Mike Daisey makes gum

March 21, 2012

Recap: Mike Daisey performs a one-man show in NYC about his love of Apple products and his discomfort with how they are made, which he learned firsthand by visiting the Foxconn plant in China. A while ago he shared an abridged version of this performance on NPR’s “This American Life.” TAL has since retracted that installment and aired another, exposing the inaccuracies and fabrications in Daisey’s account, scoping out the truth, and asking Daisey why he did what he did. Details here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

I think writers too often hide behind the “this is art, it doesn’t need to be accurate” thing. Because I think most consumers of art expect certain rules of engagement, and while thwarting those expectations openly may be fun or revealing, discreetly side-stepping them (and claiming after the fact that those expectations are tyrannical or stupid or something the artist never signed up for) seems to me dishonest, self-centered, and cowardly, and tends to leave the consumer feeling (rightfully) robbed and manipulated. If Daisey wanted to tell a story with details that differed from what is true in the real world then he shouldn’t have told his story about companies called Apple and Foxconn, which are true and detailed in the real world. He should have fictionalized other key things by the same margin that he fictionalized those details, which would elegantly inform the audience about the truthiness of his story–without, I think, diminishing its impact a bit. But as a consequence of keeping that truthiness obscured, and framing (by way of not framing it otherwise) his performance as good old unbeguiling journalism,* he does himself and his message quite a bit of damage.

And for no good reason, as far as I can tell. The only reason Mike Daisey talked about himself and Foxconn and Apple instead of, say, a guy named “Mark Dandelion” visiting the “Badgerconn” plant where they make his favorite “Pi” products, I’m guessing, is because Mike Daisey excels at first-person autobiographical stage documentaries and isn’t willing to try something else. That’s incredibly speculative, but what else could it be? Why else fudge the truth on something you truly care about? There can’t be a “good” reason.

The same thing happened with “A Million Little Pieces.” I hear it’s a great story, and what I heard of Daisey’s performance was indeed compelling and affecting. But through these “scandals” audiences make it quite clear how they see the rules of engagement, and artists are exceptionally ignorant and/or hubristic to find those rules inapplicable or not worth negotiating.

The costs of manufacturing are sometimes awful and always worth examining–that is true whether or not Daisey’s facts are. Which is the biggest bummer of all, here, because Daisey doesn’t help get the word out when the words he’s spreading are corrupt. He shot himself and his message in the foot, because he either misunderstood or willingly defied the artist-audience contract. Like it or not, there are boundaries, and the audience sets some of them. If you have something to say, if it’s important to you that people understand it, it does no good to say it in ways that people won’t accept.

*Daisey can claim he did no wrong by virtue of the fact that he never aimed for or pretended journalistic accuracy, and that theater/art is inherently fictionalized and everybody knows it or should. That is, when you sit down in a theater and listen to a guy talk about his trip to China and all the things he learned about how they make Apple gadgets, you’re supposed to assume he’s lying. But I don’t think that’s what Daisey actually believes. So I think not only is his show dishonest but so is his high-minded argument about why it isn’t. I think when you sit down in a theater and a guy named Hamlet talks about his dead dad and how to find the nearest nunnery, you know it isn’t true. But when the guy in front of you is named Mike Daisey and is telling you about Mike Daisey’s trip to China, well, why would you doubt him? Does he make it seem like you should? No. In fact, it seems like he wants you to chew on what he’s selling good and carefully, and remember every little bit (he talks slow and pauses a lot). So if you fail to realize you’re chewing gum and not actual food I don’t think that’s your fault. I think the guy who made the gum pulled a fast one on you (and is dishonest for claiming otherwise; if he wanted you to know it was gum, why’d he make it taste so much like food?). In the end, Daisey’s claims about the latitudes and liberties of art are vain and inadequate compensations for his own intentional shrinking from duty.

The Brain is a Wonderful Thing

March 7, 2012

Last night I dreamed that I was on “A Prairie Home Companion.” Garrison Keiller interviewed me–he knew I was a performer but thought I was in a band–and then we sang a song together with a (real-life) high school friend of mine. My brain may have based the song on the powdered milk jingle, but I woke up singing it (my song) and I’m pretty sure it’s not a complete rip-off of any existing song. That is, I’m pretty sure I wrote a song overnight while I was dreaming I was on “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Of note: The song was about logging, and we had to re-start it twice. Once because Garrison couldn’t remember the words and some fool hadn’t put them on the overhead projector yet, and a second time because some kids and heathens were clamoring all over the stage–which was a low-to-the-ground float of sorts–and disrespecting us. (We were at a fairgrounds and were not the center of attention.)

Also of note: I conjured Garrison’s bizarre cranial shape and wavy-grain speech patterns pretty accurately, but during our interview I had him sprawled on the floor almost, lounging across the first few levels of the float (which was kind of like a staircase) while I sat on one of the levels nearby. I’m pretty sure in real life Garrison doesn’t sprawl.

Welcome

August 19, 2011

This is a website where Mike Mathieu posts info about and samples of his creative work.  The categories (Acting, Writing, Music – above and to the left) are pretty self-explanatory, but here’s some background:

Mike grew up in Beavercreek, OH, and spent lots of time doing choir and theater.  At Ohio Wesleyan University he did more theater and began writing plays.  After college he traveled and had a lot of time on his hands, so he learned to play guitar.  He moved to Seattle and performed in a few fringe shows, secretly writing plays and songs that blew his freaking mind (and which he has since disowned).  Then he moved to Bellingham and co-founded a sketch comedy troupe, wrote lots of long and short theatrical things that actually made it on stage, and continued singing quietly in his room.  Now he has a website (which among other things finally makes his music public).

Please enjoy, and thanks for the support.