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Big Mouths....by Bob Sanders

 

Her professional clothes were designed by "Omar of Omaha," she wrote 75 percent of her material, her nude photos were judged too good by Playboy (the magazine was going for laughs), and she performed as guest pianist with more than 100 of the Nation's symphony orchestras.

Her name was Phyllis Diller.  She died last week in Brentwood at 95 and those at her bedside said she went out with a smile, thoroughly i keeping with her having been a very, very funny lady.  If she hadn't created such a long and successful career starting at age 37, she probably would have died in St. Louis rather than the Los Angeles suburb.

I had lunch with Diller in the Gateway to the West not long after being named TV Guide regional manager of a large chunk of real estate that included St. Louis.  Transportation in those days was of particular importance to entertainers and St. Louis' central location was a major career consideration.  Diller had achieved her initial success doing stand-up at the Purple Onion while working days writing copy at a San Francisco radio station.  That was in 1955 and it wasn't long before she was being seen on the shows of Jack Paar, Red Skelton and Jack Benny.

If memory serves, the luncheon was somewhere in the Gaslight Square area where Diller had held forth at the Crystal Palace, creative home of other talented people--among them song writers Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf whose credits include "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" from their "The Nervous Set."

The Diller luncheon included four other members of what was then called the press and I believe my invitation was decidedly more of an acknowledgement of my magazine's national stature rather than any impressive local strength.  A difficult market for TV Guide in those days, St. Louis had but three stations, one a UHF.  Diller's arrival from suburban Webster Groves was in a Rolls-Royce and she stayed in character complete with the cigarette holder, a crazy hat and clothes tastefully reduced in impact from her TV appearances.  Her cackling voice and references to "Fang," her brilliant and oft-used comedic invention, were on target and her best line, one of many alluding to her attire, was: "You know you're old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you're barefoot."

My luncheon with Diller was oddly precient involving recognition on my part that her body, then 42, would have been appreciated by Playboy photographers.  Nude photographs of her were submittd to the magazine two years later and I went to work for Hugh Hefner in 1968.  Oddly enough, during my tenure with Playboy, I never became aware of the Diller photographs nor the "rejection" story until the facts were mentioned in her obituaries.

As many of us now know, Hefner began using photographs of celebrities older than the girls next door.  That was more than 30 years ago; Terry Moore has been the oldest at 55 followed by Nancy Sinatra (54), Vicki LaMotta (51) and Farrah Fawcett (50).  One has to wonder if Diller provided the original nudge some six years after the magazine's first issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.  It seems a bit surreal to include Phyllis Diller and Marilyn Monroe in the same sentence but life can, indeed, be curious.  Of more than passing interest are those Diller nude shots.  At least one survives and is included in her 2005 autobiography, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse.

Diller's greatest contribution to comedy probably was paving the way for a future generation of feminine big mouths including Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman and Joan Rivers who, come to think of it, is still being outragous while nearing 80.  The latter's introduction to comedy was as a writer for Diller with the most valuable lesson learned being the mileage achieved from self-directed barbs.

While Diller could be described as a somewhat beguiling big mouth (her work was remarkably clean), such was not the case with Howard Cosell, the sports journalist who transformed an obnoxious one-of-a-kind persona into a much-copied norm for sports broadcasting.

Indeed, there was and continues to be but one Cosell who once said of himself: "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff.  I have been called all of these.  Of course, I am."

Until Cosell became a household name in the mid-50s, sports broadcasters were largely a breed inventing their craft as they blathered along with home team announcers most often referred to as "homers."  The term remains in use today largely because of the role played by ownerships, particularly baseball, in choosing broadcast teams.  Vin Scully, now pushing 90, is a notable exception and before him such worthies as Graham McNamee and Ted Husing.  It was McNamee, a budding opera singer, who invented play-by-play prior to Husing coming on board as a crossover from news and political conventions coverage.  Arrogant, opinionated, even coarse, Husing could have been the role model for Cosell.

Cosell also was impressive with none of Scully's class and you either thought he was wonderful or an outrage.  Assuming a "tell it like it is" approach, the one-time lawyer (he was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1941), began on ABC with pre- and post-game shows of the then brand new New York Mets.

While baseball was a springboard to fame for Cosell, it was boxing and "Monday Night Football" that cemented his relationship with fans.  It was Cosell's defense of Muhammad Ali who, while still fighting under his birth name, Cassius Clay, refused to be inducted into the military.   Cosell's four years U.S. Army service during World War II made his defense of Ali a lot easier.

Cosell transformed sports reporting and nothing could have been of greater reportorial contrast than the work of Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean whose approach was more than bizarre.  Baseball was his game (he remains the last National League pitcher to win 30 games) and his base runners "slud" into third base while sometimes "returning to their respectable bases."  Inclined to mount evidence that good pitchers must be of stout heart, Dizzy suggested that one possessed "testicle fortitude." 

Until Cosell came along with an intellectual approach, sports broadcast reporting was heavy on cliches and light on stories behind the stories.  His feuds, particularly with New York sports columnists Dick Young and Jimmy Cannon, were classics.  Cannon once suggested: "This is a guy who changed his name, put on a toupee and tried to convince the world that he tells it like it is;  If Howard Cosell were a sport, he'd be the roller derby."

In a very real sense, Cosell legitimatized the sports loud mouth and probably helped open the door, if briefly, for Rush Limbaugh.  ESPN hired the master of hate radio to contribute his limited football knowledge to "Sunday Night Countdown."  That was in the fall of 2003 with Limbaugh lasting less than a month by making racist remarks about Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Sports broadcasting's big mouths are many these days with demands made by cable's 24/7 the biggest factor.  A lot of time has to be chewed up and the need for panels of experts results in an obvious contrast to sports anchors on 30-minute newscasts.  About as colorful as network sports broadcasters are allowed to be can be found on golf coverage now the province of CBS, NBC and the Golf Channel.  Johnny Miller of NBC is often peevish while CBS' Gary McCord is consistently amusing as he makes light of a sport that takes itself too seriously.  McCord, still barred from The Masters for nearly 20 years following his description of the 17th green as appearing to be "bikini waxed," is the same guy who split his pants while bending over a putt at the 1984 Fed Ex St. Jude Classic.  Unfortunately, he was without underwear and, after brief embarrassment, bought fellow pro Peter Jacobson's rain pants for $20.  McCord and David Feherty of Golf Channel are the sport's best.

Such ESPN cable carpers as Tony Kornheiser, Colin Cowherd ("The Herd") and "Mike & Mike in the Morning" have shown promise as certified blowhards.  The best of the bunch may be Samuel A. Smith whose boorishness is decidedly of the Cosell School.  A writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1994, Smith had his column yanked in 2007.  Arbitration ensued and he was reinstated while forced to remove political views from his website and cable news shows.  Called "a self-promoting, race-based gasbag" by the New York Post, Smith does radio shows for stations in New York and Los Angeles.  National exposure comes in the form of ESPN's "First Take" with Skip Bayless who can be counted upon to run counter to most of Smith's opinions.  Smith has referred to himself as "a cross between Bill O'Reilly and Larry King" and has been known to change his mind as often as Mitt Romney.  The NBA is his special province and he was a special commentator on the Michael Jackson memorial funeral service.  

Smith may very well be Cosell's heir apparent yet there have been times when I was convinced any mantle assumption would be by Jay Mariotti whose loud mouth career has been stalled by a series of misadventures climaxed by being charged with stalking and assaulting his ex-girlfriend.  His 2010 court appearance (he pleaded no contest, got five years probation) was highlighted by the charge that he allegedly demanded "as a high profile sports writer and general celebrity" that the ex-girl friend get plastic surgery.  A writer of 17 years for the Chicago Sun-Times, Mariotti was employed by ESPN at the time of his arrest in Los Angeles.  His work there included "Around the Horn" while occasionally hosting "Pardon the Interruption."  He has been without work for three years.

Boistrous and obnoxious, Mariotti was so offensive to Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert that the Pulitzer winner challenged Mariotti's inclination to write sensationalist columns while working at his paper.

This just in.  Jim Rome, who left ESPN for a CBS radio gig in January, will go CBS  Sports Network  all the way when he finalizes a deal to do "Rome," a 30-minute daily cable TV show on the network that debuted in April.  Rome may be recalled as a guy who works his name into his show titles as in "Rome is Burning."

Rome may be recalled for an in-studio interview conducted early in his career with NFL quarterback Jim Everett.  Convinced that Everett was a bit shy when confronted by NFL tacklers, Rome began calling him "Chris," a reference to female tennis star Chris Evert.  Everett eventually took Rome to the floor while on the air.  A desk that had separated them, was overturned.

Word is that Rome, once again, will make certain his interviews will be conducted over a very sturdy desk.

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Distractions....by Bob Sanders

 

I learned the other day that wife, Jan, was once a legal distraction.  That's according to her daughter Nancy who told me the story of Jan's being summoned for jury duty back in the days when she was living another life in Thousand Oaks, California.

Jan was a blonde bombshell when I met her in 1987 in Chicago and I'm sure she was even more so in her California days.  Attorneys for both defendants found Jan acceptable as a member of the jury and the case was barely underway when the judge determined that too many people in the courtroom were paying more attention to Jan than courtroom proceedings.  He ruled Jan off that legal turf for being a distraction.

We appear to be inundated by distractions these days.  The matter of this country's policy toward Cuba has been given scrutiny in this space on a prior occasion and there can be no doubt that Miami's Little Havana has become one enormous distraction.  While the fingerprints of the Bush brothers were all over this one in that prior decade of our official relationship with Cuba, there are new players in the game including Sen. Mark Rubio who, along with his family, has re-written their family history to conform to political correctness.  To fiddle with Vince Lombardi's best-known quote, winning elections is the only thing.

With the rest of the country finally aware of Little Havana's insidious clout, it appeared for awhile that a neighborhood state-of-the-art, tax-funded major league stadium costing the city $2 billion might achieve something beyond distraction status.  At least that was the best hope for Jeffrey Loria, Miami Marlins owner who hired (surprise, surprise) a Cuban, Ozzie Guillen, to manage the Marlins.  It looked like win/win for everyone since Guillan's former employer, the Chicago White Sox, were delighted to be rid of the highly vocal-but-makes-little-sense manager who had worn out his welcome in the Windy City.

With the team a couple of days from the home opener, Guillen, always a master of timing and obviously knowledgeable about foreign relations, decided to express his love and respect for Fidel Castro.  It was the kind of distraction, continuing as this is written, that makes for poor relations between the community and the Marlins.  Fortunately, the Marlins are battling for first place, another strong suggestion that all can be well in love, war and baseball with good pitching and timely hitting as significant as efficient drones.

Just as Olsen & Johnson used the running gag in such shows as "Hellzappin," so can an effective writer employ the running distraction.  A case in point would be Ariel Levy's incisive look in The New Yorker at Her Serene Highness the Principessa Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi.  Published November 28 last year, the article contained nine references to Playboy for which Her Serene Highness disrobed twice.  Full-circling the Principessa with that many allusions to the magazine was fair game since before revealing her serene nakedness she was the former Texas twang-speaking Rita Jenrette, perhaps best known for having had sex on the Capitol steps with then South Carolina congressman/husband John Jenrette. 

Defense of such distractions is hardly necessary and there are those who believe Playboy is, in itself, just one big one.  Her Serene Highness, who authored a memoir, My Capitol Secrets, is behaving herself these days while living in a 40,000 square-foot Roman palazzo.  To date, she has not been observed having sex on the nearby Spanish Steps nor, for that matter, in any public places.

Speaking of Rome, there's the decidedly ill-timed Vatican attitude toward an American nun who had the double dare audacity to write a book about faith and sexuality, pretty popular subjects.  Published in 2006 and ranked No. 142,982 on Amazon.com's best-selling list, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics was going nowhere as a minor distraction to Pope Benedict XVI who, along with an intimate circle of advisors, suddenly forgot two of the cardinal rules of public relations: all press is good press and let well enough alone.

It was on Monday that The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church's official orthodoxy office, produced a statement of criticism about Sister Margaret Farley's book referring to it as a "defective understanding" of Catholic theology and not fit for the eyes of Roman Catholics.  Farley is an award-winning ethicist now retired from Yale Divinity School.  In the general category of defective thinking, one pope's distriction might also be an opportunity to take some heat off what appears to be the essence of a Shakespearian plot whose "Vatileaks" corruption scandal features the valet of a weak pope supplying documents, in all likelihood, to help the pope oust his nefarious right-hand man, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.  Yes, the butler did it.  Key player Bertone should stay away from cameras.  His appearance is such that he would have been rejected by creators of "The Sopranos" for being too authentic and, therefore, a distraction.

How could we possibly forget politics in any commentary about distractions--particularly in this momentous year of the run for the White House.  The Republican primary has been so remarkably odd that comparisons with any preceding competition simply can't be made.  In fact, "odd" falls short of accurately describing our witnessing a Texas governor (Rick Perry) outdoing his predecessor, George W. Bush, in mangling what passes for his native tongue while appearing to be either stoned or drunk at the podium.

And, yes, let's invoke the word "bizarre" in any examination of the campaign waged by Herman Cain, the former pizza executive whose greatest triumphs appear to have been conducted in the back seats of cars, his preferred location for selling stimulus packages to female colleagues.  However, it was the unforgettable Perry who came off as the biggest dummy of all with stunning gaffes.  Cain's able execution of jive  resulted in his being named successor just the other day to veteran conservative radio host Neal Boortz.

Oh, and let's not forget that sensational sleazebag, Newt Gingrich, who somehow managed to attack Beltway politics while being a constant reminder that he's a classic example of a politician who moved from a power base (Speaker of the House) to become a wheedling, conniving, money-grubbing lobbyist so successful that he ran up a $500,000 tab at Tiffany's.  Also worthy of a quick dismissal were other oddities including Tea Party favorite Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, Jon Huntsman (he didn't belong in this rag tag bunch) and Ron Paul, today's version of Harold Stassen who ran for the Presidency 12 times.  This Preposterous Group of Eight were thoroughly hopeless, so much so that Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman now host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," called them "total idiots" on his show.  It was a conclusion reached following 27 TV debates.  One is inclined to wonder how GOP loyalists could suffer so many fools gladly?

While still in the general area of politics, there's the nauseous case of Donald Trump whose roaring ego has brought him ever closer to being a pol player.  The Donald, quite obviously, is unaware that his involvement on behalf of George Romney carries with it the same distraction factor that Bush provides the man whose job creation record as governor of Massachusetts was 47th best.  Romney, the awkward flip-flopper, will learn there are people who can do you no good in a Presidential race and Bush and Trump are two of them.

The Donald's ability to distract is not limited to politics.  Comes word from director Oliver Stone that Trump's cameo in "Wall Street 2" was cut out because of an obvious presence in his pants.  Timing is everything and it appears the hotelier was still in a Cialis four-hour time frame when the camera rolled.  The Donald's inability to stifle a stiffie resulted in his scene being cut.  Insiders say the deleted drama is being restored for the DVD.

Another political distraction is Jeremiah Wright who, one way or another, simply will not go away in spite of his words and presumed ministrations provided Barack Obama 20 years ago.  It doesn't take the political savvy of Karl Rove to suggest that Romney would be wise to back away from Wright just as Obama should forget about the dog on the roof of Romney's car.  Petty persiflage is, well, petty and distracting.

One person's distraction is another's call to action--particularly if the problem is in the classroom.  While it's common knowledge that distractions are a main enemy of a good education, teachers are continually coming up with ways to deal with problems that interfere with communications.  Our failure in the classroom is a matter of agonizing record in this era of addiction to technology; staying focused is not easy with student texting and cell phoning among the distractions.  Multi-tasking is in such pronounced use that students often find it difficult to concentrate on one thing: a teacher attempting to teach in a classroom.  There was a time when a distraction in a schoolroom was almost always a beautiful woman or a good-looking guy.

Beautiful people is what Hollywood used to all about but evidence has been emerging for some time that leading actors are more inclined to look like real people.  Unfortunately, the search for reality has ended there.  Very inclined to create product appealing to kids, the film business has embraced a philosophy for success that combines noise, monsters from far away places, vampires from closer to home, plus simplistic dialogue and plot developments that defy anything vaguely logical.  Unfortunately, distraction in the form of 3D is now with us boding ill for those who wish for intelligent dialogue and story lines offering some semblance of sense.

Back to politics and what may or may not be a minor distraction called Wisconsin.  Obama may not have figured out the state's importance as he maneuvers for those 270 electoral votes required to return him to the White House.  The  distraction was an attempt led by unions to nullify Gov. Scott Walker's 19-month old victory.  Having won Wisconsin by 14 points in the 2008 election, Obama ducked involvement while convincing himself that all politics are local with no connection between a Midwest gubernatorial recall and the run for all the Badger marbles in the fall.

Figuring Wisconsin as a minor distraction, Obama made no attempt to meet a 7-1 out-of-state GOP money avalanche, so he sent Bill Clinton whose messages were, to put it kindly, mixed.  Gov. Walker won by six points and, significantly, the voter turnout greatly exceeded what got him into office in the first place. 

It is one thing to complain about the Supreme Court's making possible the rigging of an election through unlimited amounts of money.  It iwas quite another to not match the Koch brothers, et al. when the money was there.  It was another example of Obama evidencing timidity and aloofness.

Stand-up comics have observed more than once that "everybody's got to be somewhere" and so it was that Obama, having personally ducked Wisconsin, headed instead for Hollywood and fund-raisers.

Setting priorities can be tricky.  Let's hope it doesn't turn out that Wisconsin was more than a minor distraction.

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Where Are You, Magic Christian?....by Bob Sanders

 

There was a natural sort of progression in my thinking the other day and that, by itself, was a bit unusual.  The subject was satire and I began wondering what percentage of us has an appreciation of the art form.  There has been all manner of commentary about the use of ridicule, sarcasm and irony to make observations about foolishness with, perhaps, the most cogent uttered by George S. Kaufman.  The playwright, no slouch in the utilization of satire, once observed in cautionary fashion that "it's what closes on Saturday night."

Little heed was paid Kaufman by Terry Southern when the brilliant satirist began concentrating on film writing.  His subjects: the military (Dr. Strangelove); the funeral business (The Loved One); alienated youth (Easy Rider); and the corrupting effects of money (The Magic Christian) were dark and absurdest.  Tom Wolfe insists Southern invented New Journalism.

While Strangelove, written with director Stanley Kubrick and Peter George, is probably the greatest film putdown of war, the original script was a straight political thriller based upon George's Red Alert.  It was Southern who turned it into a devastating masterpiece of satire.  Peter Sellers, originally cast to play four characters (he performed three), had put Southern in touch with Kubrick by sending him a copy of The Magic Christian, Southern's first novel.

The Magic Christian (Guy Grand, played by Sellers in the film version) is a very uneven black comedy about how some people will do anything for money.  The book is much, much better largely because the Britcom places too much emphasis on getting everyone vaguely associated with comedy into it.  Such diversities as Rachel Welch, Ringo Starr, Lawrence Harvey, and Roman Polanski are among them.  The result is a series of practical jokes played on venal people who, because of the money, resist realization of the obvious: the game is rigged.  Go for the book.

The Magic Christian, were he around, would have fun with Bellingham.  Right off the bat he would seize upon the disaster awaiting Regal Cinemas as it builds a 16-screen operation immediately west of Barkley Square ignoring completely the hard times confronting Subdued City in addition to the rising costs of a night out; film tickets are now approaching 10 bucks here and then there are those home screens not getting any smaller as they receive streamed product whose one month cost is about that of one Regal ticket.  Those nights out often include dinner, popcorn and the noisy kids seated immediately behind who take out their boredom by kicking seats.

The Magic Christian would buy out Regal with his incalculable wealth.  Ah, yes, but what to do with the Barkley screening rooms?  Aware of the importance of education, The Magic Christian would create something much-needed here: The Subdued City School of Sophisticated Social Skills & Other Stuff.  Classrooms, free to all 'hamsters, would be devoted to such subjects as: "The Cell Phone & Other Calamities," "How to Fake Cell Phone Calls for Fun & Profit," "Award-Winning Facebook Comments," "Don't Be An Ordinary Twit," "Perfecting Your Twitter Vocabulary," "Never Litter Your Twitter," "The Affect Those 124 Characters Will Have on Yours," and "JFK Couldn't Spell, Either."  In all likelihood, deprived and depraved Bellingham will warm to such additional classes as "I've Grown Accustomed to the Moss," "How Green Is My Valley of Moss," "Moss: A Forgone Confusion," and "Moss is Boss, So Get Used to It."  

The Magic Christian, in an early assessment of Bellingham, doubtless would take note of the many eccentric and rude drivers in our fair city and include in the Social School a much-needed classroom devoted to The Control & Execution of the Left-Hand Turn.  While relieving drivers of excessive timidity through preparation for challenges at intersections including Sunset & Orleans, Lakeway& Woburn and Harris & Finnegan Way, such education would instill the kind of confidence prompting advancement to big-time left-hand turn locations, Guide Meridian & Bakerview among them.

The left-turn is not the only challenge facing 'hamster drivers as proven by the remarkably low percentage of red-lighted right hand turns granted by earliest arrivals at such corners.  Typical major intersection lights provide left hand arrow turn lanes plus two offering drivers a choice; the very reasonable know right hand lanes represent the red light right turn escape from disasters like Guide Meridian.  "Such considerations are not comparable to mastering Sanskrit or successfully twisting Rubik's Cube," according to Dr. I.B. Spacey, Bellingham's world-renowned master of all that is technical and then some.

According to Spacey, Subdued City drivers lacking the ability, while facing heavy oncoming traffic, to inch up on green lights "have little in common with right turn blockers other than stupidity.  It's one of those left/right brain things."  Warming to his subject, the eminent scientist and all-around smart ass opined that left/right turning challenges might be dealt with successfully in a Magic Christian Subdued City School for Sophisticated Social Skills & Other Stuff.  Admission would be free with attendees paid bonuses for perfect attendance.

Speaking of making turns, sometimes a restaurant makes a questionable one in terms of a marketing strategy erroneously based upon assumption rather than reality.  The Magic Christian would make certain that The Hearthfire at 7 Bellwether Way, gets a makeover so that profit may be maximized.  While it is no secret that the best pizza in town is served at The Hearthfire's outstanding 3:30-6:30 p.m. happy hour (Beefeater martinis are $5 and personal pizzas $6), it is becoming more clear with each passing rainstorm that the restaurant's full potential is not being realized.

The Magic Christian to the rescue.  Employing munificent minions, he would distribute $100 bills to incoming diners with instructions that all who accept the money can keep the change if they order pizza and only pizza.  Beefeater martinis would be legal.  Such a public relations gesture, typical of The Magic Christian, would quickly turn The Hearthfire into probably the world's most magnificent pizza parlor compete with glorious views of boats, the setting sun beyond the San Juan Islands and a waterfront never to be completed.    

Also of considerable consequnce to the Social School would be instruction in The Art of Throwing the Finger in such a way that the kind of overt gesticulation presently offered by 'hamsters would be reduced in the name of good taste.  With so many of foreign extraction moving to the Fourth Corner, perhaps it's time to create a new means of expressing unhappiness.  Because digitus impudicus is so universal yet often misunderstood, The Magic Christian would devise a signature movement whose inspiration might very well be Britney Spears, she of the one finger salute that peaked 10 years ago in Mexico.  The singer (or whatever it is she is?) has always had difficulty explaining that her birds in flight (often made airborne while in convertibles) were really attempts to touch her nose as the hated paparazzi, largely responsible for her success, fired away.

Inspiration comes in many forms and it's easy to imagine The Magic Christian's Spearsian ruminations producing a new obscene gesture call The Britney.  Bellingham and the world need a non-threatening use of body language and the touching of one's nose is almost exclusively associated with Santa Claus who, according to Clement Clarke Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas, always plants a finger on his proboscis before going up the chimney.  Such a nose gesture, certainly non-threatening, might produce misinterpretations making Italians and Jews feel ethnically singled out but we'll let The Magic Christian deal with that one. 

There is so much obscenity being flung one way or another from so many 'hamster cars these days that we owe it to ourselves to blaze new trails in the lessening of obscene gestures.  It was 15 years ago when a U.S. News & World Report cover story revealed that one-third of a focus group admitted using hostile gestures while in the car.  That fraction, if applied here, undoubtedly would be increased esponentially today as civic leaders continue to proclaim a long-term vision to become The Santa Barbara of the North.

As with all communications, there is a decided need for improvement.  Call it a venom reduction as we adopt The Britney and throw fingers in wise and reasonable fashion.  Unfortunately, we always seem to be stroking, rubbing or tapping some form of quick communications often producing severe fumbling when it comes to such multi-tasking in cars.  Flashing The Britney will not result in complete understanding, but it will be an improvement.  Indeed, there are increasing numbers of people from foreign lands who do not necessarily understand what all this flailing about really means.  The Magic Christian Social School will make certain that Britney finger throwing will be done in a chaste fashion easily understood by foreigners eager to become part of the Bellingham experience.  Perhaps, there will one day be an Epicene School of the Obscene with limp wrists a qualifying factor.  This is an ever-changing world.

Were The Magic Christian to work his wonders on Bellingham, a likely project would honor the famous people most associated with Subdued City and it won't be easy.  The inglorious fact is that no one of any consequence, once you get past actress Hilary Swank plus three or four musicians and comedians not recognized beyond Sedro-Woolley, has come from Bellingham.

The really major people, who once called 'hamsterland home, were page one killers with the good sense to dine often at The Waterfront Tavern where the modestly-priced fish and chips remain the best in town.  For the unaware, Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianchi (one of two Hillside Stranglers) and Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad were all 'hamsters at one time.  We weren't always the City of Subdued Excitement.

The Magic Christian, aware that Christ the King Church, blessed with a very large congregation yet functioning in something physically less than The National Cathedral or Notre Dame, needs new digs.  With wealth beyond that of Mark Zuckerberg, The Magic Christian could build a cathedral of such magnificence that Bill Maher might feel compelled to speak kindly of it in the New Rules segment of his HBO show.  Further, the church's tag line, written by The Magic Christian and running along the lines of: "It's Sunday, So Let's Hear It for Ted Bundy," is likely to attract attention.  That line may offend the deeply religious and require a little re-working.

Cross-dressing in a blue collar town is rarely popular.  However, The Magic Christian, ever wily and aware that 'hamster shortcomings go beyond the challenges of left and right-hand traffic turns, might use baseball as a means of bringing a social phenomena to the Fourth Corner.  By purchasing the Bellingham Bells from the current owner for probably no more than $675 and $500 worth of Monday shopping at a Bellis Fair store of choice, The Magic Christian could change the name of the team to Bellingham Belles and introduce a box office enhancing cross-dressing threat to the social norm.  Don't miss Sensational Strumpets of the Sometimes Sterling Silver Screen Night when it plays at the ballpark near you.

As public services, The Magic Christian might very well install enormous umbrellas for each of Bellingham's 25 rain-besotted neighborhoods, take all the noise out of Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro, and rid our community of tattoos.  Just as the Supreme Court has made it possible to buy elections in the name of freedom of speech, so it would be with The Magic Christian who would pay large amounts of money to rid ourselves of epidermis graffiti in the name of freedom of sight.

Even larger sums of money could be utilized to eliminate nose rings and piercing paraphernalia in more specific locations of Subdued City disfigurement.  Way to go, Magic Christian.

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Waiting for Gojoe....by Bob Sanders

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and that undoubtedly explains my recent series of failures to find Joe Scarborough on his "Morning Joe" television show.

Slotted on MSNBC beginning at 3 a.m. (PCT), the three-hour program is my Plan A when I find a return to sleep challenging.  Searching for Scarborough has been something like "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett's absurdest play in which nothing happens while the main characters anticipate the arrival of Godot who never appears.  Let's call my Joe no show "Waiting for Gojoe."

The interruptions of my sleep were occurring about every fifth night or so.  Scarborough simply wasn't showing up whenever I flipped on "Morning Joe" and there were a number of possible reasons.  Had the former Florida U.S. Congressman returned to hometown Pensacola preparatory to running for public office?  Never in memory has any former politician shown greater evidence of a longing for, in his case, those good old days featuring Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and his Contract With  America--proudly signed by Scarborough.  What a contrast with today; yesterday's Contractors, who screwed things up, have been replaced by today's Tea Party leaving in the dust such forever pols like Scarborough whose evidence of GOP loyalty consists largely of trumpeting the triumphs of Ronald Reagan.

There were other possibilities for Scarborough's absences including a resumption of talks with CNN or CBS regarding a move away from MSNBC.  The original rumors came last year on the heels of "Morning Joe" executive producer Chris Licht's leaving NBC to take over the always foundering "Morning Show."  Self-serving like most rumors of its kind, they coincided with contract negotiations involving the major "Morning Joe" hosts.

Those devilish contracts nearly ended Joe and Mike Brzezinski's show about a year after it began in 2007 when Mika learned Joe was making 14 times her salary.  There were a number of factors involved including Joe's positioning as producer plus Mika's having joined NBC after being fired from CBS.  A then recent book published by her with the title, Knowing Your Value, was a bit awkward and she successfully battled for a re-worked contract after producer Joe, the guy who underpaid her, casually gave her one of his paychecks.  Joe, obviously, didn't want to lose Mika.

Another plausibility for Joe's no show might involve that very odd intern death back in Walton Beach, not far from Pensacola.  Had the cops finally come up with some answers to questions about Lori Klausutus' mysterious death 11 years ago?  Klausutus, 28, a Scarborough employee, was found in the congressman's office early one morning.  The shoddiness of Florida police work was no better then than the current Trayvon Martin shooting death in Sanford.  The cops all too quickly determined that Klausutus, a long-distance runner in outstanding condition, had fainted striking her head twice on a desk.  The cause of death, heart arrhythmia, was determined by a discredited medical examiner apparently incapable of wondering how a head could strike a desk twice.

Scarborough, scornful of the media these days, back then also was publisher of the Redneck Riviera's Independent Sun and he quickly resigned his ties to the newspaper and his seat in Congress.  The man people now refer to as "Morning Joe" had initiated divorce proceedings two years earlier from a wife of 13 years.

A much more likely reason for Scarborough's disappearing act would be occasional guest appearances by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's father and national security adviser during the Carter administration.  Do not invite Zbigniew and Scarborough to the same party.  The latter plays smart ass to a man who treats the show's host much as an un-wanted son-in-law.  Their relationship peaked late in 2008 when Brzezinski called him "stunningly superficial" for his assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Brzezinski's umbrage was very reminiscent of Jack Paar's Alexander king, maybe the best TV guest ever.

"Morning Joe," close to celebrating its fifth anniversary, has strange origins even for television and began with Brzezinski doing a news segment from beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey for Scarborough, then hosting a failing "Scarborough Country" program from Florida.  Informed by friends that Mika had used mocking tones about "Scarborough Country" during her feed to the show, Joe was intrigued, looked her up and, as they say, it was just a matter of time.  That time came when Don Imus, host of "Imus in the Morning" and the prior occupant of the "Morning Joe" time slot, was fired for making insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  We can measure the true power of a broadcast personality on the basis of whether or not they get fired for serious indiscretions.  Imus was gone quickly for what was paltry compared to Rush Limbaugh's recent disgraceful series of rants leveled at a female law student.

Keith Olbermann, who left MSNBC last year for the Current Channel, continues to suggest that Scarborough's sharp elbows are being thrown all over NBC as he challenges credentials of guests on shows other than his own, now augmented by a talk pack of nearly 30. 

There is an odd chemistry, not yet fully realized, that exists between Mika and Joe.  The fractious relationship of "The Odd Couple" has been suggested more than once although it seems to this viewer that whatever magic exists is much more reminiscent of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn although Trace rarely did the kind of off-putting body language now so seemingly intrinsic to the Scarborough persona.  Arms across the chest, Scarborough seems committed to sweaters and other casual attire to set himself off from the guests, regular and otherwise, who bring to the table far too much about politics--particularly the strange people who have been attempting to unseat President Obama.  Third host Willie Geist seems to be on board mostly to keep beady-eyed Joe from running roughshod over Mika.

Of late, the political pickings have been so sparse that clothing worn by regulars and guests has been seized upon as slim and obvious subject matter.  Three hours a day is a long, long time.  Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and clearly a sartorial dandy, was a bit put out recently by show regular Mike Barnicle whose clothes might best be described as the kind of go-to-hell casual worn by far too many men in Bellingham, Washington, a serious candidate for dress down capitol of this country.  I know about these things because I live there. 

With my sleeping habits much improved during very recent days, I have managed to note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a "Morning Joe" regular.  Pat, who has managed to maintain guest status on the decibel impressive "The McLaughlin Group," recently dashed off a book in which he finally put in writing what he has been saying for many years: he's an out and out racist.  Good luck with the book, Pat.

Other people have come, gone and, in one case, come back.  The comebacker is Mark Halperin who got cut from the talk team last year when he called the President a dick.  To be perfectly accurate, the quote was "sort of a dick the other day."  Poor Obama gets blamed for everything: gas prices, wars, being a Muslim (according to one poll, 52 percent of Mississippi residents believe so), a questionable birth certificate (45 percent of Republicans are birthers), and, probably, bad asshood for putting a hex on second-seeded University of Missouri by picking the Tigers to be one of March Madness' final four.  Missou was knocked off in the first round by 15th seed Norfolk State.

The dick caller returned to "Morning Joe" after a month's banishment and everything, as my dad used to say, is copacetic.  A Time senior political analyst, Halperin is co-author of Game Change with fellow "Morning Joe" regular John Heilemann.  It's an inside look at what went wrong when John McCain and others decided to put Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket.  Made into a feature length film, it is currently playing on HBO.

In truth, Halprin should have received a stiffer sentence than a month's dismissal not so much for disparaging the President but for being so inaccurate with political predictions.  Among his gaffes: insisting that both Palin and fellow lightweight Donald Trump were serious GOP ontenders; suggesting that McCain's mid-campaign week's return to Washington "won the week" for the Arizona Senator, and just about any crystal balling found in his (2006) book, The Way to Win.  Co-author John Harris, co-founder of Politico, has to share the blame for that turkey.

Halperin's castigation that morning of the President created a momentary pall upon the show's usual cocktail party atmosphere (Starbucks served, of course) with Scarborough expressing agitation that a new producer was unable to activate a seven-second delay.  Such are the vicissitudes of broadcasting when a producer can't punch the right button.

The essence of "Morning Joe," clubby yet rife with the distinct possibility of someone walking in off the street to take exception to Scarborrough's brand of conservatism heavy with wish for the halcyon days of Reaganism, may very well be on the right track.  The challenge is that the rigors of doing it three hours a day for five days a week may wind up boring the hell out of viewers but that would have happened by now.  "Morning Joe," with less than half the audience of the hardly scintillating "Fox & Friends," continues to stay ahead of CNN in the time slot.  Certainly, the casual roundtable banter is a welcome contrast to the all too traditional panel stuff seen in short segments on "Meet the Press," "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation," soon to expand to 60 minutes.

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Sarah Revisited....by Bob Sanders

 

Anyone who thought Sarah Palin was simply going to disappear from public consciousness has been convinced otherwise by two cable films during recent days.

The first, "Game Change," debuted this past weekend on HBO and it must have been tempting to those responsible for creating the film's trailers to borrow from the marketing maneuvers of Jack Nicholson's 1980 "The Shining."  Yes, Sarah is back.

Perverse pleasures admitted, this viewer has missed Palin and it may very well be due to the obvious contrasts she offers to the rag tag collection of politicians who for far too long have flailed away at nailing down the Republican Party's presidential nomination.  Mitt Romney, challenged by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul, simply can't make the sale to a party base moved to the right somewhere in the general vicinity of Attila the Hun.  All this, of course, has come after semi-final rounds during which we were introduced to the strange campaigns of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and poor Jon Huntsman, he of the nice-guy-what-am-I-doing- here? persona.  Never in the past 100 years of the election process has the American public been confronted by such a collection of boring possibilities.  Never has the other party been given such a leg up while 20 debates put audiences to sleep.

Palin's remarkable selection as John McCain's running mate is the focal point of "Game Change."  The film is based upon the best-seller by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Palin, as played by Julianne Moore, initially is drawn as a sympathetic character decidedly over-matched as McCain's advisers determine she is a logical choice as the Arizona Senator's running mate.  Moore's portrayal of Palin invites comparisons to the wickedly funny Tina Fey impressions on "Saturday Night Live."  As good as Fey's you-betcha takes were of Palin, Moore's provide much greater insight as we experience her strengths (connecting with crowds) to her weaknesses (foreign affairs about which she knows next to nothing).  It is through Moore 's nuanced performance that we see the many Palins: fragile, sullen, magnetic, and vain.  The pit bull mom may not have much upstairs but she appears to have a vast collection of hockey jerseys.

Woody Harrelson, as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, gives another outstanding performance as he moves from enthusiasm for Palin to a realization that five days were simply not enough time to vet the Alaska governor.  Ed Harris is splendid while offering a compassionate portrayal of McCain.  Harris and Harrelson, both compiling impressive bodies of work, have become two of our very best film actors.

What is particularly intriguing about "Game Change" are the sympathetic roles played by the advisers who, much like race horse bettors given a sure thing in a four-horse race, are aghast as their filly stumbles out of the gate and at all the turns.  Often with media backgrounds, advisers in a political story are people in the shadows, rarely gaining audience rapport or even interest.  Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Pauley, bears the brunt of Palin mistakes and malice; Schmidt's "explanation to Palin about the why of not allowing her to give a concession speech is a classic.

Something quite different in Palinology may be observed in "The Undefeated," like "Game Change," inspired by a book.  Going Rogue, "written" by the then jobless governor having fled Juneau, was Palin's explanation of how things happened.  The bad show business people, led by Bill Maher and Matt Damon, are introduced.  The best line is that of ex-New York mayor Ed Koch who, in describing Palin as "plucky, perky," then adds, "and she scares the hell out of me."

First viewed last July, the documentary comes off as an infomercial rather inexpertly cut on somebody's dinner table.  The guilty are director/writer Stephen K. Bannon and the late Andrew Breitbart whose producer credits are augmented by appearance snippets enabling the audience to better understand Palin's brilliance.  He is joined by conservative talk show host Mark Levin and others as the banal product unwinds providing explanation of the box office failure following theatrical release.  It is currently playing on the ReelzChannel as what can only be regarded as a curiosity piece.

One of the reasons for it being a curiosity is its frantic pace and helter-skelter use of very low grade digital video of a lesser quality than YouTube.  Be assured that when the bad guys are offered up as depraved contrasts to the self-appointed mama grizzly, you can count on either stock footage of good old boys in a smoke-filled room or an incessantly brooding film score.  The feel of much of the material is that it is a collection of out takes clipped from promotional film shot for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" whose run on The Learning Channel mercifully has been completed.  There are always re-runs for the Palin-addicted.

Another of the oddities of Bannon's love letter to Palin is the paltry amount of time spent on the presidential election although her considerable triumph, an acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, gets a lot and it's Sarah at her best, by golly.  John McCain is barely recognized.  Hardly a master of subtlety, Bannon tells us that government is wasteful, then gives us three shots of money swirling down a toilet.

We never see Palin inThe Rogue: Searching for Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's wickedly amusing and sometimes frightening six months spent living next door to the remarkable woman who threatened to become a heartbeat from the Presidency.  McGinniss is not new to Alaska having researched the critically acclaimed Going to Extremes  there in 1977.  McGinniss does make it clear that, in his opinion, the Palinized Wasilla and much of Alaska is full of people thoroughly fed up with Palin.

In an unusual bit of good fortune, McGinniss, having determined that Alaska's most famous resident was worth a book, was offered a rental next door to Palin.  The mere beating of such odds strongly suggests Palin has a lot of enemies in Alaska in general and Wasilla in particular.  In investigative journalist fashion much more Confidential  than New Yorker, McGinniss gives us Sarah: having a fling with an NBA basketball player; doing drugs back when with First Dude Todd; coming up with easily doubted stories about the birth of son Trig suggesting she is not his mother; and as being committed to religious control of government in spite of not being sufficiently devout.  Oh, yes, the Palin family in all its dysfunctional glory is on board and, as described by McGinniss, not pretty.

She may be guilty of all his charges but McGinniss weakens his case with a disconcerting bitchy quality to his reportage and there are far too many stories told by "a friend," "one resident," and "a former resident."

On the other hand, if only one-quarter of McGinniss's stories can weather a scrutiny closer than the author's he said, she said conclusions, then Sarah Palin is, indeed, one of our major oddities worthy of the Koch quote about scaring the hell out of us.

McGinniss strikes just the right note with his last two paragraphs: What should never have been more than a freaky sideshow performed on a carnival midway was transformed by John McCain's desperation into what many still seem to see as the greatest show on earth.

Actually, it's long past time to strike the tent.

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"Boomerang"....reviewed by Bob Sanders

 

With the world going broke as a result of a tsunami of cheap credit extended between 2002 and 2008, some outstanding writers have stepped forward to provide a great many explanations of how it all happened.  Andrew Sorkin's splendid Too Big to Fail is a tour de force of Wall Street meltdowns, House of Cards finds William Cohen detailing the last 10 days of Bear Stearns, while The Greatest Trade Ever is a look at John Paulson and his bet against home prime loans.  As good as these books are, they lack world scope.  

Offering a different approach is Michael Lewis whose Boomerang offers insight based upon national characteristics of a strange collection of world-wide financial experts whose inane antics provide the book's subtitle: Travels in the New Third World.

Lewis writes funny about a very serious subject; while it would be easy to pay too much attention to his devastating satire, he is far more significant while seeking out the why of the world's self-inflicted destruction.

Particularly damning is Lewis's sad hilarity about Greece where tax evasion is a birthright and where new governments immediately call off tax collectors.  As with other nations of financial fools highlighted in the book--Iceland, Ireland, and the U.S--it is the author's point that a nation's fiscal recklessness is closely tied to the desires of its people.  Both Greece and Iceland are particularly odd.  A room full of the world's greatest writers of satire could not come up with the story of the bedlam that is Greece where Vatopaidi monks, energized by a Father Ephraim, were awarded a lake for a 700-year-old destruction of their land by Catalans.  Even Spain got drawn into Ephraim's remarkable chutzpah and soon the monks were extracting money from a variety of sources.  Grants and more reparations were brought into play; through it all, the Vatopaidi monastery did what no other did: cultivate relations (very effectively) with the outside world.

The monks then traded the lake for government-owned properties and it wasn't long before another coup was performed through prayer given for the prime minister's right hand who had a life-threatening illness.  A miraculous recovery followed and, as the plot developed, the monks achieved further fiscal triumphs including the acquisition of property built for the 2004 Olympic Games.  It became clear that the monks were either simple con men or the savviest businessmen extent.  Peter Doukas, a Ministry of Finance official and Lewis' initial monk contact, estimates he helped create for them a nine-bill-dollar trading profit.

Author Lewis exhibits his own chutzpah when he gains audience with a monk named Father Mathew from Wisconsin.  With the monks subjects of many lawsuits, Father Mathew tells Lewis: "Most people in Greece have this image of the abbot as a hustler."

Lewis' experiences in Iceland are almost as bizarre.  A tip-off occurs on page 1 when a representative of The International Monetary Fund explains how a nation of extremely well-to-do, well-educated, historically rational human beings had organized themselves to commit one of the single greatest acts of madness in financial history.  "You have to understand.  Iceland is no longer a country.  It is a hedge fund."

Stefan Alfsson is one of the more fascinating Icelanders.  A fisherman, Alfsson quit at age 30 to become a banker specializing in currency trading.  All the young people were doing it in the country whose population is 300,000 and Alfsson's customers were mostly fishermen.  The good times rolled with a rollicking flourish and Iceland became an adviser to companies on currency risk hedging.  When the kids were through with Iceland, three brand-new global-size banks had collapsed and the population learned its responsibility for $100 billion in banking losses works out to about $330,000 for each citizen.  That's in addition to tens of billions of dollars in personal losses from their own speculations including a stock market down 85 per-cent.  As Lewis points out, Iceland became the only nation on earth that Americans could point to and say, "Well, at least we didn't do that."

Another oddity is Ireland whose financial disaster, according to Lewis, "shared some things in common with Iceland's.  It was created by the sort of men who ignore their wives' suggestions that maybe they should stop and ask for directions, for example."  While Iceland's initial profit overflow bought foreign places like trophy companies in Britain, the Irish turned its profligacy inward.  They bought Irish land from each other with disastrous results.  Irish unemployment is at 14 per-cent, the budget deficit is now 32 per-cent of its GDP and the country's population is shrinking.

"Alone in a darkroom with a pile of money," writes Lewis, "Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom.  They'd been conditioned to grab as much as they could without thinking about the long-term consequences.  Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their sub-prime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans."

States like California face problems similar to those of Greece with ballooning pension obligations and employment costs a major fctor.  Lewis examines this nation's biggest state challenge by way of two interviews with former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plus a frightening visit to that state's Vallejo, a bankrupt community where drastic cuts in human services are making the town of 112,000 unlivable.

Considerable pause for thought is offered by Lewis' somewhat upbeat conclusion: "When people pile up debts they will find difficult and perhaps even impossible to repay, they are saying several things they can immediately afford.  They are saying, less obviously, that their present wants are so important that, to satisfy them, they are implying that when the future difficulty arrives, they'll figure it out.  They don't always do that.  But you can never rule out the possibility that they will.  As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off."

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"Rin Tin Tin" by Susan Orlean...reviewed by Bob Sanders

 

Susan Orlean, whose The Orchid Thief  found the enormously able writer examining an obsession, is at it again with a nearly 100-year look at Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.  Be advised that any fond memories of a dog will make it difficult for the reader to put down the unlikely tale of a man who masterminded the creation of what was billboarded as America's Greatest Movie Dog.

The obsession in Rin Tin Tin is that of the dog's owner and trainer, Lee Duncan, who found the celebrity canine on a World War I battlefield in France.  Duncan's extreme devotion to his dog is similar to John Laroche's intense attachment in The Orchid Thief.

Orlean weaves three story developments in telling the compelling tale of a dog who achieved public recognition that grew into the cult of Rin Tin Tin.  There's the story of Duncan's bonding with and training of the dog; the Hollywood part of the story as Rinty (as intimates called him) achieving greatness in silent pictures; then the super dog's TV career when producer Herbert B. Leonard re-introduced him to audiences.  With an eye for rich detail, Orlean explains how Rinty (there were a great many over the years totalling a singular icon) fit in with the transformation of dogs from work animals to pets.  "Keeping an animal in the house as a companion is so common now," she writes, "that it's easy to forget how fundamentally odd it is, and what a leap it must have been to share living quarters with a nonhuman life form just to have their company."

Abandoned first by his father, then his mother when he was six, Duncan lived in an orphanage three years before his mother retrieved him and an older sister.  Lacking the ability to make normal human interaction, Duncan became dependent upon animals for lasting bonds.  His single-mindedness in creating a legendary super dog and the author's pursuit of a sprawling story are the book's recurring themes.

It was in a shelled kennel in eastern France that Duncan stumbled upon a newborn litter of German shepherd pups.  In an unfinished memoir, Duncan wrote that Rinty "crept right into a lonesome place in my life and...became a part of me."  Although the dog was found in September, 1918, Rinty's greatness didn't become obvious until he was filmed in slow motion by a friend of Duncan's.  The footage of Rinty jumping over an obstacle nearly 12 feet high wound up on newsreels resulting in a Warner Bros. contract.

Rin Tin Tin's enormous silent film success was in 23 productions that saved the studio from bankruptcy on a regular basis. He was then the most famous dog in the world; at the height of his popularity, he was filmdom's number one box office star receiving 50,000 fan letters a month.  Duncan became very wealthy.

"A dog was at no disadvantage," writes Orlean, "to a human in silent film; both species had the same set of tools for telling a story--action, expression, gesture.  In fact, an animal acting without words looked natural and didn't fall into pantomime and exaggeration the way human actors in silent film often did." 

The original Rin Tin Tin died in 1932 and the Hollywood rumor mill had the dog dying in the arms of handy Jean Harlow who was living across the street.

Talkies were tough on Rinty whose contract was terminated shortly before the dog's death.  It wasn't until 1954 that Leonard brought him back in the huge TV success, "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin."  The show played in more than 70 countries and became so popular in the U.S. that nearly one-third of the television sets in the country were tuned to the show.

Leonard is one of many odd characters who wander in and out of Orlean's impressively researched story.  Caring nothing about dogs, Leonard sought out Duncan who held TV in low esteem.  It was Leonard, whose other tube triumphs include "Route 66" and "Naked City," who "antagonized everyone he ever knew," according to one insider as Orlean pieces together who did what to whom in those early days of TV production.  Some of Leonard's more significant battles are with Ralph Cohn, founder of Screen Gems and nephew of the outrageous Harry Cohn, head of parent company Columbia Pictures.  Leonard, whose extravagances included four wives and a gambling addiction (at least one studio assumed his losses contractually),  wound up sleeping in cars and homes of friends.  Orlean has to have so much Herb Leonard material that she must be tempted to crank out a book about him.  On the other hand, Sammy Glick in Hollywood has already been done.

One of the particularly insightful passages of Orlean's writing occurs near the book's end; more than anything else, it explains why she was so drawn to the dog:.."I was used to the idea that everything connected to Rin Tin Tin was full of happenstance and charm, lightning strikes of fortune and hairpin turns of luck; from a standstill, life around Rin Tin Tin always seemed to accelerate out of the depths of disappointment to a new place filled with possibility.  Just like that, wonderful things happened to someone who otherwise would have been luckless, friendless, abandoned.  This is what the story of Rin Tin had become in my mind--a myth--and why it had drawn me in, as it had drawn in all these other people.  The facts were all interesting, but they were mere armature; the rest was like an ancient legend, wondrous, lifting everything around it, as buoyant as a dream."

Orlean, a Clevelander and graduate of the University of Michigan, has been a New Yorker magazine writer since 1992.  The Orchid Thief, one of several books, formed the basis of a film script by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze.  The film, Adaptation,   portrayed Orlean (played by Meryl Streep) as Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation in which orchids were transformed into a fictional psychoactive substance.

Now, go get the book if you haven't already.  Susan Orlean's pursuit of detail is extraordinary, her insight also at that level.  She is simply one of our very best writers.     

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"Such Interesting People"....reviewed by Bob Sanders

 

I seem to have come full circle public transportation-wise during these latter years.  I began early on in Lakewood, Ohio where I moved about as a youngster--first on the Detroit Avenue trolley, then the more upscale Clifton Boulevard ride.  The destination was nearly always downtown Cleveland and the movie houses featuring live entertainment including swing era bands such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Count Basie.  I just remembered not to leave out Jimmie Lunceford.

Now, I'm retired living in Bellingham, Washington and using a free WTA pass available to those who have lasted at least 80 years.  WTA stands for Whatcom Transit Authority and I ride the #15 bus from the Cordata Station three times a week.  It's transportation that takes me within two blocks of a swim at the YMCA.  It's a 25-minute run each way and I manage to read round-trip except when kids with little to say somehow produce boisterous enthusiasms about such things as video games.  It's times like that that I realize how fortunate I've been to have lived most of my life during less techy crazed times.

When I became a working stiff, I still managed to use public transportation--first in Cleveland, then in St. Louis where I went to work for TV Guide in 1954.  Actually, I did St. Louis gigs twice eventually prompting a Canadian friend to observe: "Guess you couldn't get enough of the place the first time around, eh?"  It was after a transfer to Atlanta by the magazine that I turned to the automobile doing the same in Rochester, New York, the Quad Cities and Los Angeles to get to work.  Being without a car in Los Angeles is nearly impossible and I stayed with wheels there and for three more years when I went to work in Chicago for Playboy Enterprises.  That was in 1968.  While big cities offer plenty of auto shortcomings, the Chicago lake route south to my office at Playboy wasn't bad and involved indoor parking for $27 a month.  The parking customers were largely Playboy employees and I never tried to figure that one out.  Maybe someone owed Hefner.  I needed a car for the magazine where so many working hours were at night.  My perky '66 powder blue Mustang convertible, parked one night in front of Hefner's State Parkway home, was the only car in the neighborhood untouched when The Weathermen smashed windows during the Democratic National Convention.  The car's windshield had a Playboy logo.

Most of my 22 years in Chicago utilized public transportation.  Maybe the greatest plus about it, certainly to readers, is the opportunity it affords them.  I once figured out my Chicago Transit Authority trips from and to the Wilmette Station (parking there most of the time for 50 cents and a buck a pop for the CTA) enabled me to read more than 11,000 hours worth.   

One of my great joys has been talking with members of the media whose stories made me aware that the unique qualities of some of the characters in Robert J. Casey's Such Interesting People were reflected in some of my contemporaries.  I got to thinking about Casey and his book maybe a month ago and determined to re-read it.  My thanks to both the Bellingham Public Library for obtaining it and the University of Oregon Library in Eugene for the loan. 

 Published in 1943 by Bobbs-Merrill, the book is an absolute classic and was touted to me by Bill Ashboldt, a photographer I worked with on the Lorain (Ohio) Journal.  Bill eventually moved on to the nearby Cleveland Plain Dealer and is best known for the many and widely-circulated photos he took of Sam Sheppard, neck in a brace.  Sheppard, a doctor convicted of murdering his wife, inspired The Fugitive TV series plus a feature film in addition to an enormously undeserved public chorus shouting Sam's innocence.  The latest is a Sheppard 60-minute "documentary" currently playing the ID Channel with a lot of facts either altered or cast aside.

Casey, who retired from Chicago journalism in 1947, would have loved covering the Sheppard trial.  On the other hand, he had his hands full back in his day with such interesting criminals as Al Capone, Dion O'Bannion, Tough Tommy Megrim and Peewee Poopopolos around and about.  Interestingly, the book's hoodlums are bit players to the journalism stars and eccentrics whose enterprising spirit and creative insanity made possible the greatest of the journalistic shows.

Casey nailed it as in: "The fantastic twenties! Those were the days when there were two cars in every bootlegger's garage and a corpse in every alley--when the kitchen smelled of raisin mash and the tattoo of bursting bottles marked the progress of the home-brew in the basement--when the best places to eat in the city were the speak-easies, or maybe your stomach was too paralyzed to tell--when scotch with a Southern accent cost twelve dollars a quart and the customers all seemed to have twelve dollars--when hearts were young and gay, and livers and lights, apparently, were more durable."

Having earned three citations for bravery in combat during World War I, Casey became an itinerant newsman before he made it in Chicago.  Joining the Chicago Daily News in 1920, he worked as a columnist and foreign correspondent.  He also wrote features, became an expert on the era's gang wars and traveled extensively.  Casey's coverage of World War II included Pearl Harbor and the blitz in London.  He authored 27 books.  All are worth your time.

While the emphasis of Such Interesting People is on Chicago editors including Henry Justin Smith of the Daily News, Walter Howey of the Tribune and Daily News and the American's  Harry Reutlinger plus the idiosyncratic approach to journalism by the reporters, there also are supporting walk-ons of stunning invention who became attached to newsrooms after wandering in off the streets.   

One was "The Ghost Catcher" who spoke with a pronounced German accent, said he was a proof reader and carried cards identifying himself as a "Ghost Catcher" whose name was Professor Otto Reichmann.  Claiming to be a catcher of considerable talent, he had once been hired by the Tribune as part of a claque that went around exposing spirit mediums, story matter probably accomplished by an artful end around Trib publisher Robert R. McCormick.

The Ghost Catcher, described by Casey as looking "like a relic of somebody else's elegance" quickly became a daily visitor to the Daily News and "like the sort of crank who usually pays visits to newspaper offices," temporarily lost out when the paper's publisher, Walter Strong, gave a tour of his brand new building to visiting publishers and editors from South America.  In an unfortunate piece of timing, the copy desk, located at the entrance to the news room, was missing its usual quota of habitues.  Only a "soiled old man in a grease-spotted overcoat and bilious-looking straw hat" sat writing something on a sheet of copy paper.  

Strong touched him on the shoulder asking: "I beg your pardon, but who are you?"

Professor Reichmann turned around and with an odd combination of surprise and indignation, shouted: "I sir," he cried, leaping to his feet, "I am The Ghost Catcher!"

Casey's delight is particularly apparent when he tells the story of Daily News editor Howey, formerly of the Tribune, who wrote a glowing editorial about the paper's leadership in sending a relief train downstate to do good deeds following a cyclone in Murphysboro.  The editorial soared in its successful attempt to properly describe the paper's humanity, timeliness of the project's execution and heroism, then decided what he had written deserved readership beyond that of his paper.  Giving a copy boy detailed instructions, the editor handed the lad a copy of the just-completed editorial scribbling a couple of words on it.  The lad made his way to the Tribune as directed to give the chief copy reader (identified as wearing an eyeshade) Howey's prose.  The scribbled note at the top read: McCormick: MUST.  The copy editor complied and the next edition of Col. McCormick's paper carried the bitter rival's self-congratulatory pronouncement atop the Editorial Page.  It was widely believe Howey had left McCormick's employ unhappily some years before, a likelihood backed up by Casey's suggestion that such a condition "would explain so well the little pleasantries that Mr. Howey extended to the Tribune."

Strong, the publisher who made the acquaintance of The Ghost Catcher, had limited association with the editorial side of the busi8ness and became upset with member of the business community who suggested Daily News reporters were careless.  Strong took public transportation between his home and office and eventually tired of the charges.  One day he invited the critics to dinner on top of the half-finished Daily News Building.  The critics arrived believing they were to be confronted by a gesture of conciliation.  Most of what they knew about the newspaper business was confined to what they saw at the movies.  Forced to make their way in the dark through piles of gravel, they eventually arrived by way of a wooden construction elevator at the 24th floor banquet room.  During the ride, there were strange echoes in the big building.

Strong never finished his opening line of welcome.  Writes Casey: "A man at the middle of the table who hadn't spoken much during the evening and didn't seem to know anybody suddenly pushed back his chair, jumped to his feet, pulled out a pistol and fired point-blank at the guest sitting opposite.  The guest fell over backward.  A police whistle shrieked outside.  The door opened and a woman was glimpsed in the entrance.  But only briefly.  As she stepped across the threshold the lights were out and there was another series of shots and two or three more screams.  An electric lantern flashed to reveal a brace of policemen and as that single ray of light died out the air was filled with a noise of clanking iron.  Then the lights flashed on again to discover the petrified diners in a number of odd attitudes and to reveal that both the murderer and corpse had gone away.  Where there had been a bedlam there was now a dead and terrifying quiet.  Through  it broke the voice of the host who oddly enough had begun to smile.

"Now, gentlemen," he said, "we shall see how good you are as reporters.  A waiter will give each of you a pad of paper and a pencil and you shall write out in your own way a record of what you saw just now--or what you thought you saw--and when your stories have been read aloud I shall entertain further suggestions about the improvement of my staff."

As Casey observed: The best brains of Chicago went to work then to prove what any cross-examiner knows about the fallacy of human testimony.  Mr. Strong burned the manuscripts before his guests took their way sheepishly to the terrifying elevator.  One wishes he hadn't."

Get the book if you can find it.  Anyone who enjoys reading about the kind of folks who made The Front Page possible will delight in Such Interesting People by Robert J. Casey.

And now, if you'll excise me, I have a bus to catch and the last chapter of the book to read.

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Bonhomie Bob Cromie....by Bob Sanders

It was while taking the #15 WTA bus to downtown Bellingham the other day that I began thinking about my good fortune to have known Bob Cromie.  Perhaps it was the book I was reading during the ride that reminded me of him.  A classic among journalists, Robert J. Casey's Such  Interesting People is a highly perceptive look at Chicago reporters, writers and editors who, among other things, inspired Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur to write The Front Page.

Cromie, who left us at 90 with six months and change left before the Millennium, was a carry-over from Casey's era.  His book, published in 1943, did not goose me into the field of journalism; rather, it was reportorial efforts on The Heun Gazette, a for-laughs-only publication passed around study halls by restless students at Lakewood High School located in a suburb immediately west of Cleveland, Ohio.  More later about The Gazette, editor Dick Heun and our decidedly bizarre approach to journalism as we created our versions of the first pages of history.

Cromie may be recalled as the host of a nationally syndicated radio show about books plus two TV programs, "Cromie Circle" on Chicago's WGN and "Book Beat," home based at WTTW, the city's public TV channel that fed the shows to PBS stations.  His broadcast triumphs were an adjunct to four decades of reportorial excellence.  He loved words and the people who used them--particularly those who called attention to social injustice, an attitude that characterized every aspect of his work and life.

Successful journalists owe their reputations to many things.  Some dig deeper for stories than their counterparts.  Others, not as persevering, may place greater emphasis on originality while some make effective use of contacts calling upon rolodexes both real and of the mind.  Cromie is the only journalist I ever met who was thoroughly noble and it showed in the way people responded to him.  I never heard him swear and that includes time on the golf course where people are very inclined to do so.

In a business where excessive drinking, more than any other shortcoming, has probably ended more careers, Cromie (to my knowledge) never took a drink.  Whether this was a lifelong consistency or a resolve preceded by a battle with demon rum I know not.  He often sat at John Fischetti's First Amendment celebratory table at Riccardo, joining in and providing hilarity while not imbibing.  Fischetti, a Pulitzer winner for editorial cartooning, was my best friend first at the  Chicago Daily News, then at Sun-Times after the Daily News was folded by Marshall Field V.

Like many outstanding journalists, Cromie was a messy desk person although he was on the neat side compared to sports writer/columnist Bill Gleason of the Sun-Times.  I once made reference to something he had written nine years earlier prompting Gleason to dive into a filing system everyone called Mt. Gleason.  Groping for a moment or two with Herman Cain-like proficiency, he extracted a published piece plus paper-clipped notes and proclaimed: "You mean this?"   

The messy desk possibly continues to be a matter of pride to some contemporary journalists.  I once took wife Janet on a tour of the Chicago Tribune editorial floor during which she met such print paragons as columnist Eric Zorn, critic Gene Siskal (then thumbs-upping it at the movies with TV co-host Roger Ebert) and cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, a three-time Pulitzer winner.  It was in the newsroom that we came upon a remarkable example of clutter whose magnitude suggested it had to have been detritus of an Oklahoma tornado decidedly off course.

"Whose office is this?" asked Jan.

"It's Casey Bukro's,"  I replied knowing what was coming next.

"What does he do?" was the anticipated question.

"Why, he's the Environmental Editor" I giggled in return.  Bukro, responsible for environmental entries, nearly won a Pulitzer for his "Save Our Lake" series.

Born in Detroit and educated at Oberlin College, Cromie joined the Tribunein 1936 and was the newspaper's war correspondent for four years.  Wherever World War II battles raged, whether in Europe or the Pacific, Cromie was there to report--often with a local angle.  His modus operandi nearly always was kicked off by asking if there were any soldiers or Marines from Chicago or Illinois.  Tribune readers had the war "personalized" for them and Cromie was masterful.

Cromie was with the Marines when Guadalcanal was invaded and he put in a lot of miles traveling with Gen. George Patten including coverage of the Battle of the Bulge.  Like Ernie Pyle, he wrote stories about average guys turned into everyday heroes.  Typical of his work was an October 12, 1943 report telling of a raid on Rabaul located, as the dateline proclaimed, SOMEWHERE IN NEW GUINEA.  The writing is rich, spare and aimed at a readership whose heightened interest in the war is in direct contrast to today's indifference.

"As we taxied on the runway," continued Cromie, "I moved into the bomb bay and stood between rows of 1,000 pound bombs.  We had plenty of respect for the 1,000 pounders--Staff Sgt. Fred C. Whitney, 22, Independence, Mo., Staff Sgt. John G. Shaffer of Logan, W. VA, and I.  We didn't return to our comfortable posts in the waist until Bond (Lt. John E. Bond 24 of Scarsdale, N.Y.) had plenty of time to get his plane on an even keel.  Other heavy bombers were all around us.  I could count more than 50 at one time.  We gradually got into formation and headed for Rabaul, soon running into heavy fog which hid the wingtips and sent tiny drops of water running on the windows.  Then into the sun once more.  The morning was all blue and gold and blinding white.  I went forward and stood behind the pilot's seat.  Tech Sgt. H. V. Milarski of 3800 Diversey boulevard, Chicago, was working on the radio.  As he smoked a cigarette he looked as bored as if riding down State street in a street car.  Tech Sgt. Joseph A. Gosseaux, 23, of Grindstone, Pa., the engineer, was busy writing down the names of the personnel.  He did this with ease from long practice, even to putting down each man's serial number from memory--some numbers containing eight digits." 

Cromie's war journalism is something we don't get today because of the military's control explicit in embedding reporters resulting in spoon fed versions far short of what we should be getting.  For that we can thank President George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney (then Defense Secretary) and other members of the administration who conducted an assault on constitutional freedoms during Operation Desert Storm.  Without question, a strangely passive press also was at fault.

I have two particularly fond memories of Cromie.  One involved attending services for Fischetti who died two weeks after I left Field Enterprises (owner of the Sun-Times).  There were people critical of my leaving for the Tribune but Fischetti was highly supportive during two months of my maneuverings with the marketing and editorial departments of the Boul Mich monolith.

Cromie's eulogy for Fischetti was perfect.  In the company of all who loved the guy, Cromie offered a parting line that recalled a legion of mid-day fun: "I think it's entirely possible that John Fischetti invented the long lunch."

My other indelible memory of the journalist was the result of a question I asked him following a taping of "The Cromie Circle" at WGN.  Of all the authors he had interviewed, with which one would he prefer to spend a lot of time?  Cromie mentioned several but the stickout he decided was Ernest K. Gann.  Gann's many lives were spent as a theatrical manager, film director, painter, writer, pilot and seaman.  Both he and Cromie were man's men for whom laughter was an important ingredient of living.  "He is truly one hell of a guy," was the way he put it.

"'ll tell you something interesting about Gann," observed Cromie.  "His was the only interview I ever conducted in which the subject would not tell me where he lived.  I asked him why and Gann replied: "If I tell you, you'll ask me what it's like and I'll tell you how wonderful it is.  Members of your audience will then get interested in the place and they'll buy property and build homes and the place won't be the same.  That's why."

Our conversation took place in 1985 shortly before Cromie retired.  When more than four years later Jan and I moved to San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest, we discovered that one of its better-know residents was Gann, author of 25 novels about aviation and the sea.  Among the best known: Fate is the Hunter, The High and the Mighty and Blaze of Noon. 

We met Ernie and spunky wife Dodie (an inductee into the National Ski Hall of Fame, she captained the 1948 Olympics team) at a party a couple of weeks after our January, 1990 arrival in Friday Harbor.  He recalled the conversation with Cromie and thought our meeting indicative of pronounced prescience on Cromie's part.  Among the many joys of our island life were the sensational views offered from our home including the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and much of Ernie and Dodie's 760-acre Red Mill Farm in the San Juan Valley below.

The farm and its assured future gave further evidence of Ganns' staunch attitude regarding the heaven on earth he had referenced in his conversation with Cromie.  Shortly after donating a conservation easement to the San Juan Preservation Trust thus denying development, Gann told me: "We have to do something to save this land, not only for our children but for ourselves.  People need to stop thinking of money all the time, or the land won't be here." 

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Frank: The Voice....A review by Bob Sanders

 

I finally caught up with James Kaplan's ring-a-dingdingally good Frank: The Voice and, once again, became intrigued by the two Sinatras; one, a singer of remarkable sensitivity able to communicate in thoroughly entrancing fashion, the other an often highly immature, nasty, selfish oaf who fraternized with hoodlums in an apparent attempt to further a reputation for being tough. 

The book, of more than 700 pages,  while largely a re-write of many of the tomes about the entertainer, is a penetratingly good one comprehensively researched.  Like Gary Giddons' examination of Bing Crosby (A Pocketfull of Dreams), it takes the reader up to the break-through moment in the life of a musical sensation.  The Crosby book ended with his entry into films having concentrated on his development as an artist in addition to stories of palship with such notables as Hoagy Carmichael, Bix Beiderbecke, the Rhythm Boys and other members of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra who enjoyed a drink or ten.  Unlike, Sinatra, Crosby was regarded favorably by the public thanks to astute public relations and The Groaner's ability to confine his shortcomings largely to the home.  He was, by nearly all accounts, a complete antithesis of the merry, nice guy next-door screen presence.  Kaplan devotes considerable space in the Sinatra book to Crosby and for good reason.  It was Sinatra's worship of Crosby that inspired a career built on a lot of talent buoyed by intense determination.

Kaplan takes a warts and all approach to the finger-snapping singer from Hoboken, NJ in a kind of hip, semi-wise guy fashion--particularly when telling of gangster connections, piggish behavior and insensitive endings of relationships with women including Ava Gardner.  Yes, Ava is there along with Lana Turner, Marilyn Maxwell and women of less notoriety.  Actually, Ava, according to Kaplan, drove Sinatra up a lot of walls including one time in Palm Springs when the two of them had serious spat #187 (or whatever) with Sinatra taking off for the desert community presumably to resume a relationship with Turner.  Gardner, a good friend of Turner, beat Sinatra to Palm Springs as another Hollywood tale unfolded.  Good reporter Kaplan takes us through a number of versions of that overly-reported story including Kitty Kelley's His Way.  A bibliography of 127 suggests how much digging the author did to come up with what is, above all, a fair look at a most complicated performer.

Many of the musicians who played roles in Sinatra's early days as a band singer are there.  Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers, Jack Leonard (he preceded The Voice as the boy singer in Tommy Dorsey's band), Harry James & The Music Makers, song writer Jimmy Van Heusen (worth a book himself), Dick Haymes, Alec Wilder (the vastly underrated, eccentric, self-taught composer) and drummer Buddy Rich, a Sinatra nemesis whether it was women or tempos.  Anecdotes of musicians and their lives on the road are particularly effective while providing enormous insight.  The reader gets a vivid sense of what the Rustic Cabin was like when Sinatra waited on tables in the New Jersey joint and sang for his supper while learning his craft before discovery by James. 

One of the book's delights involves the circumstances of some of the 1,300 songs recorded by Sinatra.  Kaplan is particularly adroit at analyzing Sinatra's style revealing small but significant differences between the live and recorded singer.  "Four nights later, on an NBC radio broadcast from the Astor Roof, Sinatra sang 'I'll Never Smile Again' to another houseful of upper-crusters.  The air check of the number reveals a small but striking difference from the recording: on the radio version's out chorus (the last words sung in the song) as Sinatra sings 'Within my heart, I know I will never start/To smile again, until I smile at you,' he uses the vocal trick he'd discovered back at the Rustic Cabin, a breathy little catch in his voice, in this case before the initial h of 'heart.'  It's a small thing, a showman-like touch that would have made no sense on a recording but all the sense in the world before a live crowd--a naked play for the hearts of the rich girls in the audience.  Calculated, and thoroughly effective."

A fan of the Pied Pipers, I once sat next to Jo Stafford on the dais of a Kansas City Advertising Club luncheon where Stafford was a special guest, not the main speaker she should have been.  What a delight.  She was funny, a great teller of stories, totally engaging and the best lead singer of vocal groups I ever heard.  We spoke of Sinatra and her comments about him were almost word-for-word what Kaplan got from her some 50 years later.  "When you sing with a group, it takes a certain amount of discipline, and Frank was excellent at it," Stafford said.  "You can't wander off into your own phrasing.  You've got to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.  Very few solo singers can do that.  He could.  When he sang with us, he was a Piper, and he liked it, and did it well.  I don't know any other solo singer, solo male singer especially, that can do that."

Some of Sinatra's not so supporting players come off worse than others.  Hardly surprising, Louis B. Mayer is his usual suspicious, small and vindictive self while being critical of his MGM singer/actor property during a period when Mayor's mistress was former Kay Kyser singer, Ginny Simms.  Simms, vivacious and appealing, was something less than beautiful and some thought her a bit horse faced.  Sinatra had fun with that one.  Seated one day in the MGM commissary, someone threw him a provocative line: "Hey, did you hear about L.B.'s accident?"  Not missing a beat, Sinatra replied: "Yeah, I hear he fell off of Ginny Simms."  The incident immediately preceded the actor's leaving the studio.

Earl Wilson, whose Sinatra: An Unauthorized Biography gets heavy usage by Kaplan, comes off as a guy desperately wanting to be considered a Sinatra intimate.  His column items reflecting various stages of the singer's career--particularly the seemingly never-ending series of Gardner/Sinatra fights--suggests he asked a lot of dumb and self-serving questions.

A typical Wilson/Gardner scene occurred shortly before the actress filmed "Mogambo."   She and the columnist met "in a large eatery run by a large eater" (probably Toots Shor's) and the column item suggests an editor had complainted about Wilson plugs for "eateries."  Continue Wilson, "I happened to mention her Herculean husband whom she considers has negleted her, which--if it's true--makes him this century's man of iron."  Wilson then asks if he can be an intermediary and the onslaught of drivel continues.  

There has always been an understandable disconnect between segments of the public and artists whose personal lives are less than exemplary.  There's the Charlie Chaplin of all his cinematic triumphs and The Tramp's suggested but never proven communist sympathies.  The right's disenchantment with Hollywood goes back to Chaplin.  He was the first movieland "enemy" and it wasn't long before McCarthyism began doing damage to a bunch of people who didn't deserve it.  Kaplan's telling of the Sinatra saga includes the singer's early liberalism but, because the book ends with the career-changing Best Supporting Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity (1954), we don't learn of his switch to conservatism because of what he felt was a social slight by John F. Kennedy.

Mitch Miller, who produced Sinatra's largely disappointing recordings at Columbia Records, comes off better than expected.  It was Miller who tangled with the singer over such fare as "Mama Will Bark."  The recording, possibly the worst of Sinatra's career, was done at the depths of his career.  The "Mama" on the record was Dagmar (her straight name was Virginia Ruth Egnor) whose description as a "tall, eye-poppingly buxom West Virginia blonde" is not nearly sufficient.  According to Kaplan, Sinatra did not squawk when Miller broached the tune.  The author also reveals that Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Stafford and others had to pay for their own recording sessions.

If there's a hero in the book, it's George Evans, a brilliant PR guy who guided Sinatra's career through nearly all the time covered in the book.  Evans was enormously creative, far seeing, loyal, and of tremendous energy.  It was Evans who gave Sinatra the tag that never left him: The Voice.  Evans invented the bobby sox hysteria that provided the singer such overwhelming attention which, nevertheless, brought a great deal of grief to the publicist; Sinatra was not an easy going employer.  Evans, more than a savvy PR practitioner, somehow worked his success in a quaint era where such a thing as bad publicity actually existed; he painted the singer as mostly a family man in spite of reality's red flags.  No one thus far has been named the inventor of spin, but George Evans' name has to be right up there should such a determination be pursued.

While there is little new in Sinatra: The Voice, the writing is crisp and the research exhausting.  James Kaplan has succeeded in giving us a much better understanding of an American icon who dramatically changed popular culture.   

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