Saturday, January 7, 2017

Another Day, Another Horror



A mass shooting at an airport, the denial by the President Elect that his “victory” had anything to do with Russia’s revenge plot against Hillary Clinton (even though he, himself, used the very fake news Russia implanted) – just an ordinary day in the U. S. of A.  The normalization of such events inures us to it all.  How much can we absorb each day of reports of violence and a President-to-Be who is consumed by his monolithic view of how events affect our perception of HIM rather than how events (such as the Russian involvement in our election) impact the nation Putin prefers HIM to lead?  The distrust of Clinton that was baked into the election by Russian hacking and Trump’s demagoguery was probably enough to shift those relatively small margins in WI, MI, and PA that gave him the Electoral lead. 

Trump’s call for “Congressional Hearings” (sorry, wrong venue, Donald, try the FBI) to investigate why NBC allegedly received intelligence information before he did, reveals his world view.  He disparages “intelligence” and our intelligence professionals on the one hand (“I’m smarter than all the Generals”), but wants to first receive what he considers misinformation before a network against which he has a vendetta.  Look forward to government by retaliation.  As he would Tweet, NOT NICE!

As to gun violence, the ubiquity of guns, and our failure to connect that issue with mental health challenges and intelligence needed to keep nut jobs off our planes (even allowing them to check weapons in their luggage), there is just growing legislative intransigence.  After Sandy Hook one would think we’d have stricter gun laws.  Instead, the nation is gravitating to “open carry” including such a movement in my state, Florida.  Its insanity, especially with Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  I’ve written about gun control ad nauseam, so no sense repeating everything here.  And, no, I’m not for repealing the 2nd amendment and neither was Hillary Clinton as accused by Trump.

Will Trump ever get serious beyond his Tweets?  His actions even before taking the Office of the Presidency makes one already think about future impeachment on the grounds of Treason (giving aid and comfort to the enemies of our country).

These were my thoughts as I made coffee this morning only to discover I was so deep in thought (sort of writing this entry in my mind) that I had forgotten to put the coffee pot under the drip so I found myself in damage control, going through half a roll of paper toweling, moping the counter and the floor: a microcosm of the mess we’re in.


Sunday, January 1, 2017

A 'Honey Fitz' New Year



What delightful serendipity, going out on my boat with “the kids” before the end of the year, on the Intracoastal, and encountering JFK’s Presidential Yacht, the Honey Fitz a 92-foot motor yacht built in 1931 by the Defoe Boat Works in Bay City, Michigan.  Although five US Presidents have cruised the vessel, it was JFK who took to her and thus the vessel will forever be associated with him. The full story is recounted by the JFK Library.  The Honey Fitz is stately, classic, and apt for the time when the Office of the Presidency was as well. 

Our preNew Year’s cruise took us around Peanut Island and past the Kennedy bunker on the island, built for him during the cold war and was in readiness during the Cuban missile crisis.  His part-time home in Palm Beach mandated the bunker which can still be visited.  See this nifty one minute video for the full story and to see the interior.  Undoubtedly, the furnishings are too primitive for the President-elect (alas, nothing gold-plated).

After the Honey Fitz was retired for Presidential service, it finally became a charter vessel and the full story of how it was refitted to meet Coast Guard specifications for such use is told here.


We closed out the year by watching the last sunrise of 2016 over the Atlantic.  Hopefully, 2017 and the next four years will be good to all. 



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Christmas Lullaby



Talk about unknown Christmas songs.  Christmas Lullaby was written for Cary Grant by none other than Peggy Lee (Lyrics) and Cy Coleman (Music).  It is the simplest of tunes and lyrics but therein is its beauty.  And the story of how it came to be written and recorded by Cary Grant is told by Jessica Pickens in her blog, Comet Over Hollywood. YouTube captures Grant’s recording for posterity

James Gavin, in his biography of Peggy Lee, Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee, said “Christmas Lullaby as Lee called it, wasn’t anything too special. ‘Angles bless you, little one…my little one, sleep well.’ But as Lee sat alongside Grant at a Hollywood studio and gazed at him while he talk sang her words, he could have been intoning Emily Dickinson.”

Although Christmas is not the same for me as it was when I was growing up and then for us as parents raising two sons (happily both visiting us this holiday), the spirit indelibly left its mark.  I posted YouTube piano versions of two of my favorite Christmas pieces, one two years ago --  a Bill Evans composition, It’s Love It’s Christmas, and, last year, Vince Guaraldi’s classic Christmas Time Is Here. 

So I offer one of Christmas Lullaby, a lovely one minute waltz.  Lyrics are below.  Happy and Healthy Holidays to all!

Angels bless you little one / while you’re fast asleep.
You’ll awake to dancing toys, candy canes, Christmas joys.
And I pray your whole life through, Angels will watch over you,
loving you the way I do my little one, sleep well.
Angels bless you little one / while you’re fast asleep.
You’ll awake to dancing toys, candy canes, Christmas joys.
And I pray your whole life through, Angels will watch over you,
loving you the way I do my little one, sleep well.

Copyright © 1967 by Notable Music Co. Inc. and Denslow Music Co. Inc.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Me and My Girl



We are fortunate to have two of the best theatre companies in our immediate area, Dramaworks 20 minutes to our south and The Maltz Jupiter Theatre 20 minutes to our north.  The former is a serious regional theatre specializing in classic plays,”theatre to think about” as it rightfully bills itself.  The Maltz on the other hand specializes in musical theatre (and not traveling tours), although they will occasionally put on a dramatic play. 

Many of the musicals produced at the Maltz are classic ones, such as Man of La Mancha, perhaps the best production of that show we’ve ever seen.  Then there are the others, bordering on the silly side, such as Me and My Girl.  But even then you can count on The Maltz to deliver a high energy professional production, so you forgive the selection and just sit back and enjoy the nonsensical.  Having seen Me and My Girl Friday night, a very British musical first performed in the West End in 1937, you can’t help but be impressed by the production in spite of the very thin plot. 

Bill, a cockney Londoner learns that he is an heir to the Earl of Hareford.  However, he will not receive his inheritance until he becomes a little more “civilized” and therefore gets the approval of the Dutchess.  Approval is withheld of course until he agrees to ditch his girlfriend, another cockney, Sally. True to his heart, he can’t do that and is prepared to go back to his old life until, voila, as fast as you can say “Eliza Doolittle,” Sally is transformed into a proper lady and all live happily ever after.  The songs are mostly unmemorable (best known one is the “The Lambeth Walk”) so you would think there is nothing to retain interest in such light-hearted fare.  However it is the perfect plot for lots of shtick!

It is the production itself, the performers, the incredible energy level and comic timing that made this an enjoyable evening.  The cast has 26 talented people, probably the largest ensemble on any Florida stage (other than some touring companies) but this production has a secret entertainment weapon named Matt Loehr, who we’ve seen before at the Maltz in The Music Man, Hello Dolly, Crazy For You and The Will Rogers Follies.  Not only can Loehr sing and dance with the best of them, he has that special athletic comedic gift, one similar to those skills Donald O’Conner demonstrated in the song "Make 'Em Laugh" from the film Singin' in the Rain  One could not help but think of that number while Bill wrestles with his kingly robe.  Loehr can do it all.

He’s joined on stage by his leading lady Julie Kleiner who undergoes the transformation from cockney gal to proper lady as Sally, Lauren Blackman as the lovely Lady Jacqueline who has designs on Bill herself, and Mary Stout who plays the terrifying Dutchess Maria who mellows when confronted by “true love.”  There are so many in the cast I could cite, too many, but I would be remiss in not mentioning one of our favorite South Florida actors, Elizabeth Dimon, who plays a supporting role as Lady Battersby.  Dimon is a consummate pro, whether playing demanding dramatic parts, as we’ve seen her play in numerous productions at Dramaworks, or musicals (she has a glorious singing voice). (In the photo below, she’s the second from the right.)


The direction of so many actors, dancers, and singers on the stage at one time is brilliantly accomplished by the very experienced James Brennan and kudos to the choreographer, Dan Knechtges, and to the scenic designer Paul Tate Depoo III.  There are some very clever scene changes (such as several of Bill’s ancestors coming to life from portraits on the wall during the “Song of Hareford”). All the behind the scenes technical people do a first rate job.

So, The Maltz Jupiter Theatre hits another one out of the park with this full-of-fun musical.  Next on their docket is The Producers.

Monday, December 12, 2016

He Was Right!



Before the election we heard Donald Trump say it over and over again, “Folks, the election is rigged.”  His victory tour has been silent on the subject until recently when the CIA “in a secret assessment” (I wonder how long they had been hanging on to that) said that Russia was involved in the WikiLeaks email releases of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), possibly to swing the election results in his favor.  While the Trump campaign embraced the FBI’s resumption of reviewing Clinton’s emails only eight days before the election (clearing her once again only two days before), his Tweet response to the CIA’s assertion was to discredit the Agency saying “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

Trump’s pre-election rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Oct. 17 pretty much summarizes his stump speech about “a rigged election,” repeated like an Anvil Chorus in other speeches:  “Remember, we’re competing in a rigged election. This is a rigged election folks, OK? The media is an extension of the Clinton campaign as WikiLeaks has proven.  And they don’t talk about WikiLeaks, they just keep talking about Trump, Trump, Trump. They want to put nice, sexy headlines up even though nothing has happened, nothing took place, even though it’s a total fabrication. They even want to try rigging the election at the voting booths, and believe me there’s a lot going on.  Do you ever hear these people?  They say ‘there’s nothing going on.’ People who have died 10 years ago are still voting.  Illegal immigrants are voting. I mean, where are the street smarts of some of these politicians?”  Talk about “fabrications.”

In spite of Trump’s claim that he won in a “landslide” just that little bit of tailwind of the FBI’s bringing up the Clinton email affair again right before the election, and WikiLeaks providing the DNC email may have provided enough of a boost for Trump to marginally win these three swing states: WI, MI, and PA.  I’ve done some number crunching on this. Clinton’s national victory margin of 2.6 million votes or nearly 2% more than Trump became a hundred thousand total vote deficit in those three states, less than a percent difference.  Had those states gone to Clinton, she would have won the electoral vote and she would be President.  So much for Trump’s “landslide” victory but the one truth he told was the election was rigged, although not the way he asserted, thanks to Russia, WikiLeaks, and the FBI.

Steel, coal, and low-skilled manufacturing are not coming back in those rust belt states like the 1950’s.  He knows it.  He now reneges on his words unabashedly, even admitting they were only said to get himself elected, such as during his “victory tour” in Grand Rapids when the crowd was jeering “lock her up” “he said: No, it’s ok. Forget it. That plays great before the election. Now, we don’t care, right?”

Or “Buy America, Hire America” just another get-elected slogan, his businesses routinely buying overseas and hiring less expensive foreign labor. As our local December 8 Palm Beach Post headline spelled out “Trump again hires non-U.S. club staff.”  His Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach routinely uses the federal government’s H-2B visa program to hire foreign workers for the season instead of domestic ones.  Nothing makes a difference in his celebrity revered, post-truth world.

A little more than a year ago I wrote It Can’t Happen Here? [Emphasis on the question mark] One would think our democracy is immune to demagoguery because our forefathers created a governmental structure of checks and balances.  Alexander Hamilton even adopted the safeguard of the Electoral College, a buffer of sorts, to ensure our Presidents are “pre-eminent for ability and virtue.”  One could argue that if there was ever a time when the Electors should reconsider an election, this is the one.  But that isn’t going to happen with Trump and his 17,000,000 Twitter followers, possibly locked and loaded.  Electors who vote their conscience do so at their own personal peril.

That is my fear over the next four years, the potential to circumvent those checks and balances, including the traditional press, via social networks and fake news.  As he said on 60 Minutes, “I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc,…[They] are great form[s] of communication.”  He knows it and we better watch out.

PS  The evening after posting this article I read the New York Times and discovered that Paul Krugman wrote a very similar assessment, making some of the same points (The Tainted Election).  Lest I be accused of plagiarism, I wrote my first draft two days before, letting it sit as I am prone to do with any political entry, and then editing and posting it.  I have long admired Paul Krugman and feel in good company that the facts drew us to similar conclusions!