2017 is 1984

Although we live in Orwellian times Orwell himself was famously disinterested in America. He never visited and even turned down a prestigious job. He was very critical of the GI's in WWII England as "boorish and racist". Besides 1984 his real theme was preserving "Englishness"--how to make a perfect cup of tea, the ideal pub, the cheerfulness and decency of the lower class.

If he were here today he would champion "Americaness": apple pie, baseball, Thanksgiving. He would surely back the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and scorn the rapacious greed of the 1%. He would be sad to see a 1984 society where "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and especially, "Ignorance is Strength",

Tell me what you read and Ill tell you who you are

It's not often I get literary notes from a sunday news section whose main advertiser is Harbor Freight Tools. But there was a feature recently titled “75 best books of the past 75 years”. I was put off immediately when the only book listed for the 1940's was “A tree grows in Brooklyn”, a schmaltzy coming of age story. No 1984, The naked and the dead, Darkness at noon, not even The Fountainhead. In later decades there were some good choices but basically, this was a list of favorites from Ann Patchett. I'm sure Ms. Patchett sets out a nice plate of cookies and a fine tea service for her book club but she's not someone important like Harold Bloom. If you told me you were reading Willa Cather, Joan Didion, Donna Leon and especially George Eliot I'd say “good choices”. If you said your favorite authors were Nora Roberts, James Patterson and Salman Rushdie I would summon up my loudest John McEnroe and scream, “You cannot be serious!” If you said you read Orwell, Scott Fitzgerald, Phillip Larkin and Conrad I'd say, “You're my kind of reader.” If you astonish me with Geoff Dyer, Stoner, Erik Larson and Don DeLillo I will know you are also a protege of English Professor Alison Powell and I'd say, “That's my girl!” The poet Delmore Schwartz wrote: “The mind is like the city of London, smoky and populous”, But some minds are like Timbuktu: “Desolate and hard to reach”.

Rule Brittania, Brittania waives the rules.

“This isn't Europe mate, this is Britain”. Such was the answer I got in 1967 on my first visit to London. I moved to England the next year with my family and we lived there till 1972. I was the true innocent abroad and didn't even know how to order in a posh restaurant; steak tartare and a beer got laughs from my English colleagues. I learned the coins and the customs but I was self-taught. The key to understanding Britain and why they want to leave the EU is Orwell. He was the quintessential Englishman. He wrote an essay on how to make a perfect cup of tea (it's the milk, not the sugar) and on the ideal English pub (the mythical Moon under Water). For the upper classes you want Anthony Powell's novels: “Dance to the music of time”. Even though 180 degrees apart politically, they were good friends. Orwell would applaud the “Leave” campaign. I got a taste of British inequality quickly when I took some clients to lunch at the ultra-posh “Maison Prunier” where I finally knew my way around the menu including wine..we'll take the Gevrey-Chambertin. The bill was over 100 pounds ($290). The next day I took my secretary (who was earning 18 pounds a week while I was earning over 10,000 pounds a year) to lunch and the bill was roughly 15 shillings (about $1.80). Different worlds. Check out these wise words from Orwell's wartime booklet: “The English People”:..”they will have to take their destiny into their own hands...England can only fulfill its special mission if the ordinary English on the street can somehow get their hands on power..if England is to survive as a great nation it is the common people who must make it so”. And they did on June 23. We'll see what happens now after Brexit. They'll still sing “There'll always be an England”, and the real lyrics :“Rule Brittania, Brittania Rules the Waves. Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”. Rightly so, mate.

A heat wave brings NHL hockey to Vegas

Order the Zamboni: Vegas joins the NHL for the 2016-17 season. We have a splendid new arena, an owner with lots of money and an enthusiastic local fan base. Actually, a monster fan base since Vegas gets over 40 million visitors a year. Some of them must be from Buffalo and the seven dwarf teams from Canada that didn't see a playoff game this year. I've been to 12 NHL arenas and this new one might be the best one ever. Although running through the snow to the old Olympia in Detroit during the Gordie Howe era certainly furnished the best memories. Now for a name: The Sleepless Knights, The Scorpions, The Cool Hands? Vegas deserves to be in the big leagues and the NBA and the NFL might not be far behind. But now that Vegas has an NHL team Toronto will want one too.

Who was the coolest jazz man: Miles Davis or Chet Baker?

In his heyday Miles was known as the “coolest man on the planet”. There's a new biopic film “Miles Ahead” that concentrates on his bad boy image at the expense of a wonderful music legacy. “Birth of the Cool” and “Miles Ahead” are on my profile here but he was a jiver, no doubt about it. I caught him at The Blackhawk in San Francisco during his period of playing with his back to the audience. His best work was orchestrated by a very ordinary white guy from Toronto named Gil Evans. He called this marshmallow eating Canadian “the coolest cat he ever met”. He also owed the triumph of “Kind of Blue” (the most successful jazz LP ever) to another non-descript (but brilliant) white pianist Bill Evans, my favorite jazz artist. His path crossed with trumpeter Chet Baker, who Miles never stopped putting down. Chet could play and sing beautifully. Miles couldn't sing a note. Chet died a mysterious death in Amsterdam falling from a window ledge at his hotel. I've made a pilgrimage to the spot which is honored by a plaque. There is a new biopic film about him called “Born to be blue”. He already has a famous documentary about him: “Let's get lost”. Miles is the icon and Chet is the doomed and forgotten romantic. As Stan Getz said, “You have to let your ears do the judging” but Chet played with the great Charlie Parker in LA. Bird sent a note back to Miles in NY, “Watch out, there's a little white cat put here that's going to eat you up”. Amen.

The South: poor, sick and bigoted

This is the month in 1865 that Grant took Richmond and received Lee's surrender, putting an end to the Confederacy. Or did it? Southern attitudes didn't seem to die. Voting obstacles are still in place. Corrupt gerrymandering keeps the rednecks in Congress and rejection of Medicaid punishes poor citizens. Harper Lee said it best about southerners, “ When you don't want anything, there's plenty.” Peasant traits, to use the words of John Berger, are mostly conservative. The resentment of Southern conservatives has hindered their understanding of the political reality of the modern world. The northern middle class and certainly the upper class, retain a mastery of the world of their making. Marx, always a dirty word in America, said, “It's not enough to understand the world, you have to work to change it.” Have you ever been to Shanghai? It rivals Manhattan. Marxism is certainly working there turning peasants into billionaires. The city has risen swiftly to bustling wealth and skyscrapers of glittering lights and steel. This is the result of a hard-working population unleashed to prosper yet still offer visitors their sincere goodwill. As for the South, if you'll pardon a rude expression, it doesn't have a Chinaman's chance.

Some timely advice for Powerball losers

With odds at 292 million to 1 you never really had much of a chance to become an instant billionaire. But you did have something equally precious: hope. Frame your ticket as a reminder of that fervent hope—the thing that springs eternal in the human breast. “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul”, wrote Emily Dickinson, “and never stops at all.” The winner of the jackpot will meet the modern J. Beresford Tipton awarding the money. In the CBS TV show a million dollars went to somone every week who Tipton never met. It showed people's reaction to instant wealth but most were never changed for the better. In one spoof the recipient tore up the check and said, “I don't need it, I'm Mike Todd” (He also had Elizabeth Taylor). So the winner will be in the same league with George Soros but without the financial acumen; Bill Gates without creating anything. He will be deluged with advice on investing. The IRS will love him as will the well-rewarded QuickEMart that sold the ticket. His life will not be his own anymore. As for you dear loser, heed the words of the Beatles song: “Money can't buy me love”. And when the winner dies they will ask, “How much did he leave?”. The answer will be, “All of it.”

Hillary: a hawkish grandmother in Wall Street's pocket

And probably our next president. I prefer Bernie but I'll vote for Hillary and the straight Democratic ticket. I went to Berkeley and the Republican slate is too full of belligerent ignorance for me. However, they do provide an amusing theater of the absurd loosely based on Shakespeare's “Much ado about nothing”. Top billing goes to a guy who alternates between MacBeth and Iago. There is an Othello and of course a Lady MacBeth, a Florida governor who plays Hamlet and a New Jersey governor who makes a credible Falstaff. The stage is full of unimportant roles and Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are dispatched early. One guy, who was born in Calgary, has stumbled in from a Samuel Beckett play. Really, it's all in good fun. This is what you get in an era of second and third raters. Their limitations are boundless. We've had 44 presidents and only Washington, Lincoln and FDR have been deemed great. It'll be over in November and then we can go back to watching reality television (Bowling for Fish sounds exciting). Speaking of television, there was a cartoon in the New Yorker during the Nixon years showing a middle aged matron in her chair watching the news and saying wistfully: “I wish Gene Kelly would run for something”.

On turning 40--twice!

Yes, I'm 80. “Vierzig zweimal”, and I'm thankful since I now have the longevity record on my side of the family. Who wants to be 80—people 79. I've had a wonderful life with the same wife and children I have always been blessed with. I'm a diabetic with arthritis and Graves disease but I'm in better physical shape than Stephen Hawking even with my much lower IQ. I can remember my first Thanksgiving in 1944 with servicemen around the table asking for “more toikey”. I've finished my bucket list seeing the world from the Pantheon to the Parthenon. There's a long list of things I don't need anymore: new car brochures, centerfolds, commuting (a pain in the asphalt), three martini lunches and neckties. I don't read the sports section anymore because I've seen Gordie Howe, Ted Williams and Willie Mays in their prime so who cares about overpaid nonentities on wannabe teams. The Neptune Society keeps bugging me but I've put them on the back burner. People are going to say nice things about me at my funeral but I'm probably going to miss it by a few days. A song by Zero 7 sums it up: “Just one step closer to the end of the buffet, 'cause we're waiting to die...and yes it's true, death is everyone's fate, but we've made it this far so let's celebrate”. Pass the toikey and don't forget the gravy. PS This picture was taken in Vladivostock 20 years ago so I'm not as young as I look.

Slouching towards Roseburg

I know Roseburg Oregon. I've been there many times. My wife's family farmed there for over 100 years. It's a beautiful, peaceful, friendly place. But a week ago the madness of the gun culture found it and murdered nine innocent people and injured many more. The picture of a woman weeping wearing a Walmart T-shrt that says “Live better” is more than ironic. President Obama was there to commiserate with the families who lost loved ones. That's all he can do and even that brought out the gun nuts who told him he wasn't wanted. That's where we are now in our ungovernable country. Nobody can do anything to stop the violence. You saw the Republican debate of 10 muddled oafs (and one charmless oafess) babble on in their self-importance. Scott Walker, the college dropout whose foreign policy is “beat Ohio State”. Perhaps a singer could set the tone with the Sam Cooke song: “Don't know much about geography, or history, or sociology or economics”. Keynes said that the American contingent that came to Europe after WWI only came to preen and not offer any serious thoughts on keeping the peace and “then returned home to their Texas civilization”. We're too dumb to be governed,” Bill Maher said and we only have to look at ourselves...impatient and out of control..bombing hospitals in Iraq and then lying about it. The clairvoyant novelist Joseph Conrad saw the carnage that was coming. He said “unarmed goodwill is useless against armed malice”. We don't need more guns, we need better people.

Give me Liberty or give me Harrods

I'm paraphrasing Patrick Henry's rousing comment: “Give me Liberty or give me death” that inspired both Jefferson and Washington to revolution and dissolving the bonds with Britain. I got my inspiration from seeing our secretary of state, John Kerry alighting from his plane in London yesterday onto a mat that said: Harrods Aviation. We're good friends with England now so let's go shopping. First to Harrods and Liberty, two of the major stores as well as Selfridges, started by a man from Chicago. Of course Kerry had a serious agenda: on to Germany for discussions about the refugees and some meetings about Russian actions in Syria. In “1984” Orwell had demoted England to “Airstrip One”. I've spent a lot of time on Airstrip One including a day when I had breakfast in London, lunch in Zurich and dinner in Amsterdam (where I promptly got pneumonia. Of note are other revolutionary quotes updated: “These are the times that try men's wallets” Thomas Paine. “ I have not yet begun to shop” Mrs. John Paul Jones. “I've got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere”..actually that's “Nicely Nicely Johnson, a gambler in Guys and Dolls. End of today's history lesson and let that be a lesson to you!

Do black lives really matter?

Of course they do and far beyond a momentary t-shirt slogan. Orwell stated his “hard truths”, mostly about religious nonsense and political lying. He was famously disinterested in America but his observations about English society seem relevant to ours. He knew that the middle class was politically passive and would rather come home, watch football and have a nice meal with the missus. Carrying banners (and wearing t-shirts) was for “Bolshies” and picketers. I'm sure Orwell would agree that the hard truths about America are unending racial injustice and gun violence. In in his fable Animal Farm, Orwell wrote, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”. Something that could be said about our Constitution. Meanwhile, the media pollutes the thought environment with every atrocity and carnage they can find with the banner screaming “Breaking News” which really should read “Heartbreaking News”. We see several bumptious young ladies wearing “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts forcing their way onto the stage and pushing Bernie Sanders aside, probably the one and only candidate who could do something for them (Better not try that with The Donald or you'll be out on your ear in no time). “Our patience will achieve more than our force”, said Edmund Burke (Google him) It's a truth universally acknowledged that American youth is not superbly educated but rather superbly agitated. If the young are going to act up they should adopt some realpolitik of practical realism and politics based on power so they could get some results. Here's an example: Ferguson is burning and the local kids are looting. Suppose instead, a group of young people went to protect the store from looters wearing t-shirts that said “Protect Ferguson”. It would go viral, and give the media something good to air. Who knows, displaying positive behaviour like that, even The Donald might say, “You're good kids, you're hired!”

What is the only English-speaking country to be defeated in battle and occupied?

The Confederate States of America! Yes, dear old Dixie holds that dubious distinction. Losers then, losers now and forever. Not something Donald Trump would like. 1066 and all that doesn't count because England wasn't a country yet and the official language for the next 200 years was French. I've spent time in the South. Good meals, terrible climate with some OK people and some not so OK. I saw a guy on TV waving a Confederate flag and yelling, “It's not racism it's heritage”.. of what, slavery, lynching, Jim Crow? We have the zombie young man holding his gun and Confederate flag and then going into a church and murdering 9 innocent black people because “someone has got to do it”. Take down the flag, burn it and join the Union properly. The fact that the party of Lincoln prevails throughout the South shows just what an upside down society it is. Mark Twain, born in the South, lest we forget, travelled to Dixie 15 years after Lee surrendered and was shocked to feel the resentment of the people and the complete lack of industry or progress. In the new Harper Lee novel even that paragon of southern decency, Atticus Finch, has succumbed to bitterness. General US Grant said the Confederacy was “the worst cause men ever fought for.” It still is.

Is John McCain a hero or not?

Donald Trump says he's not and I tend to agree with him, but not to badmouth McCain. He was a pilot who was in the wrong spot at the wrong time in the wrong war. He was shot down and captured. As a POW he suffered. I saw him behind home plate at a Diamondback game this weekend and he looks like a nice guy, a regular guy, out with his wife at a baseball game. My problem is with the word “hero”. America has the biggest, most over-bloated military in the world and the Pentagon likes it that way. But the use of words like hero and freedom has the smell of stale orthodoxy that Orwell warned about. So what we have is a citizen like The Donald speaking his mind and getting his taste of the “Two minutes of hate” found in 1984. Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel and the Republican field is certainly full of first rate scoundrels and third rate leaders. If you are in the lobby of my old club in NY, the Yale Club, you will see a statue of Nathan Hale, a 21 year old patiot who was executed by the British in the Revolutionary War. He said, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” He was a hero.

How to celebrate Orwell's birthday today

George Orwell was born on this day in 1903. It was the start of the Edwardian age but Victorian values, especially imperialism, still held full sway. This was the first “ism” that Orwell challenged even though, as Eric Blair, he had the privilege of an upper middle class life and an Eton education. His novel “Burmese Days” and short story “Shooting an elephant” shows his disgust with the hypocrisy of English imperialism. He wrote in Notes on Nationalism “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing of them”. He was suspicious of American right wing writers such as James Burnham who wrote approvingly that a Nazi victory in WWII was preferable to communism In his essay “Second Thoughts on James Burnham” he used the phrase to describe such books as a sop to “American wish thinking”. Remember that the Pentagon has 20,000 public relations people so it's wise to take government pronouncements with a grain of salt. In fact, you should probably review your assumptions often Beware the press releases that state that failure is not an option.They just promise more war.

Donald Trump for President--Right name, wrong guy.

There's never been a Donald in the White House and since that's my name, I'm rooting for “The Donald”. True, he's a bombastic blowhard with no political accomplishments or policies but that just puts him comfortably in with the other Republican candidates. One good thing-- he doesn't have to grovel at the feet of a Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers for money. Take him at his word: he's rich. He may even play a part for the Democrats as a “useful idiot” in Lenin's quaint phrase. He's already starting to dismantle the other wanabes starting with Jeb Bush. He talks and thinks in soundbites ie: Bush has no edge, I'm the world's greatest job creator, when was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in China, I'll bomb ISIS into oblivion. Of course these are some of the thoughtful things you'll hear from high school dropouts. There is no “malice toward none” or “Four Freedoms” in his rich vocabulary. I only wish he'd let us call him Don or Donnie but he goes ballistic if you do. One thing the media hasn't grasped yet—the “T” in his last name is silent.

The Catholic Church is getting religion

Orwell wrote , “You cannot be a Catholic and a grownup”. He also observed that the Vatican was quite comfortable with the Fascist dictators of the 1930's including Franco, who Orwell was fighting on the front lines in the Spanish Civil War. But here comes Pope Francis who has placed the poor at the center of his papacy. He speaks of creating”a poor church for the poor”. It's a far cry from his predecessor Benedict, the Hitlerkinder from Germany. He is attempting to rehabilitate the Church, bringing it in line with the “liberation theology” that has long been denounced as Marxist. In the letters of Paul to the Church of Rome, he wrote: “Never be condescending but make a real friend of the poor”. But America is not the kind of place that produces a Mother Teresa or an Albert Schweitzer. In a Pew Research poll released on May 12 the so-called Nones (no religious affiliation) now outnumber Catholics 22.8% to 20.8%. We're a managerial society showing generosity and compassion through programs such as Food Stamps, Head Start and other government assistance. Cost-cutting Republicans are the only pro-hunger group. We have problems in our cities. Crime is rife and violence can explode out of nowhere. The recession is far from over. Workers of the world despair, you have nothing to lose but your livelihoods. A quote from a Joyce Carol Oates novel says: “If we are poor, must we be vicious?” Not if Pope Francis can carry the day. He'll be in Washington this September to remind us what Christianity is all about.

The cruelest joke you'll ever hear

A guy tells his friend he's afraid to fly because it's so dangerous. The friend says, “if your number comes up it comes up”. And the guy says, “yeah but what if the pilot's number comes up?” Why did the co-pilot of Germanwings kill himself and everyone on board? Hier ist keine warum. Here there is no why.

At last--Harper Lee is giving us another masterpiece

Fifty-five years after “To Kill A Mockingbird” Lee's second novel “Go set a watchman” is coming out in July. It's already No. 1 on the Amazon best seller list, sight unseen. It confirms something the English critic Cyril Connolly advised authors, “only write masterpieces” Easier said than done. Today it's all volume; the James Patterson-Nora Roberts machine is churning out volumes of junk that isn't as good as a single page of “Mockingbird”. I read that Lee's first novel was up for the National Book Award in 1960. It was won by a novel and an author I've never heard of which is why I detest awards of any kind. Citizen Kane didn't win an Oscar either and I'll bet you can't name the picture that beat it out. And don't get me started on the Nobel Prize for Literature. You get Wm. Golding instead of Orwell, Pearl Buck instead of Scott Fitzgerald, and mostly authors nobody has ever heard of or read. There is a cruel Euro-centric saying, “Who is the Zulu Shakespeare?” It's usually a guy who has just won the Nobel Prize. I was watching the film version of Fitzgerald's “The Last Tycoon”. There were no opening credits so I had to wait till the end to see what hack had done such a slow and turgid screenplay. It was Harold Pinter, director of the only play in London I've walked out on and, oh yeah, a Nobel Prize winner. That's the trouble with giving third parties the right to judge creative people. Woody Allen is right. If you give them the right to reward you then you've also given them the right to reject you.

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.