One of the new Kennedy Center Board of Trustees has a way for it to make more money.
Paolo Zampolli thinks there should be a marina next to the Center so the rich can pull up in their yachts to attend events.
"The goal of the center is to bring more money and people in....All the ideas I came up with are about making it a destination point...You can build a marina. I'm convinced it would be terrific. The Kennedy Center is very difficult to access. You put in a little marina, and on the weekend you go there --- the yachts (park) there. You go to a beautiful restaurant. It will be a beautiful experience."
But having just one Kennedy Center isn't enough.
"We can franchise the Kennedy Center name in Europe and Asia and the Middle East, like the Louvre does in Abu Dhabi. That would be lucrative."
His other ideas include a Jacqueline Kennedy inspired fashion show. Also having a living artist create a work that would fly around on the International Space Station.
Paolo defended Trump firing the Biden era trustees and making himself chairman of the board.
"He felt that the people around him would go completely against his views. He had the total right to fire them.... in the old system we couldn't get improvements. Now, if the president is involved, the center has unlimited potential."
Paolo is a New York businessman and as of March 11th, he's the United States Special Representative for Global Partnerships. There is an Office of Global Partnerships. The managing director is a Black guy named Thomas Debass. But being a Special Representative looks like it was invented for Zampolli. There's never been one before. Like Trump's Special Ambassadors to Hollywood: Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and John Voight.
Zampolli says he wants to make the Kennedy Center a "bankable business." Does everything Trump and his minions touch have to be a business? Wasn't there something called "The Arts" that John F. Kennedy had in mind? The problem is that Trump and his partners have a history of bankruptcy. Everything Trump touches withers and dies. At the same time, Trump said he wants to make the Kennedy Center "hot" again.
I really don't want to have 4 years of listening to YMCA by the Village People. There's more to life than that. I can just see Trump having Lee Greenwood show up someday to open a concert or some other show. Everybody should be prepared with rotten tomatoes.
