Merc had pre-arranged his funeral with a local funeral director. So when he died it was a simple matter of calling the funeral director to put Merc’s plan into operation. He had even picked out the suit he wanted to be buried in.
Of course, we did not follow his plan exactly. My son-in-law Rich had the great idea to arrange for a police escort of the funeral procession from the funeral home to the cemetery. And that procession passed by Merc’s home. When we got there, the hearse carrying his body stopped and the funeral director got out and placed a flower next to the mailbox on Merc’s front lawn. It was a poignant moment and I think we all shed a tear or two, because Merc had finally made it home to his beloved Werner Avenue.
Keep your dreams alive
July 2018
Dreams have always loomed large in our culture. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream” and inspired a nation to embrace civil rights. John Lennon imagined a world with “all the people living life in peace” and sang “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Dreams help us to imagine a better world for ourselves and others. And it is the personal dreams that I want to focus on today.
The new Broadway musical production of Pretty Woman that I saw last weekend begins with a character on Hollywood Boulevard walking up to people on the street and asking each of them “What’s your dream?” The people on this boulevard of broken dreams all seem to have dreams of better lives, but little hope that their dreams will come true. It’s a common state for many of us. Yet our fiction is full of stories about outrageous dreams that do come true.
Recently, I have been reading Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, and it’s all about dreams coming true. In fact, the movie that was made from the book was called Field of Dreams. You probably know the story. A farmer in Iowa turns his cornfield into a baseball field for old-time players who were banned from playing, or who just never got the chance to play. Among those is Shoeless Joe Jackson, a member of the Black Sox team that took money to throw the 1919 World Series. Jackson was banned from baseball in his prime.
Also playing on the Field of Dreams is Moonlight Graham, a small-town doctor who got to play just one inning with the Giants before life took him into the medical profession. But the dream that the farmer most wants to make come true is that of his own father, who banged around minor league ball as a catcher for several years, but never got to realize his major league dreams. Getting a chance at last to play with major leaguers, the young catcher asks the farmer, who he does not know is his son, “Is this heaven?” The farmer responds, “No. It’s Iowa.” But for many people, heaven is defined in those terms. It’s the place where dreams come true.
I ended the weekend watching a 1983 film that I have never seen – Flashdance. It’s the story of a woman who works as a welder but dreams of being a dancer. The movie contains a song that was a hit for Irene Cara. It’s called “What A Feeling.” The song begins with the lines:
First when there’s nothing
But a slow glowing dream
That your fear seems to hide
Deep inside your mind
And of course that is where most dreams reside. Most of us (in the words of a song from Gypsy) “got the dream, yeah, but not the guts.” But the woman welder in Flashdance finally has the guts. The song we hear there says, “Take your passion and make it happen.” And she does. But she spends most of the film getting up the courage to apply to a ballet academy. It’s not until after she is told, “You give up your dream, you die” that she finally takes the plunge. Dreams often require a leap of faith.
How does passion fit into all this? Passion is the fuel that makes dreams come true. Once you’ve found your dream, it is passion that propels you to take the often-hard steps toward fulfillment. And if you have enough passion, the sky’s the limit. You can make your dream come true.
There’s an old song by Oscar Hammerstein and Sigmund Romberg called “When I Grow Too Old to Dream.” That’s actually a very sad thought – that one could be too old to dream. But you’ve probably met people like this – people who have given up on life. You give up your dreams, you die inside. Dreams are always in the future tense and so if you feel you have no future, you can have no dreams. But for those of us who have dreams, it’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Whatever your dream is, I hope you never grow too old to take your passion and make it happen.
Anatomy of a song: “Deacon Blues”
July 2018
In my last article I talked about dreams. Dreams are usually quite healthy. But sometimes a dream is more a fantasy than a goal. It’s pure escapism we engage in when nothing seems to be going right. That’s the case of the man who is the subject of a classic song recorded by Steely Dan in 1977 called “Deacon Blues.” It was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
Steely Dan was one of the great bands of the 1970s. Sophisticated lyrics combined well with jazz-inspired tunes. It was a unique blend of jazz and rock. Think Eric Clapton meets Spyro Gyra. The band was really just two guys who met at Bard College in the late ‘60s – Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They hired musicians to perform their compositions. After 1974, they became a studio band like the Beatles had been after 1966. But what a studio band! They used the cream of the crop of Los Angeles musicians on their recordings. And they achieved masterpieces like “Deacon Blues.”
The song begins with guitar and piano playing the same descending eight half-note chords with some cymbals in the background. Then we hear a guitar lick that brings us to the intriguing opening line:
This is the day of the expanding man
Our protagonist, who sees himself as a loser, explains that he is going to expand his talents and his world by a new dream he’s having.
You call me a fool
You say it’s a crazy scheme
This one’s for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I’ll make it this time
I’m ready to cross that fine line.
Our hapless man thinks he knows just how to fix his life, and this time he’s going to make it. He’s going to “cross that fine line” from dreamer to winner. And in the chorus of the song he goes on to tell us his new dream:
Learn to work the saxophone
I just play what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel.
His words show us immediately that this is probably just another dream of his – “the essence of true romance.” He will learn to “work” the saxophone and then, like jazz musicians in his imagination, he’ll live fast and die young. But he knows he is likely to fail. So he continues:
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues
Notice that even though he sees himself as a loser, he wants to have a nickname like Duke Ellington or Count Basie. He wants to be called Deacon Blues because even losers should have nicknames.
While this story is playing out in the lyrics, the music features a great jazz guitar riff by Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour highlighted by horns arranged by Tom Scott. And there is a marvelous saxophone solo played by Pete Christlieb. Becker and Fagen heard him play in Doc Severinson’s band on The Tonight Show. They asked their producer Gary Katz to see if they could have him come in and improvise. So one night after the show finished taping, he drove from Burbank to the Village Recorders recording studio in West Los Angeles and his work was inserted in a spot that Scott had left for him in the arrangement. It lets us hear how Deacon Blues dreams he would sound. And in fact, at the end of the song we hear Donald Fagen as Deacon sing:
I learned to work the saxophone
I play just what I feel
Deacon dreams of what it would be like to play in front of an audience. He takes a drag on a ci
garette and approaches the bandstand.
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I’ll be what I want to be.
Then the song just fades away like Deacon’s dream.
“Deacon Blues” was a moderate hit for Steely Dan in 1978, although it never cracked the top 10. That may be due to the fact that it runs for seven and half minutes, a bit much for Top 40 radio of the day. But its status as a classic is borne out by the fact that it sounds as good today as it did 40 years ago. I urge you to give a listen on your favorite online music service or on YouTube at https://youtu.be/2A0wGO3c2T8.
Last of the Red Hot Mamas lives on
October 2018
It was October 3, 1965 when I first saw Sophie Tucker on television. She was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show, the show that had given the Beatles their U.S. debut the previous year.
The Ed Sullivan Show was a real variety show. It had its roots in vaudeville and so it was natural that a woman who had been the queen of vaudeville, Sophie Tucker, should make her last television appearance there on that date. Just a few months later she would be dead. You can watch her performance at https://youtu.be/7YGZ-uJ7MzM.
Tucker had an amazing career beginning in 1904 in burlesque and vaudeville. She was in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909. She recorded her signature song “Some of These Days” in 1911 on Edison Records. This was so long ago, records were still cylinders. Her career would go on for more than 60 years.
Sophie was born in what is now the Ukraine around 1885 and came with her family to America in 1887. She grew up in Hartford, Connecticut where she started out singing in her parents’ restaurant. She went off into vaudeville and, like her contemporary Al Jolson, was influenced by African American jazz singers. At a time when most singers were singing the words right on the note, she developed a style of singing that was slightly off the note.
Like her friend Fanny Brice, she did not fit the ideal of feminine beauty at the time. But she embraced her large size and sang songs like “I Don’t Want to Get Thin.” She was one of the most popular performers of the 1920s, appearing throughout the world. She re-recorded “Some of These Days” with Ted Lewis and his band in 1926 and the record was a monster hit all over again. Reflecting her acceptance of her zaftig figure, the song as recorded ends with the line “You’re gonna miss your big, fat mama some of these days.”
It was in 1928, at the vaudeville pinnacle Palace Theater, that she was first billed as The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas. She became known as the “Red-Hot Mama” because of her bawdy comments onstage that she had picked up in burlesque. Performers like Mae West later emulated her style. Sophie liked the name so much that she adopted it as her persona and even changed the lyrics of her signature song to “You’re gonna miss your red-hot mama some of these days.” A nice rendering of Tucker’s theme song along with some pictures can be viewed at https://youtu.be/3heCSPJrO70.
When vaudeville and burlesque died, she went on to nightclubs, movies, radio and ultimately television. She seemed at home in any medium of entertainment. Her career never lapsed into obscurity as the years went by. She worked up until her death.
And so it was that I was privileged to see her perform on live television in 1965. I never forgot that performance. She had a natural charm, the type of larger-than-life personality that commanded your attention. Watching her, you knew you were watching a legendary entertainer. And so here I am in 2018 remembering Sophie Tucker from all those years ago when she sang to a 12-year-old boy “You’re gonna miss your red-hot mama some of these days.” She was right.
The “Good Christmas Tape” turns 40
December 2018
If you live to be more than half a century you find yourself repeating certain things over and over. For example, you may eat Chinese food every New Year’s Eve, or you may vacation at Cape May every summer. And then there are the little things. You may get a Cafe Mocha at Starbucks every Thursday or a croissant every Friday. We are creatures of habit. There is comfort in sameness and predictability.
Well if you do something on the same day every year, and year after year, it’s safe to say you have created a tradition. Traditions start out innocently enough. There is a spark of inspiration and an act that is received well by others.
“Let’s host a Halloween party,” you may have said innocently back when such parties were rare. Now, 20 years later, you are still hosting that party. It’s a tradition.
I was married on the day after Thanksgiving in 1978. So after my new bride and I returned from our honeymoon, it was time to prepare for Christmas. Back then, the Christmas season did not actually start until Santa arrived in the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving. And since the official Christmas season began later, it was not unusual for people to begin shopping just a week or two before Christmas. I was just at that point.
If you’re like me, one of the first things you did as a new couple was to merge your book and record collections. And so on a Monday afternoon in early December 1978 I merged my Christmas records with my wife’s. Back then, my work schedule got me home several hours before my wife. After looking at all the combined Christmas music, I decided that I had some time and we needed a mix tape highlighting the best Christmas recordings from our respective collections. I splayed all the record albums around me and set to work.
I wanted to use tracks from the Carpenters’ Christmas album because it was one that we both loved. I put the needle down on the record and heard Richard Carpenter’s ethereal voice reciting the words to “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” at the start of a great instrumental medley of songs. But I didn’t want to start the mix tape out cold with a solo voice. Just then, I noticed that my Philadelphia-born wife had in her collection a recording of Christmas music by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony. And as luck would have it, there was a beautiful string-heavy recording of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” I had my opening to the Christmas mix tape. We would go from the lush sounds of the Philadelphia Symphony right into Richard Carpenter’s solo voice and then on to that great Carpenters medley.
It continued that way throughout the tape. I would use an instrumental followed by a vocal of the same song. Herb Alpert’s Christmas album (one record in both our collections) provided many of the instrumentals. My collection provided vocals by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. My wife’s collection provided the same from Andy Williams and Perry Como. At the end, we had a beautiful mixing of our favorite Christmas music. My wife liked it so much, she put a label on the cassette box naming this “The Good Christmas Tape.”
That could have been the end of the story, but here is where tradition comes in. The next year, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we came home from church, having celebrated the first Sunday of Advent. One of the hymns traditionally sung in Catholic churches on the first Sunday of Advent is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Having that tune in my head, as soon as we got home, I put the “Good Christmas Tape” in the cassette player and the beautiful sounds of Eugene Ormandy’s version of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” filled the apartment. A tradition had begun.
The following year on the same Sunday I played the same tape, and the year after that, and the year after that. And so it was that when I played “The Good Christmas Tape” this year (transferred to a CD sometime in the ’90s), I announced it as the 40th consecutive year. It’s amazing how fast the years have gone by, and how great it is to have a tradition to herald the season. Because after all, tradition is what the holiday season is all about.
A visit from a ghost of Christmas past
December 2018
I was thinking this week about my father, since it was the 100th anniversary of his birth. I was thinking about how different the world is now than what it was when he died in 1967. If through some wizardry or time machine magic he could come back today, I imagine the conversation might go something like this:
Dad: So Johnson didn’t run for re-election in 1968 and Vice President Nixon got
elected President?
Frank: That’s right, dad. When LBJ decided not to run, Vice President Humphrey ran and lost.
Dad: But why did Johnson decide not to run?
Frank: Because Bobby Kennedy had a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary and it scared LBJ off.
Dad: Then why didn’t Bobby run? Humphrey beat him for the nomination?
Frank: No, Dad. Bobby was shot and killed just six months after you died. Humphrey was the last man standing of the Democratic Party establishment.
Dad: Oh my God, another Kennedy was killed. That must have been horrible.
Frank: It was.
Dad: But what about Teddy? Did he ever run?
Frank: Teddy ran into some personal problems and never was a candidate for President. But he did have a long career in the Senate.
Dad: What else did I miss?
Frank: Well, we finally landed on the moon about eight months after you died.
Dad: That’s great. I guess we’ve gotten to Mars and Jupiter by now. Are there people living on the moon?
Frank: No, Dad. After the Apollo missions ended, we set up a space station in orbit around the earth, and we sent unmanned ships to Mars and Jupiter, but we stopped doing manned space flights beyond earth orbit.
Dad: That’s too bad. I thought you would have had flying cars by now like the Jetsons.
Frank: Sorry, but we do have electric cars and even some driverless cars. And you have to wear seat belts now. It’s the law.
Dad: Well that’s good. Seat belts were a good idea. If it was the law I would have worn them.
Frank: You know that cars have all sorts of safety features now. They can detect cars in your blind spot and warn you. They can also give you directions so you don’t need maps. I know how much you hated maps.
Tales of the Tarantula Page 24