I have a man crush on the new NEA Chair

The former NEA Chair, Dana Goia, was a poet (and he worked for big business, too, presumably writing haikus during his coffee break).

Not Rocco Landesmann. Our incoming NEA Chair is a Broaday impresario. And one of the most sought after pitchers in the Broadway Show Softball League.

Look at that arm. Clearly he's throwing heat. I suspect he learned that form as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (yep, seems that he might be one of those raging liberals, too).

Rocco Landesmann by all accounts is one of the more curious picks to lead the National Endowment for the Arts. Curious in the sense that it makes so much freakin' sense that it's outrageous that it possibly happened in Washington. But outrageous things like a national conversation about public health seem to be sweeping the nation these days.

We now have an NEA Chair who believes that the arts deserve a "place at the table." I am not making this up. I wish I had attribution on that statement, but I promise I've heard him say it and I'm not just dreaming. I give a big thumbs up to that statement because I believe the same thing. Arts+table setting=good thing. You put arts at the table, they show up, they have good manners, and people are so glad they are there to buffer the other table guests like national defense and anything coming from Timothy Geithner and his friends at the Treasury

That the NEA Chair is a pitcher for the Broadway Show League is no silly, little stupid thing. He also wanted to buy a major league baseball team a few years back and no o. He hired Rose O'Donnell to sing in public. This is a guy who takes some chances.

That's the thing that impresses me most about our new NEA Chair. He is not afraid to make his opinions known. He's not afraid to get a little dirty (you don't stay clean being a Broadway producer, folks), and not afraid to do a few things that people might have opinions about. Like him or hate him, he's gonna make sure a lot of people know that we still have a National Endowment for the Arts and that it is a pretty relevant part of our national cultural rep. By the by, our new NEA Chair didn't sit by and wait for someone to suggest him as a possible candidate for the job. By all accounts, he raised his hand high and said, "Pick me, because I'll kick open some doors."

And let's face it, having an NEA Chair named Rocco is just kind of tough and it's time that the arts looked as buff as Michelle Obama's biceps (do not get me started on that one, do not)