Thursday, December 25, 2014

The thing I have in common with James Bond

Not his license to kill or his Aston Martin or lethal gadgets or nubile Bond girls. No, it's martinis. I had my first one when I was nine, decades before Bond. I've even downed a few at Dukes Hotel in the same bar in London where Ian Fleming created 007 and the “shaken not stirred” line was born. Of course a real martini is made with fine English gin (mine is Bombay Sapphire) just enough dry vermouth, an olive and a good bartender. It must be cold, served straight up and never on the rocks. Alas, vodka has invaded the glasses of the free world. At a martini “event” in London in the 90's every drink on the menu was a vodkatini. The bartender grudgingly made me one with gin. One of my highlights as a Mad Man was writing the first James Bond tv commercial: suave guy, theme music, aston martin, luscious blonde—and our product, an expensive after shave. It was voted the best tv commercial in the world that year. (If I were modest I'd be perfect.) However, Spectre and Smersh had me in their sights because three years later I was carried out of a Detroit restaurant to the emergency ward with a ruptured gall bladder. It seems that lobsters downed with martinis at midnight can get you faster than a Bond villain. I had the gall bladder out in London and gave up drinking. Today my License to Act Up has been revoked and I'm in bed by 10. Once in a blue moon I'll order a martini and, like Proust and his madeleine, memories of the sweet, swift years come rushing back and I'm in my turquoise velvet safari suit ready for action.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Orwell explained Ferguson 80 years ago.

Before he became George Orwell, Eric Blair was a policeman in Burma in a job he loathed. He was a white officer with a native crowd that wanted him to do something, so he shoots an elephant that had calmed down but had wreaked havoc. In his essay “Shooting an elephant” he wrote: “I was legally in the right so it gave me a pretext for shooting. I often wonder whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool?” Is that what happened in Ferguson when an officer trapped in a macho personality shot an unarmed boy so as not to look a fool? Is it OK now for an officer to kill an unarmed 12 year old? Is it OK for 5 cops to pile on a helpless unarmed man and choke him to death so as not to look foolish? Unlike the young Blair/Orwell the US is home to barbarians with badges. They shoot from the hip and return to the station for donuts without a second thought.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

It was the best of meals. It was the worst of meals.

We had dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Paris Las Vegas. It's one of the more exquisite places to dine in the country. (The last time I was there I was seated near Bill Gates). It's equal to the deuxieme etage restaurant in the eiffel tower in France where my wife and I celebrated an anniversary years ago. The perfect setting across from the dancing waters of Bellagio; a 6 course tasting menu including foie gras, steak medallion, and souffle, perfectly presented and served. Formidable! The next day I rushed into the Bastille for lunch (they call it McDonalds now). Did I hate it? Let me count the ways: cheap, nasty food, no cutlery, napkin dispenser out, sullen service when there was service and a bell that kept ringing in the kitchen. Was there a price difference between the two places? Bien sur..a big one! Isn't there some way that the classes can break bread together without living in a world of such gross inequality? What, are you a socialist? A Communist? Maybe some heads should roll!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

It's hockey time--drop the pucks!

But not in Atlanta. They've dropped not one but two NHL teams. In the 1980's the Atlanta Flames became the Calgary Flames, who in short order won the Stanley Cup. After a hiatus, the oddly-named Atlanta Thrashers came into the league. They thrashed around for a few years and headed north to become the Winnipeg Jets, and there are no Stanley Cups in sight. Winnipeg is sort of a Canadian joke, to wit: 1st guy: Nobody comes from Winnipeg but hookers and hockey players; 2nd guy: My wife comes from Winnipeg!; 1st guy: What position does she play? OK let's give the city a break like Snoopy, the world famous hockey player who salutes a Hall of Famer from Winnipeg and one of the original Jets in the defunct World Hockey Assn. Here's Snoopy circling with the puck behind his own net...he crosses the blue line, skates flashing, stick handling beautifully...the crowd is on its feet, he shoots...he SCORES! In the final panel he gives us his beguiling smile and says, "Bobby Hull envies my slap shot". As for Atlanta, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!

Monday, September 22, 2014

Dear Jackie Cain--you inspired me

She was part of the great jazz duo Jackie & Roy, Mr. & Mrs. Bop. She died last week and it was a personal loss for me since she and her late husband Roy Kral opened the door for me to sophisticated, hip music. I was just 14 when I heard them do “East of Suez”; no lyrics just perfect, energetic scat harmony, the way they would do other jazz classics like “Pent Up House” and “Whisper Not”. I grew up in the era of tin pan alleys' demise: “How much is that doggie in the window” and “Mama will bark” The sounds in my home were tangos and the Ink Spots and my parent's comment that the music I liked was “noise”. Of course I also listened to the gold standard: Ella, Sarah and Billie, an admirer of Jackie who said of her, “She's my girl”. Jackie & Roy recorded more than 400 songs including “You inspire me”, “Darn that dream” and the witty “So it's Spring, so what?” where Jackie includes my favorite Russian word “nichevo”. I met them in Toronto, LA and San Francisco, a charming and uniquely talented couple. In Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric he says the lives of the young are about imagination and expectation, the old live by memory rather than hope. Jackie & Roy helped me crystallize my youthful hope for a creative and adventurous life which led me to live in three countries, travel the world and experience life to the fullest. Jackie & Roy are both gone now. She was 86 and I'm 79 but when I hear her sing we're both young again.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Death always comes at the worst possible time

That's what jazz trumpeter Jack Sheldon told the audience when a member of the band died the night before the concert, The subject may be dark but we can keep it light. As the now late Joan Rivers said, “I've had so much plastic surgery I'm going to leave my body to Tupperware.” So, no TS Eliot bangs and whimpers and no downers like “all paths of glory lead but to the grave”.We're going with George Burns who said in his late 90's, “I can't die, I'm booked”. I did have a bad moment when Lord Martin Rees said on a TED talk that when the sun burns out the world will die in 50 million years. That's a relief. It might have been this year before Christmas, which would be the worst possible time for me. Orwell said, “you can't be a Catholic and a grownup”. Lighten up George. Mel Brooks said that if he got to heaven the first thing he was going to do was find out where Hedy Lamarr lived. The lyrics of the song “Life is just a bowl of cherries” instructs us: “Don't take it serious, life's too mysterious, so live and laugh at it all”. We thought Robin Williams would always leave us laughing. Instead, he left us weeping.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Computers are making people easier to use

If you're on Facebook or Twitter you are an algorithm, an equation to help advertisers extract your facts Jack. You're in an unpaid focus group used to sharpen the aim of our commercial thought police. You're also a sitting duck for hackers to steal your credit card information and passwords. The inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, warns of the ingenious filter bubbles and centralized corporate control that is quickly abolishing your privacy. But that's only the menace of the marketing department, love is still off limits isn't it? Or is it? Eharmony, Match and all the other electronic yentas have their own tricks to shape and seduce you for profit. Forget poetry: “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”. Now it's let me count the guys. Shakespeare wrote: “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better”. But what does he know? Welcome to the bliss of megadata, data breach, wire taps and the NSA. Don't say Orwell didn't warn you. In a comic panel two kids are looking at an iPad and one says: “I know what a face is but what's a book?”

Monday, June 23, 2014

Writing that's unafraid to be great

I've just finished reading a great novel you've never heard of. It's called “Stoner” and it was written in 1965 by the late John Williams. It has gone out of print twice but has made a remarkable comeback and currently tops best seller lists all over Europe. It is a “quiet” novel about an English professor in a midwest college. The plot is slow by current slam-bang trends but those who love literature, language and the mystery of the mind and heart will cherish it. My daughter is a book curator for a magnificent store in Tampa called the Oxford Exchange. She tells me that over 300,000 titles are published every year, mostly an inventory of junk including the dubious best sellers. Even Stephen King despairs of James Patterson's poor writing. There is a new film called “Words and Pictures” about an English teacher in a high school. He meets the girl, loses the girl etc. etc. and in the last scene they are kissing and hugging. That's the arc of the film but life writes the arc in “Stoner”, not Hollywood. I ask people what their favorite book is. Some say they don't read books, or they read so many they don't remember a favorite or they only read when there's nothing on TV. To me that says they have never really tasted literature. I don't care if it's only Black Beauty, it shows that a book meant something to them. In one of his NY Times columns David Brooks says, “If you want to learn to write, the best way to start is by imitating George Orwell.” The thing that Orwell and Williams have in common is clarity and a respect for language. After a troubled marriage, an affair that ends abruptly, a daughter who turns her back on him, Stoner dies unmourned and is quickly forgotten. This illustrates one of Orwell's hard truths that you are forgotten in one generation and in two no one will ever know you existed. Orwell's close friend, Cyril Connolly, had a mantra: “only write masterpieces”. “Stoner” is one of them.

Monday, May 26, 2014

I can have you speaking Russian in three minutes

That's my cheap party trick where I teach all comers that “da” means yes and “nyet” means no. I don't promise to take them farther since scaling that strange and beautiful language is like climbing Mt. Everest. I am not fluent in Russian—my ace is an authentic accent, one that fools Russians everywhere. That picture of me on the blog was taken at the dock in Vladivostok. Our guide said, “your mother is from Russia”. Nyet, she was from Halifax. All the credit goes to UCLA and my wonderful teacher Prof. Alexander Mornell who tragically died during our class! Of course I can read the language but I saw something in the paper this week that gave me pause. At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum there was a word 20 letters long ending with a pronunciation “sign”. It meant “competitiveness”. Russian has a much larger alphabet than English as well as two pronunciation signs. Homer Simpson got tossed out of a costume party and the host yelled after him: “I was going to make you a Russian Count”. And Homer replied. “Well, as they say in Russia, Goodbye!..in Russian. He meant “Dos vi danya”. Try it.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Archie Bunker in a cowboy hat

Way out in a tumbleweed corner of Nevada is a rancher named Craven Bundy—I mean Cliven Bundy. By now you've probably heard about his staredown of the BLM over his theft of $1 million in grazing fees he owes. He was backed up by a ragged mob of red necks all armed to the teeth. They fantasized that they were at the OK Corral but in reality they were nothing more than the moronic townsfolk in “Blazing Saddles”. The whole thing was a hit of the week on Fox News and CNN. They were even called patriots by our first term second rate Senator Dean Heller. Not content with his 15 minutes of fame, Craven, I mean Cliven Bundy rattled off a full throttle statement about negros, welfare and the Federal government plus authentic gibberish about freedom and the social benefits of slavery. Oh oh this frightened off the right wing media and made Dean Heller swallow his words. Meanwhile, our long term first rate Senator Harry Reid, who had called the mob domestic terrorists, didn't have to retract a syllable of what he said. My disappointment with Bundy is that he isn't funny, wise or thoughtful-- just an old windbag wearing a ten gallon Stetson on a two gallon head. Where does all this take place—in the wonderfully-named Bunkerville where the spirit of Archie now resides.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Why I still read the local newspaper

It's certainly not for the police blotter with all the stabbings, beatings and murders. Not for the melancholy of the dozens of pedestrians killed on the roads including 2 year old toddlers. Not for the tiresome right wing diatribes. No, it's for the comic strips, especially one called “Frank & Ernest”. They misuse the language in a delightful way, including “Malaprop Man” who is a caped klutz who mangles his words and syntax. This week Frank instructs Ernie that the longest waterway in the Ukraine is the Dneiper, not the Crimea River (see my last blog and listen to Julie London) and at the F&E bakery Frank questions a seasonal promotion titled “April is the crullerest month” (TS Eliot's Wasteland). I also like Hagar the Horrible but he is in the category that Marshall McLuhan liked least: the berated husband nagged by Maggie on Jiggs, Dagwood's boss Dithers and the sarcasm of Hagar's wife Helga. But hey, I like to laugh at something in the paper. I mean besides Senator Ted Cruz.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Crimea River

Putin has put the moves on Crimea and it's his. All the blather about protecting Russian citizens is baloney, This was an “anschluss” right out of Hitler's playbook on Austria. I think every leader should get out his copy of “The Guns of August” and not go off half-cocked like the jingo Senator from Arizona or the blowhards on Fox News. Let Putin have his ego trip, the bills will come in soon enough. An interview with some old folks in Crimea said that they wanted to join Russia because “they had better pensions”. They also happen to be broke, so pony up Putin. There was a visual on the internet this week that showed how national borders changed in the past 1000 years. You've never seen such furious map-making. I've seen the Russian fleet mothballed in Vladivostok and it isn't pretty to see all that military waste in one place. It will surely come to Crimea in time and then what, “Russo-Disney”. Remember the playful plea from the Hitler in Mel Brooks' “The Producers”: “I want peace, peace...a little piece of Poland and a little piece of France!” Perchance?

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Putin is poutin', Ukraine is floutin', everyone's shoutin'

Things are getting dicey in Ukraine or as Jimmy Fallon says, “maybe we should start calling it “Twokraine”. But what would you expect of a shirtless, narcissistic autocrat like Putin. He plays hardball and realpolitick and couldn't give a fig what Europe and the US think. Someone told Stalin that the Pope disapproved of his military exploits and Stalin said, with a sly smile: “how many divisions does the Pope have?” We get it. I've just finished a little book called “1913..the year before the storm” that's the storm called The Great War one hundred years ago. Everyone wonders how it started. It was mostly poor choices and the fact that the Kaiser and many others were delusional and had fantasies in their creative and let's stop listening to the jingo nonsense of John McCain who has Teddy Roosevelt's axiom backwards: “Speak loudly and carry a birch twig” It probably comes down to the only person Putin fears and listens to, his wife, the Russian recording star Dolly Putin.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Where to look for work

It's depressing to hear politicians chatter about jobs, jobs, jobs when they have no clue how to create them. Employers are being cautious about hiring and when they do, it's for American salt mines like Wal Mart. The Roosevelt Republic is over and we now live in the Second Rater's Republic. No more WPA or NRA or Hoover Dam or even Eisenhower's interstate highway program. Detroit is still making cars in the middle of a medeval landscape and famine. Silicon Valley is helping create mega wealth for themselves and scarcely any jobs for the rest of the country. This hamlet of High IQ Luddites is gleefully destroying the workplace of millions. In the 1970's we thought we'd get flying cars but all we got was Twitter. During the Depression Orwell discovered that all work had dignity, even picking hops and washing dishes in a restaurant. I leave policy to the wonks but who will actually help people with low skills? There's plenty of work to be done. In Oregon an attendant pumps your gas, both as a courtesy and a wage-paying job. There's a way that government can help manicurists, barbers, hairdressers etc get a foothold by paying the license fees and training they require. Some of this takes local government help but there are actually dozens of ways to help the unemployed if a little creative brainstorming is used. I read where one economic “expert” said not to help workers, only companies that can then attract more customers. Workers are customers, stupid. Longfellow gave us the answer when he said, “We must be up and doing” Every one of us.