This is actually a frequent premise of fiction. Part of the fun of the Back to the Future films was seeing mature characters as young people. Stephen Sondheim explored the same phenomenon in Follies and in Merrily We Roll Along, based on the Kaufman and Hart play. It’s good to remember that people are complicated, because they have many layers of persona built up over a lifetime. So it’s wrong to judge a 90-year-old as if he was always old.
This is why family gatherings can sometimes be explosive. People there can see through the current facade inside to the smaller nesting dolls. They can cut deep and disassemble the big person everyone else sees and talk to the tiniest doll inside. Mothers and fathers do this all the time to their children. But most of us do not look at strangers and make the same journey.
My fascination with and desire to get to the inside nesting dolls has always made me a fan of biography and autobiography. I am currently listening to an audio book of Carly Simon’s autobiography called Boys in the Trees. It is probably the most frank exploration of an artist’s interior persona that I have ever encountered. Most autobiographies provide the facts and a few memories but little else. Carly provides details from her diaries that at times amounts to almost too much information. But once a person has been exposed in this manner, you can never see them as their outside persona again. I think it’s illuminating and an important lesson. People, like icebergs, are always more than what you see at the surface.
That goes even for people like Kim Kardashian, Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga. Would you view them the same today if you had met them in kindergarten?
Atticus Finch, the wise lawyer from To Kill a Mockingbird, told his daughter, Scout that she had to walk around in someone’s shoes before she could really understand a person. Maybe the way back to a functioning government and country is for everyone to heed these words before attributing evil intentions to someone from “the other team.”
Time for a national primary
February 2016
After about a year of preliminaries, we have reached the legitimate opening of the 2016 presidential primary season – the Iowa Caucuses. This will be followed next week by the first actual voting – the New Hampshire primary. Most people alive today will not remember it, but there was a time when nobody outside of those small states cared who the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire supported. This arcane system where rural voters get to exercise power far beyond reason arose almost accidentally. I say “almost” because lawmakers in Iowa and New Hampshire worked hard to assure it, but “accidentally” because the people who planned the system did not intend it to work like this.
Our current primary system replaced an “old boys” network of backroom political dealing that preceded the party conventions every four years. Party bigwigs would get together and discuss who they thought were the strongest candidates among those who had expressed a willingness to run. While there were primaries going back 100 years or more, they attracted little attention apart from the party faithful. The party standard bearer was often decided before the primaries with candidates getting assurances of support from party delegates. If no one candidate could wrap up the nomination in advance, the delegates would make deals at the convention in exchange for their support.
This system was rightly considered undemocratic, and in the political upheaval of the 1960s, what was considered a fairer system was established. There would be local state elections that would determine how delegates would be required to vote at the convention. This would take the decision away from the party bosses and give it to the people. That all sounded fine, but the proponents of this system forgot to mandate that the local elections all take place on the same day. This created a loophole that New Hampshire lawmakers quickly exploited.
New Hampshire had had a long tradition of voting first in general elections. The residents of tiny Dixville Notch, near the Canadian border, have gathered at midnight on Election Day morning and cast the first votes in every election since 1960. So when the system of local primary elections was established, New Hampshire wanted to assure that it would still be first. It set a March date for its election, earlier than anyone else. When other states acted to move their primaries to the same date, New Hampshire passed a law stipulating that the Secretary of State can change the date to ensure that the New Hampshire primary will take place at least seven days before any “similar election” in any other state. And so New Hampshire’s place as the home of first-in-the-nation voting was assured. The Iowa caucuses were not viewed as a “similar election” and that allowed Iowa to sneak past New Hampshire.
And so here we are in 2016 with 15% of the U.S. population in rural areas according to the 2010 census and presidential candidates tailoring their platforms to win the support of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Like the electoral college, it’s a crazy system that stays in place only because of inertia. However, unlike the electoral college, changing it would not take a constitutional amendment. All it would take is for party committees to mandate a national election. The people in Dixville Notch could still vote a midnight if they want to. But the rest of us would get a say in the nominating process.
There are arguments in favor of the current system. It allows the candidates to focus their campaigns on small geographic areas where they can limit their resources in a way that a national election would not permit. This would be fine if the early states included one small urban state like Delaware or Rhode Island or New Jersey. But with all of the early states being rural, candidates naturally tailor their campaigns to rural concerns rather than urban ones. This has the effect of forcing an urban politician like Chris Christie to pretend to care about farm subsidies and to change his position on immigration and gun control.
In a nation divided sharply along ideological lines, I think a majority from both the left and right should be able to agree that an election that is representative of America is better than one that is not. There is no true democracy in a political world where the votes of the citizens of New York and California are meaningless by the time they are cast. If we are to be the best democracy on the planet, we need a national primary. And once we do that, we can snuff out the electoral college.
A musical genius has passed away
March 2016
George Martin, the man who was most responsible for the Beatles sound, died today. It is hard to explain to anyone not eligible for AARP membership just how revolutionary The Beatles were from the day they first hit the airwaves, right up until their last album. And it was George Martin who molded their raw talent into musical art.
Martin was a classically-trained musician who was underwhelmed by his initial contact with the Beatles. But he saw that they had talent and he tutored them on song writing and arranging. It was Martin who took John Lennon’s mournful composition, “Please, Please Me,” written in the style of Roy Orbison, and sped it up to become the Beatles first hit.
Later, it was Martin who convinced Paul McCartney to add a string quartet to “Yesterday.” By the time the Beatles got to their Revolver album in 1966, they were relying on Martin to add non-rock instruments to their songs. One great example is the two-minute classic, “For No One.”
John Lennon came to Martin with this beautiful little song that I think of as Lennon’s “Yesterday.” The words are among Lennon’s best:
Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all the words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you
She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you
And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years
You want her, you need her
And yet you don’t believe her when she said her love is dead
You think she needs you
And in her eyes you see nothing
<
br /> No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years
You stay home, she goes out
She says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone
She doesn’t need him
Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be time when all the things she said will fill your head
You won’t forget her
And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years
The genius of George Martin was that when he heard the tune on Lennon’s guitar, he recognized that it was evocative of Bach. So not only did he orchestrate a harpsichord on it, he orchestrated a French horn for the bridge! Needless to say, French horns were not then (or now) common on pop songs. But that was the genius of George Martin.
Martin went on to a long career as a producer for scores of groups including the Bee Gees and America. His last Beatles project was a re-mix of Beatles recordings that he worked on with his son Giles in 2006 as the soundtrack to Love, the Cirque du Soleil show that has been playing in Las Vegas for the last decade.
George Martin’s passing is another milestone for Baby Boomers, as was the passing of John Lennon and George Harrison. Fortunately, Martin’s work, both with the Beatles and with others, will be with us into our senility.
Rest in peace, Sir George.
An election regret from 44 years ago
March 2016
Recently, the number of Google searches on moving to Canada have spiked. It seems that a lot of people are upset at the available choices for President and how this may all end up. It reminds me of a time when I also was looking north of the border as a possible solution to bad times in the U.S.
The year was 1972 and the war in Vietnam was still going strong. I was 19 years old and only a college deferment kept me off the Saigon Express. But there was constant talk about deferments being discontinued, and in any case I would eventually graduate. The war wasn’t showing any signs of winding down, and there was no way I was going to fight against an enemy that as I saw it, never threatened our homeland in any way. As a result, I and many people in my position were looking north to see if Canadian citizenship was a viable option.
Then came the draft lottery on February 2, 1972. I lucked out with a 234 number (out of 365). We were told that only the first hundred numbers were likely to result in induction notices, so the threat of war evaporated for me and my Canada contingency plan was shelved.
But 1972 was an election year. On June 17, the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate office building was burglarized. A week later, I left for a five-week backpacking trip around Europe. While I was away, the Democrats nominated George McGovern as their candidate for President. Of course, the Republicans re-nominated Richard Nixon. We all thought it was hilarious that Nixon’s re-election campaign was run by a group called the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CREEP.
I was fairly conservative in 1972 on most political issues outside of the war. I come from a family where my grandfathers thought FDR was a socialist and backed every Republican since Howard Taft. They instilled in me a hatred of labor unions (I have since rejected) and a respect for the entrepreneurial spirit. As a teenager voting for the first time, I naturally carried with me the political leanings of my family.
While I disliked Nixon as a person and disagreed with him on Vietnam, I agreed with many of his other policies. I applauded his restoring relations with China (as I applaud Obama doing the same with Cuba). I also applauded Nixon’s support of the Clean Air Act and the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.
The Democrats had gone off the deep end in 1968 (much the way Republicans are doing this year) and 1972 was not looking much better to me. I saw McGovern as a one-issue candidate. And while I agreed with him on that issue, that was not enough to get my vote. By the way, I have felt the same way about another life and death issue – abortion. Although I have been on the same page with Republican candidates on that issue, I have never felt that any one issue should decide the way I vote. It’s always necessary to look at the big picture.
So as I sat down to fill out my absentee ballot, the first ballot I would ever cast, I faced a dilemma. While I agreed with many of Nixon’s policies, he was wrong on the war and personally, he had all the charm of a used-car salesman. In addition, his law and order policies were a bit too conservative for me. He started the “war on drugs” that has been a monumental waste of money and led to making the United States the world leader in incarcerations.
On the other hand, McGovern was a likeable guy who was right on the war, but he seemed too idealistic (a word that is now being applied to Bernie Sanders). McGovern didn’t seem to have a realistic plan for ending the war, and he generally seemed to not have the political skills to accomplish his idealistic agenda. He would likely make an ineffectual president. He was no LBJ.
I discussed my dilemma with my college roommate and he suggested I write in a candidate’s name for President. But the only name that I would consider writing in was that of a dead man, Bobby Kennedy. Bobby was my man. He would have been a great president. The trajectory of U.S. history was forever altered when Bobby was gunned down in 1968. But now it was 1972 and there was no Bobby around or anyone of his caliber. My roommate suggested Gene McCarthy, but I saw him as no better than McGovern.
So faced with the choice between an idealist who would probably be ineffectual in getting his agenda accomplished and a shrewd, but somewhat slimy politician who even then was known as Tricky Dick, I opted to vote for neither. I filled out the entire ballot and left the choice for President blank.
Over the last 45 years my political philosophy has moved to the left. This was accelerated by George W. Bush and his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I vehemently opposed (taking to street protest for the first time in my life). In addition to making me even more pacifist than I was in 1972, life has made me see the injustice of many other conservative positions. Bernie Sanders does a great job of expressing that injustice.
I now regret not voting for President in 1972. I won’t be making that same blank ballot mistake again. No matter what the choice is in November (and the choice may be challenging), I will be voting for President this time – even if that means voting for someone who is not likely to win. It’s not a horse race after all. The idea is not to pick the winner; the idea is to pick the best.
Diamonds in the Cracker Jack box
April 2016
It happens more often than you might expect – a mediocre movie contains a great song. An example is the song “Call Me Irresponsible” that was introduced in a forgettable film called Papa’s Delicate Condition. The classic “As Time Goes By” was written for the 1931 Broadway flop Everybody’s Welcome. And the popular ballad “More” comes from a little-seen documentary film called Mondo Cane.
One of my favorite songs is among these diamonds in the Cracker Jack box. It’s the famous song “My Foolish Heart.” The song was written for a 1949 film, also called My Foolish Heart, starring Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward.
Samuel Goldwyn produced My Foolish Heart, which was at the time referred to as a “woman’s picture.” In fact, the story was written by none other than J.D. Salinger, who in a couple of years would go on to write Catcher in the Rye. And his story was adapted to a screenplay by the same people who wrote Casablanca, Julius and Philip Epstein. But the sentimental tearjerker film was panned by the critics. Nevertheless, it contained a scene where “My Foolish Heart” was sung in a nightclub and the song was good enough to win an Oscar nomination.
The song had music by Victor Young and words by Ned Washington. Young and Washington had already written “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You” in 1932 and “Stella By Starlight” for a 1944 film The Uninvited. Young would go on to write the music to “When
I Fall in Love” in 1952.
In the film, My Foolish Heart was sung by Martha Mears, a popular radio singer of the time who was making a living in Hollywood singing for actresses with mediocre voices. She was essentially the Marni Nixon of the 1930s and 40s. For example, she sang for Marjorie Reynolds in Holiday Inn and thus introduced “White Christmas” along with Bing Crosby. She also sang in films for Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, Claudette Colbert and many others.
Although the song “My Foolish Heart” was nominated for an Oscar as Best Song, it lost to “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which debuted in an Esther Williams spectacular called Neptune’s Daughter. Clearly, the popularity of the film in which “My Foolish Heart” appeared weighed against it.
“My Foolish Heart” has been recorded by scores of singers over the decades. It’s truly a standard. Billy Eckstine had the first big hit version. But like all songs with staying power, it speaks to us on a fundamental human level. It’s about the trepidation of a person who has loved and lost and is wary of loving again. In fact, there is a rarely-sung verse that says:
The scene is set for dreaming
Love’s knocking at the door
But oh my heart, I’m reluctant to start
For we’ve been fooled before
Having set the stage, the song begins:
The night is like a lovely tune
Beware my foolish heart
How white the ever-constant moon
Take care, my foolish heart
There’s a line between love and fascination
That’s so hard to see on an evening such as this
For they give the very same sensation
Tales of the Tarantula Page 16