Unrequited Infatuations
Page 40
• The first question that should be asked is, Why are they coming here? Yes, some come for the money, but most come because of conditions in their homeland.
• We need to help clean up government corruption, insist on land reform, invest in businesses, and help get rid of the gangs and crime.
• Believe it or not, most people would prefer to stay in their homelands.
• Most of the eleven million undocumented immigrants who are here have jobs that are a vitally important part of our economy. They should be made citizens.
7. Education Reform
• Integrate the Arts into all disciplines, all grade levels, all schools.
• End all forms of bullying and intimidation.
• Recognize that testing is not learning.
• Means-test college tuition, with college free for all households with incomes below $250,000.
• Discover and encourage inclination.
• Raise teacher standards and compensation.
• Prioritize public education over charter schools.
8. Prison Reform
• End privatization of the prison industry—perhaps the most insane policy ever created by a society. Hey, everybody! Let’s make crime profitable!
• Redesign new prisons so prisoners never come in contact with another prisoner.
• Reconfigure prisons to include all-day computerized classrooms with their own separate outside areas. Accomplishment will eventually earn a human teacher.
• Create education incentives for early release. Inmates would begin their education on the Internet and then earn a live teacher, on the other side of the glass, of course.
• Release all drug-related criminals.
9. Paying for This
• If we are the kings of capitalism, why are we the only government that isn’t in business? Why is our only revenue taxes? As we transition out of fossil fuels and reduce the military to a smaller but faster and more effective force appropriate for the modern world, the government should partner with both industries, providing tax incentives to transition into a green economy, and keep half the profits.
• Other new revenue would come from a small tax on stock transactions, say, ten dollars per, which would add another $60 billion plus that should go directly toward the debt.
There’s a lot more if you’re interested.
Social media reform, beginning with forcing people to use their real names.
Gun control, health care, police reform (not defunding), additional justices on the Supreme Court who aren’t religious, the creation of transitional homeless villages, etc., etc.
One of the biggest challenges over the next few years will be to recognize that white supremacists, militia members, and QAnon psychotics have infiltrated every level of law enforcement and every branch of our military.
It will be an essential element of the strategy to bring the Civil War, 160 years and counting, finally to a conclusion.
The police must police themselves, something they have never been particularly good at, and purge anti-American, antidemocratic, antiequality, antiscience individuals from the law enforcement part of our society.
As if that wasn’t challenging enough, our country may be facing the biggest decision in our civil rights history.
Unless we find a way to deal with social media’s ability to distribute information faster than we can absorb, evaluate, and understand it, a quality-of-life issue that goes back to the advent of television, we may soon have to choose between free speech and democracy.
A manipulated public receiving contradictory “facts” will not be able to find enough common ground for democracy to stand on.
Let’s face it, our country was founded as a male-dominant white supremacist Christian nationalist country with an asterisk. The asterisk being—“*not for nothin’, but some of the guys feel guilty about it.”
We had been way too slowly but sensibly progressing and diversifying ever since the Constitution endorsed slavery and said women are basically men’s property, until recently, when the Republicans decided, Screw it, let’s forget about progress and the more enlightened ideas of our more enlightened Founders; let’s embrace our inner KKK, foment and manipulate a grievance culture, and proudly become the White Supremacist Christian Nationalist Party.
When a GOP attorney was asked in early 2021 to justify the voter-suppression laws they were trying to pass all over the country, he actually said out loud that “democracy disadvantaged the Republicans”!
The good guys who thought they won the Civil War never put the final stake in the heart of racism, and the appeasement continues as I write this.
Well, that’s enough politics to get a conversation started.
The Summer of Sorcery Tour felt like a personal triumph. If it’s my last solo tour, I’m OK with that. It was a gift made possible by the bizarre circumstance of finding a way to register teachers.
The theme of finding a way to love, finding common ground, celebrating diversity, being a patriot and a globalist simultaneously—those were all messages that were the exact opposite of the ones coming out of a malignant, immoral, anti-American, criminal White House. Those messages needed to be articulated, loud and clear. Particularly with the sickening knowledge that hate had a 45 percent approval rating.
What can a poor boy do?
We led by example. The Disciples’ love for each other was apparent in every moment of the show. Communicating a philosophy of love as hope and music as spiritual bond in an atmosphere of manipulation; of vicious, violent, sick conspiracy theories; of fear ; and of the paranoid insanity of white grievance was indeed sorcery.
The same philosophy ran through Letter to You, the new E Street Band album we recorded immediately after the Disciples’ tour. I interpreted it as Bruce’s love letter to both the E Street Band and his first band, the Castiles—he was indeed the last man standing.
It was the first time Bruce knew exactly what the album was about before he wrote it. The importance of being part of a band. Of looking out for each other. Of solidarity. That sped the artistic process up considerably. He wrote it in a couple of weeks, and we recorded it in four days.
Rediscovering Rock’s power was step one. But all of us were getting older. We needed to pass it on. Instilling its lessons, its energy, its intelligence and spirit in a new generation was our only hope.
The day before the pandemic shut down New York, I flew out to California with Bill Carbone, current executive director of my foundation; Michael-Ann Haders, our main fundraiser; and Randa Schmalfeld, who, along with Christine Nick, is our Arts Integration Sorceress. We were visiting a partner school, seven hundred kids, in kindergarten through sixth grade, all using our curriculum.
People talk about an out-of-body experience. Well, I definitely had one that day.
After working on this thing for fifteen years, it was amazing to be able to see it come to life, to see how into it those kids were. And the teachers too. Enthusiasm everywhere I looked. It made me feel a little better about the world.
Most of what I have planned has never happened, and most of what I’ve done pretty much remains invisible, but this curriculum has a shot to go all the way.
The Arts really are our common ground. Worldwide. It’s what brings us together.
If we can integrate the Arts into every aspect of every curriculum of every school, our depressed society has a chance of returning to the optimism of the ’60s.
We were evolving as a species. You could feel it in the air, hear it in our music, see it in the colors of our clothes and Art, and celebrate it in our sexual liberation. It was the birth of consciousness, a second enlightenment, and it’s been stolen from us by immoral economic greed and irrational religious extremism. We’ve got to win it back.
The curriculum is my way of saying thank you to that period, and to all the people who turned me on to Art and gave me dreams to believe in: the Beatles and Rolling Stones and the other Renaissance bands and Artists,
Maureen, Bruce, Steve Popovich, Frank Barsalona, Lance Freed, Chris Columbus, David Chase, Ted Sarandos, and too many friends to name who continue to strengthen and sustain that Spirit of Love.
My initial ambition for education was quite modest. All I wanted was for every kid in kindergarten to be able to name the four Beatles, dance to “Satisfaction,” sing along with “Long Tall Sally,” and recite every word of “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”
The rest will take care of itself.
33⅓
Epilogue
He squinted, trying to see through the smoke. He flashed back to… How many lifetimes did it take to get from Soweto to Spanish Harlem? From revolutionaries brandishing machetes to hundreds of people in ’50s fancy dress. Equally surreal. Once again he had to ask, How the fuck did I get here?
He’d read Charles Brandt’s I Heard You Paint Houses three times.
There wasn’t one Mob book he hadn’t read.
But Brandt’s was one of the best. It felt authentic. The facts would be disputed, but he didn’t really care. He appreciated Greatness and this book had it.
And now, he stood on a stage in a smoky ballroom in Spanish Harlem about to satisfy a lifelong ambition. He was about to act in a Martin Scorsese movie. It was based on Brandt’s book and renamed The Irishman.
With a lot of his favorite actors, no less.
He wouldn’t be playing any of the famous gangsters he’d read about—Rothstein, Luciano, Bonanno, Profaci, Lucchese, Gambino, Genovese, Lansky, Siegel, Capone.
He was playing Jerry Vale, one of the greatest of all the Pop standard crooners, and one of Scorsese’s favorites. The real Vale had been in both Goodfellas and Casino and would have been in The Irishman if he hadn’t passed away.
It would be only a few seconds of screen time, but it was probably his last chance to work with Marty, and it was definitely the last scene in film history that would include De Niro, Pacino, Pesci, and Keitel.
It had been forty-two years since Marty had screened Mean Streets for him, thirty-four years since Marty had come to his wedding, thirty-three years since he’d read for the aborted first attempt of Last Temptation, and twenty-seven years since Marty had come to his Mandela dinner. He felt Destiny had a checklist, and this was definitely on it.
He finished the scene, and went right to the airport to fly to London, where his European tour was opening the next night.
That’s it, he thought during the flight.
He’d never top that.
It took exactly twenty-four hours for it to move to second place on the Peak Moments of His Life chart.
The next day, during soundcheck at the Roundhouse, everything was running late.
His loyal and trustworthy Tour Manager, Gary Trew, was trying every trick in the book to get him offstage so they could let in the biggest audience of the tour. Three-thousand-plus people.
Just then, his driver Ray, back in New York, called him to say that Paul McCartney, who he also drove, had mentioned he was planning on coming into London with his wife Nancy to see the show.
He told Gary to hold everyone off. He needed fifteen more minutes.
It was an extreme long shot, but just in case, he wanted to have something ready.
He had the horns, so he considered “Got to Get You into My Life.” Then he remembered Paul was the world’s biggest Little Richard fan, that he never would’ve heard of Little Richard if it hadn’t been for Paul and the Beatles, so he worked up a quick Little Richard arrangement for “I Saw Her Standing There.”
He ran it once and told his orchestrater, Eddie Manion, to refine the horn charts.
That was that.
Just in case.
The crowd started to file in. He was happy to see the brilliant Ray Davies, who he had interviewed on his radio show; the always-smiling face of Suzanne Wyman (Bill was stuck in his studio); Jeff Jones, who ran the real Apple and his wife, Susan. And then there were Paul and Nancy.
He waited for Paul to say hi to Jeff, and then he took him aside. “Listen, man,” he said, “you work constantly and don’t get a chance to socialize much. So don’t even think about coming onstage or anything like that. Just relax tonight and have a good time.”
“Cool, man.” Paul seemed to appreciate that.
Paul and Nancy sat with Maureen, who told him later that they were quite animated throughout the whole show.
As he was taking a bow before the encore, his roadie ran up and yelled in his ear, “Paul is coming up.”
Holy Fuck.
He flashed back to when they’d first met. It had only been five or six years before. Paul had acknowledged him while he was on his way up to the stage to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He gave him one of those famous McCartney winks and a “Good job, brother” as he sped past.
At Hyde Park, Paul had joined the E Street Band just long enough to have the plug pulled when they went five minutes past curfew. Then Paul had invited Bruce and him to come onstage at Madison Square Garden.
But joining him and his band? On his stage? It meant more than the world to him. More than he could ever express.
What an incredible endorsement.
What profound validation.
One of the most thrilling moments of his life.
Paul came up. As he looked across the stage at the older but somehow unchanged face, he thought back to when he was thirteen, listening to the first albums he ever bought, trying to learn the chords to play along with them, trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
That kid felt like a freak. That kid knew he was a freak. A freak who didn’t fit in and was never gonna fit in. And as that kid, that freak, contemplated the void before him, suddenly there was hope.
The Beatles. A whole new world.
Their communication of unbridled joy would be the foundation of the optimism of the Renaissance.
That thirteen-year-old dove headlong into the warm bath of those vinyl grooves, the spiritual shelter of those sacred three-minute Upanishads. He was seeking enlightenment, a search that never stopped.
It was the template, the philosophy, the mission that would inform his best work.
Freedom—No Compromise.
Once upon a Dream.
Summer of Sorcery.
And that night at the Roundhouse, that kid, older now, saw the reason he was alive standing right beside him.
He felt the adrenaline rush of infinite, eternal gratitude.
His latest and greatest epiphany.
Maybe he’d finally found somewhere he really did belong.
And he’d been there all along.
My father’s barbershop quartet: Joe Dellabadia, Vern James, Jim Black, Dad. Van Zandt family
My mother, Mary Lento, in 1945. Van Zandt family
Grandpa Lento and me in Watertown, 1950. Van Zandt family
RnR rebel from birth. Van Zandt family
Sister Kathi, Dad, Ma, Nana Lento, Jake, me, Maureen, brother Billy. Van Zandt family
Southside Johnny and legendary R&B singer Lee Dorsey. Renegade Nation
Salute! E Street Kings, 1976. Valerie Penska
First fan Obie with her two faves. Billy Smith
Ronnie Spector with the three Asbury capos. David Gahr
E Street Band, New York, 1979. Joel Bernstein
The Dimmer Twins. Renegade Nation
“The Godfather” Frank Barsalona. Renegade Nation
Getting married by Little Richard, New Year’s Eve 1982. With best man Bruce and maid of honor Michelle. Jim Marchese
Our wedding party. From front: Brother Billy, Jimmy Iovine, Bruce, Harry Sandler, LaBamba, me, Maureen, Sari Becker, Gary US Bonds, Jack Cocks, Michelle Priarone, Obie, Monti Ellison, Maria Santoro, Jean Beauvoir, Max Weinberg, sister-in-law Lynn Angelo, sister Kathi, Ben Newberry, sister-in-law Gail Napolitano, sister-in-law Lori Santoro, Garry Tallent. Jim Marchese
Honored in Atlanta by Coretta Scott King, Julian Bond, and Vernell Johnson. African Activist Archives
Big Youth, Lou Reed, Reuben Blades, John Oates, Danny Schecter, Jonathan Demme, and Hart Perry. David Seelig
With Bono and Jimmy Cliff. Reuven Kopitchinski
At the ’86 Grammys. Ron Galella
With Abbie Hoffman and Mark Graham, National Convention of Student Activists, 1988. Debra Rothenberg
T. M. Stevens, ’87. Guido Harari
With Gary Bonds, ’84. Mark Weiss
My longtime assistant, Holly Cara Price. Renegade Nation
Sopranos premiere, 2000. Scott Gries
Nothing but fun working with David Chase on Not Fade Away. Barry Wetcher—Paramount Vantage
Me and Jimmy. Miss him every day. Kevin Mazur
Gabriella and Silvio.HBO
Top of the world, Ma! Mad Magazine
Launch of the radio show, 2002. Renegade Nation
Steve Popovich, last of the great promo men. Steve Popovich Jr.
With Scott Greenstein, Keith Richards, Peter Wolf, and Benicio Del Toro, Sopranos premiere party, 2001. Renegade Nation