In Which The Mayoress Encounters the Chair of the NYC Cultural Affairs Committee

On the rare occasion, my passionate career in promotion and persistent participation in politics (as well as absolute adoration of alliteration) intersects.

Last Wednesday, my client Fractured Atlas hosted a conversation with NYC 26th District Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside), also Chair of the NYC Cultural Affairs Committee.

If you have ever had the privilege of encountering Van Bramer, you undoubtedly share my full-blown political crush. Though it shall remain unrequited (Sorry ladies, he’s gay! Sorry boys, he’s engaged!), I am content, as I am fully in support of any politician who can make me laugh while making me think – and isn’t afraid to drop a few F-bombs and thinly veiled insults along the way.

The Mayoress with the hosts of the evening.

The event had a surprisingly fantastic turnout, and Van Bramer stayed an hour late just to answer every question from the overflowing audience of artists, whether from his district or not. He was candid, cohesive, informative, and passionate. He explained how things work and how any of us can influence that process.

I say “surprisingly” not because it was an FA event – as the nation's largest nonprofit arts services organization, their following is strong, and deservedly so. I was surprised because it is very difficult to get almost any audience – let alone artists who work long hours with full schedules – to take time out to find out about the political system and how it affects their life, work, and funding; and how they can improve the way it all happens. Huge kudos to those who showed up, asked questions, gave input. They were heard.

But if you’ve never been to an event like that, or otherwise been in contact with your elected official, whether City Council, Community Board, City Executives, State Senate, State Assembly, State Executives, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, or U.S. Executives (whew!), or if you do not vote, not only in November elections but in primaries, you are not heard.

Your opinions, effectively, do not matter.

Here is where I begin my rant, and reason for writing this post. If you read this blog you’ve heard it before, but I’d rather be a broken record than not pound home the point.

You cannot complain about something happening – or not happening – if you are not willing to do something about it. This is America, you have many avenues toward trying to make a change. You can vote, you can participate, you can write your representatives.

Here’s what I don’t think a lot of the frustrated-while-uninvolved people understand: most people are also frustrated but uninvolved. So if you join the very small ranks of the involved, heard, and counted, you are heard.

Every elected official I have come into contact with beyond a handshake bases his or her decisions heavily on what his or her constituency thinks. How do they know what their constituency thinks? Well, all they can base it on is what their constituents tell them that they want and need. So the very small percentage who bother to do so are the ones who dictate what life will be like for everyone else in their district.

When I attended a city council campaign debate in ’05 while volunteering on a campaign, do you know what topics they covered? Whether bikes should be allowed to ride on the sidewalks and whether they would do something about it.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

But guess what? The people who showed up cared about that. And I won’t mention the neighborhood, but you better believe the Upper East Side had a lot more revenue that next year in the form of tickets to bicycle riders.

If you want things to be a certain way, you have to tell your elected official. Complaining to yourself or the closest person who will listen may be effective for letting off steam, but not for moving the world forward.

I'll be the first to admit: I’m not satisfied with how much I do to make my neighborhood, city, state, or country, the place I’d like it to be. But I do do something, even if it’s not yet at the level I hope. I write this blog so I can sway your opinion. I volunteer periodically. I donate to causes I care about. I write my elected officials when I’m really hot and bothered. (It takes both conditions, you see, because I try to be the former on the daily, what what.)

Van Bramer made allusions to a future run for mayor, but it seems his campaign will be about 15 years before mine, so I graciously nod to his Bramerness and offer my early support.