Sidebars

All Alone....by Bob Sanders

 

I've always loved a good mystery but studies suggesting we are becoming increasingly lonely flies in the face of all the instant communications available to us.  What is going on?

Actually, it's more than a mystery.  It's a paradox impossible to ignore in coffee shops, libraries, public transportation, baseball games, the beach, the car, you name it.  Choose your site and it's there.  Heads down, everyone.  Let's ignore each other while pretending to be friendly as we further tailor our personas by way of the often badly-written word and retouched photo.  We haven't had this much fun since the last phony resume.

Who would have thought that a song written nearly eighty years ago would best describe the solitude suggested by studies.  It was Irving Berlin who wrote "All Alone" whose point of view was that a lot of lonely people were waiting by the telephone.  In those days, the coin-operated version offered communications a wondrous mobility of sorts.  We've traded the phone booth for the cell phone--a more convenient means of communication yet lacking the romantic effort it often took to hoof it to the phone and set up a meet at the Oyster Bar, under the clock, or at Ricarrdo.  One wonders how many among us practice a self-con suggesting that a multiplicity of fast communications can replace the reality of a face-to-face relationship.  How many among us upon hearing an "alone" song (there must be at least two dozen) immediately think: "hey, they're playing my song."

The loneliness studies today are impressively scary.  One done in 2010 by AARP found that 35 percent of adults more than 45 were chronically lonely--up from 20 percent a decade earlier.  That suggests Facebook (launched by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004) isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing: making us giddy with the understanding we have so many friends.  Further, another study suggests 20 percent of Americans (60 milion) are unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.

I once tested loneliness' first cousin, isolation, at Wrigley Field, a pretty noisy place--particularly if you normally sat in the bleachers where, as Bill Veeck observed: "Here, the beer is colder, the fans much smarter and you can see better."  Retired from the Chicago Tribune, I was invited more than once to watch the Cubs from the firm's sky box high above third base.  I finally accepted the offer trading banter with the Bleacher Preacher and other habitues of the then cheap seats for the air conditioned comfort and free booze of the corporate digs.  It's pretty rare of me to pass up gratis sauce and I managed three innings, then left never to return.  It was awful; there was no noise other than that emanating from the TV while the occupants provided the kind of un-knowledgeable commentary also available at any World Series game.

One has to wonder about such things as touching each other to convey feelings.  While there are no statistics thus far, it does seem that our intense desire for digital connection is going too far when we spend much more time in isolation touching and feeling a tiny screen rather than each other.  Fingers that once walked through phone books now glide over i-pod touch as we don head phones to make certain we're not sharing the experience while our ears are assaulted by noise accompanied by lyrics either repetitive or boring.  Ah, but what control is ours.

A case can be made that limiting each Twitter to 140 characters is working a remarkable hardship on both our language and the people who use it.  With class warfare a reality as we gird ourselves for six more months of the White House Marathon, is it possible that further class warfare is developing between the Facebookers, the Tweeters and the Bloggers?  As a member of the Blogging class, I'm in what is probably a second tier aristocracy of computer communications bearing in mind the significance of Pulitzer-winning Huffington Post, Politico, the Daily Beast and others of the upper echelon.  On the other hand, the often misinformed and misguided production by Tweeters and Facebookers is staggering and we won't even discuss the tearing asunder of our language largely through laziness.

Since this is an era in which we place almost all screw-ups at the feet of the President, I think it quite likely that John F. Kennedy bears some responsibility for all that is going wrong with fast communications spelling although his sentence structure was, largely, exemplary with a good sense of rhythm.  Kennedy, as we have learned, was a terrible speller and purposely wrote illegibly when he couldn't come up with correct spelling.  Let us now refer to all lack of legibility as a Kennedystroke.

Online dating, of which Kennedy had no need had there been such a thing more than 50 years ago, is a strange term since the socializing is done offline.  It is, perhaps, best exemplified by eHarmony whose television commercials promise tomorrow's nirvana through "matching algorithms."  For a fee, eHarmony and other pimps of the communications skyways collect information about you, crunch the numbers, then pair you with someone "prescreened for deep compatibility across 29 dimensions."  As Ohio University professor of economics William Fenzel once told me: "garbage in, garbage out."

The dubious science of matchmaking is getting a lot of criticism these days.  Eli J. Finkel, an associate professor of social psychology at Northwestern University and Benjamin R. Karney, whose professorship is at the University of California, Los Angeles, have just published a critical article in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest.  The study they and three others in the field produced suggests that 80 years of what makes people romantically compatible runs counter to the claims made by the eHarmonies.

Predicting compatibility is at best shaky made even more so since the sites fail to collect, according to the authors, some highly crucial information including job loss, financial strain, infertility and illness.  Research indicates people tend to have difficult romantic relationships if they are emotionally volatile, were mistreated as children or abuse drugs or alcohol.  The romantic brokers say dating pool eliminations are made (four marriages and you're out) but, once gain, garbage in, garbage out if lies are told.

The matchmaking people may have an even larger problem.  With Twitter and Facebook achieving such enormous use, are people simply forgoing the sometimes awkward adventures made possible by the eHarmonies and doing end runs around the panderers?

Knowing there is nothing quite as absorbing as a boy meets girl story and curious about how quick communications might be utilized, I chanced upon what writers of film scripts would be inclined to regard as a likely Woody Allen plot.

Author, public speaker and CEO of something called Buyosphere, Tara (last name Hunt) began showing up all over the Internet a few years ago as Miss Rogue.  I learned this through due diligence that also produced Carlos (last name Pacheco), a character whose perfect realization could be achieved in a delicious Latin fashion by Woody Allen, now a bit long in the tooth for the part but, hey, Woody likes young women.

Carlos began noticing Tara and her triumphs in seemingly anything Montreal or, as he eventually learned, San Francisco, Silicone Valley, New York and, probably, Poughkeepsie.  Tara gets around having spoken at 126 worldwide conferences while traveling more than 476,000 miles.  One of her major Blogging efforts was the unforgettable HorsePigCow and her authorship includes The Wuffie Factor.   As late night TV host Jack Paar used to say: "I kid you not."

In all honesty, there is something voyeuristic about checking out someone like Tara, a very attractive 38-year-old Canadian recently profiled by Joanne Wilson, otherwise known as Gotham Gal.  Photos (found elsewhere) by Eva Blue added to her mystique and Carlos, who lives in Montreal, became intrigued--particularly since Tara had returned there from San Francisco.  One of the Blue photos is partcularly arresting.  It features whipped cream and an interestingly tattooed Tara.

While it's not clear who made the first move, it is certain Tara and Carlos are self-described "slight Tweeters," a term that certainly qualifies as a major oxymoron.  Upping the romantic ante, they first dabbled in Facebook, then consummated some solid back and forth Tweets during which he learned Tara's first major Internet identification was Miss Rogue, not to be confused with Sarah Palin.

Carlos (Woody Allen) was suddenly struck by disaster in the form of his Facebook account being hjacked by co-workers.  The timing, two days prior to Valentine's Day, would have been disastrous except for a fortuitous Twitter sent by Tara and detailed by Carlos in his  Blog of 2012/02/14.  Tara, a party-giver of considerable renown in addition to her other talents, was into the details of a VD party (not what you think) that turned out to be a screening of Casablanca which the cinematically deprived Carlos had never seen.  He did go, however, although he did not speak to the formidable Tara who, according to his highly confessional Blog was simply having pity on him.  True to form, he did not see all of Casablanca but he did like the '20s theater.

According to Carlos, once there I saw her from afar, she was breathtaking (a photo is offered) & surrounded by at least half a dozen friends.  At that point all that courage escaped and my shyness took over.  Also, the last thing I wanted to be was that geeky fanboy from the Internet that showed up alone.  Readers of a bygone era--particularly those who believe Casablanca the greatest movie of all, must be shocked, shocked in the realization that male readers of the Playboy Forum would have handled this one differently.

Aware of Carlos' social shortcomings, good sport Tara invited him to a neighborhood food-discrawl which took on heightened importance as I reminded myself that all this unrequited foolishness was taking place in Montreal, a city where food is as important as women to Hugh Hefner for whom I had toiled more than once in, of all places, Montreal.

Carlos is interesting and may be a split personality who on his Blog describes himself as "a social media voyeur, part-time jogger, reformed hard core gamer, sometimes Blogger and...."  Then, again, he may be putting us on.

We are indebted to Blogger Brad McCarty, managing editor of The Next Web who describes himself as a music and tech junkie living in Nashville and who picked up on what surely had to be the passive Carlos' last shot at Tara.  According to McCarty, Carlos engaged something called the Gowalla Message Service, then planted Gowalla's notes to Tara all over Montreal eventually taking her on a walking date of four hours about which there are no details.  Some of those notes may have been particularly interesting but I guess we'll never know.  Somehow, I can't see Woody Allen doing all that walking.  A series of cab rides makes more sense.

McCarty adds: "The two have stayed together ever since, presently celebrating six months of a relationship together."

                                                #    #    #    #

Some afterthoughts about my communications prowl: While "awesome" retains its position as the most over-used word by the lazy, "amazing" is moving up.  The computer and its various family members make it possible for us to be open books.  Frankly, I prefer at least a little mystery.    

Going the Statue Mile....by Bob Sanders

 

Understanding judgments by and of the art world these days is, as Johnny Carson used to say, "a caution."  There are times when even Carson's Karnak the Magnificent would be mystified.

Americans get increasingly stirred up over art with statues still leading the league.  Take the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, still looking for a dedication date after the scheduled one was washed out by Hurricane Irene.  Administered by the National Park Service, the memorial's design was awarded ROMA Design Group from among 900.  Cost of the project, named the Stone of Hope, is $120 million with all but $8 million raised by the end of last year.  Among the public donors are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Walt Disney Company Foundation, the National Association of Realtors (perhaps, making amends for yellow and red lining activities of past members), and filmmaker George Lucas.

The ROMA people saved $8 million by having the memorial made in China, perhaps a mistake if you agree with questioning letters to editors, angry blogs, and the twittering brilliance of the uninformed.  It was the China angle that really set people on a bumptious outpouring initiated in 2006 when Lei Yixin was announced sculptor of the memorial's centerpiece.  One of the loudest voices was that of human rights activist Harry Wu who complained that Lei had once sculpted Mao.  This is something like leveling artistic criticism against David Zucker for directing O.J. Simpson in two sequels of Naked Gun.

The China critics are vehement in their belief that the memorial to the iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in America falls short of what was anticipated.  They include a number of African-American artists and let's not forget the Washington area local of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers union screaming about the Chinese laborers factor.  They came into play after the foundation gave written promises to use local stonemasons.

While this country loses world ranking in nearly every aspect of human endeavor, there is no questioning its unique ability to screw things up like no other.  We learned Wednesday that we're down to #41 in maternal health.

Even the selection of granite was fraught with frustration.  That was in 2008 when the memorial design team took an inspection tour of China and determined that its granite is superior to ours.

Oh, yes.  There were complaints that the King sculpture was "Chinese looking."  This slant-eyed business has been bruited about before and there is nothing like an Asian-appearing Mickey Mouse or Martin Luther King to rile us up.  Other complaints about Yixin's work use such words as "weak," "communist roots," and, most damaging of all, "too white."

Money, of course, reared its repugnant head with revelations the King family had negotiated, among other things, an $800,000 licensing deal for the use of Dr. King's words and image in fundraising materials for the memorial.  That was two years ago and the Kings have been increasingly involved including approval of the statue.  

Oddly enough, there have been almost no complaints about the statue's body language.  Those who know about such things tell us 55 per cent of our communications are done that way, a commentary all its own regarding the 29 ft. King statue so tied to his "I Have a Dream" speech.  King is depicted with arms folded across his chest while clutching a scroll of papers, not the more appropriate Bible.  There are words the body language people use to describe such a pose: "nervous," "negative," insecure," and "uncertain."  None apply to Dr. King.

Significant objects of aggravation are statues of Civil War Confederate generals whose activities, during what they called the war between the states, continue to be criticized by those usually located north (but hardly exclusively) of the Mason-Dixon Line.

A bizarre statue, made of fiberglass, is located seven miles south of Nashville on Route I-65.  Seated on a horse and brandishing a sword, Gen. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, thought by many historians the best cavalry general of the war, also is honored by 32 dedicated historical markers in his name.  If he sounds vaguely familiar, Forrest is referenced by the Tom Hanks character in Forrest Gump when he explains the person he was named after belonged to a "club" that rode horses and "dressed up as ghosts."  After the war, Nathaniel Bedford Forrest became  the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

While searching for further information, I recalled an email received some four years ago from a San Juan Islander who had moved to Nashville.  Prior to retirement, Richard Baker, a former City of Los Angeles Fire Department Commander, had acquired an interesting gig following a debilitating injury.  He became a one-man link between motion picture production and the fire department when filming involved fires.  His wife was a Los Angeles cop who looked a great deal like Angie Dickenson, not a bad-looking cop impersonator.

Baker's message of four years past mentioned a desire to get involved in military re-enactments that would honor a great-grandfather who had served the Confederacy.  By Googling Nashville Richard Baker, I came up with all manner of information about my friend including details of an upcoming "Living History Skirmish" involving the Blues vs the Greys, a rivalry exceeded only by the Yankees vs Red Sox.  Baker, a colonel in something called the Friends of Fort Negley, looks very spiffy in a large collection of pictures accompanied by copy indicating that His Spiffiness and Fort Negley pals in uniform are in a 20th Century Fox film to be released next spring.  Shot near New Orleans, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was directed by Timur Naruakhitovich Bakmambetov and produced by Tim Burton, whose name has been associated with vampires before.

The plot of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter begs further understanding of Hollywood creativity.  Honest Abe's mother is killed by a supernatural creature thus fueling a passion for crushing vampires and their slave-owning helpers.  On the off chance that the film is partly historically accurate, Abe was nine when his mother died.  With such an ax to grind, it's easy to understand how the future rail-splitter & President could become adept with such a weapon providing the film's creators the opportunity to have a uniquely-armed Lincoln chasing vampires at a very early age.  Oh, yes.  The script is based upon Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies whose origins are the Jane Austin novel.  (Note to readers: That may have been the strangest paragraph I've ever written. R.H.S.)

Further exploration of the upcoming September 24 skirmish reveals it will be between the Confederate 8th Tennessee Cavalry and the Federal 13th Colored Troop.  The latter is one of three black units massacred by troops led by future KKK Grand Wizard Gen. Nathaniel Bedford Forrest likely causing interested observers to wonder if black face will be donned in the re-enactment.  Called "one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history," by historian David J. Eicher, the Fort Pillow Massacre occurred 40 miles north of Memphis.

In its April 24, 1864 edition, the New York Times reported but 20 of 400 soldiers survived the slaughter.  Most historians say the Federal troops had already surrendered.  Perhaps filmmaker Burton could arrange a re-write of history with a politically correct vampire turning the military tables on Nathaniel Bedford Forrest who, by the by, would be shocked to learn how many times his fiberglass statue, now six years old, has suffered the indignity of bullets fired from passing cars.  On the subject of munitions, Forrest had three horses shot out from under him the day of the massacre.

There's a connection between Gen. Forrest and Martin Luther King.  Jack Kershaw, a  wealthy lawyer who provided the land and built the statue of Forrest (accompanied by Confederate flags), was the same guy who defended James Earl Ray, King's killer.  That was before Ray fired him in favor of conspiracy theorist Mark Lane.  Kershaw's dismissal was due to his arranging an interview of his client by Playboy magazine for which the attorney was paid an unshared $11,000.  The lawyer's 27-ft. monstrosity is both aesthetically and politically incorrect and has joined the ranks of such Tennessee roadside attractions as the First Church of the Elvis Impersonator, the Museum of Appalachia (don't miss the Apocalypse Signage), the Dinosaur Walk Museum, and the Museum of Salt & Pepper Shakers.

Statues of Civil War generals almost always display them riding a horse.  Yankee General Philip Henry Sheridan was no exception as Trevor Wilson, a particularly free-spirited San Francisco Giants pitcher, learned.  As certain as 60 ft., 6 inches separates home plate from the pitcher's slab, ballplayers are well-aware that lively hazing of rookies is one of the rights of spring in the major leagues.  In 1988, Wilson was honored by Wrigley Field's Bleacher Preacher, Jerry Pritikin.  Dressed in white robes and carrying his Ten Fanmandments of Baseball, the Preacher presented a plaque to Wilson commending him "for his courageous assault against the statue of Civil War General Philip Henry Sheridan and his horse, Winchester, above, beyond and below the call of duty in his rookie campaign."

Wilson's award as "The Most Valuable Painter" for his Lincoln Park escapade was for brushing Winchester's testicles a brilliant pink.  Wilson became a favorite of the Bleacher Bums, the feeling was mutual and word circulated that he wanted to be traded to the Chicago Cubs.  His wish was never granted.

                                                #    #    #    #     

 

Journalism & What Rupert Wrought....by Bob Sanders

 

There were a number of reasons why I became a journalist.  One of the major factors was the great many films I saw in the 30s and 40s about newspapers and those who reported, wrote and edited them.  Some actors were better than others; they included Lee Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Walter Connolly, and Thomas Mitchell.  The latter had to be good since that was his job before he became an actor.  Oh, yes.  Let's not forget Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, so magnificent in His Girl Friday.

The reel-life journalists were a rough and tumble bunch seeking truth while peppering audiences with cynicism as they fought the good fight--usually against crime.  The transition from the voyeurism film offered to my real world was conditioned first by the Depression, then World War II.  Readers felt a fondness for "their" newspaper much as the baseball fan owned allegiance to the local team.  Reporters and their sometimes enemies, editors including those on the copy desk, were full of wisecracks.  They drank during and after work, appeared to be having a lot of fun, and eight-hour working days were rare.  That was then and this is, unfortunately, now.

What is now is Rupert Murdoch; journalism, already in a horrendous slump, has been delivered a thumping of no particular surprise.  The public, seemingly inured to trashy tabloid publications, the paparazzi and identity misrepresentation by members of the press, has become enormously offended by Murdoch's phone hacking practiced upon a wide range of folks running from the totally un-connected to at least one political family and, yes, even the royals.

Journalism ethics in the old days, while relatively simple, were really a display of good manners.  If a reporter was assigned to a homicide, it was imperative that a picture of the deceased be obtained for the early edition.  If the victim had been a cheer leader, so much the better had such a shot existed.  If a family member was on the scene, a request was made.  If not, a picture on a mantle might be temporarily borrowed.  Sometimes the "borrowing" was better described as "pilfering" but there were always people in photo or editorial to remind the borrower to return the picture.  Indiscretion rarely went deeper.  Back in the 50s during my employ, Cleveland Press reporter Howard "Bus" Bergen went quite a bit further when he stole papers from a judge's chambers.  Bergen  left the Press although I found a picture on line taken in 1965 that identified him as a Press employee.

Bergen, about whom the word "colorful" was not nearly descriptive enough, was the subject of a particularly unusual Big Story segment in which the reporter was given "Forty Minutes to Meet a Deadline."  Covering a killing, the Bergen radio version found the intrepid reporter absolving a man of his wife's rat poison murder.  The July 25, 1951 30-minute drama (hey, that was just 60 years ago) had many fascinating features including a cocker spaniel who helped Bergen solve the crime.  Brad Parker played the dog, Robert Sloane was the narrator and the stirring voice of Melville Ruick was heard in two roles.  Bergen's subsequent appearances in the City Room occasioned a great deal of barking.  For those interested in journalism of a non-Murdoch variety, read Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart by John H. Tidyman.  All about Cleveland journalism, it's long on those who worked in the 60s and later.  Alas, the more vivid Press characters of the 50s including such stalwarts as Louis Seltzer, Winsor French, Byron "Shorty" Filkins, and Jack Warfel (they preceeded Tidyman's employ) are neglected.

The hoax was another deviation although considered more fun and games than anything else.  Perhaps the greatest hoaxer of them all was Sanford Jarrell who, for five days in 1924, kept a story on the front page of the New York Herald Tribune.  "Uncle Sanford," a relative by marriage previously acknowledged in this space, titillated readers about a fabulous mystery ship featuring gambling, Niagaras of Prohibition liquor and ladies of the evening who danced on tables.  Jarrell had phoned in all five days worth--mostly from a bar not far from the paper.  The hoax is largely revered today much like baseball's "spitter" to pitchers.  No one got hurt although a case can be made regarding hitter's averages.

Back when, the most basic ethical rule of journalistic thumb involved identity.  If the person at the other end of a call asked if you were a cop, the game was over and you had to identify yourself.  That also went for wandering into a police station's prosecutor's office while trying to look like a representative of the law as a prosecutor asked questions of a possible miscreant.

The relationship between cops and journalists in this country should be, and largely is, of arm's length.  Advantages are there for both, but the coziness that has characterized Murdoch's association with politicians and police in the U.K. is nothing more than an ill-concealed push for power.  The U.K.'s mature politics (short campaigns and wise spending limits) are in sharp contrast to the U.S. where a Supreme Court decision has made it even more possible to buy an election.  In the U.K., Murdoch and the rest of the press have become what George W. Bush used to proclaim himself: "The Decider."

I twice managed to miss being a Murdoch minion.  The first escape (totally inadvertent) occurred in 1968 when I went to work for Hugh Hefner having toiled 13 years for TV Guide.  It took Murdoch, a man with a voracious appetite for anything print, another 20 years but he bought Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications for $3 billion.  TV Guide, Triangle's most successful publication in 1988, had a circulation of 17.2 million.  It turned out to be a bad buy.

It was in the very late winter of 1980 that I became aware of beautification efforts being accorded what had become the Chicago Sun-Times Building.  It had been the Daily News/Sun-Times Building until owner Marshall Field V folded the Daily News much to the consternation of anyone who knew anything about journalism.  That was early in 1978 and Chicago shed a collective tear.

A first floor feature of the Sun-Times Building (it was razed in 2005 to make room for Trump International Hotel and Towers) was the production plant observed through enormous plate glass.  It may seem a bit strange these .com days, but people loved to walk those roughly 250 feet to watch presses humming while turning out the news of the day.  Suddenly, the tramped-in Chicago slush was being mopped, yet snow was still falling.  This was decidedly un-like Marshall Field, not known as a big spender.  Something was going on, the place was being prettified, and I soon became convinced it was up for sale.

Murdoch was the likely buyer and I had heard enough about him to realize I would be better off across Michigan Avenue at the Chicago Tribune. I had something like 10 years to go before retirement and I wanted to make the best of those years.  I made the move in November of that year thanks to Trib editor Max McCrohon and others and recall so vividly being bellowed about by Sun-Times  VP and Advertising/Marketing Director Chuck Fegert.  We were walking on opposite sides of an idyllic path that connected the Sun-Times to Boul Mich and the Tribune: "there he is, folks, it's the incredible Bob Sanders, a legend in his own lifetime."  Fegert, a damp luncheon pal, was then married to actress Barbara Eden and I've just made a promise to myself (and you) to write soon about how Chuck used Barbara to nail your faithful scribe with a supremely administered "gotcha" at the Shoreham Hotele in Washington, D.C.

Murdoch did buy the Sun-Times  in January, 1984 and it was columnist Mike Royko who drew a line in the sand by referring to the new owner as "The Alien."  As only Royko could phrase it, "no self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper."  An Australian by birth, Murdoch had become a U.S. citizen to qualify for U.S. ownership amidst applause from anti-immigration Reagan Administration conservatives.

Royko moved to the Tribune suggesting that Murdoch was "not interested in quality journalism.  His goal is vast power for Rupert Murdoch, political power."  It must be terribly tempting these days for the Sun-Times to re-run those Royko columns as the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal threatens to leap across the pond and torch Fox News and other News Corp. properties.

In a remarkably short time, Murdoch's lurid approach to U.K. print journalism is in tatters with 10 people arrested and two major police officers resigned while authorities wonder if the hacking of voicemails of a child murder victim and medical records of an ex-prime minister's child with cystic fibrosis is just for openers?  Oh, yes.  Murdoch's News of the World  no longer publishes and then there's that remarkably ill-timed discovery of a journalist/whistle blower's dead body.  This story simply goes on and on with no end in sight.  It is contemporary Shakespeare.

An investigation of News Corp. (or any firm, for that matter) has to get inside the culture that affects or permeates it.  It's always there--often in very large doses.  Sometimes, as in the case of Playboy, for whom I worked (1968-71), decisions probably continue to be made largely on the basis of a question: How would Hefner handle this one?

In the case of Murdoch's organization, it's difficult to imagine that a product man didn't know that his editorial staffers were doing unusually nasty and illegal things.  One can understand Murdoch not knowing everything about a printing press or the hiring practices of one of his art departments but not something as intrinsic as the product.  Murdoch, pure and simple, is an editorial man and his not knowing what was going on in that most important department makes as much sense as Hefner not knowing the vital statistics of Miss October, the one with the pumpkins.

It was fascinating to see the Murdochs testifying--particularly when the subject of "willful blindness" was introduced.  Again proclaiming ignorance as a non-lawyer,  the junior member of Team Murdoch expressed confusion over the term as though it was something as confounding as scatological Sanskrit.  What in hell could it mean other than the very obvious?  The senior Murdoch denied association with the term.

Anyone who doesn't think this is an insane world also might take into consideration the fact that Wendi, Rupert's Chinese trophy wife, threw what appeared to be a Kung Fu chop at a guy attempting to shaving cream pie her husband during testimony before Parliament.  As the Dragon Lady's athleticism was being displayed on U.S. TV, Senate Democrats were attempting to sell Obama's approach to the debt limit by pointing out that Ronald Reagan had raised it 18 times during his Presidency.

                                                    #    #    #    #  

      

 

Moontunes....by Bob Sanders

I guess I could blame it on the moon.

Like most people, I'm inclined to take celestial matters with a grain of exotic particles or whatever it is that floats up there.  Too much is going on down here including the nuclear problems in Japan, the war in Libya, an Africa that never seems to get a break, the world's economy, cancer and other threats that could end this, otherwise, best of no host parties.

Immediately prior to last Saturday I had felt a bit guilty about not paying reasonable attention to a moon that was about to come closer than anytime in the past 18 years.  At a distance of 221,566 miles, it would be 17,291 miles closer than the 338,857 average as it apogees much like an old "Rip" Sewell Blooper Pitch.  Further, it would be 30% brighter and appear nearly 15% larger.

A very unusual thing happened shortly after 3 a.m. as the moon neared its greatest brilliance.  I'll call it both strange and wondrous and it happened after I had taken a look at the moon having awakened for who knows why?  It may have been Costco's Minh pork and vegetable egg rolls.  Without question, what followed easily qualifies as the most unusual thing to ever happen to me and I've been around the track more than a couple times.

First, you should know that I'm a frustrated non-musician.  By that, I mean I can't read music while firmly believing that I should have pursued such a career.   When you've been around nearly 85 years, you get to understand yourself.

People who know me are inclined to be impressed by the amount of popular music and lyrics I can hum and quote.  I won't bore you with for instances, but take my word.  I guess the most impressive thing musically I can tell you about myself is that I fathered an outstanding musician, tenor saxophonist Brian Sanders, good enough to play in the bands of Woody Herman and Glenn Miller.  Maybe something of me rubbed off? 

At any rate, I looked at the moon's impressive grandeur, then went back to bed.  I couldn't sleep, a common occurrence, then fell back on the tried and true: running music through my head.  Very often, I find quiescent success through the artistry of Duke Ellington with a heavy emphasis on his brilliant co-creator, Billy Strayhorn.  Among my favorites are "Chelsea Bridge," "Lotus Blossom," "Day Dream," "Passion Flower," and any of the suites written with Ellington including The Queen's Suite, The Far East Suite, and Such Sweet Thunder.  Working almost 30 years in near-anonymity as Ellington's collaborator, Strayhorn, who died in 1964, is now being recognized as one of the great figures of jazz.

It was David Hajdu who, in 1996, published the definitive book about Strayhorn.  Titled Lush Life, it's the story of Ellington's relationship with him, the young man's difficulties involving being gay, and his long-running love affair with singer Lena Horne.  It's sad, yet full of triumphs.  When Strayhorn died, Ellington said: "Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine."

Continuing my attempt to return to slumber, I went straight to a lesser composition, "Something to Live For," a tune Strayhorn submitted to Ellington shortly after meeting him in 1938 and five years after he had begun its writing.  Ellington hired him on the basis of it.  Recalling Dick Hieronymus, a San Juan Island musician friend who eight years ago based a relatively short and gorgeous piece on the chords of J. Fred Coots' "You Go to My Head," I determined to explore "Something to Live For" to see what I could "compose" using the tune as a musical canvas.  My goal was to turn it into something classical.  What followed I can only describe as an experience of another world.  I was astonished to hear a remarkable series of variations first on the seven title notes plus the next 11 assembled gems.  What was startling was the flow of it all totaling three movements, the third beginning as a pizzicato that involved far more violins than Frank Sinatra ever dreamed demanding of Tommy Dorsey when the singer realized he was selling more tickets than the trombone-playing bandleader.

The three movements totaled something like 30 minutes and were better than damn good.  While composition ideas were expanded upon, there were no repeats.  It just went on and on in a kind of seamless Strayhorn-going-for-Debussy fashion.  While my recollections of past recordings have almost always been note-for-note (a good example would be Dave Lambert and Buddy Stewart's "What's This?" with the Gene Krupa band), my prior musical adventures had largely been a matter of "copying" rather than "writing" original material.  My overwhelming challenge in "hearing/composing" original stuff is that it would last for, maybe, a half-minute or so only to lapse into something that had already been written.

Eerily, and this is important, the music quickly produced the overwhelming feeling that this wasn't "my" music nor was I anything more than the recipient of it.  I simply let it wash over me figuring I had to have been gifted by someone or some thing that far exceeded anything I could accomplish even blessed with the kind of composition smarts I don't have.  Had the classically-trained Billy Strayhorn ever expanded upon "Something to Live For" calling upon knowledge first gained at the Pittsburgh Musical Institute?  Maybe he did after the tune was recorded in 1939 by what is considered the greatest of Ellington bands, an accolade of near unanimity by jazz aficionados.  The major factors: outstanding musicians and the elegance Strayhorn brought to the orchestra.

If this was something defying logic, why had I been singled out?  As a kid I used to search for Ellington records in a black-owned record shop in Cleveland.  Then, while majoring in journalism at Ohio University, I had used Duke's "Take the A Train" (written by Strayhorn) as a theme on my WOUN jazz record show called "Swing Express."  Could those facts and a great love over the years for Ellington's music been enough?  How did the moon and my look at it figure into what, obviously, was paranormal?

Mankind has always been fascinated by the moon and songwriters have taken their shots through various uses of the lovely lunar.  The brilliant but brittle Dorothy Parker came up with lyrics to "I Wished on the Moon" for the film, Big Broadcast of 1936 while Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini's "Moon River" was nearly excised from Breakfast at Tiffany's by a tone deaf Paramount Pictures president.  Chevy Chase, always going for a laugh, whistled Mercer's tune while having his rectum examined in Fletch (1985).  "Moon River" by the way, was originally titled "Blue River."  There's a river outlet near Mercer's home in Savannah, Goergia.  It's now named after the song.     

The moon has been declared looney ("Oh, You Crazy Moon"), invasive ("The Moon Got in My Eyes"), voodooish ("Old Devil Moon"), and a means of offering contrast (Moon Over Buffalo).  The latter is a very funny Ken Ludwig play starring Carol Burnett.  The play's title suggests Buffalo is hardly Miami as in "Moon Over Miami" and, it's logical to question, can chicken wings possibly be compared to flamingos?  Two song writers, Fred Ahlert and Leslie Edgar, even declared "The Moon Was Yellow" and you are under firm orders to catch up with Ethel Ennis' 1963 recording of that one.

Lyricist Lorenz Hart had a different color in mind when he wrote "Blue Moon," a song with four lives.  Based in Hollywood, Hart and Richard Rodgers experienced the tune stricken from two films.  The second was Manhattan Melodrama (1934) when what eventually became "Blue Moon" was called "It's Just that Kind of Play."  Re-worked, the song then became "The Bad in Every Man" and was sung by Shirley Ross in blackface.  A deserved failure, the song was dismissed, then rescued by MGM executive Jack Robbins who licensed the song to "Hollywood Hotel," a popular radio show.  Hart was talked into writing a fourth set of lyrics and that's how "Blue Moon, I saw you standing alone" finally came to be.

All of the above is exactly how it happend in its "Twilight Zone" way.  Just what produced my momentary "possession" of what I am convinced is Billy Strayhorn's extended development of "Something to Live For" is for greater minds than mine.  Perhaps music is something that never dies even after all the sheet music, vinyl records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, YouTubes, I-Pods, and whatever else is down the road no longer exist.  Maybe it will always be out there waiting for someone fortunate enough to hear it.

Oh, yes.  Thanks, Billy, for your gift.  I hope there's a next time.

                                              #    #    #    #

Blarney Google....by Bob Sanders

 

A highly personal survey of little breadth and depth has been conducted by your trenchant observer and my overwhelming conclusion is that while Google gathers an impressive amount of information, that information is becoming increasingly difficult to access.  My point of reference is purely about what I write proving, once again, that there is nothing like the one-person survey. 

It's not that I want to be unnecessarily critical of Google because I don't know enough about cyberspace to form any reasonable attitudes.  I'd be on much firmer ground telling Sarah Palin how to shoot a moose.  On the other hand, I do have questions.

For starters, I'm perfectly amenable to admit that I blog myself.  I'm sure it's partly an ego thing but that wouldn't be a consideration were it not for TypePad under whose auspices I write after paying them $50 or whatever a year.  I write because I like to write and if anyone out there wants to take a look, so be it.  In another life of lesser freedom, I got paid but there were usually unfortunate accompanying factors including editors, copy readers, and space limitations; the latter a constant reminder of how vastly amusing it is today that far too many people cannot put together two paragraphs that make some sort of sense and that any possible literary merit contained in a twitter is highly unlikely because of the 140 characters (or whatever it is?) limit.  Shakespeare and some others with pen in hand have rendered some pretty compelling short lines. "To be or not to be" comes to mind as being of less than the twitter maxim and it's possible that twittering twits believe that brevity is the soul of twits.  No doubt we should remind ourselves that Will and others also had a decent handle on spelling without the benefit of a spell check often disregarded today.

TypePad can tell me each day how many "hits" I get and on what pieces.  Thus far, as I approach the end of my third year while still in search of a muse, my most popular columns have been about Hugh Hefner and a flying ape, Playmate Paige Young, Forest Tucker, Jean Shepherd, and retired film director Andrew McLaglen.  One day I got 90 hits on the McLaglen piece, a personal high.

Googling myself is somewhat reminiscent of searching for time share possibilities.  It was easy in the early stages of that game.  A year's advance search usually was sufficient with southern France, the Greek islands, and anywhere in Italy Blake Griffin slam dunks.  Even southern California was available for masochists.  Suddenly, it was a numbers game as time shares became more popular while new resorts and b&bs failed to keep pace. 

That's the way it has been for me lately.  As seemingly reliable as unending ocean waves, the Google information gathering goes on and on while shoving the once easily-retrieved (my stuff) to positions of increasing difficulty.  What used to be comfortably located on page six or earlier apparently is now in some kind of cyber netherworld.  Maybe a clue like: "you're on page 117" would be helpful.

Good news arrived the other day when the Indianapolis Colts released the highly-skilled but often-injured Bob Sanders.  A wide-ranging defensive back, Sanders not only shares my name but winds up in what I consider "my space."  Let's get this straight, Google.  There's Bob Sanders who used to tackle for the Colts and the one with the same name who writes out of Bellingham, WA.

I  dislike being critical of Google, a first love of sorts since I've never really embraced any other search engine.  A Microsoft person, I'm within kissing distance of Bing but until the other day inclined to regard it as something likely  promoting cherries or America's first pop singer.  Bing is Microsoft's recent venture into the search biz once again proving that it's better to be late than sorry.  Most revealing in my uneasy relationship with Google occurred the other day while searching unsuccessfully for Sanford Jarrell, the black sheep of the journalistic Jarrell family.

I never met Sanford but he was always (still is) Uncle Sanford to me.  That was because my second wife, prior to our marriage, was Mary ("Mickey") Jarrell Sheridan and Uncle Sanford the possessor of unique fame.  It was Sanford who pulled off what journalists consider one of the great all-time newspaper hoaxes and, maybe, the best.

Let us at this point examine two quite different shadings of newspaper hoaxes.  One kind is perpetrated, usually by the talent-challenged, to keep a career going through cheating.  Newspaper hooligans Janet Cook, ex of the Washington Post,  and Jason Blair, formerly of the New York Times, are examples.  Both plagiarized the work of others while Sanford's approach was much more creative and done during those times when editors were known to encourage reporting that, while highly readable, sometimes skirted the truth.

The year was 1924 when the reportorial reprobate of the Jarrell family gained more fame than his two ink-stained brothers, Jack and Arch.  Employed by the New York Herald Tribune,  Sanford titillated readers with a series of five front page reports about a fabulous gambling ship off Fire Island beyond the 12-mile limit.  The ship, the Friedrich der Grosse, came complete with ladies of the evening who danced on tables amid Niagaras of liquor.  Sanford's only clue concerning the veracity of the series came from a red-headed flapper who reportedly shouted an unlikely comment: "This is an epic lark."

The story was a series of falsehoods originating in Jarrell's fervid imagination.  He had phoned all of it in--mostly from a bar not far from the paper.  He lost his job, became an itinerant newsman, and died in a fire caused by smoking.  Time magazine's obituary included a picture of the Herald Tribune's  play of Sanford's entertaining deceit.  His call-in coverage had produced a first-day headline reading: "Wine, Women, Jazz and Revelry Turn Night to Day on Mystery Ship."  Those were Prohibition days when thirsts were parched by illegal booze.  The only real harm was to Sanford.

One evening in 1978 while employed by Field Enterprises, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, I was having dinner with the paper's managing editor, Stuart Loory.  Present were our wives and the conversation turned to Loory's work for Sanford Jarrell's old paper, the Herald Tribune.  Warming to his subject, Loory (currently a professor of Magazine Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism) delved into Uncle Sanford's accomplishment and remarked: "That was the magnificent hoax of all newspaper hoaxes.  It was pulled off in remarkable fashion by a reporter named Sanford Jarrell."

Warming to Loory's chortling enthusiasm, I said: "Stuart, my friend, you are sitting next to the niece of Sanford, the black sheep of the Jarrell family."  Loory was impressed.  Mickey beamed and we hoisted one to Sanford.  In toasting the juiced journalist, we concluded he had upheld at least half of a once popular publishing dictum: "Liquor is the curse of the Herald Tribune and sex is the bane of the Times."

The newspaper hoax is, curiously enough, of little interest to Google.  About all you'll find are brief if not downright dull snippets.  Perhaps the best is H.L. Mencken's fun with the bathtub.  Titled "A Neglected Anniversary," his column recounted a rich history of the bathtub in which President Millard Fillmore was the first chief executive to bathe in a White House tub--probably the most exciting thing to happen to him in his term of office except that everything in the column was untrue.  It took a long time for America to dissuade itself of Mencken's collection of bathtub "truths."

While completely ignoring Uncle Sanford's 1924 exploits, Google does manage to examine the rather tame Chicago Pigeon Killing Hawk hoax initiated by the Chicago Journal, and promulgated in bizarre fashion by a suddenly zealous Chicago Tribune.  Chicago had been put in an uproar by a Journal reporter whose story about a predatory chickenhawk prompted similar revelations by other Chicago dailies then numbering six.  Hunting parties roamed Second City streets.  Where was the hawk, when would it strike again and how about those Boy Scouts joining the search?

Ignoring the pigeon killing hawk for newspapers then was like cable and network news today taking a pass on Charlie Sheen and so it was that Journal  editor William J. Finnegan ordered a serial be written for his paper.  His problem: no self-respecting reporter was willing probably because word that the giant pigeon-killing hawk might be a hoax was being bruited about.  Finnegan wrote the series later calling it "trash."  More than 80 years of investigative journalism have passed and it appears that one large hawk did kill a pigeon although it is uncertain whether or not a hoax had actually occurred. 

Having been disappointed by Google, I turned to other search engines including Yahoo Search, Lycos, Sphere and Bing.  Pay dirt was mine with the latter and I was able to punch up some past stories about such worthies as Ronald Reagan, Carol Burnett, Sun-Times editorial cartoonist John Fischetti, Fourth Corner jazz singer Trish Hatley, Walter Annenberg, Elliott Roosevelt, Larry King and others I've had the good fortune to know.

So far I've failed to meet Sarah Palin but, as that old song by Harry Revel and Mack Gordon goes: "You Can't Have Everything."  

                                                        #    #    #    #   

  

 

Phone Booths....by Bob Sanders

Phone booths are making something of a comeback if my stumbling analysis of Google responses the other day is correct.

My gleanings were the result of a game I guess most of us play on the computer.  It's the collective total of what happens when a random question of Googled or Binged or whatever and is called, at least in my parlance, "How About That?"  Being vague is part of the fun and stumping the all-knowing computer is, seemingly, impossible.  Better try to beat it at chess or, perhaps, a Japanese game.  As "Jeopardy" superstars learned the other day, the computer can't be beaten, in spite of identifying Toronto as a U.S. city.

My fact-seeking question was: "How are phone booths?"  Notice I didn't ask for something specific as in "How are things in Glocca Morra?" or "how deep is the ocean?"  Had I asked the latter, I would have learned the Pacific is 36,200 ft. at its deepest and that the Irving Berlin tune, written in 1932, contains only one line ("I'll tell you no lie.") of 15 that isn't a question.  Glocca Morra, a fictional town in Ireland created for "Finian's Rainbow," started out as Burton Lane's first line, "There's a glen in Glocca Morra," but got talked out of it to: "How are things..." by co-writer Y.A. Harburg because it was more personal.  But, then, you knew that.

My curiosity about the well-being of the once ubiquitous phone booth is of serious intent.  After all, if it weren't for the phone booth, Agent 86 of "Get Smart" wouldn't have an entrance to his workplace nor would Superman a place to change clothes.  Because of the cell phone's increasing popularity, the phone booth's diminishing numbers have given us a dodo bird warning while begging the question: are we ready to give up on the phone booth whose U.S. total numbers were lessened by half between 2000 and 2007 to below one million.  We're so casual about the matter that numbers for the past three years don't seem to exist although I didn't check in with Watson.

Providing hope is a charming story out of Westbury-sub-Mandip in Somerset, an English community (population 800) located near Bristol.  There is a single phone booth there that during recent years had fallen into disuse because of the cell phone,Twitter, Facebook and all the rest of the technical shit that is dramatically reducing face-to-face communications.  The booth had been reduced to but an average of one call per day.  What to do?

The bookish people of Westbury-sub-Mandip (let's call them Mandippers), lacking a mobile library due to poor economic conditions, put shelves in the booth and now the red beauty stands tall as a lending library where town folks line up to chat with each other and trade reading opportunities.

Phone booths in Russia offer an opportunity to artists.  In Petrozavedsk, for example, an artist has transformed small and boring open-to-the-public booths into sharks heads with wide-open mouths.  The Russian sense of humor has come into play with the Petrozavedsks now spending more time taking pictures of people being eaten by sharks than they ever did wrestling bears after consuming a proper amount of vodka.

Telekom Austria, the owner of 13,500 phone booths, is keeping them all, thank you very much, and last year converted 30 to electric vehicle charging stations.  A veritable rain in Spain of electric phone booths is happening in Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville while even China is getting into the act although the country didn't have many phone booths to begin with.  At last report, the country is considering turning them into Wi-fi hotspots although something may have been lost in translation with the use of the word "hotspot" since the reference might be to Sacha sauce, a blistering condiment used on hot dogs.  If so, Wi-fi hot dog stands are something of a stretch but the Chinese are unpredictable 

Leave it to the French for unique inspiration.  A few years ago, promoters of the Lyon Light Festival turned a phone booth into an aquarium bringing attention not only to light but, also, that old French expression: "Let there be fish."

And, in a world both digitized and Hans Brinker-ized, the Dutch, as we know, are innovative far beyond sticking fingers in dikes.  Aware of the importance cell phones often play in linking customers with denizens of Amsterdam's Red Light District while acknowledging the decline of the phone booth in such matters, Amsterdam's nicotine-prone Dutch now have converted some booths from phoning to smoking to help kill a little time.

As gawkers are aware, prostitutes in the District display their wares in store windows proving that it pays to advertise.  A rumor persists that one of the more aggressive District business partisans has suggested that all-glass "small exhibition" phone booths be tested on the outer edges of De Wallon, the largest neighborhood comprising the famed District.  Many theorists believe the converted phone booths are spot on representing the advertising equivalent of TV's 10-second spot.  Of more than passing interest is a companion rumor that the Sexmuseum on Damrak has a similar plan.

Phone booths and the number of people who can stuff themselves into one is a controversial subject in the Scottish communities of Edinburgh and Pennan.  The latter recently broke the Edinburgh mark of 14 but, hold on.  The Pennanites were all youngsters while the Edinburgh record included but two.  Can infants and dwarfs be far behind?  It's difficult to believe that a country responsible for golf and its myriad rules can't bring order to something simple like phone booth bloating?

August of last year brought a phone booth announcement by powerhouse Google, determined to make a success of its Voice Integration.  Going retro, the firm began sweeping the Nation's airports and colleges by installing dazzling red phone booths in which free calls can be made.  Powered by Internet connections, the calls are offering Google Chat competition to Skype.  I don't know how to pronounce the latter whose ownership could very well be that of Rupert Murdoch.  If true, I think I'll make it rhyme with hype rather than call it Sky-pee.  The latter sounds like something one might do at 30,000 feet.

The phone booth is definitely revered by Mennonite and Amish families in southern Maryland where a dozen eight-foot rusted metal chambers stand guard.  Called "community phones," the oil tanks-turned-phone booths link 1,600 plain people to the business world as they adapt to ever-changing times while observing their own prohibitions against home phone lines and cell phones.

Your humble reporter would be remiss without mentioning The Green Phone Booth whose cyber space writers work faster than a speeding bullet toward "a cooler, cleaner, healthier planet.'  This posse of Greenies is led by Alison, otherwise known as The Conscious Shopper.  With a wallet her principle weapon, she "challenges arch-nemesis Advertising and its sinister sidekick, Cheap Plastic Crap."  The women favor neither the phone book to change clothes nor the wearing of capes.

A venerable institution, if you're enraptured by dive bars, is The Phone Booth in San Francisco's Mission District.  Located at 25th & S. Van Ness, The Phone Booth specializes in drinks that are cheap and stiff although the draft beer selection is, according to some, lacking.  The bartenders get high marks for being funny and capable of handling unfortunate situations of rather common occurrence.

The writers of "Mad Men" might do well to catch up on what could be called a climax to this examination of phone booths.  It comes by way of a Google in which the story of a New York transvestite prostitute is told.  It seems the woman used to spend an inordinate amount of time in a bank of phone booths on the lower level of the Pix Theater located on 42nd St. between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.  It was there that she offered to practice fellatio in a booth.  Passers-by, even those on the stairway, thought nothing of the sight of a man's back seen through the booth's door window.  Further, observers could discern neither the practitioner of the sex act nor the smile on the man's face.

                                                                    #    #    #    #    

 

  

"The Cream in Woods Coffee"....by Bob Sanders

As readers of this space are aware, I have a determined desire to make the rest of the world aware of Bellingham blemishes.  The decision was made a few years ago when this country became awash with media praise suggesting Fourth Corner utopia awaited 15 miles south of the Canadian border.

Something had to be done and it had to be more than an extensive use of the city's nickname, The City of Subdued Excitement, to keep hordes of invaders, including Canadians, outside the boundaries of Whatcom County.  Mere name-calling is insufficient as proven by the failure of bumper stickers warning against Californicating our state.

Prior suggestions by your humble scribe have included: the development of a wide open White Neck Riviera north of town, a new motto, Tony Soprano's Kinda Town; and the creation of a first class public relations team whose mission would be to make America aware of, among other failings, Bellingham's excessive mopery based upon a lack of vitamin D due to insufficient sunshine.  We'll get back to that one later.

The remarkable number of Subdued City hosannas sung by the press continues.  Just the other day came word that Bellingham is now ranked seventh among small emerging markets in terms of being attractive to quick service restaurants.  Quick service is restaurant speak for what we used to call fast food until that term fell into disrepute when caloric counts were connected to our national obesity problem.  It grieves me deeply to inform the survey folks that B'ham is already over-crowded with quick service giants.  Two of them, I-HOP and Dairy Queen, recently shut down.

One means of making people think twice about moving here would emphasize the use of pop culture in creating determent.  As with every community, there are sinister forces at work whose detailed presence should be cornerstone of a rallying call of warning.  Personal attack is most effective when used in a humorous vein so let's do parodies about those who screw up our lives in Subdued City.  Popular culture, including books, songs, and film, is a great way to bring attention to people like Sam Crawford.  Chairman of the Whatcom County Council, Sam recently was described by Cascadia Weekly wit Alan Rhodes as the "Developers Homeboy and Mother Nature's Nemesis."

One obvious Crawford put down would be use of the great Budd Schulberg epic, What Makes Sammy Run?  Since many of us know what a barrel of laughs Crawford can be, let's get someone at our Idiom Theater to do a little lampooning titled: What Makes Sammy Fun?  Perhaps a writer of one of the theater's marathons might work in Say It, Again, Sam? with apologies to Bogie, Dooley Wilson, and all the cast member of Casablanca.

Politics and politicians, of course, are logical targets of our program of derision for would-be future Subdued City residents with Bellingham mayor Dan Pike offering particular opportunity.  Let's take a grand old Irish tune and turn it into Danny Oy to be heard from glen to glen and down the mountainside.  This might even make a campaign tune for the mayor should he choose to run again although his recent intransigence toward Paul Leuthold and Parks & Recreation suggest otherwise.  Then, there's impressive satirical potential in Guys & Pols.

How about Trillium Corp., the once mighty firm whose footprints are all over B'ham--particularly the north side?  Not many people today are aware of Groucho Marx's comedic eloquence when he sang "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" in At the Circus.  Not that "Yip" Harburg's brilliant lyrics could be improved upon but "Oh, Trillium, oh, Trillium, have you seen oh, Trillium?"should work if only to beg the obvious: Where in hell is Trillium these days?  Included in such a shot across the bow of invading hordes is Bellingham's plethora of tattooed ladies.  I'm not sure plethora is really the right word when referencing the plural of such adorned women.  If many lions are a pride and dogs a pack, perhaps a body of tattooed ladies would be more appropriate.

The Bellingham penchant for tattoos, of course, is accompanied by a propensity for body piercing--often in unlikely places.  Think of the attention to be gained by holding both tattoo beauty contests and body piercing competition in the City of Subdued Excitement.  Think of impaled bodies being assessed by well-named judges who could include Pierce Brosnan, Boston Celtic Paul Pierce, or retired Chicago White Sox pitcher Billy Pierce.

For purposes of sheer melodrama, let's call one of our opuses "Brett Bonner Lies Over the Ocean."  This plot might involve the driven former KGMI announcer, a mainland outcast, reduced to broadcasting his messages of conservatism from a boat located beyond the 12-mile limit.  Bonner bears minor league resemblance to Tim Eyman, the initiative-happy Seattleite, and may be recalled as the guy who led the charge to defeat a teen-tiny sales tax increase that resulted in no Sunday bus service for the old and infirm.  Way to go Brett!

Bellingham's lack of sunshine and abundance of rain could be recognized sardonically both in song and book.  "Shady Side of the Street" sings volumes and provides publicity opportunities involving race, always sure-fire.  "Shady Side" is about a professional black basketball player who passes for white in order to further his career.  A guy with his blues on parade, he's a rover who crosses over.  Just as Mark Twain's use of the n word in Huckleberry Finn suggests to some the book's expulsion from libraries, Jimmy McHugh's re-worked original (lyrics by Dorothy Fields) will get even further scrutiny as narrow minds again range from over-reaction to fulmination.

Certainly, our over-abundance of rain-producing moss promises unique means of thwarting teeming invaders.  If the Equality State (Wyoming) can be accorded a book, The Green Grass of Wyoming, then Subdued City should be acknowledged as having The Green Moss of Bellingham.  There is no denying that moss is to Bellingham what rust is to Hawaii or South Georgia, for that matter.

Then, there's the fascinating case of the Bellingham Herald's staff shrinkage and the newspaper's executive editor filling Sunday space with something called "Out and About."  Such titles take one back to journalism's Golden Age, columns like the New Yorker's still-published "Talk of the Town" and even the Leonard Bernstein musical, "On the Town."  According to Bellingham's up and aroundsters who know about such things, there have been precious few sightings of the editor outside her transom-equipped office.  In honor of Julie Shirley's journalistic triumph (admittedly weighted by bake sales), let's create the first media musical.  Call it "Con the Town."

And because the Pacific Northwest is coffee country, we could decry caffeine evils awaiting newcomers by way of a whiz-bang Mt. Baker Theater extravaganza with the catchy tune, "You're the Cream in Woods Coffee."  Sung to a cow by a dairy farmer whose land is being swept away by home developers, "You're the Cream in Woods Coffee" is a likely hit for the show, "Dutch Courage."  The plot involves a Whatcom County first line of defense as Canadians swarm across the border to be met by a gin-swigging Lynden population given the kind of liquid valor provided English soldiers during the Thirty Years' War.

Let the parody games begin.

                                                            #    #    #    #

 

  

 

Kicking the Can….by Bob Sanders

I wonder if kids are still playing kick the can?  It was a very basic and inexpensive game back in Depression times requiring nothing more than an empty tin container—often sporting a Campbell or Heinz label.  We played by ourselves.  There were no kick-the-can moms nor were there kick-the-can little leagues.

Further, there were no snob labels involved.  Participants did not wear $100 LeBron James footwear and, indeed, more times than not we played barefoot.  The rules were simple and some participants more swift of foot while others possessed greater cunning and/or quickness of mind.  Members of today’s Congress, for example, would have had a difficult time playing our version of kick-the-can because someone had be selected to be “it” and we know how difficult it is for wishy-Washingtonians to make up their minds.    Everyone else in the game hid while “it”, with eyes averted, counted to 20.  A search was then conducted by “it” whose prisoners were restricted to a pre-determined area while capable of being freed only by a kick of the can.  

We didn’t know at the time but kick-the-can served as a pre-World War II battle game for youngsters.  While it’s not likely the “training” ever determined a World War II confrontation, the game surely helped create what Tom Brokaw has determined to be The Great Generation.  O.K. , maybe not great, but pretty damn good.  Two of our Andrews Field in Lakewood, Ohio kick-the-can players, Ralph Pfeiffer and Trevor Hughes, never returned from overseas.

The ability to size up a given situation and act instinctively was of paramount importance in playing kick-the-can.  Aggressiveness was rewarded but caution had its merits as you determined whether or not you could outrun the person who was “it” and achieve a glorious moment with a kick of the can and prisoners’ release. 

Can kicking today, whose goal is avoidance, is done down the road by politicians all too inclined to avoid decision-making while observing the Procrastinator’s Creed:                                        

       If anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

       Never move quickly except to avoid more work or find excuses. 

While a somewhat murky point can be made that putting off responsibility is, by itself, a decision, there is no question that avoidance has become an American art form.  We always seem to be running things up flagpoles to see who salutes or inventing methods and ensuing phrases enabling us to put things off.  This stuff has been going on a long time with Theodore Roosevelt once commenting: “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”

U.S politicians have always been prone to wrap themselves in the flag and so it was in 1862 when George F. Root wrote “Yes, we’ll rally ‘round the flag, boys.”  It was the opening line of “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” a Civil War song of such traction (700,000 copies were sold while 14 continually running presses failed to keep up with demand) that the Confederacy produced its own version and the Republican ticket of Lincoln-Johnson used it as a campaign theme.    

The line was picked up by the very funny satirist, Max Shulman, who had a great deal of fun while probably adding to Richard Nixon’s paranoia when he published Rally Roundup the Flag, Boys in 1957.  The novel was about a Connecticut suburbanite and his wife leading a protest movement against a secret Army plan to set up a missile base in their community.  It was later made into a rather marvelous film starring Paul Newman and wife, Joanne Woodward, although the GOP failed to see the humor in the romantic comedy and the actor began inching his way onto what he considered one of his crowning achievements: Nixon’s Enemies List.  What is it about the right wing and its non-existent sense of humor once you get past Dennis Miller?  

Reluctance by corporate America and government leaders to step forward, determining, instead, to kick the can down the road may have peaked in this country during the automobile industry fiasco.  David Halberstam’s The Reckoning, published in 1986, is a wickedly accurate accounting of industrial imbecility and remains one of those books that should be must reading in business classes today.

This transformation of a Nation that kicks far too many cans down the road suggests that something is terribly amiss as our political leaders fail to do what the public thinks we should be doing.  The approval rating of Congress is now 13 percent.

With something like 70 percent of the public not in favor of extending Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, Obama has provided bizarre succor to a Republican Party by making possible their extension.   This occurred after the GOP took hostage unemployment benefits for the unemployed.  Let us add to death and taxes certainties this matter of the Republican ability to out-think the Democrats.  Nearly always.

Obama’s quite surprising olive branch offering that resulted in Senate (81-19) and House (277-148) Republican victories less than 24 hours apart was an odd interruption of can kicking, but they’ll be back at it after the first of the year when the GOP assumes House domination.  The Bush tax cut extension of two years will tack on $858 billion to the federal deficit, the sort of spending Tea Party candidates ran so enthusiastically against.   Shall we observe them come January?

Our basketball-playing President, whose salesmanship during his first two years in office would not qualify him for Walmart employment, again backed away from a confrontation.  While his sports knowledge focuses on hoops, surely he knows one of the tenets of football:  You don’t punt on third down and he did.  It’s as dumb as, say, fouling a three-point shooter with the game on the line.     

The great hope of an Obama Presidency was that we were getting a leader whose strength of character in difficult and largely inherited times would remind us of the triumphs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  At the halfway mark of what may very well be his only term in office, Obama more resembles just another politician… and from Chicago, yet.

                                                                  #     #     #     #

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, Christmas Tree....by Bob Sanders

The annual search for a Christmas tree is one of those occasions whose basic elements have seen little change since at least the decade before World War II when I took on one of life’s most intrinsic challenges: Christmas tree arbitration.  Such decisions are not and will never be easy although hardly in the class of Supreme Court resolutions.  On the other hand, I figure if the Supremes can blow one like allowing Corporate America, in the name of freedom of speech, to throw unlimited funds at politicians buying public office, then family and friends should not look askance if I err about the symmetry of the lower half of a Leyland cypress.

Symmetry is so much of what choosing the right Christmas tree is all about and the truth of the matter is that shapeliness appreciation in my youthful Christmas tree judgments likely helped prepare me for eventual work for Hugh Hefner and a myriad of assignments that someone simply had to do.  They included Bunny Hunts and Playmate promotion evaluations, but that’s another story.  Ah, symmetry.

One of my earliest memories is of toddling off to an orchard immediately west of our front yard on Detroit Ave. in Lakewood, Ohio.   Our pear orchard was where some Swedish guy from Michigan brought trees every year; my folks, not the most astute business people, had a deal with the Swede that eventually called upon my uncanny ability to choose the best tree from among hundreds.  The deal was a pure and simple one reflecting my folks’ business acumen that inspired the Swede to bring his cut trees all the way from Michigan.  Our end enabled us to pick any pine with the selection consummated before the Swede made his first sale.  The selection process was fraught with arguments and often complicated by heavy snows and very low temperatures while normally taking at least two hours to reach a decision. 

Since our home had 15-ft ceilings in both living rooms, 12 to 14 ft. trees were de riper and allowed room at the top for the star.  The older of two sons, I soon became the “decider” if you’ll pardon the Bushism.  I suspect our folks simply wearied of the project’s complexities.

In contrast to today’s peripatetic society, the holiday season back then found members of three generations living together with Christmas the time for cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents to get together.  In our case, all lived within the Greater Cleveland area and arrived by the reasonably dependable clang, clang, clanging streetcar, public transportation of our time.  Those were Depression times and automobiles, powered by cheap gasoline, mostly sat unused in garages.  Our first car wasn’t purchased until shortly after the end of the war. 

The most important development in today’s choice of trees involves the artificial variety and what I am sure is an impressive market penetration.  I’d Google the information but I’m in a lazy funk mostly because I’m writing this in Hawaii where sloth is not only plentiful but rarely disparaged.  The other day I participated in selecting a Christmas tree in 76 degrees of paradise while my mind triggered memories of searches past in weather that could easily chill Eskimos.

My adulthood produced three children and I carried my demand for attractive Christmas trees into my relationships with Brian, Scott, and Diane.  The kids accepted my idiosyncrasies and played along with ground rules that included at least a two-hour search.  That wasn’t much in Northridge, California, but Chicago was something else.

Hawaii is many things including a state of mind so I decided to hit the beach where minds often concentrate on (or are limited to) such pursuits as surfing and the ogling of hard bodies.  Perhaps I could gain some local insight from beach regulars near Gary and Cyndie Quinn’s outstanding Santa’s-By-the-Sea B&B (www.santasbythesea.com) where we are staying.  The Quinns are our kids who often invite us here in busy December and that means we get to live in their food and fun-filled home located a shell’s throw from the ocean.  The B&B is terrific, but the home upstairs even better.

My search for Christmas tree information on the beach became something of a bust as a result of running into Lila Roo, The Mermaid Lady.   Lila makes rather dramatic appearances at beaches on Oahu’s North Shore to bring attention to the mermaid attire she creates for occasions demanding such accouterments.  She materialized at the nearby Banzai Pipeline in a knockout of an orange bikini while carrying a bag of some kind.  Suddenly, with hands faster than anything Las Vegas has ever seen, she transformed herself into a topless and exceedingly lithesome mermaid whose magnificent tail was of some five feet.  I guess all mermaids are topless but, for all I know, there may be Muslim mermaids who wear veils over their boobs.  

“I guess I’ve always been a mermaid,” she told me after I identified myself as not only a fellow with a curiosity but one whose thirst for knowledge was fulfilled as a reporter “in another life.”  This explanation from an 84-year-old is my way of thwarting suggestions that I am a dirty old man.  There was a time when I used to reveal my long ago association with Hugh Hefner and his organization, but the mounting years began producing responses heavy with laughter and I abstained.

Obtaining scant Christmas tree information from Lila who sells her costumes on the Internet (LilaRoo.com), I drove with the Quinns and Jan to Whitmore, a community some 15 miles from home-based Hallie's.  Getting anywhere in Hawaii is enhanced enormously by Global Positioning Systems (GPS) if only because of a sparse Hawaiian alphabet of 13 characters making street names resemble each other.  Nearly all include such combinations as MOO, KUKU, PUPU, or AKU and I’m certain there is one containing all.  PO`OKUKUPUPUAKU has a real ring to it.

The Christmas tree business is booming judging from the success of Helemano Farms whose 30 acres include 12 planted, according to Aaron O’Brien who manages the operation.  The major products are the Leland cypress, a traditional specimen, and the somewhat exotic Norfolk pine whose scantiness must appeal to those who don’t want to pay a bundle for decorations.

With my traditional opinion tossed into the mix, the Quinns did something very green that made me embrace the moment.  They bought a potted six-foot Leyland cypress that should see many more Christmases.  It’s now sitting in a corner of their lanai and, as I write, growing to, maybe, 50 feet if un-potted.  It could get crowded.

With Christmas two weeks off, a TV newscast brought news last night that there are no more trees on Oahu, disappointing news for last-minute Charleys.  Our one stop selection process in paradise earlier in the week took something like 25 minutes, a far cry from those search days of yore.   I have every hope the Christmas tree never loses its significance and becomes another item of purchase like cell phones, running shoes, and 3-D TV sets. 

                                                            #     #     #     #                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palin Panache....by Bob Sanders

Reality television shows in various forms have been around since the late 1940s.  Allen Funt's Candid Camera was first to feature people in unscripted situations, usually awkward, and the concept has been maintained and tweaked as the product has been developed.

Such a show, sort of, is Sarah Palin's Alaska.  Part travelogue, it is in many respects a retro series utilizing elements that add up to the sitcom of 50 years ago.  Such shows were built around a strong woman, kids who were, well, kids, and husbands not excelling in maturity.  There were in-laws, best friends, pets, and neighbors created by an industry with canon rules of type casting one of which decrees that one of the neighbors has to be nasty.

All those elements are there in the family, freedom and fun-filled Sarah Palin's Alaska now being seen on The Learning Channel (TLC).  Sarah, the stalwart mother, spews a kind of gee-whiz Chamber of Commerce patois in direct contrast to husband Todd.  All sitcoms worth their weight in laughter have to have the husband/father as sap and it's a bit too early to tell if Todd has the stuff required.  So far he has done little but wander around benignly as a kind of Fred MacMurray doofus: tall, dependable, and exceedingly quiet.  Recall The Absent Minded Professor.  Todd has a lot to be quiet about and his concerned appearance could easily be interpreted as anticipation of the return of the bizarre turkey grinder to the Palin story line.  Thanksgiving, after all, is nearly upon us.

Viewers may recall an animated Sarah yammering away two Thanksgivings ago while an attendant, straight from a Roger Corman film, tended to turkey annihilation in the background.  It takes a viewer of little political acumen to quickly realize that Sarah Palin's Alaska is root bound in politics complete with explanations and self-mocking ("You can see Russia from here...almost") of past misadventures including the monumentally goofy Katie Curic interviews that attempted to determine Palin's reading habits of which there appeared to be none.  That gaffe is handled obliquely with Sarah seated in front of a computer while expressing concern over a writing project.  Palin likes to do "a lot of my writing and researching...on our cement slab."  The suggestion here is that Palin is over the reading hurdle having become an author.  That may very well be, but it would be reassuring to see evidence of the writer's pal, the dictionary, on that frighteningly barren desk.  Further, the scene also fails to display a handy thesaurus.  Perhaps writer Palin keeps the thesaurus in the attic along with a ghastly painting of a quite different hue than the perky self so difficult to avoid.

Speaking of the dictionary, the current year has seen acceptance by the Oxford English Dictionary of a Palin made-up word.  "Refudiate" is the word and the stunning decision, so without merit in the mnds of many, has produced demands that George W. Bush's "misunderestimate" be considered.

Not a wild guess is the thought that there will be additional scenes showing us the "literary" Sarah while attempting to make the point that she is not an intellectual lightweight.  The TV series, as Machiavellian public relations ploy two years before the 2012 presidential election, appears to be something lifted from the Karl Rove playbook. 

Perhaps, under the impression that New Jersey or Orange County housewives know little about mama grizzlies, the show offers us a lot of grizzly jive in the first segment of the eight-part series.  Palin seems at odds with others in the cast who keep referring to the "grizzlies" as "brown bears."  Mama grizzlies, as we learn from Palin, take care of their cubs and, in PalinSpeak, represent allegorical voters.  The initial show pulled five million viewers, 79% of them 55 or older including a lot of mama grizzlies.  

Yes, there is an unfriendly neighbor in the show who has rented a home next to the Palins thus adding some drama to a story insistently accompanied by what sounds suspiciously like Disney music.  The bad guy is an un-named Joe McGinniss, a writer of considerable skill whose authorship includes 11 books.  The Palins, furious about what they consider an intrusion of privacy, have erected a 14 ft. fence that gives Sarah an opportunity to mutter about McGinness's "hit job" efforts while adding something unintelligible about borders in the Lower 48.  The McGinniss search for Palin biographical material is "none of his flippin' business," according to Palin and I get the uneasy feeling that "flippin'" is soon to become a massively utilized dismissive word as the presidential hopeful further develops a vocabulary to gain additional traction with voters already captivated by her remarkable variety of winks not see since Liberace.  My prediction is that "flippin" likely will come close to achieving the current popularity of "awesome."  Sarah certainly has a way with words and there is increasing evidence that her rambling articulation is on the verge of making her the Casey Stengel of politics, or Fox News punditry, or writing, or hockey moms, or fisherwomen, or all of the preceding.

All the Palin kids are involved in the show with the exception of daughter Bristol, apparently eitherDancing With the Stars or busy at work directing her public relations firm that specializes in political counseling services.  Levi Johnston, Bristol's sometimes boyfriend and father of Tripp, has a graceless relationship with the Mama Bear.  The show's creator, Mark Burnett (Survivor),a very savvy guy, has an intriguing ace-in-the-hole in Levi should an unlikely ratings dip occur.  Mama Bear, face-to-face with the guy reluctant to marry Bristol, would be something of a you betcha' ratings bonanza.

There are a lot of oddities in the pilot show but perhaps the strangest scene takes place during a mountain climbing episode during which Palin vows to never give up.  This is in emphatic contrast to her having walked away from the governorship of her state after serving but 19 months.

If my calculations are correct, we'll be treated soon to a Sarah Palin's Alaska Christmas Show and it will be fascinating to see if the series continues to ape the TV of yesteryear--say, the Andy Williams Show.  Maybe we'll get a singing Sarah, turkey dinners served by the bird-savaging nitwit, a comedic Todd, and, perhaps, Joe McGinnis as Scrooge, forgiven by a noble Sarah?

                                                                    #    #    #    #