NEW YORK, NY April 17, 2008 — As part of the annual New Sounds Live concerts that I produce, I brought in a quartet of Irish musicians in the Fall 2006. Now, a lot of people are complaining about the process of getting visas, but really, it was easy! All you have to do is this:

1. Download the application form and fill it out. It’s only 20 pages long, and the instructions will tell you which pages you do and don’t need to fill out. Just make sure that before you fill it out, you get some documentation together: contact info, birthdates, passport numbers, past visas granted or rejected, etc., for each of your musicians.

2. Get more documentation, this time showing that your band has achieved “international recognition” in its field.

3. Go to the local musicians union and pay them to write a letter saying they don’t object to you bringing your scurvy un-American musicians into our country.

4. Pay $130.

5. You need it this year? Easy. Pay another $1000.

6. Tell your musicians to travel from whatever dump they call home to their nation’s capital city, for an interview with our Embassy there. They too will be asked to prove their “international recognition.”

7. Pray.

8. Got your visas approved? Good. See? That WAS easy. And you still have a day before the concert. Why not use that day to have your musicians once again leave their homes and day jobs to travel to our friendly Embassy to pick up their visas.

So, why is everyone whining? Isn’t it the USCIS’s job to keep us safe, and couldn’t a musician’s day job easily be filling pipes with ammonium nitrate and fuses? And why should arts presenters have an easier time than everyone else at getting a visa anyway?