HAMILTON: What Went Wrong???

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

June      9     1093    4732         1185      246         82

           10       982    5163         1300      388         48
           11       904    4951         1261      394         74
           12       791    4603           843      389         70
           13       702    4229           890      309         69
           14       331    3263           598      321         57
           15       425    3415           729      395         88
           16       849    6592         1338        ?           57
           17       809    5264         1209      341         49
           18       747    5123         1204      342         63
           19       719    5066         1221      366         94
           20       573    4428           968      307         46
           21       267    3338           601      426         53
           22       363    3880           748      312         61
           23       863    5465         1364      468        111
           24       808    6071         1103      424        103
           25       649    5179         1180      401          87
           26       663    4893         1055      381         48
           27       512    4547           994      414         73
           28       285    3463           555      384         43
           29       346    3415           727      417         73
           30       764    5072         1271      506       128
July       1       676    4857        1057      438         92
             2       687    5155         1277      377         95
             3       616    5170         1264      444       108
             4       254    4494         1111       610         74
             5       251    3572          535       421       173
             6       378    3573          656       474       111
             7       993    5504        1312       479       192
             8       890    5507        1187       491       100
             9       960    5411        1199       479       118

Summary:  The World, including the USA, has reached a high plateau.

The famed HAMILTON film by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the life of Alexander Hamilton was finally shown on TV this past week.  But you pretty much needed to be a subscriber to Disney Channel.  I don't know how they did it, but it was also screened on the 15 Craigside 900 channel.

Miranda won a Pulitzer, Grammy and 11 Tony's for his effort and Rotten Tomatoes loved it:  99% reviewers and 92% audiences:

An unforgettable cinematic stage performance, the filmed version of the original Broadway production of "Hamilton" combines the best elements of live theater, film and streaming to bring the cultural phenomenon to homes around the world for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So what went wrong?  Well, I didn't like it.  I've waited a few days to sort this out, but the simple fact is that I found the experience boring and was close to turning the TV set off.  A long two hours and forty minutes.

I give Hamilton a C- grade.  I rarely bother to follow-up with anything that gets this bad a score.

The fact that white characters were being portrayed by "coloreds" was disarming.  Sure, everyone, except me, felt that this was prescient and cool, adding depth and provocation.  Not me.  If an Asian person is Chinese, the actor should  be Chinese.  Not even Japanese or Korean.  Everyone should be accurately depicted.  Miranda feels that anyone can play anyone.  Maybe he has started a trend, which is not all bad.

For some reason, the King George III character, Jonathan Groff, was white.  He was the villain of the play, and this reversal of role was probably inserted on purpose.  The only other prominent "white" actor was Philippa Soo, Hamilton's wife, who is half Chinese.

What it came down to, I think, is that there was no real music here.  The dialogue was a series of rap songs, and African-Americans are the tradition there.  Miranda himself is Hispanic with immigrant parents from Puerto Rico.  No question he is a star, and a genius to boot.

But about the "music."  In a different way, this was like the 1980 play Les Miserables.  By 2012 when the film came out, I loosely identified with I Dreamed a Dream, sung by Anne Hathaway, but not really.  I finally came around in 2009 when Susan Boyle auditioned with Britain's Got Talent.  It took me almost 30 years to get to like this song.  Maybe Hamilton will yet produce a popular song.

Mind you, Hamilton is now the 6th most popular cast album in history, bypassing Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story and Man of La Mancha.  There are 46 separate tracks.  An offshoot album featuring Alicia Keys, John Legend, Usher, Wiz Khalifa, Common, Sia, Nas, Chance the Rapper, Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon and Ja Rule-Ashanti hit #1 in 2016.

A few compilations has Satisfied as the best of the lot.  The mixtape with Miguel and Queen Latifah reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Screenrant selected Hamilton as the best of the lot.  Here is Miranda before the Obamas performing this song at the White House.  But nothing else did all that well. Maybe something will breakthrough someday.

So what went wrong?  Has to be me.  I don't appreciate Shakespeare.  The majority do, or is it does.  Don't understand poetry.  Can't stand most Italian operas.  I don't believe in a Heaven.  72% of Americans do.  Not a fan of rap.  The conclusion I can come to is that I'm the problem.  

Would I go see Miranda's Jefferson?  Probably, if free.  There was historical significance to Hamilton.  I learned some history.  However, no such play on his agenda.  The next might be Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway, something about an improvisational hip-hop group.

Has nothing to do with the pandemic nor Trump nor ...  But let me quote The New York Times from today's daily briefing:

Seoul mayor is found dead

The mayor of Seoul, Park Won-soon, has been found dead. He had disappeared a day after a secretary in his office told the police that he had sexually harassed her since 2017. The story has been shocking to Koreans because he had been a rare champion of women’s rights among the country’s politicians.

He left a suicide note.  I share the above mostly to underscore a 16-episode series I've been watching this week entitled, Designated Survivor--60 Days, a production of South Korea I just reviewed on Monday.  One of the main characters is the mayor of Seoul.

The Year 1940 is the most important to me because this is my birthyear:

• January 4:  Luftwaffe Colonel Hermann Goring assumes control of industry in Germany.
• January 8:  food rationing begins in the UK.  Stays in effect until 1954.

• January 19:  Three Stooges Hitler parody.
• January 26:  Brisbane, Australia reaches hottest day ever at 110 F.  Stands today, with the next warmest being 106 F on November 8, 2018.
• Winter Olympics scheduled for Germany cancelled.
• Pinocchio opens.  Remember When You Wish Upon a Star?  Singer?  Jiminy Crickett, or Cliff Edwards.

• Mae West and W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee.
• 4-year old Tenzin Gyatso proclaimed the next Dalai Lama.  He will be 85 this year.
• Hattie McDaniel, first African-American to win an Academy Award.
• Elmer Fudd makes debut.

• March 18:  Axis powers meet to start World War II.
• Booker T. Washington becomes the first African-American to be depicted on a postage stamp.
• April 9:  Germany invades Scandinavia.
• April 16:  Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians pitches a no hitter on opening day.
• May 10:  Battle of France begins, also the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Iceland.  Neville Chamberlain resigns, Winston Churchill becomes the Prime Minister of the UK.

• May 13:  Churchill's blood, toil, tears and sweat speech.
• May 15:  First McDonald's restaurant opens in San Bernardino, California.

• May 16:  FDR asks Congress for nearly a billion dollars (worth $18 billion today) to build 50,000 planes/year.  The Navy's newest aircraft carrier today, the USS Gerald Ford, cost $13 billion.
• Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration opens.  To eventually kill more than a million.
• June 4:  The British starts Dunkirk evacuation.

• June 22:  Albert Einstein becomes an American citizen.
• June 24:  France falls to Germany.
• July 10:  Battle of Britain begins.
• July 15:  Democratic Party nominates Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term.
• Tokyo summer olympics cancelled.

• July 21:  Mitsubishi Zero fighter enters service.
• September 6:  I was born.
• September 12:  17,000-year old cave paintings discovered in Lascaux, France.
• September 17:  Hitler postpones invasion of Britain.
• September 22:  Japan enters French Indochina.

• September 27:  Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
• October 15:  Charlie Chaplin releases wartime satire, The Great Dictator.
• November 13:  Walt Disney's Fantasia released.
• December 8:  Chicago Bears demolish Washington Redskins, 73-0 in NFL championship game.
• December 30:  California opens first modern freeway, State Route 110.

The #1 song of 1940 was Glenn Miller's In the Mood.  The greatest songs of 1940-49, in 14 minutes.

The top country song of the 40's was Bouquet of Roses by Eddy Arnold.  #2 was Hank William's Lovesick Blues.

Steve Jobs passed away in 2011.  Fake news began to appear, mostly in 2015, and even more confusingly so in 2019, attributed to another billionaire, Steve Gouves, ending with the following:

56-year old Steve Jobs at his deathbed:  The six best doctors in the world are sunlight, rest, exercise, diet, self-confidence and friends.  Maintain them in all stages and enjoy a healthy life.

Snopes investigated and found, first, that the "six doctors finish" was part of only a fictitious attribution to Steve Jobs, and further, the Steve Gouves statement was circulated by Joshua Furstein, a so-called evangelical internet personality, who plain made this all up.  What Jobs did say, according to his sister Mona Simpson, was:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

A good way to end your week, with Aretha and Respect, plus Johanna.

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