Remind them that entertainment was the only business besides bootlegging that continued to thrive during the Great Depression. The worse things get, the more people want to drink and forget their troubles. Instead of cutting entertainment, club owners should consider replacing fresh vegetables with canned peas, corn and carrots. Customers can obtain fresh garden greenery from other sources, such as their neighbor’s garden. They can certainly stay home, watch porn videos and listen to their i-tunes, but as their life savings evaporate and their homes foreclose, virtual entertainment is not enough, especially when your electricity is disconnected. Better to wander into a club, order a triple and stare at a person worse off than you are- the entertainer on stage. You may think that ego fulfillment is justification for driving 60 miles and performing 4 hours for a hundred bucks. That may be true when a person is 25, but at my age, despite my enjoyment of making an ass of myself, entertaining takes on a different ziegheist. I feel as though I am singing at the funeral of my innocense and that of my audience. Raising our glasses and toasting ourselves for surviving thus far without becoming political assassins or simply sobbing in a closet at the thought of another betrayal. Magic happens in clubs with live entertainment.  A room full of strangers become friends as they live and breath the music and the mistakes. I compare it to the difference between watching a football game in a Sportsbar or sitting in the stadium. An live audience can react and be acknowledged, whether they are throwing tomatoes or applauding. They count. They control the proceedings as much as the entertainer.  During this recession, people need to feel they exist, they are heard, they matter, and that the club owner cares enough to risk offering an intangible product whose value cannot be measured in receipts. Now THAT is classy.