America's Love of Celebrity Could Kill It

America has always had a love affair with The Celebrity. Sometimes it's a Hero like Charles Lindbergh, and sometimes it's a bit more...well earthy like Marilyn Monroe, the Sex Symbol. No matter what shape it takes, it's all part of our abundant love of Celebrity. It is through the celebrity that we learn how to respond to our changing world. 

But now, the United States had developed a crisis of celebrity. A Cult of celebrity has taken over the Republican Party to the point where a large number of it's members would believe what Trump says over the word of their religious leaders or even other family members. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/21/iowa-republican-poll-trump-00112050

How did this happen? It began long before Trump took that iconic descent on the golden escalator and into the hearts of gullible voters. But at the core of the issue is Trump who has proven himself a master of manipulation. The Florida Times-Union muses, "Trump is quotable to a fault and has managed to make himself the story of the week without any apparent negative effects in Republican primary polls." The most corrupt man in American knows how twist words in a way that most politicians can only dream about. And the rubes living in their run-down trailers, the small time hucksters running for local offices around the country, and many others can't get enough of him.

So now what? How to make the True Believer see the light? Well, it won't be easy. There's been a dearth of leadership in the Republican Party for years -  that's what Trump took advantage of to begin with. So that's the beginning. Republican stalwarts Chris Christie and former vice-president Mike Pence are beginning to speak the truth. I suspect that over time, the repeated telling the truth will have a positive effect and more people will see the value of unburdening one's soul. I am confident that one day this will just be another page in the history of American. It better damn well not be the last chapter.

The Boy on the Shuttle

As I entered, I didn’t see him. It wasn’t until the train began moving that I heard him. He was singing, faintly, a song I couldn’t identify and picking a stringed instrument I couldn’t recognize. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. I can’t ever swear it was a musical instrument but in hindsight (hindhearing?) it sounded like a cheap guitar was being plucked.

Evening rush hour and he was that day’s entertainment on one of the cars of the Shuttle from Times Square to Grand Central. Every car seems to have some kind of entertainment. Sometimes it’s the lone musician with his instrument, other times it’s a duo or group with some smooth jive. And every once in a while, one of them leaves you smiling. 

Not this one.

His voice wasn’t so much soft as it was weak; whether that was his natural voice or he was just too insecure to sing out, I don’t know. And he wasn’t a musician. Whatever he was playing, he was far from being a virtuoso. Well, so what. New York’s subway system is a testing ground for some of the world’s most prodigious talent. Walking from one train to the next, especially at Times Square, you can hear a cacophony of bands and singers and more than once I’ve found myself singing along. Dropping a buck in someone’s guitar case is not unusual.

But not this guy.

The trip from beginning to end can’t be more than two minutes and he finished his act shortly before the train pulled into Grand Central and began what I realized was his spiel. I can’t hear very well anyway so I couldn’t tell you what he said, but I could hear a plea for money. Its a couple days before Christmas so I guess I should have been feeling charitable, but when the door opened, I bolted along with everyone else in a hurry to get home or finish their holiday shopping. I didn’t look back as I left the car.

Blame it on politics, but that’s a cop out. Nevertheless, as I walked down the platform, climbed the stairs and followed the crowd rushing into Grand Central, I couldn’t help think about that voice. In thinning-of-the-herd lingo, this one would be the first to go. I had the feeling that he wouldn’t last much longer, especially not in this city. And then, as I passed a couple soldiers in flak vests with ‘45’s strapped to their hips I had a much more chilling thought.

I imagined someone coming up to him, befriending him and buying him dinner and telling him about God (he calls him Allah) and how long ago they were attacked by infidels and the war continues, and how now it’s the Americans who are responsible for his misery. It is the Americans who have defiled the Koran and now they must be punished. Happy news for the poor guy who buys the shtick on the hope he’s finally gonna get laid, by lots of virgins no less. So what if it’s in heaven. Anything’s better than this.

Can you find him, Mr. Trump? Will you throw all the entertainers out of Times Square because you’re afraid of him? No? Don’t fear the boy on the train. Help him. What this country needs, what this world needs, is something no politician can solve the problem. The problem is buried deep in the soul of men everywhere. It is part of our human-ness; our primal fears, our inability to overcome our primitive communications. And some of it is just pure meanness. It is this meanness that we can change. Sometimes a little at a time, sometimes in a Bernie Saunder’s-like quantum leap. It happens. Maybe it’s about to happen now. Anything’s better than this.

I don’t live in the city anymore, and I won’t be going back in for awhile, so I’m sure I’ll never see that guy again, but I’ll give him this, my memory in writing. And maybe if you’re on the shuttle and you hear a weak voice begging for loose change, please throw him a quarter or a buck for me.

Can Bernie Win?

I’m not a political pundit. I’m not a Beltway insider. I watch television occasionally, otherwise I’m dependent on public radio, the internet and a few headlines here or there to inform me what’s going on in the news. So this isn’t going to be a learned article on a current political phenomenon. I’m simply observing and reporting. And I’m thinking tonight of another phenom of a few years ago, coming from the right this time, who’s name was H. Ross Perot.

For a few months, Ross Perot was the Bernie Saunders of his day. Here’s a crazy Texas millionaire coming out of left field, not a snowball’s chance in Hell, but who, by force of his own will, took this country by the lapels with his rousing oratory and his spot on criticisms of the Washington status quo. He looked good, if a little strange, on television and his message resonated.

1992 presidential campaign was Bush vs. Clinton. In the fall of ’91, with a year to go before the election, presidential polls showed Perot with 21% support from the electorate, 14 points behind likely Clinton and 16 points behind President Bush. By the following May, Perot was leading presidential polls in both Texas and California. The Bush and Clinton campaigns had become concerned to the point that they began attempting to downgrade Perot. Vice President Dan Quayle (remember that nitwit?) became the most senior member of the Bush administration to criticize Perot, calling him a "temperamental tycoon".

Perot had named retired Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, once awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during years of captivity as a POW during the Vietnam War, as his "interim" running mate in late March. No one knew much about him. I remember the first time I saw Stockdale on TV during a debate. It was like watching the moment the Challenger mission exploding in space. You can see it with your eyes but your brain is still saying “what the hell is this?”

It soon became obvious that he really was loony, but his choice of Vice President running mate had made the unfortunate Stockdale an object of ridicule; he became instant fodder for SNL and all the late night talk show hosts looking for an easy, or uneasy, laugh. 

Saunders doesn’t have a running mate yet, and there's still a year to go before we cast our votes. It’s possible he could peak just before the convention and be burned out, a footnote in history, but election time. But to count him out just because all the pundits and news channels have already crowned the next Queen Clinton is to do him an injustice. He’s not a flake. He’s not a brain-fried businessman with too much money and time on his hands. He’s a well-respected Senator and has been for some time. He talks sense to almost anyone who listens to him. His failing, which I believe is his biggest strength, is that he’s a dreamer. He sees things that are and asks how he can make them better. 

It’s half a year to go before we even start thinking about the summer conventions, I think Bernie is the man to watch. And I think (my opinion only) that if you think there’s even a ghost of a chance to have the kind of world he’s talking about, you will take a moment to support his campaign.

Going Home

It's been a very long time, not only in years but also, and especially, in terms of my life. When I left, I was a angry young man, covering his pain with false bravado and bon homme. That was fifty years ago this September. I was very happy to be done with my home, my childhood, and be starting an adventure. I'd just turned eighteen when I came to the Big Apple to study acting. I was in way over my head. The only thing I was any good at was the cast parties. Other than that I had no business being in show business. Maybe I could write a song...



The last time I saw my mother was in the Spring of 2005. My life was in turmoil I had a few days vacation, a car and a dog that seemed like he might be fun to bring along. I was probably there three days and most of it was driving her from the assisted-living center to lunch, some low level shopping - how much does a ninety something need anyway? Looking back, even though I didn't particularly wish to be there, it was not only the last time I would see her alive, but a break from a life that was in the process of turning upside down.

Ten years and a few months later I'm about to go back. I'm going back because I left a lot of pain behind me a long time ago. In these last fifty years my life has been full of adventure, sometimes more than I would have wished. But it's only been recently, while researching a book about my father, that I discovered how adventure had been part of my blood from the day I was born.

So I'm off to visit my past, make friends with the present, and prepare myself for what, I'm sure, will be an adventurous future.

Tarrytown, NY - 7/20/15

Back From the Dead

Well, hello again.

It's been two years, give or take a few weeks, since I last blogged here. Since then I've self-published a book, the cover of which appears above. I've started, and then dropped, another blog because I couldn't think of anything to say that would sound like I was punching something. Now that name has been co-opted by another blogger who seems to be making much better use of it.

So I'm back to this, my first excursion into the world of blogs, and I hope to continue, maybe once a month, just to bring my public self up to date for folks who don't follow me on Facebook. If anyone has a subject they'd like to explore, let me know. I could use a few guest bloggers.

Either the beginning of a whole new world or...

Let me be clear: I am NOT a scientist! I barely passed chemistry in high school and I have no idea how I passed biology in college. I think my teachers felt sorry for me. So this next post either means I'm gaining insight into a whole new world or else I've just got too much time on my hands, but here goes.

There are these amazing machines called super colliders. They're basically particle accelerators that spin atoms at superfast speeds and them crash them into each other to see what happens. Kinda like NASCAR fans on Sunday afternoons except this is science. One of them, named Large Hadon Collider, has been functioning since 2009.

But before this there was a much bigger project called the Superconducting Super Collider, also known as Desertron. The project was first proposed in 1983 and after years of planning the actual construction began in 1991 near a little town called Waxahachi, Texas. It's planned circumference was to be 87.1 kilometers (54.1 miles in Americanese).

Two years later, in October 1993, the United States Congress pulled the plug. There had been some heated debate during the planning regarding the total projected cost of $4.4 billion, but in 1993 a report put the final cost at about $12 billion and everyone got freaked out. When construction ended, only 23.5 km (14.6 miles) of tunnel had been drilled. The project's director Dr. Roy Schwitters, a professor of physics at the University of Texas in Austin who had formerly taught at both Harvard and Stanford, called it "the revenge of the C students."

Now jump to last week when physicists from that same University of Texas in Austin announced that they had built a tabletop particle accelerator. Mike Downer, a professor in the College of Natural Sciences, was quoted as saying, "Until now that degree of energy and focus required a conventional accelerator that stretches more than the length of two football fields. It's a downsizing of a factor of approximately 10,000."

So what does all this mean to a meathead like me? I have no idea except that it sounds like the researchers will one day - maybe sooner than later - be able to do more with less and the human race will find new ways to either live in harmony with nature or destroy the planet. Stay tuned.

I'm getting old!

(Photo by Faye Murman)

Kris Kristofferson is 76 years old. That fact needs to be kept in mind when watching him these days as he tours to promote his latest album "Feeling Mortal." In last night's performance at the Tarrytown Music Hall he fell victim to this cold wet weather we've been having and croaked through one song after another for two hours. Maybe I'm being hard on the man. The fact that he lasted over two hours and sounded stronger at the end is a testament to the strength of his performance. I can't think of too many performers who would have even gone on with a frog in their throat. But Kristofferson knows his adoring fans and when after about twenty minutes he apologized for his voice, adding, "You know what I sound like," he got a rousing ovation.

At one point he was joined by one of his daughters whose name I didn't catch. I came into the theatre earlier in the evening while he was still running through a sound check and when she came out with her banjo and they did a number I was thinking she must be his granddaughter, but his daughter? Really? I'm speechless.

At the end of the evening the crowd was on its feet bringing him out for an encore. I thought that was a bit cruel considering the difficulty he'd had throughout the evening, but when he came back out he seemed re-energized by their enthusiasm and after his final number he came to the edge of the stage, working his way from one side to the other shaking hands with a bunch of 60-somethings that acted like they were still kids going to their first concert.

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Kristofferson has lived an amazing life with numerous albums and movie appearances. He's won award after award. You might think at 76 he'd lay back and take it easy but last night he showed no signs of giving up. Maybe it's the applause and adoration that drives him. Whatever it is, he's singlehandedly pushing back the border of old age. God bless and more power to him.