Eli's Video - William and the Tradesmen

Hey folks (aka people who've gotten lost on the blogosphere and have found themselves on my blog, but are not in such a hurry that they need to turn around immediately),

Above you will find the link to the short film meant to advertise my newly-penned one-man show, William and the Tradesmen, which will be having its first production in New York's Spring Fever Festival May 21st-June 6th of this year.

For those who haven't been following my blog as faithfully as I have, "William and the Tradesmen" is an original one-man acoustic guitar rock musical about an Anglophile with a problem. Will Bray is a down-and-out New York singer-songwriter saddled with a glut of romantic problems, a thousand and one insecurities, and a backing band that keeps standing him up for gigs. (That would be The Tradesmen.) And he's got a real weakness for "the wrong girl," of which there seem to be several dozen at any one time. His only successful relationship seems to be with three British rock stars who appear in his apartment daily to offer him advice.. They are Morrissey, Paul Weller, and Joe Strummer of The Smiths, The Jam, and The Clash. Yes, I will be playing all of these characters myself.

Let me know what you think - but, as always, only if you liked it. That's policy.

America joins the thousands of nations in the world that fully dislike Americans.

And I base that just on the entertainment industry.

I really don't mean this to sound xenophobic, but watch any American awards show (YouTube them, I guess, now that awards season is nearly over. You have 45 minutes left to catch the Oscars): The Acads, Emmys, Golden Globes, yes, alright, The Tonys. Count the number of foreign artists accepting awards, particularly from Britain and its former commonwealth nations. Hell, just watch TV. All of our highest-rated series star Brits or Australians or something close to it: House, ER, Lie to Me, Eleventh Hour, The Wire (this realistic crime show set in the worst neighborhoods of Baltimore starred three full-blown Brits), the list goes on. Listen to how many actors you could have sworn were American come up to the podium to get their statue and suddenly they can't pronounce their r's.

This can only mean one of two things. Either Americans have really turned into a self-hating breed of world inhabitants following two terms of George W. Bush, six years of war, and single-handedly devastating the world economy. We're a bit embarrassed, and we want a different breed to class up our telly, make us smell a bit better.

OR we genuinely suck, and the Brits are rightfully getting our parts.

The latter can't possibly be true. I mean, it just can't.

And believe me, that's pretty hard for me to say. It's not a sentiment I am used to expressing. I have lived my life remarkably pro-British. To say I am an Anglophile, would be like saying Boris Yeltsin took the odd drink now and again. Python, The Beatles, The Clash, I Claudius, and Newcastle Brown Ale are things I like mostly because they are English. Some Americans claim to be Anglophiles, but if this photo of me doesn't put me at the top of that unenviable list, I don't know what will.



But I come to rail against the Brits, the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Scots, the Irish - (if there's an affectionate nickname for people from Ireland, I don't know it, or am afraid to use it), and to say to those who run the American entertainment business something that right-wing conservatives, not liberal-minded largely apolitical artists such as myself, have been saying for years: Quit giving away our jobs, you guys! Come on!

Unless we really do suck. Then relegate us only to buddy comedies and reality TV. And any spare supporting roles going in Japanese-funded action movies based on comic books. If movies like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" can get nominated for Best Picture (and movies like The Departed can WIN Best Picture), then yes, we Americans deserve to be on the bread lines. Put us on.