed the role in our Washington production, giving a bravura turn I will never forget; our director was the gifted Charles Randolph-Wright, who later went on to direct the long-running Broadway smash hit Motown; our beautiful costumes were designed by the talented E Sosa, who had recently shot to prominence on Project Runway; our African band was comprised partially of musicians who grew up in Congo, lending our work an extra layer of authenticity.

On paper, it appeared as if Arena Stage had already captured lightning in a bottle—and by the end of our first week, a rough run-through of the show indicated that that was very much the case.

For a young actor, freshly graduated with an MFA from one of the most elite conservatories in the world, by all accounts it should have been a dream job: housing paid for in a beautiful area of the city, getting paid a great salary at one of the top theatres in the country, working with an incredible team of artists.

As it happens, however, I was in the throes of an existential quarter-life crisis, riven with an incessant, unrelenting emptiness and despair.

What am I doing? I wondered, in what way is any of this significant? There are real problems in the world, and here I am doing PLAYS.

What the hell is the point of all of this?

I related my troubles to a mentor and former teacher, who patiently listened to my angst, before offering what seemed cold comfort at the time, in the guise of four words:

“Go to the museum.”

A HIGHER POWER

I am not one of those hoary intellectuals who can pontificate at length on the significance of a piece of art; I can tell you nothing about successful composition, the tradition out of which a work emerged, or the significance of any of its symbology.

The crude extent of my sophistication with regard to most art is that I know what I like and what I don't.

As I crept through the halls of Washington's National Gallery, I was immediately struck by the paintings—I am deeply attracted to oil painting, usually Realism and especially Impressionistic—marveling at the skill of the artists in conveying the sheen and fold of a satin garment, or the dappled light of dusk on rippling water, or each wrinkle and blemish on a patch of aged skin. Closer examination of the works evoked still more awe, as the sight of each brush stroke legitimized the piece as the work of flesh and blood human being, long dead, who was endowed with vision, discipline, skill, focus, and a keen eye for detail.

And yet, as taken as I was with these masterful relics of an era long gone, it was moseying through the sculptures that revealed the wisdom of my mentor's advice.

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I was first dazzled by the Greek sculptures that evinced a culture that celebrated humanity (a stark contrast to today), capturing in particular the male form in all its sinewy perfection—every ripple of chiseled muscle transforming the marble into something greater than itself, a three-dimensional still-life, vibrating with beauty and virility.

Yet, as someone who had recently declared himself as staunchly Atheist just months before, it was the religious sculptures, featuring figures and events familiar even to a Godless heathen such as myself—Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the tragedy of the Pieta—that stirred me, and began to transport me to a realm beyond what Hamlet chides as Horatio's “philosophy”.

How on earth did these artists, these craftsmen, make each fold of a garment look so natural, or distinguish the fatty, dimpled flesh of an infant from the soft smoothness of a young adult female? And how could they capture such emotion, such drama—how could they wring such deep pathos out of a slab of marble?

And yet, as remarkable and inspiring as all this was, the revelatory moment came, oddly enough, as I beheld Florentine sculptor Desiderio da Settignano's Ciborium for the Sacrament:

A 15th century work standing at greater than 10 feet tall, and weighing just shy of a ton, I lack the vocabulary to describe the craftsmanship that went into it.

Enraptured by what I saw, my mind thundered with still more questions: how did he do that? Is this, what is possible to produce as an artist?? How long must this have taken, each corner and crevice, arch, each feather on the wings flanking each cherubic face?

I'm unsure how long I stood there, gazing at Mr. Settignano's work. But as I came back to earth, I felt a flash of self-consciousness, despite being the only person in the room.

I had been crying.

And with that catharsis, the demons weighing on me were exorcised (at least, for the moment).

But I've since been vexed by a more troubling question—one that I feel has deeper and more unsettling implications, not only with regard to the overall quality of American art (and, frankly, its artists), but the quality and strength of American culture as a whole:

Do we even have a society capable of the imagination, creative vision, disciplined effort, taste, and skill, as was so brilliantly and movingly exhibited by the artists of centuries past?

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CULTURE WARS

America's so-called “Culture War” can very crudely be drawn between two factions.

One is an entrenched status quo, implanted and reinforced by various institutions, from popular culture and entertainment to our legacy media apparatus, policed by massive tech giants such as Twitter and Google—that demands fealty to one vision of the world, lest you be considered “racist” (the new term for “sinner”) and “canceled” (the new term for “excommunicated”).

The other is an unruly, rambunctious crowd, fiercely independent-minded, combating what they view as Neo-Puritanism with a muscular irreverence, defying categorization or even political party assignation.

Through oceans of ink, reams of vitriolic and verbose tweets, countless hours of podcasts and live speeches and debates, this latter faction debates all “The Big Issues” of our time—civil liberties, equality, the economy, demographics, censorship and technology, the degradation of education, who has the most correct moral framework—and these are, of course, all important conversations that must be given as wide a berth as possible to be discussed in the “Marketplace of Ideas”.

But many of these “Culture Warriors”, brilliant and articulate and insightful they may be, have utterly abandoned one of the most crucial aspects of any cultural debate—and that is the Art at the center of that culture, the Art that said culture is producing.

As I revisit Homer's Odysee, or Shakespeare's Hamlet, or films such as It's a Wonderful Life or Casablanca, or even more recent works such as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing or Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, I again am riddled with questions: What makes these stories work so well? Why do we keep revisiting them, and never seem to tire of watching them? And, finally, one particularly difficult question: how much of what is created right now will be relevant long after all that are alive now have passed away?

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I don't wish to discount the jazz and blues of the first half of the 20th century, or the diverse and powerful Golden Age of Hip-hop at the century's end; and I've already alluded to the talking pictures, which eventually produced a Hollywood cinematic juggernaut that has taken the world by storm—but what of that industry and its output now?

And many reading this work may not know this, but there was a point in time when the Theatre was very much a relevant part of the American cultural lexicon, in an era where popular songs on the radio could be heard on the Broadway stage and vice versa, and where hit plays and musicals toured the country with its original stars, where Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire or Robeson in Othello or Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun were significant cultural events; yet who today, outside of New York, and a few cities such as DC, gives a damn about the American theatre now, as it increasingly goes the way of opera: a luxury created and enjoyed by bourgeois elitists who are disconnected from the lives and sensibilities of everyday Americans?

What it boils down to is this: is America producing now—or is it even capable of producing— art and artists that will endure? Can anyone think of any work produced in the last two decades, dramatically, visually, musically, that might bring a stranger to tears centuries down the road, as I was by the work of a 15th century Florentine sculptor?

And why is this question not a more prominent topic of discussion and debate among our so-called “Culture Warriors”?

EPILOGUE

Existential crisis averted, Ruined turned out to be an artistic triumph for all involved, and a critical success for Arena Stage.

Night after night, audiences from all walks of life—suburban white women and middle-class Blacks, as well as politicians and socialites—shot to their feet at curtain call, faces drenched in tears from the electric event they'd just witnessed unfold. Many who had seen the New York production commented privately that our production had surpassed that one in terms of power and effectiveness.

At one performance, we were treated to the sight of a row of a dozen or so Congolese women, resplendent in traditional garb, decked in golds, purples and turquoises—as the full cast gave their final bow, these women stood up and bowed to us, an incredible honor.

There were remarkable reactions and conversations afterward—people wanting to know how they could get involved and help, where they could donate money, what legislation could be drafted and what aid given. The hearts of our audiences were wide open, having been moved by the trials and tribulations of the brave, damaged heroines so memorably crafted by Lynn Nottage and given life by an incredible ensemble.

But each night, as I scanned the tear-streaked faces of our audience, I thought of that pivotal day at the National Gallery, and I began to ask a new question:

How much healthier could our society be if , it invested greater effort into creating more Settignanos and Nottages?

*This is an older piece, with a few tweaks and edits.

After escap—that is, graduating from the program, I spent the next decade building a body of work of which I’m exceedingly proud, excelling on both stage and screen, in a variety of genres, ranging from modern drama to musical theatre to British slapstick comedy.

Yet, after my career began to blossom in 2017, I’ve since gained notoriety for not being allowed to act.

It isn’t lost on me that in the decade since graduating from such an esteemed institution, and making all manner of sacrifices, honing my craft on stages all across the continent, braving the auditions and crushing rejections, steadily climbing the ladder of the industry, all in a myopic pursuit of “making it” (whatever that means)…I’ve had nowhere near as much of an impact, and nowhere near as much reach, as I have enjoyed (dubiously) in just the last three years.

So, then, what changed?

Well, two things:

1. The world has gone certifiably mad.

2. I began to say what I actually think.
   

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As for the first item, I stand by my assertion that our society, American society, has plunged into utter madness, coaxed there by a complex system of algorithmic manipulations, cretinous punditry and press, a morally and intellectually bankrupt political class, and an education system that seems to exist for no other purpose than producing graduates who are significantly dumber upon exit than they were upon entry.

Amidst all the tumult—from anti-Trump hysteria, to race wars, to gender wars, to global health delirium—I somehow emerged in the right place at the right time, having met some of the right people, and have gained a sizeable following simply by offering an alternative perspective to the prevailing madness.

Yet I suppose what makes me especially unique, is that I offer these perspectives having emerged from a field in which having any perspective other than that which is assigned by the editors at MSNBC or The New York Times—whom you probably shouldn’t trust, by the way—can legitimately endanger, if not outright kill, your career.

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It is the strangest thing in the world to me, that Artists—Actors, Singers, Musicians, Writers, etc—who, of all people, should fiercely defend the rights of the individual; who should understand more than most the importance of free speech; and who should be among the first lines of defense against government overreach; have, in just three years time, become some of the most destructively communitarian, censorious, authoritarian automatons imaginable.

They, of course, do not see themselves this way; in their collective mind, they are on the vanguard of “Progress” and of “change”, crusading mightily against the forces of evil (generally speaking, anyone to the Right of Karl Marx), protecting the vulnerable, and securing themselves a spot in the hallowed Right Side of History. No one can doubt their sincerity, nor their earnestness of intent.

And yet, as is well known by even those with a cursory understanding of history and humanity…horrific results can spring from virtuous motivations.

For my part, I am lumped in with the evildoers, not so much because I identify as Conservative in my politics (generally, I do not), but because I’ve committed the sin of apostasy, daring to diverge from what I derisively call The Blue Cult, particularly when it comes to Identity Politics (an especially egregious offense coming from a Black man like myself).

But the question is:

So what?

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In a sane world, a world not driven mad by white hot partisan divides, it shouldn’t matter that I, or anyone else, disagrees with “Progressives” on certain issues.

If I criticize Feminist ideology, does that impact my ability to interpret a character?

If I take issue with radically re-organizing the whole of society, likely causing mass immiseration and death, in response to environmental issues, should that suddenly render me unfit to share the stage with Broadway’s best and brightest?

If I dare recognize that, yes, human beings are a sexually dimorphic species, does that mean I—or anyone—should be barred from employment?

The answer to all of those questions, to a sensible person, is of course “No”.

And yet there is not a single Actor—not one who is not already well-established, anyway—who would dare offer an opinion counter to the current sociocultural zeitgeist, because they know it would seriously jeopardize their career, if not end it outright.

Thus, there they sit, dead-eyed and quiet, in rehearsal studios, on TV and film sets, in dressing rooms and at craft services, speaking in innuendo and euphemism, never sharing their true opinions, timidly gliding across razor-thin ice on egg-shell skates, biting their tongues and hoping no one finds out their deep, dark secret:

They may not be entirely “Progressive”.

They may not be Democrats.

Worst of all: they might even understand Economics.

Flippancy aside, I do not understand, and strenuously object to, a world in which Artists, of all people, are afraid to speak their minds. Or, more specifically, a world in which Artists who do not subscribe to a Left-wing perspective are afraid to speak their minds.

Don’t we want robust discussion? Don’t we want Artists to be able to debate and disagree on these issues, to stir controversy, to challenge the dominant narratives from all perspectives?

Wouldn’t Artists given the freedom to disagree without fear more adequately represent the wide-ranging views of the public they serve, and thus create work that is more likely to resonate with them, and thereby organically move toward the “Diverse” and “Inclusive” society that “Progressives” crave?

Again, reasonable people would answer, emphatically, “Yes!”

But—and I am sure this is something we can all agree on:

We are, sadly, unreasonable people, living in desperately unreasonable times.

And our Artists, unfortunately, are partially responsible.

Hopefully, this Substack will serve as sunlight to an infected culture.

What else am I to do, anyway, but speak my mind and express myself authentically?

…It’s not as though I have a career to protect.