Mr. Moore,
How dare you? How dare you attack Bill Timmins? The man did not give the boot to poor Linda because she supported you. From reading the article posted on your very own webpage, it would take someone incredibly self-centered and egotistical to come to that conclusion. Bill pulled the plug on Linda because, and I quote from the Associated Press article on your website,
"Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air."
Actually, according to the Las Vegas Sun, Linda left the stage of her own accord:
"According to Squyres (Spokeswoman for Aladdin), Ronstadt lopped off about 20 minutes from the show, walking away from an encore portion of the concert, which I attended as the reviewer for the Sun."
If the public is so pissed off at you that they're willing to react like this at the mere mention of your name, then Linda has got to go. Don't you see? Bill's job is to preserve order in his place of business, order that was disrupted just because Linda said something stupid. If the public is not happy with the show, end the show. If you perceive some kind of danger because of someone staying at your hotel, get them out of there. How should Bill have reacted? Let the show go on, have the people become violent, have to pay off lawsuits because of injuries incurred in the resulting squabble, and have to lose the patronage of so many? Dammit, man, Bill has a business to think about.
I don't really care if you blame the however many of 4,500 that booed you. After all, it was mostly their fault that Linda was chucked out, unhappy but cooperative. They were the ones who were getting violent. Of all the people involved, don't go after the guy who is just doing his job. One thing you should know by now, Michael, is that a lot of people don't like you. I thought that was made clear at the Academy Awards, but apparantly it is a lesson hard taught. If your name is said in front of the wrong crowd, it creates situations like this. I can't imagine what it must be like to live like that. Another lesson to be learned here is not to mix a musical act and controversial personal politics - I thought we already went through this with the Dixie Chicks debacle. If the lesson wasn't learned then, it should be learned now, especially since Bill told the Las Vegas Sun that,
"We live in a city where people come from all over the world to be entertained. We hired Ms. Ronstadt as an entertainer, not as a political activist. Whether you are politically on the left or on the right is not the point. She went up in front of the stage and just let it out. This was not the correct forum for that."
Look at that last sentence. Read it over a few times. Bill Timmins is absolutely correct. People like to be entertained for the simple reason that it allows them a means of escaping the real world. They paid for a ticket to hear a lady sing, not to hear a commercial for your movie. To further quote Bill Timmins in the Las Vegas Sun,
"If she wants to talk about her views to a newspaper or in a magazine article, she is free to do so. But in a stage in front of four and a half thousand people is not the place for it."
That is, when that's not what they're paying to hear. So, please, don't take it out on the guy who just wants to preserve order. This man is not your enemy.
I'm surprised that Linda isn't upset with you, seeing as how you managed to upstage her without even being there:
"Her performance was uninspired and generally flat. She lacked stage presence, doing little more than sleepwalk from song to song. The fiasco at the end was the most exciting part of the show."
I'm not really interested in hearing you sing "America the Beautiful", anyway.
Until next time,
Goose
©2004 by Goose
