Facebook: the world's newest religion.

Half a billion practicing converts and slouching towards a billion rapidly, speaking 75 languages and all in just a few years, no millenniums needed. The Moses, Messiah and Pope of this amazing cultural phenomena is one Mark Zuckerberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, not to mention the subject of the Academy Award-nominated movie about him, “The Social Network”. He’s only 26 and already the $6 billion young man. He is creating Marshall McLuhan’s global village without knowing who McLuhan is. Like his predecessors, Marx, Jesus and Freud,he is a system builder. He has a vision of the world and is using his relentless genius to build it. He is the Uber Nerd and like his brilliant fellow nerds is hell-bent on bringing his brave new world to us at warp speed, no matter how socially disruptive his creation might be. And brother, is it going to be disruptive. Goodbye privacy and adios borders. I’m not on Facebook (it’s a generational thing). I can’t knock it except to point out that it’s not informed by literature (he’s never heard of E.M. Forster and he went to Harvard). He’s not interested in politics. He’s probably heard the word Orwellian but doesn’t know the source of it. So the revenue keeps pouring in as the photos keep being uploaded, the updates and links keep growing and the posts keep everyone posted. Is it a dark and tangled forest or is it a way to remind us that we are all one as the Buddha said. One of the main tenets of Buddhism is compassion and Facebook is electronic compassion. As for privacy, you must lose everything to gain everything and in a zen twist, wherever you go, there you are.
Luke says that the Kingdom of God lies within you. It’s as true a statement as there ever was. Maybe Facebook is simply a 21st Century version of the wisdom we’ve known for over 1500 years. But with lots of ads attached to it.

Everybody's selling, but nobody is buying.

For as long as I can remember it was easy to buy and hard to sell. Now it’s the other way around. No one has any money (except the 2% who are rich) or any credit so that the all important word in economics, demand, is at a standstill. On the other hand we now have more selling methods than ever in history. Hundreds of TV channels, thousands of radio stations and millions of internet websites. All of them pitching as hard as the late Bob Feller and suggesting you buy from home in your pyjamas with your credit card. But people don’t have any money in their pockets, let alone their pyjamas. so these messages are falling on deaf ears. Another upsidedowner is from the advertising playbook: the more you tell the more you sell. It used to be true in the golden age of copy and David Ogilvy. Unfortunately we live in an age where most messages are visual, and hence. hard to determine their meaning. If you do click on one of the enticing sites you’ll get a flood of information, or should I say hyperbole. I scroll down page after page of promises only to end up at a bar called “Order Now”…a $437 value only $47 if you place your order in the next 35 nanoseconds. Hope springs eternal, especially in these times, but these offers have the distinct aroma of scams. There used to be real products, real benefits and real companies to deal with but now who knows? As Marcel Proust once said, “To goodness and wisdom we only make promises, we obey pain.” Like foreclosure, unemployment and bankruptcy

Say something witty

Don’t tell jokes under any circumstances. They’re long-winded, boring and usually not very funny. Try to emulate Oscar Wilde: ‘A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Or try Noel Coward: “When I was in London I performed for café society, in Las Vegas I performed for Nescafe society”. Take a point of view that is skeptical and worldly. No mother in law jokes, no Lewinski jokes, no Tiger Woods jokes. You’re not there to trade one-liners with Henny Youngman. You’d lose every time. Use the language cleverly: “His limitations are boundless”. I got a fortune cookie today that said wisely: “Humor is an affirmation of dignity.” That’s the trouble with today’s stand up comics: no dignity, therefore no humor. Don’t use four letter words ever. You don’t want to be confused with a fourteen year old. Use the moment. Here’s an example: Red Skelton was one of the funniest men of the 20th Century playing the rube and the clown, but at the funeral of Harry Cohen, the bullying and unloved head of Columbia Pictures he remarked wittily at the large crowd at the service by saying: “Well, as Harry always said, give the public what they want and they’ll come”. Wit can bite and it should. Just look at the poetry of Alexander Pope. You’re exposing folly and pretension. Mort Sahl said he was very worried about the bowling alley they were putting in to the student union at Cal. Worried, why? Because he was afraid it was going to be a new Major. Brevity is the soul of wit. To wit: Noel Coward and a friend were at a reception in Africa when one of the pompous leaders came in followed by a diminutive aide. I wonder who that little fellow is?, asked the friend and Coward said, “Probably his lunch”. Remember Addison DeWitt, the critic in “All about Eve”? When Marilyn Monroe bombs at her audition for a play DeWitt recommends she try television. “Will I have to audition” she says, and he answers acidly, “My dear, television is just one big audition”. Of course television humor is a big business and if you ever get the opportunity to write for a late night show you can make $3500 a week. But you’ll be required to do 20 jokes a day and they won’t be memorable for more than a few minutes. I give the last word to Noel Coward: “Wit is like caviar, it should be served in very small portions, not sloshed about.”

Who's the star of your biopic?

The star of the new film “The King’s Speech” is Colin Firth, playing George VI of England. He doesn’t look anything like the King. He looks better. There’s probably someone on the West End Stage that does resemble George VI but not someone who can open a movie. Helena Bonham Carter plays his wife Queen Elizabeth, who also looks like someone else. Casting is 50% of a production according to Director Peter Bogdanovich and he’s probably right. I just saw “Fair Game” and Sean Penn and Naomi Watts do actually look very similar to the protagonists. But the more important question is: who do we want to play us in our biopic? I would have opted for Gordon MacRae when I was in my 20’s, Marcello Mastroianni when I was in my 40’s and then I’d have to pull a Colin Firth to impersonate me today, when I am a wreck and not screen worthy. Oh well, you can always play your story in your head a lot better than anyone else in the world. There aren’t many roles for the elderly actor. I saw “Ghost Writer” this year and Eli Wallach had a small part. He looked wretched, ill and almost at death’s door. So we can’t go there. Ed McMahon once asked Johnny Carson what he was most afraid of, and Johnny answered, “Abe Vigoda nude”. Frightening!

Karl Marx (and others) explain our economy to us.

The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go out to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save—the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour: your capital. The less you are, the more you have.
Marx on the socially involved life. Moral: Help save the economy by living.

The net gain in money values is a more convincing reality than productive work or human livelihood.
Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Moral: work on Wall St.

Desires still remain extremely enlarged while the means of satisfying them are diminished day by day. And, thus, on every side we trace the ravages of inordinate and unsuccessful ambition kindled in hearts which it consumes in secret and in vain.
Alexis de Tocqueville 1845 Moral: avoid BMW commercials..

“Free and poor! What fun!” The heiress of the fantastic “Diamond as big as the Ritz”
exclaims in anticipation of its demise and her escape. Her beau from the outside world corrects her, deadpan, “It’s impossible to be both together. People have found that out.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald Moral: Money makes the world go round.

The superrich make lousy neighbors; they buy a house and tear it down and build another, twice as big, and leave. Their money is a kind of poverty.
John Updike,”Slum Lords” Moral: downsize and stay content.

The US Tax Code is 16,000 pages long. Moral: Find a legal hiding place in it.

This is the only club where the bouncers throw the customers in…so drink, for Christ’s sake drink!
Ronnie Scott MBE, London jazz club owner Moral: Eat, drink and be merry

Steel-hard abs and other anatomical enhancements

On every cover of Men’s Health there is some version of how to get super-strong abdominal muscles. You could write the headlines yourself: Build a bullet-proof gut…Make your abs into a wall of iron. This is the manifesto of men’s magazines. I must have missed something because I thought narcissim had to do with your features such as the shape of your nose, a strong jaw, a wonderful smile or heaven forbid, your IQ. Of course that demands some genetic predisposition. But Men’s Health is a reverse Dorian Grey: the readers age quickly and the magazine retains its youth and vitality. As Scott Fitzgerald said so knowingly: “the greatest thing life can give you is youth”. How many men are like Jack LaLanne, physically fit into their 90’s? Not very many. Yet, hope springs eternal despite the fact that the only six packs in most guys’ lives are in the fridge not the torso.
And then there are the pages devoted to sexually stimulating pinups, pharmacy and STD. Don’t know those letters? It used to be called syphilis, clap and gonorrhea. But STD (sexually transmitted disease) sounds better, The ads and editorial are so insistent that I’m surprised there isn’t a ruler on the page to measure your prowess. Since nearly 30% or all men suffer from PE (premature ejaculation) just keep turning the pages to some overpriced cologne or after shave ($35 per ounce for 15c worth of scent). Hey, here’s an idea, open the sample fold on the page and swipe it across your…no, never mind. As Dave Barry says in his new book, “I’ll mature when I’m dead”. The only person I ever knew who subscribed to Men’s Health was a 60 year old guy who was 150 lbs. overweight and couldn’t run a mile in 10 years. He was happily married with two fine kids. What ever was he looking for? Freud didn’t know what women wanted. Better make that men, too

Barry Zito, Millionaire pitcher and bystander

The World Series starts tonight, but without Barry Zito in the Giants lineup. He was kept off the roster for the National League championships which is surprising since he has a contract worth $126 million. Actually it’s not that surprising since the overpaid and underachieving athlete is the new face of sports.
It all started in hockey, of all places, when Derek Sanderson, a journeyman player with the Boston Bruins jumped to the new WHA for $2 million, the first million dollar contract in sports. The WHA folded, Sanderson blew his money and we moved on to baseball where the Angels signed Joe Rudi for $2 million. I asked an executive with the Angels what was so special about Rudi and he said “he’s just an ordinary ballplayer but the team wanted him”. And of course it grew from there until there were 1000 athletes with million dollar contracts. The Angels seem terminally suited to this when they signed Mark Langston in 1989 to a big contract. He went 8 and 13 and one of the sports writers quipped, “if they wanted 8 and 13 they should have kept Urbano Lugo (a lowly paid player). They signed Mo Vaughn to a $60 million contract. He did nothing and was gone in a few years. The Vancouver Canucks signed Mark Messier for big money. He didn’t break a sweat when playing. What does it mean? It means that the agents are smarter than the owners. After all, the billionaire owners aren’t at practice, or in the dugout or on the bench. They’re too busy acting out their ego trips in the luxury boxes. And to think that once upon a time Ted Williams asked for a smaller contract because he felt he’d had a bad year.
I admire the Giants for benching Zito. He had a lousy season and never seemed to get beyond the 4th inning after giving up his trademark home runs. The best statement I heard was Coach Bruce Bochy saying, after the Giants won the pennant, “Not bad for a bunch of castoffs and misfits”. More hungry misfits mean better baseball.

Note: My thanks to Roland Zapata of Portland Oregon who did the research for this blog.

We're too dumb to be governed

Unlike my hero, George Orwell, I’m not very political. I’m a conservative but not a Republican, a liberal but not a Democrat; I’ve always been an independent. This probably comes from my family who never voted in a single election, because, as my father once said, “they’re all bums and crooks”.
He would be doubly vindicated with this 2010 Midterm election. We’ve come a long way down from Thomas Jefferson’s “Obedience to conscience is obedience to God” to Christine O’Donnell’s “I’m not a witch”. But, as historian Kevin Phillips says, “We’re in the era of second-raters”. Indeed.
Here in Nevada we have a certified dummy running for the Senate on the Republican ticket. She’s actually a third-rater. She says a lot of stupid things but the one that made me mad was when she was asked how she would deal with the wars we’re fighting. She replied, “I’d follow the General’s advice”. There’s no thought or leadership in that statement. I’ve just finished Andrew Bacevich’s book “Washington Rules”. It exposes the Pentagon’s plan for perpetual war. The one we’re now fighting is called “the long war”. How does this thing end? It doesn’t!
In 1984 Orwell has Winston Smith say that the only hope is the proles, his word for the proletariat. Nevertheless the Party always wins. Who knew that the tyrant in the US was not a person but an institution such as the Pentagon.
Don’t worry; I’m not so cynical that I won’t vote on Nov. 2. I’m still a loyal citizen.

Radio Daze

I was on my way to a Las Vegas radio station this week to be interviewed as the host of a new talk show. The station loved my idea, loved me and I thought I was on my way to a new career as the voice of reason when they casually asked me who I was bringing in as my sponsor. Me? Can’t I have some of your sponsors? Why of course not. I could pay for the show out of my own pocket. Isn’t that a great business model? Goodbye KRAP.

Radio was drained of its revenue when entertainment switched to television. AM is all talk now, and talk is cheap. If you want music it’s on FM. When I listen to AM now it could be 1953 or even 1943. It’s still weather, news and sports with sponsors coming and going to the accompaniment of horns, buzzers and whistles, but today with a very crooked spine.

I listened very carefully to the Mike Huckabee Show: out with Obama, lower taxes, kill all liberals, everything said in generalities. You could get a better political discussion in a bar and certainly in a college bull session.

Marshall McLuhan, the guru of media, called radio “the tribal drum”. It’s not for literate people and it’s not a thinking medium, that’s why it worked so well for Hitler. McLuhan added that this is in the very nature of the media to turn people and society into a rigid echo chamber of their own thoughts. That Hitler came into political existence at all is directly owing to radio, McLuhan said, and that goes for Rush Limbaugh as well.

A line from Romeo & Juliet sums up today's radio: "It speaks, and yet says nothing."

The time I met Tony Curtis

It was a “premiere” (if you can call it that) in a downtown movie house called The Vogue in Vancouver BC. The film was called “Johnny Stool Pigeon” which I’m sure you’ve never heard of (Curtis made 185 films!). This was 1949 and the only reason I was there was to gawk at the real star of the film, Dan Duryea (you’ve probably never heard of him either), but he had been the tank driver in the 1943 war movie “Sahara”, one of my favorite wartime films (along with “Desperate Journey”. Without checking with Stephen Hawking my definition of a star is a physical phenomena that attracts people like me. I begged my parents to take me to Tommy Dorsey’s Casino Gardens in LA so I could meet Danny Kaye. I once passed Marilyn Maxwell on Hollywood Boulevard and ran around the block so I could pass her again. As time went on, the stars moved more and more out of sight, or were only seen from behind the barriers. I did see Rock Hudson once in 1953 in a very informal setting at a showing of “Kiss Me Kate”. He was in the lobby tossing popcorn kernels to a young man. The old Hollywood was the best Hollywood and Tony Curtis exemplified it. He would show up at the Bellagio in Vegas very often and meet and greet people on the casino floor. He was a real star then, now and forever.

Bizarro reigns in Starbucks

A guest blog by Carolyn Neubauer, a musician and theatrical producer who lives in Vancouver, Washington

To have had a senseless acid-throwing attack in broad daylight that had such horrific results was a huge shock to the whole community here in Vancouver. Large posters of the woman appeared in bank lobbies and supermarkets, and many people gave money to aid the poor victim.

So you can imagine the shock to find this was a self-inflicted attack, purportedly by, oh yes, a person of black skin. To me, it's still a tragedy of the first order, because this girl/woman is very sick to have done this to herself . Acid on the face? C'mon! Of course many people were hurt by this hoax, but the fact still remains that this was done by a mentally ill person, identified so even by her family. So far, she has entered a not-guilty plea, based on mental imbalance, and has agreed to enter into treatment. Who knows what the ultimate end will be? She has also agreed to return the money donated to her.

So, the world isn't crazy enough politically? Bizarro reigns.

How fear and group hatred is hurting us.

A guest blog by Allen Manzano, a writer and former editor living in Carlsbad, CA

I think we may be headed to the gradual collapse of government. We have already almost achieved it in California. Beginning with Prop 13 with its 2/3rds requirements for passage of a budget, term limits, and the rough justice of Three Strikes, California's citizens have voted in, along with fiscally unsound measures, a system of government easily leveraged by special interests with no real concern for the general welfare. It was done with tactics of fear and simplification that ignored the deliberative and collaborative processes that had brought California to the forefront. This is not something new in government but it is a fallacy to assume that complex and interconnected issues can be resolved by unstudied emotionalism and direct legislation.

It is what we may now have happening in the nation. The use of fear and group hatred is being combined with irresponsible fiscal proposals that will not solve our problems but lead us to disassembling what I consider a decent and progressive society. It is particularly threatening in the way our judiciary is also become politicized as a way to impose majority control in areas such as religion and private behavior. It is already facilitating distortions in our political system heavily weighted towards preferences for those with power and wealth.

The judicial system is crucial to the protection of the weak and few. But there are many on the current Supreme Court who do not accept this as fundamental.

Many will rejoice. Will ignorance and prejudice dominate over learning and tolerance. After 200 years of democracy are we are on the verge of self destruction? America will not lead the world forever. It will happen sooner rather than later.

Would you hire him?

That was the test for friendship, marriage and employment authored by the late Elnora Schmadel (yes, that was her real name). Elnora was a psychologist and held seminars for the business community in Orange County, Calif. She could be ultra blunt. I took her to lunch one day and her first question to me was, “Do you love your wife?” I was stunned for a moment since nobody had ever asked me that. “Yes”, I replied. “I think you do,” she said. She told us to get real about our business lives. If clients didn’t pay on time, cut them loose. If you worried about their creditworthiness, do a proper check on them. Sometimes she hit a raw nerve as when she got a business couple arguing with each other in front of us. But she was there to help us. I look at people in the workplace and wonder how they ever got hired. Guys who haven’t shaved in weeks, or taken a haircut or shined their shoes. Clerks are jerks goes the old saying but gee, we would respect them if they respected us as customers. My friend Kris, the Swiss restaurant owner, used to tell me that the first thing he looked for in a restaurant was all the hiring mistakes. This economy can’t afford hiring mistakes. We need to tighten up the workplace and make it function more smoothly and more profitably. I’ve written a paper titled: “A service economy requires a service mentality”. Next time you’re out shopping or dining ask the question of the help, “Would you hire them?"

Down and out in jobless America

There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. There are jobs out there but getting one is frustrating, menial and mostly impossible. But I have a suggestion for you if you follow me to the very end of this diatribe.
I know this from applying for a job as a census enumerator this Spring. Unfortunately, there were 20,000 applicants for 4800 openings in Nevada. Premise No 1: there are way more applicants than jobs.
Then I went to my first (and last) Career Fair. There were huge lines waiting to get in (see Premise No. 1). A girl came by with a large cardboard box collecting resumes. The booths inside featured franchise “opportunities”, Army recruiting, and real estate positions (puhleeze!). Premise No. 2: there are lots of people selling and nobody buying.
What about the jobs section of the newspaper? Surely there must be plenty of openings there. Perhaps I should let the philosopher Louis Jordan explain it in
“Choo choo ch’boogie”.
“Take the daily paper from the top of the rack,
And read the situation from the front to the back,
The only job that’s open needs the man with a knack,
So put the paper right back on the top of the rack.”
Premise No. 3: the classifieds are full of openings if you’re a forensic financial expert in ground sirloin, a nurse for the midnight to dawn shift, a cabdriver, and commission work in a cubicle.
If you go online you’ll see ads promising $7000 a week for licking postage stamps. Avoid these people like bedbugs and don’t ever give them your credit card number.
So what can you do? You have no voice in Washington, you’re facing a financial firing squad and all you want to do is make some money and keep solvent.
Let me offer a lesson from literature. There is a short story by Somerset Maugham called “The Verger”. Albert is a verger, a church functionary who helps a bishop in England. He is called in by two churchwardens who have discovered that he can’t read or write. They are horrified, and as a consequence he is fired.
He had saved a tidy sum but not enough to live on without doing something. While walking home he looked for a tobacconist but couldn’t find one. He thought, “I shouldn’t wonder but a fellow might do very well with a little shop here.” He found a shop to let and it was a success. In the course of ten years he had acquired ten shops and was making money hand over fist.
One day at the bank, the manager called him while he was making a deposit. He had over 35,000 Pounds in his account (a fortune then or now). The manager said, “Do you mean to say that you’ve built up this important business and amassed a fortune without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?”
“I can tell you that sir,” said Albert, a little smile on his still aristocratic features, “I’d be verger of St. Peter’s, Neville Square.”
Premise No. 4: Employ yourself. Reach your own conclusions and don’t let anything hold you back.

You too can enjoy time travel (if you're Australian)

I was watching HG Wells’ “The Time Machine” this week starring Guy Pearce, when it occurred to me that the other Time Traveller (they have no name) was Rod Taylor, in the same story a few decades back. Both are from Australia, the land of strange beasts such as the kangaroo and the duck-billed platypus. Were they brought back from the future by these two leading men? They do travel over 802,000 years into the future and might even have brought back Nicole Kidman, a creature who looks like she is from another Eden. (For Mel Gibson you have to go back 800,000 years).
Of course the films don’t portray anything from Wells’ novella other than the melodramatic action. The book in my library (showing a kangaroo reading a pocket book) is primarily a social critique combining Wells’ two main influences: Karl Marx and Darwin. But hey, those aren’t popcorn authors are they? All the action takes place in the Thames Valley in London, just as the end of “War of the Worlds” ends on Primrose Hill, one of my favorite places in London. The Pearce film seems to be placed in New York City. Science is a funny thing. As Mark Twain once said, “an idea doesn’t care who has it”. The theory of relativity came from a man working in Bern, the sleepiest city in a sleepy country. For all we know there is some spectacular breakthrough that will come from an American university where bowling is a Major.
I have a friend who is a mega-intellectual in physics located, in of all places, Sacramento, California. He can produce pages of profound and baffling equations and in the tradition of Euclid and Pythagoras he has dispensed with his family name and is known throughout the world of science as Dennis of Sacramento. Yes, this is the same town that the Werner Heisenberg of politics, Herr Schwarzenegger, works. He is, of course, the man who formulated “The Theory of Uncertain Fiscal Reality” (aber er ist ein netter kerl). I wouldn’t want the FBI to know this, but Dennis and I have traveled into the future ourselves. It happened when we walked across Hoover Dam from the Nevada side to the Arizona side. Arizona was one hour ahead of Nevada! Sure enough it was one o’clock in Arizona and it was still noon in Nevada. How such a place as backwards as Arizona could live even so slightly into the future was truly baffling. As Einstein said,, “the universe is not only strange, but stranger than you can imagine”.

It's called bigotry

A guest blog by Al Manzano, a writer and former editor who lives In Carlsbad, CA



Remember when the Supreme Court was hearing a case on pornography? One of the justices made a memorable comment. He said that he couldn't define pornography but knew it when he saw it.

The New York City mosque uproar makes me think that while most of us could probably define bigotry we can't seem to recognize it when we see it.

It's a comment on the ridiculous character of our national debates. Our politicians come to it with two minds, one is to capitalize on it as a way to win votes, another is to suggests ways to ameliorate the situation by compromise. They are all simply contributing to an increasing lack of decency and common sense. Sometime in the future we will bow our heads in shame at the way we are being led, confused, and responding.

The mosque is being described at best as an unintended offense to the memory of 9/11.

My memory of 9/11 is of a crime that will never be punished or forgotten. It is at the heart of the problem of victimization and survival: How to rid ourselves of our sorrow, how to get on with life.

I know people with murdered children and for whom there has been no c losure of identification and punishment of the murderers. I don't know how they manage their lives and go on. But they do. No one can really help them in the core of their suffering.

It is a private agony but is can also be a public one. The mass murdering of peoples seem to go on and on. Very few of these events ever lead to effective punishment and never to closure.

It is a matter of continuing sorrow wrapped deep in the need to go on living.

This is what bigots exploit without shame. Politicians are natural cowards. They come away confused by the noisome rants that frighten the unthinking and emotional and fearful of the damage they can impose on our society and values at the ballot box.

The builders of the mosque are being asked to move away from their long chosen and planned site as if somehow they were guilty. It must be confusing for them as free Americans. We have a long tradition of harming our fellow citizens because of who they are and not for what have done. We can't seem to end it.

It's called bigotry.

To play a great American, cast a Canadian

I can rest my case with Raymond Massey, the Canadian actor who made the best Abraham Lincoln on film. Or maybe even Alexander Knox, who played Woodrow Wilson. I'll skip Dan Ackroyd who played Jimmy Carter on SNL. My point is that many American characters are played by Canadians. There's Marty McFly, a creation of Michael J. Fox, Ace Ventura, played by Jim Carrey. The list goes on: Margo Kidder (who went to my high school) was Lois Lane and Alan Young (who also went to my high school) was Mr. Ed's pal on TV. The tradition goes back to Mary Pickford through Walter Pidgeon up to John Candy and Dorothy Stratten. But can an American play a Canadian? I'll give you two examples: George Segal played a tough RCMP officer in Tom Ardies' thriller, "Russian Roulette" and no less than Paul Newman played Reggie Dunlop, the player-coach in "Slap Shot". He could skate like the wind, swear like, well, like a hockey player, and he slept under a giant Canadian maple leaf flag.

And so it goes

Here is a guest blog by Anne Kmit, a Las Vegas writer and poet.


All by herself, she shopped and bought the lacy white dress.
All by herself, she arranged a picnic meal for her few friends after the ceremony.

She had to because her mother said "You'll be sorry. I'm not going."
Her father said "Neither am I. He's a phony."

She knew in her heart that he was selfish and immature.
But she hoped, no, believed her love would change him.

He came an hour late to the chapel, tipsy.
She married him anyway, it was the beginning of the end.

Before Mad Men & Don Draper there was Vic Norman

Vic Norman is the hero of Frederic Wakeman's 1946 novel "The Hucksters". The story takes place in New York during WWII and Norman wants to get into advertising so he can make $25,000 a year and wear $35 hand-painted ties. In the movie he is played by none other than Clark Gable. His boss at the agency is Adolphe Menjou wearing the same perfect-fitting suit that Roger Stirling wears in Mad Men. I guess this is why account execs are always called "suits" in the business. The little 35 cent pocket book in my library says: "The whole story the movie didn't tell". Actually the movie is much better than the book thanks to the odious and tyrannical client played by Sydney Greenstreet. He terrifys everyone including Gable by insisting they be "on the beam" and say "check" when he demands approval. Of course there are too many women in Norman's life (just like Don Draper). But the advertising thinking in The Hucksters is very primitive. You'd never hear Draper come up with anything as limpid as "Love that soap" for Beautee Soap. But then this is the precursor to the creative revolution of the Mad Men era. One nice touch in the movie is when Norman/Gable gets up in a meeting and pours a jug of water on Greenstreet's head and walks out. Today we're all well acquainted with the world of advertising. Between focus groups, and messages bombarding us night and day, we have all become lunch for the advertisers who have made us easier to use. One odd and coincidental note for both stories. One of the stars of Mad Men is Jared Harris. The Hucksters is dedicated to Jed Harris. The moving finger writes and moves on, but not very far.

The song is me.

In one of his journalistic pieces George Orwell said that he would rather have written a popular song than all of his serious material. He meant a song that ordinary people would sing and hum and listen to in their homes and his mythical pub, "The Moon Under Water".
What would he have written: "Underneath the Arches", maybe, or "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts", perhaps, but certainly not "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", or the posh Noel Coward song, "Poor Little Rich Girl". They're both wonderful tunes but not in the DNA of the man who wrote "1984".
I too wish I had written a song, and not just any old song. It would be nice to have my name on "Stardust", which is really two songs in one or anything by Gershwin, anything by Frank Loesser, anything by Cole Porter, but let's be realistic, these are the geniuses of popular song and Orwell and I are mere scribblers who wish upon a star. I would be happy to have penned, "Let's Get Lost" and I think Orwell would have been proud to be the composer of "There'll Always Be An England".

Where have all the war poets gone?

I saw some lines in a magazine this week that were from the very first poem I remembered from WWII.
"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth/And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."They were from "High Flight", written by a 19 year old volunteer named John Magee of the Royal Canadian Air Force who was killed in 1941.
I remember this because I had a cousin in the RCAF who was also killed in 1941 (and a maternal grandfather killed on the Western Front in the Great War.) We don't seem to have anything today that a school child can memorize or can be recited by Katie Couric. Where are the bittersweet but beautiful lines from Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth" (1917)..Not in the hands of boys But in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good bys" No Rupert Brooke (1915) "That I should die; think this of me, that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England". In 1939 Yeats wrote "An Irish Airman Forsees his Death" and in that same year Auden wrote his mordant "September 1, 1939". Robinson Jeffers in 1941 wrote, "Locked lips of boys too proud to scream". But what do we have today? Afghanastan was done by Kipling. And so we come to the Age of McChrystal, the 4 Star Grunt, up at 4 am jogging around his compound like some exercise video, when he should be reading Marcus Aureleus. Or better yet, George Orwell's tribute to a young soldier fighting for Republican Spain in 1936:
"But the thing I saw in your face
No power can disinherit:
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit."

Welcome back to Mad Men...my favorite TV show

It was Andy Warhol who said, "Success is a job in New York". It certainly seemed that way to me in 1960 when I was just coming up in the advertising business. The only trouble was that I was stuck in Vancouver BC, an advertising backwater if there ever was one. So I just had to watch Bobby Morse sing his way through "How to Succeed in Business without really trying". I had to sit on the edge of my seat through "West Side Story". Meanwhile I was hounding my boss for a raise (the one I got was $25 a month). I knew I had to leave. So we went to Toronto first but that was a lateral move to appease my Canadian soul. I was fired and went job hunting in NY and Detroit and got a job offer at big agencies in both places on the same day and took the one in Detroit (NY could always come next). After the Detroit riots of 1967 I got the job of International Creative Director which meant I flew to Europe through NY. And so it came to pass that I was in Manhattan for a layover when the doyenne of advertising head hunters, Judy Wald, invited me to a VIP cocktail party in the Pan Am building. There I was among the elite of the ad world...the Don Drapers of the world...when all of a sudden I stepped out of the circle with Jerry Della Femina, Mary Welles, Whit Hobbs et al. and said, "Gosh, I have to go!" "Where", they asked. "I have to get up to the roof so I can catch my helicopter to JFK and make my flight to Amsterdam." Andy Warhol's statement that we would all be famous for 15 minutes comes to mind but for me it lasted about 20 seconds. I'm the only one in my family who has never lived or worked in NY. My revenge was 5 years in London, Zurich and Amsterdam. No Mad Men there but plenty to drink and smoke. Besides, I never worked with anyone as cool as Don Draper...what a pleasure to watch that agency!

The most beautiful words in the English language

For Henry James, it was two: "summer afternoon". For L'il Abner it was also two: "Daisy Mae". For Phillip Larkin it was a single verb: "unbutton" For me, it's a whole lexicon: Peggy, Alison, Tony, London, jazz, Gatsby, Berkeley, Red Wings. I also have a few from other tongues: Che Bella Giornata, Chic, La Meme Chose, and my favorite Russian word, "Nichevo". It doesn't translate exactly but means something like, "so what?" You can hear it sung by Jackie Cain in a cynical love song called "So It's Spring?". Nichevo!

C'est vrai. Je suis Le Pink Panther!

It all began over double espressos. I was with M. X, a noted flaneur from Arizona, a criminal state if ever there was one. After putting a sachet of Sweet n Low in our cups I noticed him take a handful of the petite pink pouches and put them in his pocket. He winked at me,that evil, conniving wink, and said, "This is the one thing you'll never have to buy again". I had no comment at the time but what with the collapse of Lehmann Bros., the housing bubble that burst in my face and my stock portfolio ahchored to AIG, I began my one-man crime wave. At first I took just a few packets from Starbucks, never too many,and never the blue or yellow packets. Jamais!
Can I ever go straight? I have withstood the disgust of my wife and daughter and Inspector Cluzot is after bigger fish. I expect some friendly waitress could dissuade me or I could be arrested on the spot by an ambitious busboy. Why do I continue? As Willy Sutton said when he was asked why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is". Well, for me,that's where the coffee is.

More money down the drain.

Here we go again. It is a universally-acknowledged fact that the agents are smarter than the owners in pro sports. LeBron James is making the rounds, with his agent of course, to see which NBA team will give him the most money and the best contract. I have no idea what he will do but I do have a hunch it won't lead to any chumpionship er, championship. The Lakers don't need him, nor do the Celtics, or any self-respecting contender. I saw this with my own eyes when Mo Vaughn left the Red Sox for $60 million to play for the Angels. He really couldn't be bothered and he did nothing for them. They paid him off and he's now living in the lap of luxury. The same thing happened when the Vancouver Canucks hired Mark Messier for three years. "He never broke a sweat," said a disgusted Trevor Linden. Needless to say the Canucks never went anywhere, but Messier cashed the checks all the same. We don't live in a world where Ted Williams can push back his $125,000 salary check, and say he was only worth $90,000. There is a statement I like from the late Syd Abel, a member of the famous Detroit Production Line of Lindsey, Abel and Howe: "Sure we played for money, but we would have played the Toronto Maple Leafs for free."

Christopher Hitchens: an appreciation

In his NY Times column (July 2)David Brooks writes generously and warmly about Christopher Hitchens, in my opinion, one of the leading public intellectuals of the day. Brooks points out that Hitchens' worldview was formed strongly by George Orwell. He is the voice of Orwell that we need in this troublesome century. Hitchens wrote a book called: "Why Orwell Matters" and we need one now titled: "Why Hitchens Matters". I came to Orwell when I lived in London in the 1960's and '70s. I didn't start with 1984 or even Animal Farm but with two early short pieces: "A Hanging", where Orwell's deep human sympathy is first expressed and "Shooting an elephant" which exposes the ignorance and folly of empire building. I wish people in the Pentagon would read things like this, but they never do. One of Hitchens' close friends is Salman Rushdie. Once upon a time Salman was a pal of mine, too. We worked at a big advertising agency in Mayfair. He was a junior copywriter and I was the International Creative Director. He would pop into my office from time to time to speak with great authority on politics, history, literature and the cinema, never campaign strategy. Then one day he was gone. He couldn't write an ad to save himself so he left to become one of the world's most famous authors, leaving me to write the deathless prose for 3M and Dow Chemical. We have to march to our own drummers, don't we? Hitchens is now undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. I wish him good health, and, to paraphrase one of Orwell's poems from the Spanish Civil War: " No bomb that ever burst can shatter your crystal spirit."

Death of the American middle class

Republicans want the middle class dead. After all, they're a nuisance that wants so many damn things from government such as mortgage relief, consumer protection, unemployment benefits and who knows what. What today's Republican Party really wants is a managerial elite as described in James Burnham's book "The Managerial Revolution". Orwell reviewed the book in 1946 and points out that WWII produced a new
type of society in the west that wasn't capitalist or socialist and in no sense of the word, democratic. The rulers of this new society will be bureaucrats, technicians, business executives and soldiers. Burnham predicted that this new elite would crush the working class and reorganize society so that all power and economic privilege would remain in their own hands. Political activity, therefore, is a special kind of behavior, characterized by its own unscrupulousness. The great mass of the people would always be unpolitical. That means the self-seeking tribe would rule over the brainless mob. So we discover the political inspiration for "1984". General McCrystal, being part of the managerial elite, could look down on the community organizer in the White House. Joe Barton, R of Texas, can apologize to BP for having to pay for the oil spill they caused. (Notice he didn't apologize to the fishermen facing ruin.) Senate Republicans have no use for the unemployed or their benefits. They're not part of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. The banks are bailed out but not the homeowners. Now we have a really weird Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada named Sharron Angle. She is all full of conviction that we should eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Luckily, these Tea Party types are not likely to govern. They are the inarticulate voice of a middle class that is losing ground and wants to return to the old America, preferably 1945 to 1949 when we were the only ones who had the atomic bomb. Meanwhile, two wars rage on with no end in sight. Orwell said that the quickest way to end a war was to lose it. What politician is going to endorse that? The opium of the people continues with televised sports. Thousands cheer a mediocre soccer team in the World Cup for the simple reason that it represents the US. This has to be the last refuge of the young and restless. Once upon a time I came up with a formula for changing America: No drugs, no guns and no divorce. I couldn't get a single person to agree with me. The Constitution, you know.

The Mental Energy Crisis

Instead of Drill Baby Drill, how about Think Baby Think? The oil spill is teaching us a lesson at this very moment and it is giving us a D minus in prudent energy use. OK, it is not going to be possible to slip the surly bonds of gas-powered transportation, but perhaps we can liberate our state of mind and come up with a more thoughtful plan to serve our own needs. Can't we go back to driving more slowly? Can't we bundle our errands so we make one or two trips instead of five or six? And please, no valet parking; you can walk a few feet. Of course it seems impossible to liberate ourselves from the psychology of the SUV and the burly truck. When I worked in the GM building in Detroit I drove a used VW bug since it worked better in snow and ice. Our little group was very cynical about the GM cars in the main floor showroom. "No car can take you where you want to go", was one of our mottos. There was also the medically important question, "Like to enlarge your penis non-surgically? Buy a Corvette!" I saw a Ford commercial last night that wants it both ways. It opens by thumbing its nose at the gas station owner. It then says that their F150 truck will give you great mileage (but doesn't specify what) and then closes in front of a bank of wind energy towers. I also saw another commercial for dear old, sane , Swedish Saab, the brand that America turned its back on. The copy line was: "Move your mind". If only we could.

The remorseless oil spill

Once upon a time we could put our dinner on a little TV tray and watch the news, and all for free. The halcyon days. The global village. Pretty soon we got more channels, cable, 24 hour news and a violent, pointless war with napalm and death. That wasn't much fun. Now we come to the Age of the BP Oil Spill, our Chernoble.
Want to see it? There's a camera on it 24/7. The country is up in arms--dinner is ruined. Poor Obama is not a wartime orator like Roosevelt; "A day that will live in infamy", or Churchill, "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall never surrender". He is the cool, articulate leader who patiently explains complex events to us, the antidote to the histrionic Tea Party rallys that look ominously like the book burnings of the Third Reich. Meanwhile, the chaps at BP take time out from lunch at Claridges to OK bland full page ads and soft corporate TV commercials telling us that everything's OK. No real words in them like death, chaos or pollution. This is the equivalent of the Luftwaffe taking ads in the Times apologizing for the destruction of London saying, "gosh, if only the English were not so darn obstinate". When will it end? Only CNN knows. Perhaps it's when the audience moves on to the next visual narcotic: Armenian Idol, Dancing with Dentists or the disasters sure to come. So, the oil spews on relentlessly. The pelicans still don't have lawyers, and the shrimpers are being paid off in chicken feed. And so we beat on, boats against the tide, pushing us backward, ever backward.

Chicago has the best parades

This week over 2 million people lined the streets of Chicago to hail the new Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks. I call that real fan support and a city that deserves its champions. It was said to be more than the crowd that cheered the White Sox who won the World Series a few years back. What is it about Chicago that makes a great parade? Watch the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and you'll see why. They're joyous and fun. Not only did Ferris sing a terrific version of "Danke Schoen" but his buddy Cameron wore a wonderful (to me) jersey. Do you remember it: Gordie Howe's No. 9 Detroit Red Wings jersey. Now that's class.

James Joyce's Perfect Game

Sure and he was out and he was out and I called him safe and what in all of God's holy creation was I thinking when I called him safe and doing such hurt to that fine boyo on the mound and here I am Jimmy Joyce, an umpire all these 20 years and I make a real boner of a goat of a call that I can't recall and now we have a 28 batter perfect game and I'm still weeping I am and I can't show my face at O'Donnells, O'Connells, O'Leary's and O heaven help me I'll be roasting in hell one day with them other Irish boneheads and Hitler, even though he only had one ball I hear. Oh Anna Livia Plurabelle I'm so, so, so sorry.
(With apologies to Finnigan's Wake and all Joyce scholars)

The Great American Disaster

That was the name of a trendy restaurant in 1970 Swinging London. It was the Ur American hamburger place and a precursor to the Hard Rock Cafe which opened a year later on Picadilly (and the Disaster closed). It was always packed, with lines around the block, and if you had ever tasted an English Wimpy Burger you'd see why. The place had framed pictures of things like the Hindenberg crash, the Lusitania sinking, Custer at Little Big Horn, that kind of fun stuff. Today, it would probably give a whole wall to the BP Oil Spill and keep CNN on all day. American disasters seem to come along quite regularly, such as 9/11. What can we do about it? Nothing, as far as I can see. I don't know anything about deep water drilling and I don't have my own private foreign policy. We are just horrified onlookers like the radio announcer who saw the Hindenberg crash, repeating: "Oh the humanity, the humanity!" And so we echo him with, "Oh the plume, the plume!"

Forbes magazine: bastion of useless information

Forbes is running a piece called "The 10 best places to live". No. 1 is Vienna. Ja, hier ist eine gute stadt aber kann mann sprecht Deutsch? What, can't speak German? Well, that won't help you with others on the list such as Zurich, Munich and Dusseldorf. I worked in Zurich and dutifully took by German language lessons and it was all I could do to order lunch and a beer in the language. Vancouver is on the list. It's my home town and is very livable if you like rain and a provincial zeitgeist (you can use German there, too). There isn't a single US city on the list. This is lazy journalism. There is no sociological reason for anyone to live in these places other than the ones that already do. There's the travel brochure and then there's reality. Know a good place to live: Detroit (in 1964), London (in 1967-72), Newport Beach, CA (in 1972-1992), Salzburg (1750). The point is that we all live our lives from the inside out, not the other way around. Are you happy--then you live in the best place on earth.

The Principles of Texas Newspeak

The corruption of the English language continues apace as the Texas Board of Education makes changes to high school history books. "Slavery", is now "the Atlantic triangle trade". "Expansionism" replaces "imperialism". In "1984", Orwell wrote that "the purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world vision and mental habits proper to the devotee of Ingsoc (read Texas) but to make all other modes of thought impossible. Oldspeak bad..Newspeak doubleplusgood.
By the way, did you hear the one about the two doctors? The first doctor says his patient has suffered a stroke, slurs his words and you can't understand a thing he says. The second doctor replys; "He can always move to Texas".

Tocqueville--the proto-Orwellian

In the May 17th New Yorker James Wood points out that Alexis deTocqueville's observations of America are very Orwellian and appeal to conservatives and anti-totalitarians alike. He says that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny. "We meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one," says Tocqueville, one of the great explainers of America (presaging "1984". Orwell was not really interested in America as Christopher Hitchens points out in "Why Orwell Matters". He was fervently interested in England as he writes in his slim volume: "The English People". He says, "It is worth trying for a moment to put oneself in the position of a foreign observer. With his fresh eyes he would see a great deal that a native observer misses." Orwell was the Tocqueville of England. He speaks warmly of the manners of the English working class who are not always very graceful but are extremely considerate. Reading the two authors gives you a very keen understanding and insight into the two great countries "separated by a common language".

On turning 75

My 75th birthday was May 8th. There it was, a number, 3/4 of a century and plenty of shock and awe. I celebrated it in the Bay Area at my wife's 60th high school reunion.
Where did all these old people come from? And to rub it in,all of them have their high school yearbook pictures in a little badge on a string around their necks. At least we've all had a lifetime of experiences, full of the innumerable people you meet along the way. Of course the next 75 years won't be as easy. My favorite birthday memory comes from May 8, 1945 VE Day, one of the most joyous days of my life, riding around in an open car up and down Jasper Ave. in Edmonton, Alberta. The beast was dead at last but of course so were the millions who perished including many members of my family. When you're my age you have plenty of bittersweet memories as well. Shto za zhizn as we say in Russian: What a life!

Fastest way to being a billionaire

While gassing up the car I noticed a sign that said "Become a billionaire" at the pumps. In smaller type it said "Billionaire experience". All you had to do was visit Slurrpie.com. I mock this attempt to be filthy rich but on the other hand I go back to my definition of being rich, "Rich or poor there's no greater satisfaction than a cold beer on a hot day".

My country western haiku.

Two-timing two-stepper from Tucson,
Dances away with his shoes on.

I want to live in Arizona.

That's what the Russian submarine officer said in the film "Hunt for Red October". He said to the Captain, "Do you need papers to go from State to State?" No papers required in the US, you just go where you like, replied the Captain. Then the Sam Neil character said, "I want to live in Arizona". I come from a cold climate and should want to be there but hey, it's hotter than Hades in the summer, the hockey team is bankrupt, I'm not a white Christian bigot and I don't walk around with my passport or birth certificate. Actually, I liked wandering around Russia where everybody was very polite and they produce the best hockey players in the world.

Birth-and death-of the cool.

Lisa Simpson and I have the same favorite album: Birth of the Cool, Miles Davis' iconic 1949 jazz collaboration with Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans. It is also the title of a wonderful new book by Ted Gioia. How I loved the cool era of James Dean, Jack Kerouac and Chet Baker. It was my antidote to the square world that was listening to Patti Page's "How much is that doggie in the window?" The first hip tip I got when I was 18 at UCLA was about my Chevy convertible. I was told that never put the windows up when the top is down. Attitude was the name of the game if you wanted to be cool. The term only applied to people, not things like today when you see cool apps for your laptop. All my heroes when I was young were grownups like Gordie Howe, Ted Williams, Charlie Parker and yes, Albert Schweitzer, certainly not comic book heroes or kids like Harry Potter or Narnia. One of the coolest things I saw was in a WWII newsreel showing Erwin Rommel wearing sunglasses, the ultimate cool fashion accessory. When I see the troops in Iraq wearing sunglasses it all seems very sinister and they look like the Imperial Stormtroopers out of Star Wars. But the cool era is over even though I can still put on "Miles Ahead", "Kind of Blue", anything by Lester Young and re-read "Catcher in the rye". Now we live in the time of Twitter and titter and "How much is that iPad in the window".

Attention Twits-Big Brother is Watching

I have just read that the Library of Congress is going to digitally archive every single tweet ever tweeted since Twitter began in March 2006. Every silly thing you've ever written is going to be on file forever. There's no Winston Smith to dispose of it down the memory hole. You have been robbed of your privacy and exposed to the lowest common denominator of your thinking. Did I mention that this is forever? A billion tweets in 18 months stored in an infrastructure that never forgets. You are now part of the mental spam that passes for intelligent communication. What a legacy you are leaving. It's an endless record that will haunt you to eternity. As the article states in closing: "George Orwell would freak out if he saw this". Of course he already has. Read "1984" again.

The amazing Bud Powell

I was having lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Las Vegas when I heard something familiar in the background music. I stopped and listened since this "music" is usually moronic rock or sappy strings. But I knew this piece: "It could happen to you", a piano solo by Bud Powell. Unheard of quality in a restaurant. Once upon a time I was helping to sell background music in London and it was a complete flop. As the poor guy trying to sell it said, "all they want is Knees Up, Knees Up Mother Brown". I once closed up Birdland in NYC at 4 am after sitting through a tremendous evening of Bud Powell playing. I also saw him in Berkeley at an all-star concert. He is the father of modern jazz piano and a member of the quintet that played Massey Hall in Toronto for "The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever". He could swing and improvise like no one before or since and paid the price with mental illness after being beaten by the cops in a drug bust. What is it with cops beating up helpless blacks? I once met a cop in Newport Beach whose name was John Coltrane, but of course he had never heard of the iconic sax man and composer. As for Bud Powell, no less a genius than pianist Bill Evans said, "No one could surpass him".

Orwell, man of the moment.

Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times of March 29th uses the phrases from 1984 that seem to typify things today. He says, "How many Republican senators can get away with claiming that war is peace, slavery is freedom and regulating big banks is doing those big banks a favor. He forgot to mention the other slogan from
1984,"Ignorance is strength".

Dwarf rapes nun--flees in UFO

That is the mythical, but accurate, headline written to show where journalism has landed. Larry Flynt said he would make the whole world a tabloid and he did. My journalism degree from UC Berkeley was never put to use because I went directly into the world of "Mad Men" advertising. But I still read the papers and magazines but there isn't much to learn from them since they mostly care about business and celebrity (that dwarf is getting an agent right now). George Orwell was one of the finest journalists ever. He is somewhat misrepresented in an op-ed column in the NY Times today headlined: "Hollywood's political fictions", about the new film "Green Zone". The writer Ross Douthat says, "the removal of a dictator and the spread of democracy to the Arab world inspired a swath of liberal intelligentsia to play George Orwell and embrace the case for war." Now hang on, Orwell never inspired anyone to embrace war intellectualy he went to war himself. He fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and was shot in the neck. No Hollywood there. He did have an inkling of how the newspapers deluded the British public during Dunkirk. He saw an 8-page paper of the day that devoted 6 pages to race results and a few columns to the War in Europe...virtually on the eve of a German invasion. But who cares really about Iraq or even Afghanastan when you can find out if your cat is psychic?

The best kind of death

I read Peter Graves' obituary in the NY Times this morning. He died yesterday of a heart attack after returning from brunch with his wife and children. I'm not chuckling over death, it's a condition of our existence according to Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. But look at the final chapter of Leo Tolstoy's death as portrayed in the film "The Last Station". It is a drama full of bickering in the house over his last will. He is tormented by his wife and comes to the conclusion that his life at Yasnaya Polyana is over, so he leaves in the middle of the night with his doctor, his secretary and a daughter. He gets as far as Astripova, a small train station in the middle of nowhere. His health takes a turn for the worse and he dies a lonely and embittered old man. Way back in the comic strip Lil' Abner there was a continuing reference to "Are you ready for Freddy?" which no one in the strip could figure out. It then turned out that Freddy was the local undertaker. So Freddy I'll be ready right after brunch with my family or perhaps after a swell dinner or just after the Red Wings win the Cup in overtime.

And the Oscar goes to....

a movie nobody saw. "The Hurt Locker" continues the tradition of "No Country for old men" and "Slumdog Millionare" (which I walked out of). It's not really the film's fault it's the award process. Woody Allen spoofed awards when he said, "Best Fascist Dictator...Adolf Hitler." I remember two things from my days in the ad world. Pitch to the judges bias for originality, cleverness and even cuteness. And spend big on entry costs. Exhibit A is the Apple "1984" commercial, lauded ad infinitum for it's unique, marvelous message. But my question was, "Why are we applauding a company that only has 1% of the computer market?" So we have a best picture that has done $16million at the box office beating out one that is on its way to $1 billion. Who needs awards but the ego-saturated crowd. I got into trouble at an agency that gloried in their dubious awards by saying they were a feather in our crap. But even though Ira Gershwin said that "the movies that we love may only be a passing fancy" I confess that I love the movies, the smaller the better. I liked "Me and Orson Welles", "Young Victoria", "An Education" even the new "The Ghost Writer". To paraphrase Norma Desmond it's not just that the pictures got small but so did the moviegoers. A guy in London told me once there was no good writing in films anymore, Chinatown was it. I said I'll give you two great scripts: "All about Eve" and "Double Indemnity". He said, "never heard of them".

A treadmill to oblivion

That's how Fred Allen characterized television comedy. He asserted correctly that you cannot be truly funny night after night. You can be ingratiating, which is mostly what you get. Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight, said Stephen Sondheim but it's really tragedy day and night.
Jay Leno is still telling Lewinski jokes and will probably be doing Tiger Woods jokes for years. He's not an actor, not a sketch artist like Johnny Carson, not a musician like Steve Allen, he's just an ordinary guy who works for a few hours in a business suit. Letterman isn't much better. My son-in-law is a comedy writer who did a stint on Letterman and certainly earned his $3500 a week doing gags and Top 10 lists. But gee, can anyone remember anything said on those shows.
I have been corrupted by cable that lets me surf aimlessly. I happened on a female comic who said, "When I was little my Mom and Dad slept in separate beds and I thought, Wow, Dad must have a long cock!" Funny? Sure, if you're 14 years old. But what if you're an educated, well read and well traveled adult. Well, there is a show for you. It's called The Simpsons.
The references are so dazzling and culturally erudite that I'm stunned with admiration. For example, Lisa plays a baritone sax, probably the coolest instrument in jazz. Her favorite album is "Birth of the Cool" (mine, too). In one episode her beloved "ax" (jazz slang for sax) is lost. She is 8 years old and brokenhearted. The background track is playing "Song for an unfinished woman" by baritone player Gerry Mulligan. Plenty of funny stuff there and no laugh track. If you want culture with your comedy, watch The Simpsons.
In any case we can always turn to the real wits and humorists: Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker among others. It was Coward who said, "In London I performed for Cafe Society and in Las Vegas I performed for Nescafe Society." Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist anything but temptation" and Dorothy Parker said, "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses".
The late, great English comedian and writer Spike Milligan challenged his fellow comics with: "Can you tell a joke without a punch line and still get a laugh?" Not on television or the Improv.

Let it rain and thunder, let a million banks go under

Such are the opening lines of "Who cares?", George and Ira Gershwin's wonderful ode to love during the Great Depression. Ira continues, "I am not concerned with stocks and bonds that I've been burned with". Neither am I since they all went up in smoke in the big crash of 2008.
It happened on one trading day in October when I was at a jazz festival in Newport Beach, California. When I got back in the late afternoon there were dozens of urgent messages from my broker at UBS. My main portfolio holding had plunged from $41 to $6. This was a 140 year old company that had never missed a dividend or had a losing quarter. That was $100,000 gone in a day. My problem was the stock anchored some big loans that I had at the bank and so I got my first, last and only margin call.
I had worked in Zurich in the 1960's and '70's and came to marvel at the Swiss temperment and efficiency. What could be better than a cool headed bank with a warm heart (a black one it turned out that still defys US law and the IRS).
Despite the assertion by Harry Lime that after 700 years of peace and brotherly love all the Swiss gave the world was the cuckoo clock, it was working for us. We used their luxury box at Madison Sq. Garden, enjoyed our many lunches at the Four Seasons in NYC and Newport Beach and deposited their generous checks to our favorite charities. At a conference at the Bel Air Hotel I asked our Swiss account executive about the group of 50 or so in attendance. He said, "The people in this room represent about $8 billion of private wealth." Impressed? I was. It comes from not coming from old money. We got our money late in life through an inheritance that was bitterly fought over in what remained of a fractured family.
It's pretty well gone now through the double whammy of the housing bubble and the financial meltdown. I'm still alive, still married to my wife of 52 years and blessed with two amazing, wonderful and loyal children.
I'm like the character Mike Campbell in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Campbell confesses that he has lost all his money. "I lost it in two ways," he says. "Two ways?" says Jake, "what two ways?" Campbell answers, "Gradually and all at once."
But wait, Ira wouldn't let us end on a downer like that. His lyric continues: "I love you and you love me and that's the way it's meant to be...who cares what fails in Yonkers, as long as it's love that conquers".

Why Orwell endures

Such is the title of a NY Times Book review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft on February 14th. It is really just a reminder of how valuable Orwell still is as the most famous public intellectual of the past 100 years. He is best known of course for the dire warnings in "1984" which of course still resonate. Remember the slogans: War is Peace...like our wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanastan following one upon the other...Freedom is slavery...like the Patriot Act...Ignorance is Strength...like the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin. But Orwell wasn't just a prophet of gloom he was a wise and witty essayist as well. He wrote on how to make a perfect cup of tea and his idea of the perfect pub as well as Boys Weeklies and naughty postcards. He had a passion for liberty and intellectual honesty and that's why he will always endure.

Orson Welles was right

Late in life Orson Welles said, "There's something you can say every day now, nothing is as good as it was years ago." Certainly not airlines and airports. I can remember flying Concorde in perfect luxury and nobody made me take my shoes off or frisk me. Certainly not television which is dumb reality shows. As Johnny Carson once said to Ed McMahon, "Those hard working geniuses have come up with Bowling For Fish. Certainly not restaurants. I've having to send back more and more dishes that are downright lousy and tasteless. Certainly not our politics where a hick on a high wire like Sarah Palin can actually say she's a candidate for President. Welles also said, "I started at the top and worked my way down". I hope that doesn't include our country.