The city was the co-sponsor of a hip-hop concert on Nov. 2 at Vinoy Park, on the public waterfront. One of the featured artists was a popular performer of the genre named 50 Cent.
But after the fact, after it had co-produced the concert, the city was amazed to find out from citizen complaints that there was . . .
Well, there was cussin'.
We're not talking about puny, now-and-then cussin' either. We're talking about hour after hour of constant, high-volume, rattle-the-windows stuff.
Women, according to many of the performers, were mostly $#$%s and $%#$%s, and they were being commanded to $#$%% and, of course, to %^&*. There also were many utterances of $@##$%% with that word pronounced in all four of its glorious, consonant-rich syllables.
Dirty words!
At a hip-hop concert!
Who knew?
It came as a terrible shock to the city. Perhaps City Hall had confused the event that it was CO-PRODUCING, an event for which it had eagerly fenced off its own park, with, say, an arts and crafts show, or a Taste Of Someplace-or-Other, or perhaps a nice powerboat race.
#$%^$!
Naturally, the city swang into action after the fact.
"I don't want to create a citywide censor," council member Bill Foster said, meaning precisely, of course, that he wants to create a citywide censor.
"But we do need a mechanism," Foster continued, "where we can cut the power when this type of activity goes on."
(Let us not be distracted by the sudden vision of Foster stationed beneath the stage at future concerts, his hand hovering over the plug, poised to do his civic duty.)
In case you are missin' my drift here, it is not to defend dirty words, but rather to say that if the city didn't want a high-volume, loudly vulgar event in a waterfront park, it could have, you know, not held it.
The right way to deal with this is on the front end. If the city wants to insist on a "family" atmosphere for its co-sponsored park events, it is perfectly within its rights. It risks being namby-pamby, but it can try.
The wrong way is to try to regulate the content of public performers, through ordinance or any other way, even though that is the natural temptation. Even the council's sensible Virginia Littrell, whose district includes the park, raised the possibility of police shutting down the worst offenders.
I am pretty sure she does not mean "Out, out, damned spot."
But that Shakespeare reference leads us to the cultural thing. See, there is vulgarity in outdoor performances all the time, and not just when "urban" (what is that word code for?) performers do it.
Admittedly, the Nov. 2 concert was unprecedented in its duration and vigor. But if the city is going to start getting choosy about who plays in the parks, it had better act in an even-handed fashion. It seems to me to be a nearly impossible job.
There is no sense trying to delineate on the basis of content. The city is not competent to declare that Shakespeare is art and rap music is not. I am not hip to hip-hop, but smart people tell me that it is an artistic reflection of the urban condition, which by necessity includes plenty of aggression, anger, danger. So when an artist includes the word #@#$#% in a song, that's part of the deal.
Fair enough. Who is anybody else to say it isn't valid? After all, the museums are full of paintings of nekkid people, and the playhouses full of their own styles of vulgarity.
Who gets to say that 50 Cent isn't art, but that a play on Broadway titled Urinetown is? Or if you want to stick to music, how about the rock group that had a song in the national Top 10 earlier this year featuring the lyrics, "She (really bad word here) hates me?"
To sum up: The city can regulate the time, manner and place of public performances. It could do a better job on the front end. But in doing so, it needs to make sure that it is playing fairly according to genre and audience. And it should forget trying to edit public performers on the fly, which, you will forgive me, is a $#$%^! stupid idea.
