Earlier this month, the family again got together at Rutt’s Hut to remember my mother and of course to feast on those delicious hot dogs. After enjoying a couple of Rippers, the Rutt’s Hut specialty of fried hot dogs that rip open when cooked, I headed for the men’s room. As I walked, I stopped and did a double take. There in a corner was a woman sitting by herself clearly enjoying a hot dog, a woman who looked just like my mother did when I was a child. I don’t know what happened then, because the next thing I knew I was sitting and talking to my mom.
Frank: Is this a dream? Am I imagining this?
Mom: No, it’s heaven. I eat here every day now.
Frank: Mom, that’s so great. I’m so happy for you. But why are you alone?
Mom: Well you know your father wasn’t a great fan of this place.
Frank: I know. He preferred Panama’s. But how about Merc?
Mom: He’s out playing golf. Now that he doesn’t feel pain anymore, he’s making his way through all the top golf courses in the world, along with your Uncle Pat.
Frank: So you get to see old friends and family on a regular basis?
Mom: Well I get to see the ones who made it through the pearly gates. Let’s just say there are some people who just didn’t measure up. But I get together with Mary and Iris all the time.
Frank: Well we’ve missed you.
Mom: And that’s the only part of being dead that’s a problem. We’re normally not able to interact with the living.
Frank: So how are we doing this?
Mom: I think it has something to do with this place. You know how much I loved eating here.
Frank: Of course. You introduced us all to Rutt’s Hut.
Mom: Well there’s a special energy here for me. I don’t know how it works, but I’m glad it does. So tell me what’s been going on. How’s Bryce? Is he getting big?
Frank: He is, and so is his sister, Caroline. You know she was born just a few months after you died. You just missed seeing her.
Mom: I did see her. We get to watch on special occasions like birthdays, but that’s all. I was there the day she was born. But it would have been great to be able to hold my great-granddaughter.
Frank: You know, she reminds me of you. She has a bit of the tomboy in her like you did. She loves gymnastics. Bryce is playing T-ball already. Your great-grandchildren are enjoying life.
Mom: And how are my grandchildren doing?
Frank: Well David seems to love being in Vermont, and I know Bryce and Caroline keep him and Kim busy.
Mom: And how about Jennifer?
Frank: She’s feeling a bit tired these days.
Mom: Oh, why? Is her job too much? Tell her to get another one.
Frank: Yeah, I know that was your specialty. But no, she’s tired for a good reason, she’s pregnant.
Mom: Oh Frankie that’s so good. Maybe it’ll be another girl.
Frank: Maybe.
Mom: But just a healthy baby, right?
Frank: Exactly.
Mom: It’s the way of life. The old leave and make room for the young.
Frank: Yeah, don’t remind me. Time goes by so quickly now. You know, John is semi-retired.
Mom: That’s good. I hope he’s happy. Remember, you’re the oldest, you have to always look out for him.
Frank: I know, Mom. You’ve been telling me that all my life.
Mom: That’s what mothers do. And how are you? I see you grew a beard again.
Frank: Yep, and Pat and I sold our house and moved to an apartment in Montclair.
Mom: Nice town, Montclair. Always liked it. And are you retired?
Frank: No. I’m hanging in there for a few more years.
Mom: Well, enjoy every day.
Frank: I try to.
Mom: I think it’s time for you to get back to the family now.
Frank: But don’t you want to see them?
Mom: Sorry, but it’s not allowed. Just one vision at a time.
Frank: Ok, Mom. I miss you.
Mom: Don’t spend time doing that. I’m having a ball.
Frank: That’s so good to know. Goodbye, Mom.
Mom: Before you go, just one last thing.
Frank: What’s that, Mom?
Mom: Can you get me some ketchup for my French fries?
Grandmoms more active than they used to be
August 2019
We all have memories of grandparents who, seen through a child’s eyes, were soooo old! That’s why it’s curious to now be one of those grandparents. I think that some women resist the title of grandmother as making them appear too old. Their vanity does not admit of the possibility that their children are old enough to have children of their own.
Happily, my wife is not one of those women. She seems to have embraced being a grandmother from the day that our grandson Bryce was born. And since our granddaughter Caroline was born, she has had a little girl to care for as well.
Here is Pat playing active grandmom to our two grandchildren
near their home in Vermont
But unlike many of our grandparents, my wife and I participate in the physical play our grandchildren love. In fact, when my wife recently showed Bryce how to navigate a new playground attraction, Bryce said, “Grandmom, I didn’t know old people could do that!”
Yes, it’s been an active grandparenthood so far, and it will only get more active as we await our next grandchild, due in December.
Paying tribute to the best of Broadway
August 2019
When I look back at the best Broadway shows I have seen in my half century of theatergoing, two names continue to pop up – Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince. The two worked together on shows such as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd. And separately, they had stellar careers as well. Harold Prince, in particular, had more hits than anyone else. He was the Pete Rose of Broadway.
So it was particularly poignant to hear of the death of Harold Prince in the same week that I had the pleasure of seeing Stephen Sondheim onstage talking about the last collaboration between the two. The musical, now called Road Show, never made it to Broadway, but had a run at the Public Theater about a decade ago. It had a revival at City Center last weekend as part of their Encores series. Sadly, it is Stephen Sondheim’s last show to date, and at age 89 it is probably going to be the finale of his marvelous career.
After the performance, Stephen Sondheim and his collaborator on the book of the show, John Weidman, spoke about the creation process. Sondheim is such a towering figure in the history of the Broadway musical that you had a feeling of privilege in being in the same room with such a musical genius. But there was also a sense of melancholy in knowing that this probably was also the last time you would ever see him, given that he turns 90 in a few months.
Stephen Sondheim speaking on the stage of City Center on July 29, 2019,
with collaborator, John Weidman, to his left
And that sense of mortality was driven home by the death a few days later of Broadway producer-director extraordinaire, Harold Prince. Prince, who was 91, began his career on Broadway just after World War II.
He was the stage manager for the classic Wonderful Town, a Leonard Bernstein, Comden and Green musical that opened on Broadway a few weeks before I was born. And he went on to produce a string of 1950s hits such as The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Fiorello, and West Side Story.
Prince turned to directing in the 1960s and directed hits such as She Loves Me, Zorba, and Cabaret. He also continued producing, with such hit shows as Fiddler on the Roof. As mentioned earlier, he worked with Stephen Sondheim on several notable shows in the 1970s. In the late 1970s he began a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Weber, directing Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. In the 1990s he directed Kander and Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Clearly, he was a giant in the world of Broadway musicals. And with 21 Tonys, we will most likely nev
er see the likes of him again. Personally, he provided me, and continues to provide me, with many, many hours of enjoyment. In fact, one of the lesser known shows he directed, Baker Street, is a personal favorite of mine.
I think it is particularly painful when your artistic heroes pass away. Although he certainly lived a full life, I feel a sense of great loss about a world without Harold Prince. But I am thankful for all the wonderful shows he produced and/or directed that we will all be able to enjoy for many years to come. In fact just a few years ago I saw a new production of one of the Prince directorial masterpieces. The title song, that expresses the life-affirming value of musicals, ends like this:
Start by admitting
From cradle to tomb
It isn’t that long a stay.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Only a Cabaret, old chum
And I love a Cabaret.
Three days of peace and music
August 2019
Next week will mark 50 years since hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers went “up the country” to Bethel, New York for what was billed as “three days of peace and music.” And unbelievably enough, it turned out to be just that. There were no riots, no fights, no arrests. It seemed like young people were on their way to creating a more perfect society. And in truth, some did go off to live in communes after that, but for most it was just one remarkable weekend.
I was not there. I was a year too young to drive, and I didn’t know any older teens who were going. And after recently viewing the film that Michael Wadleigh and his crew (including a young Martin Scorsese) took documenting the event, I am okay with that.
But there is no denying that this was a watershed moment for my generation. It was just six months into the Nixon administration. Astronauts had just landed on the moon. The war in Vietnam was still in high gear with nearly 12,000 young Americans killed that year. So Woodstock was a refuge for Baby Boomers. After a tumultuous 1968 that saw continuous major war protests that ultimately seemed completely ineffective, young people needed to feel that they had a voice. They needed to show America that they were a force to be reckoned with.
In a Woodstock moment that represented this rage against the Establishment that Nixon represented, Country Joe McDonald took to the Woodstock stage to sing his “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag”. You can watch it on You Tube at https://youtu.be/3W7-ngmO_p8. Here are the words:
Come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
he’s got himself in a terrible jam
way down yonder in Viet Nam so
put down your books and pick up a gun we’re
gonna have a whole lotta fun
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee we’re all gonna die
Come on Wall Street don’t be slow
why man this war is a go-go
there’s plenty good money to be made by
supplying the army with the tools of its trade
let’s hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
they drop it on the Viet Cong
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee we’re all gonna die
Come on generals, let’s move fast
your big chance has come at last
now you can go out and get those reds
cos the only good commie is the one that’s dead and
you know that peace can only be won when we’ve
blown ‘em all to kingdom come
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee we’re all gonna die
Come on mothers throughout the land
pack your boys off to Viet Nam
come on fathers don’t hesitate
send your sons off before it’s too late
and you can be the first ones on your block
to have your boy come home in a box
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee we’re all gonna die
I don’t think it can be denied that a combination of those anti-war protests and the generational unity shown by the gathering at Woodstock had an effect on Nixon and the Congress. Every year after Woodstock, the casualties decreased. They fell to just over 6,000 in 1970 and a little over 2,400 in 1971. The war began to wind down, and the last draft call was in December 1972. No more Baby Boomers would be asked to “put down their books and pick up a gun.”
So as I look back 50 years later, the Woodstock Festival was sincerely about peace and music. It led to peace and gave us some of the greatest music ever made. I am proud of that.
A look at a 1972 song that is still sadly relevant
August 2019
Harry Chapin is best known for his bittersweet stories of lonely lovers in songs like “Taxi” and “A Better Place to Be,” and distant fathers and sons in “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But his work included stories of all aspects of humanity, including the dark side. One striking example is a masterpiece of storytelling called “Sniper.” I listened to it recently and was struck by how relevant this song still is today, nearly 40 years after Chapin’s untimely death in an auto accident.
The song tells a fictionalized version of the mass shooting at the University of Texas in 1966 in which former Marine Charles Whitman took a bunch of rifles up to the top of a tower on the college campus and began shooting randomly. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed 14 people (including an unborn baby) and injured 31 others. Such incidents were very unusual in that time and this incident grabbed tremendous public attention for months. Sadly, today, such shootings have become everyday occurrences.
Harry Chapin’s song “Sniper” was released in 1972, on an album whimsically called Sniper and Other Love Songs. It tells the story of the Texas Tower shooting in the voices of a narrator, acquaintances of the shooter, and the shooter himself. Chapin uses syncopation in the music to switch between voices. You can see a live performance of the song on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ dT1cxP3JT0c.
The song goes on for ten minutes, and so it never got airplay on most radio stations at the time. But it is a work of art. It demonstrates, as few other songs do, the ability of a songwriter and a song to tell a powerful story in words and music. The lyrics are poetic. They begin with the narrator setting the scene:
It is an early Monday morning.
The sun is becoming bright on the land.
No one is watching as he comes a walking.
Two bulky suitcases hang from his hands.
He heads towards the tower that stands in the campus.
He goes through the door, he starts up the stairs.
The sound of his footsteps, the sound of his breathing,
The sound of the silence when no one was there.
Then the music changes and we are hearing the voice of an acquaintance of the shooter:
I didn’t really know him.
He was kind of strange.
Always sort of sat there.
He never seemed to change.
And after that short interlude, the narrator continues the story:
He reached the catwalk. He put down his burden.
The four-sided clock began to chime.
Seven AM, the day is beginning.
So much to do a
nd so little time.
He looks at the city where no one had known him.
He looks at the sky where no one looks down.
He looks at his life and what it has shown him.
He looks for his shadow it cannot be found.
And then the music changes again and we are hearing another voice with an echo effect, presumably his mother:
He was such a moody child, very hard to touch.
Even as a baby he never smiled too much. No no. No no.
And now the music changes again and for the first time we hear the voice of the shooter:
You bug me, she said.
You’re ugly, she said.
Please hug me, I said.
But she just sat there
With the same flat stare
That she saves for me alone
When I’m home.
When I’m home.
Take me home.
And then the narrator returns, continuing the story:
He laid out the rifles, he loaded the shotgun,
He stacked up the cartridges along the wall.
He knew he would need them for his conversation.
If it went as it he planned, then he might use them all.
He said Listen you people I’ve got a question
You won’t pay attention but I’ll ask anyhow.
I found a way that will get me an answer.
Been waiting to ask you ‘till now.
Right now!
Chapin sees the sniper as someone who considers himself ignored and invisible and now is using his rifle to get people to pay attention to him. He wants people to notice him. He wants to have a “conversation.” And now the song changes from the narrator quoting the sniper to the sniper speaking himself, reflecting on his empty life and looking for answers:
Tales of the Tarantula Page 28