0 f . 0 0 MICH.ELLANY No rent control, now what? WEEKEND JESSICA GREENE The homeless man sat down on a park bench and watched. Across the street from him, people were gather- ing outside the front entrance of McKinley Real Estate on Main St. to rally support for rent control - Proposal C on the city election bal- lot.. The election was only four days away. The organizer of the event - a woman currently engaged in a court battle with McKinley, claiming the company terminated her lease because she helped form a tenants union to combat greedy landlords - spoke through a bullhorn to the 50 or so people in attendance. "Let's start walking around in a circle," she said after explaining how McKinley was trying to throw her onto the street. The homeless man shook his head before rising from the bench and made his way across the street. He wore a beat-up brown overcoat, a black and yellow ski cap and carried a sizeable walking stick. He was not happy. "We're tired of demonstrations," the man barked at the organizer. His voice cracked with the kind of emo- tion that comes only from spending days wandering the streets and nights sleeping in cardboard boxes. "You JOH N 7 SHEA want someone to talk? Let me talk. I'm the one who can't pay." The woman stopped talking and let the homeless man take the floor. "I've been in Ann Arbor all my life," he shouted to the group. "Now, I can't move into a place without $1000, S1500, S2000..." The crowd understood; some even cheered him. "Students don't make Ann Arbor," the man continued. "I've been here 20 years and I still can't get an apartment." More cheers. Some suggested they form a circle and walk around him in support, but this seemed to upset him even more. "Dig this, dig this," he shouted. "You can walk around in circles all day, still won't do nothing. I don't know how many of you have had things and lost things, but if you don't contribute to the University, you ain't got nothing in this town." It had all the makings of a great Hollywood movie. Rent control. David, meet Goliath. Unfortunately, the ending is not a happy one. Last Monday, David got the tar knocked out of him. Did Pro- posal C ever have a chance of pass- ing? Not with the landlords of Ann Arbor bombarding local cable sta- tions with commercials forecasting apartment complexes would go the way of the extinct water buffalo with the passage of C. The homeless man said what few wanted to acknowledge but probably suspected at the rally: rallies weren't going to beat televi- sion ad campaigns. Money talks. Oddly, renters make up three-fifths of the residents in Ann Arbor, and if students had gotten together and gone to the polls, the ending of this tale might have been different. If you're a humanitarian, you can't bear the sight of homeless people laying down on air vents. If you're flat broke, a big break on rent probably sounds good. Who couldn't use a couple of extra hundred dollars? Well, everyone could, but the is- sue isn't that simple. Some might try to hang the death of Proposal C squarely on the shoulders of students, crying apathy and indifference all the way. The homeless man was right: See SHEA, Page 13 Wiliam Bolcom Pulitzer prize winning composer talks about MTV, commercialism, and acadamics INTERVIEW School of Music Professor William Bolcom received a Pulitzer Prize for music composition last week for a set of piano pieces entitled "Twelve New Etudes." Bolcom, an internationally known composer, was the runner-up for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize. A Seattle native, Bolcom has been a member of the University faculty for 15 years, before which he taught at the University of Washington, Queens College, and the Yale Univesity Drama School. The affable Bolcom, who seems unaffected by his sudden whirl of publicity, recently spoke with Daily arts staffer Ari Schneider. Daily: Did you expect to win this award? Bolcom: Well, everyone else was expecting it for me at some time or another because of the pieces I had done four years ago. In 1985, 1 nearly won one; I was a runner-up and many people were much more angry than I was that I didn't. I should have won it and now all the press and people I talk to say this is a late awarding of that prize. That may be true but frankly I don't care. It doesn't make an awful lot of difference. D: What gave you the inspiration for the "12 New Etudes?" B: The etudes that Chopin or anybody else wrote which have to do with interpretive problems, technical problems, musical problems. People who are studying piano are dealing with... problems that are interesting things, things that would be something for students involved in twentieth century piano literature. But that's just one level of the etudes. On top of that, you have the poetry, the mood, the other things that are there which are not so easily talked about. This particular set of etudes was written for the use of Paul Jacobs, who was a wonderful pianist who f died of AIDS in 1983. Of course, I was writing it for him to play and he couldn't really do much of anything the last year of his life so I sort of came to a stop on them- I just didn't feel like going on. But then what happened is that this young pianist Marc Andre Hamelin was assigned to play them for the festival in California. I heard him do them and I was so inspired by that that I went and finished them. He's also recorded them and I understand that the record and CD are now out. So, that's the story and I'm very happy with the performance, I'm happy with the pieces, I feel perfectly glad that they got the Pulitzer and I don't feel that it's a matter of second best at all. It's a much less sizable piece - 30 or some minutes where the other work is 3 hours. I suppose that's a larger statement but I don't think it's such a bad thing. D: Does having grown up around rural Washington state inspire you at all for some works? B: When I did my fourth symphony, commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony, that reflected in a lot of ways, the expansivity of the country. It's a very large kind of gesture. Out there, you've got these great big mountains and everything's so big and so frightening. The sea is very calm, the mountains are very craggy- everything is very! (laughs) Very' whatever it is. It's a truly emphatic kind of work. So sure that got me, especially because of the form I picked. See INTERVIEW, Page 13 I OFF THE WALL Well I'm going insane Yes I'm laughing at the frozen rain And I'm so alone honey when you gonna send me home? (In response) BAD POETRY. VERY BAD. DON'T MAJOR IN IT. This hedonistic, materialistic U-M student body is so busy satisfying its own greed and stupid animal lust that it doesn't even think to look for something real to live for. (In response) TAKE ANOTHER BONG HIT MAN Michigan "men" are premature ejaculators (In response) THAT'S BEACAUSE MICHIGAN WOMEN ARE NOT WORTH WAITING FOR. (In response) I object. Sex at Michigan is great -- it's the mornings after that suck. Long ago there was something in me, but now that thing is gone... I cannot cry, I cannot care. That thing will come back no more (In response) HE TOOK A LARGE SHIT -All graffiti found in grad library LTcWAD I LOVE SPRING 1 A T EWARMTHr ~- TME ThEE5, zw E ZINN rTHE BIRD5, THE rLOw E5 THE 5UELL5..._ I U - 01 I1) //,/ 14Db MCA a You MEN J JlT DO NOT APPRECIATh 5PRNG... e 8 - 11 Ill r PAGE'12 WEEKEND/APRIL 8, 1988 WEEKEND/APRIL 8, 1988,