Dementia’s the Rage – We love movies. My readers may recall when Afghanistan was liberated from the Taliban in the aftermath of September 11, white sheets were immediately tacked up on walls in Kabul storefronts – the no-fun Taliban had banned movies – and the movie ‘theaters’ were packed soon after. [Guns, memorably, were checked and lined up along walls in ‘coat rooms.’] Watching movies is one of the most human of pleasures.
Mr. Gripes, like the vast majority of his readers, has seen all kinds of movies. I recall gritty Westerns, with the good guys and bad guys; film noir, in black and white grandeur, highlighted by clever, fedora-clad private eyes and vicious, malevolent criminals; or, how about the magnificent mobster films, like Scorcese’s ‘Casino’, and Coppola’s miraculous ‘Godfather I’ and ‘II’ – perfection both.
Of course, there have been clunkers and disasters: Mr. Gripes recalls in his incipient college years Swedish films were the flavor de jour. Having recently read – albeit not comprehending one sentence – philosophers Kierkegaard and Spinoza, et al, a bunch of us full-of-ourselves, know-it-all collegians one day decided to go down to Times Square [yep – Times Square] and see a ‘deep’ Ingmar Bergman film. He was in vogue at the time. Mr. Bergman must have been a deeply depressed figure, because his movies invariably took place in some unheated log cabin, situated in a dismally cold, remote corner of northern Europe, with about four feet of snow on the ground, a blizzard howling outside. The film’s black and white hues only enhanced the general bleak nature of the story.
And, talk, talk, talk was all the characters did. No action whatsoever, just interminable, indecipherable, lugubrious talk. Nothing could have been less appealing to maxed-out-on-testosterone nineteen-year-olds.
When we left the theatre after a couple of hours of agony, my friend Bob S. turned to me, and said, ‘What the f____ was that?’ My sentiments exactly: Mr. Gripes hasn’t seen one frame of a Bergman movie since.
I bring up that sad saga now, because there’s been a number of uni-themed movies coming out lately that leave Mr. Gripes thoroughly perplexed – we’ll call it the school of ‘dementia’ cinema: I have just one question: Why?
Why on earth would the great moguls, movers and creative geniuses in Hollywood make movies about Alzheimer’s? It makes no sense.
I’m not going to bore my readers with a recitation of the particulars of Alzheimer’s. Someone in your family has probably dealt with the disease already, and you may have been involved in the direct or indirect care of that family member. I certainly have: my father died of early onset of Alzheimer’s [probably due to brain damage initiated by an amateur boxing career of 165 fights, with no head gear, all before the age of 23] and my mother, still here at 103, has been in the final stages of the disease for 15 years. There’s nothing at all enlightening about observing progressive, inevitable brain deterioration.
And, there’s nothing remotely cinematic, dramatic, and gripping – whatever adjective you choose – about Alzheimer’s. In reality, the disease meanders along slowly, and, one by one, the brain functions that make us human disappear. For the immediate family, especially for the primary caregiver, as the disease progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to care for the afflicted person. [My father became more and more cantankerous, and he became almost impossible for my mother to handle.]
Before I go further, I confess I have not seen ‘Still Alice’, a recent movie about a middle-aged woman suddenly afflicted with Alzheimer’s; Julianne Moore won an Oscar for her portrayal. I did see one such film a while back, though: ‘Iris,’ about the poet Iris Murdoch and her struggles with the Alzheimer’s disease.
I will not see ‘Still Alice’ for one fundamental reason: whatever is put up there on the screen as the ‘story’ is not the truth. It can’t be. For one thing, these movies, as far as I can tell, always have a perfect supporting cast for the ‘patient’: perfect kids, perfect job [Ms. Moore, in fact, has a cushy job as tenured professor at Columbia University], and a wonderful, loving, sacrificial, and, let’s be honest, not-to-be-believed spouse. And, when does Alice come to grips with Alzheimer’s for the first time? Walking on the esplanade of the Columbia campus, one of the great repositories of Western knowledge, where – get it? -- human experience, memory and thought are treasured assets, precisely the attributes that the disease will slowly wrest from Alice. Oh, the irony -- about as subtle as a sledgehammer, eh? The gilded Hollywood gloss of this film to heighten the cinematic experience of the viewer is inherently false and dishonest. It’s a lie.
Movies generally are thematically built around redemption, hope, and, end, in a lot of cases, happily. Alzheimer’s disease is all about the erosion and eradication of the human spirit. Hollywood should stick with what it knows - Alzheimer’s is too sad and too tragic to be trifled with.
The Beatles, Without Genuflection – A couple of months ago, sitting placidly in Madison Square Garden, between games of a college-basketball doubleheader, listening idly to music blasting throughout the arena, not paying particular attention to any of it, I suddenly sat straight up in my seat, transfixed. I was hearing, at a decibel level exquisitely cacophonous and raucous, ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’ by the Beatles.
It was joyous…that gorgeous rock ‘n roll beat relentlessly washing over the whole arena. ‘…Standing There’ is, to Mr. Gripes, a perfect rock and roll song: no pretensions other than pure, pulsating, urgent, noisy, chaotic, juke-joint music. Hearing that song and that kind of music – this sounds ridiculous, I know – soothes the inevitably distressed soul of Mr. Gripes.
The song, written in 1963 at the beginning of the Beatles’ incredible run, was on the ‘B’ side of their biggest hit, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ another superb rock ‘n roll song. Both were inspired, according to Paul McCartney, by the real king of rock and roll, Buddy Holly. In fact, Mr. McCartney has said the first fifteen songs he and John Lennon wrote were all attempts to emulate Mr. Holly. The Beatles, when they had the mind to do it, could write peerless, undiluted rock.
Alas, Mr. Gripes – and he understands his opinion may be his alone – thinks the Beatles soon lost their way, and were ultimately a huge disappointment. They could have created a library of some of the best rock and roll ever; their instincts and talents were that superlative. It didn’t happen.
Sure, just glancing at the Beatles 1963-65 ‘book’ of music, I’m struck at the richness and power of most of the songs: ‘All My Loving’; ‘Any Time At All;’ ‘Ask Me Why’; ‘Back in the USSR’; ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’; ‘Eight Days A Week’; ‘I Call Your Name’, or ‘I’m Happy Just to Dance With You’. And there’s a lot more than these.
But, after the early years, the Beatles either got ‘cute’ or simply lost interest in rock and roll. One theory of mine is that John Lennon, certainly a complicated man to start with, got increasingly uncomfortable with the group process, and became estranged; his surely caustic displeasure led to the eventual evisceration of the group’s cohesion.
Drugs, especially psychedelics, certainly could have played a part in the dissolution of the Beatles’ collective genius, too. As well, fame and renown ‘killed’ the Beatles: everywhere they went people were telling them how cosmically ‘significant’ the group’s music had become; consequently, the Beatles may have begun to try too strenuously to create ‘important’ music. And, that’s a killer as far as creativity is concerned.
Just take a look at the Beatles songs composed after 1966-67: most of it, to this rock and roll purist, is rubbish, and, in fact, will not even be heard 25 years from now. Songs like: ‘Rocky Raccoon’; ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the Streets’; ‘Strawberry Fields’; ‘Revolution’ [awful: compare it to the Rolling Stones’ rebel yell, ‘Street Fighting Man’]; ‘Octopus’s Garden’; ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’; ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, and, yep, even ‘Norwegian Wood’. Plenty of others, too: all throwaway tunes.
From the creators of ‘I Feel Fine’, we get, five years later, ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Dear readers, Mr. Gripes rests his case.
Iran: Are You Nuts, Senators? – At the conclusion of last month’s ‘Mr. Gripes’ column, I vowed, ‘No, no more Iran. I’ve beaten that tired horse half to death.’ A promise I can’t keep, I’m afraid.
You see, readers, Iran, Israel, nuclear negotiations, Obama, centrifuges, Netanyahu, the American Congress, 2016 Presidential politics, they’re all intertwined, with developments shifting all the time. Mr. Gripes has following foreign affairs closely since he was 15 years old, and the Iran-America-[Israel] nuclear talks going on currently are particularly convoluted and fascinating.
Take this for instance: I open up the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago, and read that Israel has utilized agents to spy on the Iran-US negotiations in Zurich, amassing intelligence data successfully, and subsequently sharing that information with Republicans in the United States Senate. The Republicans then used the purloined information to formulate their opposition to the Obama Administration’s negotiations with the Iranians over a suspension of their nuclear program.
No longer am I generally astonished at anything I see in the morning papers, but when I read this, I almost fell off the living room sofa, freaking out a dozing cat. What?!? Are they nuts!?! Are Republicans so dead-set against Obama – ‘hate’ is not too strong a word -- and anything he tries to accomplish that they’d accept classified – and, yes, it’s classified, alright – intelligence from a foreign power, without permission from the executive branch, and use that information to sabotage negotiations concurrently going on between this country and a foreign enemy? From here, it sure as hell looks that way.
Accountability for one’s actions in this country no longer is a guiding tenet –that ceased to exist a long time ago. But, if in fact our elected senators and representatives were held to the intent and letter of our sedition statutes, those Republican Senators who saw those intelligence reports would be branded ‘traitors.’ With information they have no right to possess, they’re interfering with the President of the United States from carrying out his international duties. As I sit here writing this piece, I’m still cannot get over the temerity of those senators.
Someone else about this issue has piqued my curiosity: why does a Senator from, say, Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma care so fervently about the State of Israel? [Or about any other country, for that matter.] Don’t get me wrong: of course Israel has a right to exist, but you can’t tell me that an elected representative from the middle of America can be so exorcised over another country. Politicians can talk, talk, talk publicly about ‘standing firm,’ but in the real world, [see: ‘House of Cards’, of which Bill Clinton said, ‘99% of that show is true.’] they could care less. They’re all about political edge, risk/award, advantage, and brass-knuckled combat; they’re too calculating, too ‘realpolitik,’ too cynical to quibble over ‘principles.’
So , let’s forget the hallowed ‘principles’ angle: there’s a more important element in all of this: Cold Cash. …Money…. Political Donors… Re-election. That’s the nub of it. My guess is that a ton of money from somewhere is pouring into the coffers of Republican Senators who support Netanyahu and are dead-set against this treaty. And, please, I’m not talking about a ‘Jewish conspiracy.’ All I’m saying is a lot of money must be gushing in the form of political contributions from some advocacy lobbying groups. I’d start looking into the contributions of that casino owner, Sheldon Adelson, in Las Vegas, and go from there. Big money will turn the heads of all politicians. We all know that.
Republicans, however, may have miscalculated, again, and shot themselves in their collective rear ends, again: a recent poll indicates that 59% of Americans favor negotiations with Iran. It’s evident that most Americans, despite all the grandstanding and the bizarre, imbecilic behavior emanating from the United States Congress, comprehend that the consequences of failed negotiations will be, down the line, another American war in the Middle East. And, Americans most assuredly don’t want their sons and daughters dying in that godforsaken part of the world ever again.
Jim Israel
Mr. Gripes
April 6, 2015
Measles and the Idiots – To Mr. Gripes, it seems the Rationalists have taken it on the chin for years. Rationalism, of which Mr. Gripes is a devoted advocate, respects scientific evidence – anything else is a lie.
Yet, the fabulists seem to always dominate the public debate. The media, of course, plays a part: it’s always looking for conflict, not necessarily truth. The press pushes for ‘balanced’ debate, and consequently incredibly imbecilic theory is often given far more attention than warranted.
Creationism versus Darwinism is a perfect paradigm of this conflict. To a Creationist, a crucial tenet of the dogma is that man existed and walked on earth at the same time the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Human beings, no doubt already clad in Brooks Brothers suits, were fully formed when they arrived on Earth. The Darwinists, of course, adhere to the theory that all forms of life evolved from simple to complex: mankind came upon the earth millions of years after the dinosaurs. Or, put another way, mankind came to exist only after billions of mutated life forms pushed life to its present complexity. That’s, essentially, evolution.
The Creationists are simply incorrect. Nothing, of course, will convince them otherwise – there’s even a Creationism theme park for children in Ohio – but they’re dead wrong. And, yet, Creationism, in essence a fairy tale, is taught right alongside Evolution in some states, mandated so by state educational entities. Why is this country so enraptured by so many irrational ideas, and whose believers can never be swayed? Can you imagine, say, the Netherlands advocating, with state backing, a fraudulent theory like Creationism in biology classes for their children? Never, ever would happen.
But, all is not lost: for once, and probably for only a brief period, science has triumphed – emphatically – over bogus theory. For the first time in 25 years, there’s been a measles outbreak across the country. Concurrently, and not coincidentally, the percentage of children being vaccinated for diseases like measles and mumps is at its lowest point in decades.
It turns out that some individuals – Deidre Imus, Don’s wife, is probably the most well known – have pushed, quite vociferously, the theory that autism, a brain disorder that appears in childhood, has been caused by vaccination. Parents, naturally, decided that keeping their child out of school for two weeks with measles is a far more benign risk than autism, and the vaccinations were ignored.
Ms. Imus’ proof? A study by some clinician which said mercurial residue that shows up in the vaccinating fluid causes autism. It turns out the study was thoroughly discredited, and in fact, the doctor running the study eventually lost his medical license, a very harsh sentence indeed. But, evidence be damned, Ms. Imus, utilizing loudly the far-flung platform of her husband’s radio show and, incidentally, selling a lot of books, managed to scare the daylights out of parents, and the myth has held. Legislatures, in fact, started passing laws that did not mandate the vaccinations of children in school, and even permitted unvaccinated children to attend school, an incredibly short-sighted and irresponsible decision.
It takes about 85% vaccination ‘coverage’ of a school population to prevent a measles outbreak. When the percentage of vaccinated children failed to reach 85% in some places, the current outbreak happened.
The ignoramuses were exposed. It’s simple: when a given population is inoculated, measles is essentially non-existent. When that given population is exposed to the virus without inoculation, outbreaks happen. Imus and her true believers are wrong: so simple and so obvious. For once, the Rationalists won.
Israel-Iran-America – Every red corpuscle in Mr. Gripes’ body cries out: ‘Don’t write about Israel or the Middle East.’ Each time I have done that, I received some very vicious replies, the mildest of which spoke of my being a ‘traitor’ to the state of Israel. [To the ‘gentleman’ who accuses me of being a traitor to Israel, the last time I looked I am an American citizen, solely, and a proud one at that, and my loyalties or disloyalties are toward this country alone; any charges of sedition against a country not my own are a bit misplaced, overheated and ignorant.] I make it a policy, for the most part, of not responding to mindless vituperation, vowing at one point never to write about Israel, and, by extension, the Middle East again.
But, assuming the posture of the intrepid truth-seeker that Mr. Gripes pretends to be in his column, I cannot ignore the ongoing Iran-United States [and other powers including Russia, by the way] negotiations regarding Iranian nuclear arms capability, and an attempt by the major powers now to thwart that push.
First, though, I have to comment on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the American Congress yesterday: what kind of stunt was that? At this critical juncture in the ongoing Iran-American negotiations to suspend, hopefully for a long time, Iranian nuclear-arms attainment, a foreign leader ignores an American President and makes a rip-roaring anti-negotiations speech in front of the clapping seals we call our elected representatives. It’s totally outrageous. The Congress should be ashamed of themselves. President Obama responds to the speech by simply noting that the negotiations haven’t been concluded yet, and everyone should wait to take a look at the completed deal. A perfectly reasonable request absent any hysterics, that only highlights the utter lack of class from Bibi Netanyahu.
As far as the status of the ongoing negotiations, the issue is very complicated, of course, so let’s just go back three or four years: at that time, Iran obtaining nuclear status was the most pressing issue of the day: columns in newspapers spoke of the ‘existential’ threat of Iran possessing nuclear capability. If my readers can recall that time, it was very scary.
Then, quickly, the immediate threat dissipated. Mr. Gripes seems to recall that U.S. intelligence determined that Iran was a few years, at least, away from that capability. Then, Iran and the United States signed on in 2013 to an interim agreement suspending Iranian nuclear progress while talks proceeded on a permanent deal. And, the world exhaled. [Mr. Netanyahu, incidentally, opposed this earlier, successful deal as well.]
Alas, if the present negotiations fail, it’s back to being an existential threat once again, and the future could be very, very scary.
There is a glimmer of hope, though: the deal being worked up right now, with an end-of-March deadline, would push back Iranian nuclear-capability attainment at least 10 years in exchange for Iranian economic sanctions being lifted and Iran joining the world financial markets once again. That lifting of sanctions is the carrot, obviously.
Israel is opposed to any negotiations at this point, or at the minimum, Iran must dismantle its nuclear program in total. Netanyahu says the Iranians are totally untrustworthy, so international safeguards and vigilance are useless. Israel knows damn well that Iran will never agree to a total cessation of its nuclear program. Israel knows that under their non-negotiable demand, there will never be a deal. It’s off the table.
And that’s exactly Netanyahu’s intention: he wants the negotiations to collapse because that would mean there’s only one option for America: the nuclear facilities in Iran will be taken out, bombed. And, guess who will end up doing that dirty work? America. If Israel bombs Iran, the Middle East, and probably the world, will be thrown into utter chaos: there’ll be surely a total Middle East oil embargo, among other actions, and financial markets across the world will plummet. A world depression is not out of the question. America will have to take the lead in taking out Iran. The U.S. is going to be Israel’s stalking horse.
War should always be absolutely the last option, so Mr. Gripes takes a more nuanced position: if in fact negotiations are successful and we extract from Iran a suspension of their nuclear program for at least 10 years, let’s take the deal. This country and Israel will of course have in place very stringent oversight standards regarding Iranian compliance, and if violations are discovered, we can always bomb later. Iran, a country with much stronger people-to-people ties to America than any other Middle East country [Israel, excepted], can hopefully be brought back into the world’s good graces. It’s worth 10 years to see if that’s possible.
Netanyahu, and Israel, don’t want to take that chance. I say, let’s go for it.
Wilt: His Dominance Shines – A decade ago – it’s been 10 years since ‘Mr. Gripes’ was launched as a human-interest column on an employer’s website, desperate for copy one weekend– I wrote of the unsurpassed, extraordinary career of Wilt Chamberlain, professional basketball player.
I bring his Eminence up again, after reading last week of the death of Norm Drucker, a referee who worked NBA games as a contemporary of Mr. Chamberlain. In his obituary, it’s mentioned Mr. Drucker threw Wilt out of a game after three successive technical fouls, the last of which involved Wilt yelling at the ref that he must have money on the game. Keep in mind that technical fouls are not particularly rare events, occurring once or twice a game, and are not particularly noteworthy.
Yet, that expulsion is still remembered 53 years after the fact, as it illuminated one incredible fact about Wilt Chamberlain: his indefatigability. Mr. Chamberlain, back then, never took a rest on the bench – never.
Consider this: An NBA season in those days consisted of 80 games, 48 minutes a game. The particular season I’m talking about, 1961-62, was Wilt’s most productive, and arguably the most brilliant season ever: he averaged 50.7 [!] points a game, and collected 25 rebounds a game as well. Absolutely astonishing, and probably the greatest season ever in professional sports.
But the scoring achievement is not my focus here.
Wilt Chamberlain, in those 80 games that season, played every minute of every game, except for one blemish: when Norm Drucker threw Wilt out of the game, there were 8 minutes and change left in the game. Those little-over-8-minutes were the only time in that entire season that Wilt rested. That was it.
Just consider the expenditure of energy during a professional basketball game: Chamberlain was a center, the guy in the middle, down under the basket; that position, with elbows in the back, knees to the legs, arms being pulled on, and all the banging and punching absorbed from the oppositional center, is the most physical taxing of any position on the court – It takes a tremendous toll on a person.
Yet… only 8+ minutes the entire season did Wilt sit.
There’s one gloriously terse eulogy that was applied to Chamberlain the day he died: New York Knick Walt Frazier, one of his more heralded foes, said simply, “Wilt was NBA’s Superman; there’ll never be another one.’’
Hey, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem and all you greats, yeah, go ahead and take a breather. ‘Wilt Chamberlain, the greatest of them all, is still out on the floor.’
Jim Israel
‘Mr. Gripes’
March 3, 2015
Iran - A nation that operates solely on religious principles - the theocracy in Iran, for one --cannot endure - impossible. A clash between a burgeoning class of young, educated citizens and a corrupt ruling religious order was inevitable. Something's got to give in this struggle, and I'm afraid in the short run it's not going to be the deadly grim and frightened mullahs.
The 'Supreme Leader': That appellation, redolent of Orwell or the Land of Oz, sums up beautifully the pomposity, grandiosity and, yes, the fraudulence of the ruling mullah class. The story goes that the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution that overthrew the Shah, was the embodiment of God on Earth. As he was dying, he passed, through his fingertips, his divinity to Ali Khamenei, the present ruler and Supreme Leader. Since he's essentially the channel of God's will, every decision he makes is just, final and absolute. Today, he's murdering his country's women and children. Some divinity. A theocracy must fail - to cite Karl Marx, the contradictions become too apparent.
In the flush of elation after the Shah was overthrown, the Iranian revolution and ruling class were sustained for thirty years. This past election destroyed the legitimacy of the regime, though. The Supreme Leader, injecting the will of God, steals the election. The Big Lie didn't work any longer. Iranians were not duped; the ruling mullahs treated the voters as dumb, powerless fools, and enraged the citizenry. And, then, when students, not yet besieged by work, marriage, children or all the other burdens of middle age, decided to act on their impulses, the revolution was on.
A couple of thoughts on religion in general: at the outset, let me state emphatically that Mr. Gripes is a strong proponent of freedom of religion - any individual should be permitted to worship whomever or whatever they choose: Buddha, the Virgin Mary, false idols, The Supreme Moose of the Northwest, witch doctors, burning bushes, Zeus, or, indeed, although I can barely refrain from cursing, psycho-wacko Scientology with all its nutty Hollywood trappings - it's not my business to object. But what I can't support is the imposition of a particular religion on any other person. Worship in your church, and leave everyone else alone. 'Organized' religion, though, doesn't leave well enough alone. Every religion, certainly, thinks its divine path is the only true path to enlightenment and to whatever awaits us after death. Emanating from a belief in a religion's superiority is the urgency to convert practitioners of alien faiths. And, that in a nutshell is why so many murderous, bestial cruelties have occurred through the ages. The prospects of a glorious, idyllic afterlife have been the excuse to unleash unspeakable horrors on the 'unenlightened' masses. The reality is that there's no such thing as a 'superior' religion: none of us knows what awaits us, none of us has seen God, and, if indeed there is a merciful God, he works on a 'level playing field'; He would assert surely, 'No religion, just like no man should lord over any other man, is superior to any other religion.' Unfortunately, world history, seized by power, money and the sexual allure of women, has rarely operated according to that precept - just the opposite, in fact.
By the time you, my readers, have read this column, I fear the courage and collective strength of millions of protesting Iranians may have already been expunged by the implacable mullah power structure in Iran. The state has all the weapons, police and sadistic militias on their side, and will not hesitate, once the decision is made, to shoot and kill their own citizens; the ruling mullahs, no longer legitimate in the eyes of citizens, desperately cling to power. The will of God must be served even if thousands are murdered. The universities will be closed for a long time, and when they're re-opened the curriculum will be entirely Islamic-based. Suppression works when the opposition has no guns.
But, despite a foreboding sense that this will end in terrible bloodshed, Mr. Gripes marvels at the irrepressible human soul. Exploited, beaten, humiliated, and treated often as nothing more than lumps of animal flesh, the arc of history demonstrates that human beings just don't give up; their instinctive yearning for lives of free will and free thought inexorably compel them to act, in the face of impossible odds and likely imprisonment or death. That's courage. History tells us over and over this spirit can never be vanquished for long.
NY Postscript - A month ago, Mr. Gripes described the inconceivable catastrophe that's befallen New York citizens: I was referring to our New York State government, a quagmire of immense proportions. I'm sorry [actually not so sorry: it's grist for Mr. Gripes' mill] to say it's gotten even more farcical.
Let me describe the current scene: the NY Senate, comprised of 62 individuals, as of two weeks ago was split 32 Democrats and 30 Republicans. A majority leader, who guides the activities of the body, was a Democrat, obviously. Everything changed about 10 days ago, when 2 Democrats moved over to the Republican side, giving the Republicans control of the Senate; they naturally voted in a Republican as the new majority leader. Not so fast: the Democrats, boiling mad, asserted the majority leader election was bogus, and refused to enter the chamber to conduct business. In fact, they locked the doors to the Senate, and no one could get in. Unbelievable.
Governor David Paterson, a non-comprehending boob constantly stumbling over himself, not because he's blind, but because of his bumbling incompetence, initially says and does nothing, but then, astoundingly, insists the delay in Senate business is preventing lobbyists [??] from carrying out their occupational duties. It only gets worse. One of the Democrats-turned-Republican reneges on his new party, and returns to the Democratic fold. Now, it is 31-31, a deadlock. [Let me make a stab at the inducement that compelled this man to come back to the party: he's promised funding for his son-in-law's non-profit 'community' program, of which exactly $11.31 will actually go to the community, and $432,000 will be his son-in-law's annual salary for 'running' the one-desk, no-phone operation.]
Let's go on: It's 31-31. Nothing's happening as of this writing, and hasn't for a week. No sessions, no legislation, no meetings, nothing. Each one of these clowns goes before the TV cameras, and says we must get on "with the people's business," but it's the other party's fault. During this period, it's gotten so ridiculous that one senator, who would be the new Republican leader, wanted a judge to permit him to cast TWO votes in any legislative vote: one as a regular senator, and one as majority leader. This action, he claimed, is necessary to break a deadlocked vote. A legislator asking for a judicial OK so he could vote two times: that's got to be a first in the history of the glorious, 'one-man-one-vote' republic.
Back to the business of the 'people'. Mr. Gripes is a 'people' in this great commonwealth, and he'd like to proffer a people's resolution to fix all of this: let's borrow from France two guillotines, refurbish and lubricate them, restoring the blades to their razor-sharp calibration of, say, 1793. Place them outside on the Albany public plaza, in plain view of Senators peering down from the large French windows of their chamber. Relate to the Senators that they'd better get to work, or citizens, amassing in large numbers on the square, will be permitted to enter the Senate, and conduct less parliamentary but far more purposeful business of their own, perhaps replicating the actions of a vigilante mob. Surely that, as the cliché goes, "will focus the minds" of our august senators, who might even extract their thumbs out of their rear ends and take up the "business of the people."
The 'Perfect' Game - This year is the 50th anniversary of the greatest pitching performance in baseball history: a 5'7" lefthander of middling ability named, in alliterative fashion, Harvey Haddix, threw twelve innings of perfect baseball - facing 36 batters - and got them all out, not one runner reaching first base. Sometimes, though, a man who has achieved his dream is humbled by sudden reversals in life. Mr. Haddix, who for this one game outpitched Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Koufax, Cleveland, Feller, Maddox, all of the greats, never did complete his perfection, and in fact lost the game. After 12 innings, the score was 0-0. In the 13th inning, the opponent, the Milwaukee Braves, got their first base runners on base, and scored a couple of runs on a Joe Adcock [remember him?] home run - later changed to a double due to a Hank Aaron running mistake -- and won the game. I distinctly recall reading about this the following morning, and simply thinking, "Wow... this'll never happen again." 36 up and 36 down. And he got beat.
Chat rooms - Here's a statistic I saw the other day in the Wall Street Journal: out of the 300,000,000 Chinese citizens who have access to the Internet, 100,000,000 use chat rooms. Consider that. China's a country with a tightly controlled press, no right to assemble in a public gathering, and an educational system that extols a mass-murderer like Mao Tse-tung, run by a decrepit, corrupt Communist government -- yet chat rooms thrive. Mr. Gripes observes the on-going atomization of American society, as family and social ties continually diminish in importance, and can only conclude that when - not if - China evolves into a more democratic, fair-minded social system, we are cooked. The Chinese ethos of collective will and massive cooperative effort - witness the phenomenon of the chat room - with the backing of a future government that citizens believe in -- will simply roll over the world.
Elvis - An eight-year-old neighbor of mine some 25 years ago, Amanda, was asked for her opinion of Elvis Presley. Her answer: "Presley? I didn't know Elvis had a last name." You're right, Amanda, there'll always be just one Elvis. As summertime commences, I'd just like to offer a couple of tiny biographical tidbits about the monumental Mr. Presley:
* He never appeared in a public performance, other than playing his guitar on his apartment stoop for a couple of friends, before his incandescent discovery. Not at high school, not at church, nowhere.
* Mariah Carey was recently awarded a well-earned plaque for selling her 150-millionth album. In order to catch Elvis, Ms. Carey would have to sell another 850,000,000 records: Elvis is over one billion, and counting.
* A couple of months before his first song was played on the radio [it debuted after midnight one Saturday night, by a bored D.J. who decided to play something new], Elvis and his buddies were arrested for vagrancy in a Memphis park, and escorted out by policemen. Six months after that airing, a park concert was scheduled, and Mr. Presley had to be shielded from thousands of screaming fans, so he was escorted into the identical park by the very same cops. Ah, the vicissitudes of life. Incidentally, Tim McCarver, the TV baseball announcer, grew up in Memphis and was at that concert. Mr. McCarver, a macho ex-major-league catcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, later declared, "Elvis was the most beautiful man I ever saw."
Chantilly Lace - Today's the first day of summer. Summertime, the beach and rock 'n roll are interwoven. In its honor, I'd like to present as the final piece in today's column the pure essence of rock 'n roll, millions of miles from the elaborate dross rock 'n roll has become. The Who, Pink Floyd, U-2, Jewel, Madonna, and Coldplay: some of these performers are excellent, but they're so removed from the essence of early rock 'n roll. The Big Bopper in Chantilly Lace joyously brings it back:
Hello Baby, yeah, this is the Big Bopper speaking,
Ha, Ha, you sweet thing,
Do I what? Will I what? Oh, baby, you know what I like...
Chantilly Lace and a pretty face and a pony tail hangin' down
A wiggle and a walk and a giggle and a talk made the world go round
There ain't nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl to make me act so
Funny, make me spend my money, make me fool so loose like a long-
Necked goose,
[yelling] OH BABY THAT'S WHAT I LIKE.
Roll over, Chaucer, and tell Shelley the news. Early rock 'n roll always speaks the truth.
Comments? Feel free to send remarks to: JamesIsrael77@yahoo.com
June 20, 2009
