The Art of Making Things Worse

 

As usual, Politico’s editorial cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, says more in his drawings than mere words can, so I begin with his conception of the present political chaos.

Little did I know.  I was just one of many pawns being used to carry out The Disrupter-in-Chief’s “plan” of destroying our democracy from within.  As his bizarre behavior and the ensuing bedlam began to overwhelm everyone after the election, I was reacting with every outrage by emailing or texting articles and thoughts to friends and family.  I’ve been duped, helping to make “awful into worse,” adding my anxiety to what they too were already feeling.  I’m resolving to choose my future messaging more carefully.  So forgive me my friends for these past indiscretions and just adding to what you were already feeling, dreading, suffering, while watching this all play out.

We’ve already gone to the point of no return in Trump’s second Presidency. If this was a story set to music (as dissonant as it would be), the tempo is now approaching “prestissimo” and if not resolved in some satisfactory way, it just collapses upon itself.

The numerous opportunities we had in our traditional political system to prevent the obscenity of this 47th Presidency have come and gone, two impeachments, not being able to bring him to trial for his culpability in the Jan 6 insurrection and his attempt to interfere with GA votes, his stacking SCOTUS with sycophants (Mitch McConnell deserves a special place in hell for that), and now we are left with the utter chaos of cartoon character Cabinet members, revenge plans, tariffs, deportations, and the final straw, DOGE and the anointed Elon Musk.

I write as if Trump is in charge.  He’s been called Putin’s useful fool.  But I also think he is a useful tool for a band of grafters, nihilists, right-wing zealots to whom the dim-witted American Public handed the keys to the kingdom.  Democracy is now dying by a thousand cuts daily, much faster than anyone could have anticipated, and being handed over to kleptocrats and kakistocrats.  (“Like all good illusionists, the kleptocrats know how to distract us from looking at their misdeeds and the kakistocrats know how to distract us from their ineptitude. They do it by talking to us about ideology and attacking those of their rivals. While we watch and play our part in these ideological circuses, they steal. Or tinker with government policies they don’t really understand.”….As quoted by https://carnegieendowment.org and originally published by El País, June 18, 2018)

What’s to be done with sycophants such as AG Pam Bondi who has decreed that someone who throws a tomato at a Tesla is a domestic terrorist while backing her mobster boss’s exoneration of the J6 insurrectionists?  What hypocrisy, but as long as the American public is entertained, job well done!

The lonely anti-Trumpism voices are some journalists and a fragmented Democratic leadership.  The Republican majority in Congress is complicit with its silence, ceding power to the executive branch.  The Judiciary now seems to be useless, and he has cowed the nation’s largest law firms into submission.  Lots of luck getting legal representation!

I’m almost resigned to the fact that if we as a nation survive the next 4 years it will be purely by accident.  To think that we’ve already alienated alliances forged after WWII in these few short weeks.  I’d be embarrassed to show my face in Canada and Europe, and almost any place in the world.

During the weeks since the inauguration, I’ve been frantically forwarding articles from the New York Times, even the Wall Street Journal, from the historian, Heather Cox Richardson, and authors I follow on Substack, many serious journalists and others best described as “acerbic humorists” who plant F-bombs galore in their writing and therefore effectively channel the absolute fury and helplessness we feel.  I was an uninvited curator of such news for friends, but really was intended to make ME feel good that I was doing something.

But what to do with the gut-retching information I normally send in some form? Perhaps I’ll let my frustrations play out in this space from time to time, collecting them and posting when I reach a particular, yet undefined nadir.  I certainly don’t want to set a schedule, like “the weekly list of shock and rage” although there is guaranteed to be plenty of content.  

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal thankfully remain excellent newspapers with both seemingly drawn more towards the middle from their traditional political extremes.  This is good as other papers such as the LA Times and the Washington Post seem to be selling out, kissing the dystopian ring to avoid the wrath of the “President.”

Unfortunately, the Palm Beach Post used to be a real newspaper, but it has become a shell of itself with mostly syndicated articles.  Its original editorial decisions are now subject to local or political pressures. The Gannett Group, now the owner of the PBP, recently dismissed Tony Doris, the PBP opinion editor of some 20 years, because of such pressure.  The NYT asked Doris to comment and he said: “They’re afraid of their shadow. I think it speaks to a misunderstanding or failure to engage with the mission of an editorial page.”

It is symbolic of what is happening all over the country but his dismissal was a particular blow to me as he published my letters and editorial opinions without much change; he seemed to welcome future ones.  Now the venue of local newspapers is disappearing as well; they are really controlled circulation advertising flyers.  Any weakening of 4^th estate has dire consequences.

One feels as if one MUST do something though.  I made an attempt to engage my Congressman Brian Mast.  He is an obedient MAGA disciple. Yet I hoped a reasonable letter might make the difference.  I appealed to his patriotism as a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom.  As a congressman, surely his allegiance to the Constitution would give him pause I thought and as the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee he might have something of meaning to say about the administration denigrating Ukraine for merely defending itself.  Instead I got what might have been an AI response, but nonetheless I sent a follow up, pointing out the deficiencies of the response, not expecting a reply, and there has been none.

The latest outrage which FOX and Friends and the administration are whitewashing is the Signal messaging app security breach detailing plans for the attack on Yemen. (True to the MAGA gospel of deflection, AG Bondi declared that the incident will not be criminally investigated as “it was a very successful mission.”)  Talk about hypocrisy, the Sturm und Drang over Hillary and her server, while rationalizing the greatest breach of national security I can remember by the amateurs we call our Cabinet, even inviting in a reporter and then saying he’s corrupt!  The content of that discussion is chilling.  It’s like they were playing a video game, replete with emojis of the American flag, a fist, fire, whatever. The real damage (aside from the danger it might have caused our military) is further alienating those European allies who will now remember an American promise is only as valid as the administration that made them as well as the covert hostility by this administration towards them.  (Vance referred to the action as "bailing Europe out again," while Hegseth accused Europe's reliance on U.S. military might as "freeloading" and "pathetic.") 

We need an opposition dream team to come forth, one that can organize and coordinate meaningful protests, a team representing both sides of the aisle: perhaps Beto O’Rourke, Tim Walz, Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Cheney?  Each has spoken out for the truth and each is currently out of politics.  Some have suggested Maryland Governor Wes More as a potential leader.  His is a story of exceptionalism.  Credible leadership is needed now before it is really too late.   

As I was concluding this piece I saw Heather Cox Richardson’s most recent “Letters from an American,” with a particular passage I would normally forward to many.  So instead, I quote it here.  I’ve turned over a new leaf!

The craziness going on around us in the first two months of the second Trump administration makes a lot more sense if you remember that the goal of those currently in power was never simply to change the policies or the personnel of the U.S. government. Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America—government, law, business, education, culture, and so on—because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call ‘the Left.’

Their definition of ‘the Left’ includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.

In place of those structures, today’s MAGA leaders intend to create their own new institutions, shaped by their own people, whose ideological purity trumps their abilities.

 

Tragedy Over and Within Washington, DC

 

Matt Davies, Newsday’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist

Who do YOU believe, a Congresswoman from Texas or our President?  Rather than writing commentary, I let them speak for themselves:

 

From Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett

No one knows what caused last night's tragic crash outside DCA.

Investigations are ongoing, and no one - not Donald Trump or anyone else - should be drawing conclusions until all the facts have been released.

But here is what we do know.

On his first day in office, Donald Trump froze the hiring of federal employees—including air traffic controllers.

Also on January 20, Elon Musk pushed out the Chief of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trump didn’t appoint an acting replacement until after last night’s crash

On January 22, Aviation Security Advisory Committee members were told Trump was cutting members of all advisory committees in a “commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”

Also on January 22, Trump fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard.

In June 2023, the United States Department of Transportation Inspector General found that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to the industry's daily operations were short-staffed.

FAA staffing shortages have been exacerbated by @HouseGOP's repeated near-shutdowns of the government and their refusal to fully fund critical government functions.

These programs were only funded because more Democrats than Republicans voted to prevent these shutdowns.

 

Trump’s News Conference (as reported by Associated Press)

Q: “Are you saying this crash was somehow caused as the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?”

TRUMP: “It just could have been. We have a high standard. We’ve had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use. And they were terminated by Biden. And Biden went by a standard that seeks the exact opposite. So we don’t know. But we do know that you had two planes at the same level. You had a helicopter and a plane. That shouldn’t have happened. And, we’ll see. We’re going to look into that, and we’re going to see. But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior. And that’s what we’re going to have.”

Q: “You have today blamed the diversity elements but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.”

TRUMP: “It’s all under investigation.”

Q: “I understand that. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.”

TRUMP: “Because I have common sense. OK? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level. When you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time, and they’re all coming in different directions, and you’re dealing with very high-level computer, computer work and very complex computers.”

Q: “The implication that this policy [hiring people with disabilities] is new or that it stems from efforts that began under President Biden or the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, is demonstrably false. It’s been on the FAA’s website —”

TRUMP: “Who said that, you?”

Q: “No, it’s on the website, the FAA’s website. It was there from 2013 ... it was there for the entirety, it was there for the entirety of your administration, too. So my question is, why didn’t you change the policy during your first administration?”

TRUMP: “I did change it. I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy. And then Biden came in and he changed it. And then when I came in two days, three days ago, I signed a new order, bringing it to the highest level of intelligence.”

 

To preserve my sanity I am trying to avoid watching news and writing about the actions of the Provocateur-in-Chief. But the politicalization of everything sometimes makes the latter impossible.  No sense analyzing the foregoing.  Matt Davies’ political cartoon says it all.

But nonetheless I slide on the slippery slope into the fray, focusing on the normalization of absurdity, perhaps for no other reason than preserving documentation.  Our Gish galloping Provocateur-in-Chief is a Festivus for one, airing his imagined grievances, celebrating the misery deportations will cause, daring anyone to oppose him, his J6 army locked and loaded.

An excellent article “Trump and the Collapse of the Old Order” By Peggy Noonan in today’s Wall Street Journal goes deeper into the seismic nature of it all.  Here are some bullet points:

·       No modern president has achieved this level of complete cultural saturation. It gives him power in this ill-educated, broken-up, low-attention span country.

·       [T]he second rise of Donald Trump is a total break with the past—that stable order, healthy expectations, the honoring of a certain old moderation, and strict adherence to form and the law aren’t being “traduced”; they are ending. That something new has begun. People aren’t sure they’re right about this and no one has a name for the big break, but they know we have entered something different—something more emotional, more tribal and visceral.

·       There’s a sense we’re living through times we’ll understand only in retrospect. But the collapse of the old international order and the break in America’s old domestic order are shaping this young century.

She warns Democrats: not to talk but do. Be supple. The Trumpian policies you honestly support—endorse them, join in the credit….Most of all, make something work. You run nearly every great city in the nation. Make one work—clean it up, control crime, smash corruption, educate the kids.

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far.  It is time for the Democrats to take some responsibility and implement change.

But, what about Republicans and Supreme Court Justices?  Are there are few brave ones in Congress and/or on the Bench who will recognize the uber-seriousness of this moment, and choose those critical issues that truly threaten Democracy, and do the right thing to preserve the three branches of government?

Traditional journalism is part of the problem; even Noonan’s article which although insightful, normalizes the dangers being created by these first few days of the new “administration.” 

 

 

The Continuing Political Piñata of the Pandemic

 

It was one of my better Op-eds, “Freedom” for the Few at the Expense of All (August, 2021)

 

The impetus for writing it almost exactly two years ago was DeSantis’ response to Covid at the time.  It was when he retreated from his original response (which was tempered by some sobering data), and he went rogue for political reasons turning Dr. Fauci into the enemy of the “freedom loving” people of Florida.

 

I walk into restaurants, theaters, or just down the street now and wonder, was it all just a bad dream?  Not really, the dream has morphed into yet another bad dream.  Maybe a worse one?

 

We now have more reliable data, but with the engine of conspiracy theories, abetted by social networking, it filters into the self-serving grab for political power, and we fail to learn from experience. The anti-intellectual vein of the American psyche goes deep, and populists very effectively tap into that.

 

One only has to read the July 22 New York Times article The Steep Cost of Ron DeSantis's Vaccine Turnabout, and then the lead editorial in the July 26 Wall Street Journal, The Real DeSantis COVIDRecord

 

Nowadays, an alternative reality is easy to “prove” and the WSJ does a pretty good job at that.  I’m not going to dissect the two, but my article from two years ago makes some of the same points as the NYT.

 

I will however quote the concluding paragraph of the WSJ article as it is so emblematic of how we can choose to look at this horrible episode in American history: “The lockdown damage continues, but progressives can’t admit they were wrong.  Nor can Mr. Trump.  So they are trying to take down Mr. DeSantis for being right.”

 

There was no “right” or “wrong” when we went through the dark Covid tunnel.  There was scientific advice about responding to the rapidly moving target of the pandemic, and that advice was based on informed experience. However, I don’t recall anyone claiming that it was a hard and fast “truth.” It was thought to be the best advice at the time.  Who was closer to the “truth”, Dr. Fauci or Dr. MyPillowGuy?

 

Trump’s “Evita moment,” ripping off his mask, after climbing the steps to the White House balcony (gasping for air), following his Covid treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, was clearly a high point of his political narcissism.  Look at me!  Look at me! Mr. Tough Guy!  But he received the experimental monoclonal antibody treatment not available to most of his fellow Americans who were dying from Covid.  He did not opt for the "miracle cures" he advocated (and probably killed some of his cult supplicants) such as hydroxychloroquine or injecting disinfectants.  No, he listened to health experts.

 

So would have DeSantis with his own life on the line. Instead, he surrounded himself with hand-picked health advisors who supported his views, all calculated to put him in the White House in 2024.  Lots of luck with that Governor; you didn’t count on the increasing popularity of your indicted adversary.  Trump or DeSantis: demagoguery is their commonality.

Satchmo at the Waldorf – An Intensely Moving Experience at Dramaworks

Terry Teachout, the esteemed theatre critic of the Wall Street Journal has gone full circle, from Louis Armstrong’s biographer, Pops; A Life of Louis Armstrong, to playwright, Satchmo at the Waldorf, and now director of his own play on the Dramaworks stage. His biography is a work of prodigious scholarship and intellect while the play is clearly written straight from the heart.  His professional directorial debut is the confluence of his intimate knowledge and love of Louis Armstrong and years as a working critic.  How can such erudition not result in a work of art to stir even the most casual theater-goer? 

The play not only moves, but informs.  Louis Armstrong, for many in the audience, was a figure from popular culture, holding a horn more than blowing it, usually singing a song in his gravelly voice, his handkerchief in hand, an overall good guy in movies and on TV.  Teachout’s work reclaims not only his jazz genius but documents his rise from lowly beginnings, so improbable for a poor illegitimate child born to a part-time prostitute in New Orleans (his baptismal card described him as "niger, illegitimus"), how he was used by his manager, Joe Glaser, and then reviled by the black community, as represented by Miles Davis in the play, into the public persona we all fondly remember.  This is a testimony to his indomitable spirit.

One person plays are difficult.  They’re usually retrospective accounts of a life, with little or no interaction and in this case, a play about a musician who doesn’t get to perform (other than hearing some brief recordings and a few bars of a song by the actor).  But the absence of live music doesn’t detract from the story of this great musical icon, as you will easily suspend disbelief and find that one actor, Barry Shabaka Henley, successfully captures the essence of these three people, each with a distinctive “take” on Louis Armstrong.  His is a bravura performance which will leave you a good deal wiser and more emotionally connected to the great Satchmo.

Barry Shabaka Henley as Satchmo

There is of course Louis himself who tells his story in his own unique vernacular, expletives and all, told directly to the audience or into his tape recorder in an attempt to capture the story of his life.  This is delivered in the dressing room at the Waldorf, his last gig in 1971, only months before his death.  A lighting change announces the arrival of another character, Joe Glaser, his manager who Armstrong dutifully (and gratefully) obeyed (to keep him out of harm’s way with the mob) and who made him the performer we most remember, the happy-go-lucky entertainer.  But that is the very personality most despised by the third character (another change of lights), Miles Davis, who despised what he viewed as Satchmo’s Uncle Tom demeanor.  Armstrong was comfortable in his own skin, but besieged by these two opposing elements. It is a testimony to Barry Shabaka Henley that he pulls off this personality trifecta with such ease, allowing the audience to believe the unbelievable.  This internal tension is why the drama excels.

 

There is so much revealed in the play about Armstrong, much of it contrary to his public image, lovingly written by Teachout, encapsulating his accepting, optimistic personality on the one hand, and his bewilderment as to how he was used by his manager, one who had ties and debts to the mob who upon his death left nothing to the very person who made him rich.  As such the play is as much social commentary about race (Armstrong wore a Star of David to honor a Jewish couple who were exceedingly kind to him as a child) as it is about the world of a black jazz-man’s life during those early years and what it was like to work hundreds of gigs a year while mobsters controlled many of the clubs. Imagine playing at hotel venues, not being allowed to stay there or even eat at its restaurant, having to grab food in the kitchen.  Imagine the hours they endured and the drugs that were ubiquitous (Armstrong himself was a regular user of marijuana). 

Nonetheless, it was a two way street, Glaser transforming him from a jazz figure to a world class entertainer.  Perhaps no one song symbolized that transition more than Hello Dolly.  As Armstrong laments in the play, Now just between you and me, “Dolly” ain’t much of a song.  Tell you the truth, it’s a piece of shit. Tune kinda go round in circles, words ain’t so hot.  But Mr. Glaser, he say, “Louie, you go make the song,” and I say, “Yes, sir, Mr. Glaser” just like I always do.  Got to do what the boss man say.  So I cut the record, hit the road, forget about it.  Here the lights change as Glaser’s character remerges, explaining that Louis was doing a gig somewhere in East Jesus, Wyoming, or some shithole like that, and the audience was yelling, “Hey, Pops, do that ‘Hello, Dolly!’”… Louis looks over at the piano player and says “What the fuck are they talking about?”  So the piano player tells him they want him to sing this song he cut in New York a couple of months ago.  And get this:  Louie can’t remember it!  Can you believe it?  Man cuts a fucking record, they’re playing it on the radio a hundred times a day, and he still can’t remember the goddamn thing.  But that ain’t the good part.  He asks the guys in the band if they know how it goes…and none of them can remember it, either!  Musicians.  Whatta bunch of knuckleheads.  This wonderful dialog faithfully imagines their relationship and does so throughout the play.

But, then, there is the admonition of Miles Davis.  If Armstrong was the black jazz innovator of the first half of the 20^th century, Davis was the leading black jazz musician of the second half.  Although both were trumpeters, they were as different in their styles of jazz as they were in their attitudes, Davis being an outspoken social critic.  He was partially schooled in classical music at Juilliard, not on the streets of New Orleans like his predecessor.  Armstrong was always sensitive – especially later in life – as to his standing in the black community.  DAVIS: Ain’t nothing wrong being in business with no white man, long as you the boss.  But it’s different when the man own everything and tell you where to go and what to do.  That’s bullshit.  Plantation bullshit.  And that’s the way Joe Glaser treated Louis.  Mobbed-up cocksucker struts around and says, “Don’t give me no lip or I’ll tell the boys in Chicago to shoot off your kneecap.” Fuck that.  And that yes-massa shit Louis talks about Mister Glaser this and Mister Glaser that?  Fuck that, too.  He say, “Oh that Mister Glaser, he just like my daddy, he’s my best friend in the whole wide world.” Shit.  My manager ain’t my friend – he works for me.  He does what I want.

But if anyone got Louis right, it was his mother on her death bed, her last words recalled by Armstrong: You a good boy. You treat everybody right.  Everybody loves you, white and colored, they all love you ‘cause you gotta good heart.

Terry Teachout Opening Night

This was Teachout’s professional directorial debut.  He achieves an impressionistic sensibility, one that is felt as pure poetry, particularly given the wonderful script and the heart and soul of a great actor. It was especially revealing to see the hand of the director through Teachout’s transparent Twitter feeds.  As this was a learning experience for him, he kept his followers informed.  One tweet in particular sums up his approach as a director, “Much of directing is observing. You search out found objects in the actor's improvisations, then make the accidental intentional.”

The last production of the show in Chicago starred the same actor, Barry Shabaka Henley, so he came to his PBD debut well prepared with his lines, awaiting Teachout’s take on his own play.  He had some of his own interpretations, ones that appealed to Teachout, so he went with the flow.

Indeed, the play broadly succeeds on the astounding performance of Barry Shabaka Henley, a consummate professional who WILL have you believe he is Armstrong, Glaser, or Davis.  It’s an incredible accomplishment for one person on stage for about 90 minutes, having to deliver a 13,000 word monologue, convincingly playing three different characters.  He doesn’t have the advantage of having other actors to feed off (or even to rescue him if he loses his way).  The pauses are as important as the words and their emphasis, and this is where the director and actor worked in close collaboration.

It takes a team to make a successful play as Teachout himself acknowledged in his blog article, Putting on the Frosting  We long-subscribing and loyal Dramaworks followers know that this has been the key to making this theatre company one of the best in the country.  It is the constant, meticulous attention to detail, subtle to the audience as everything on stage seems to be a moving representation of life itself.  Dramaworks’ technical team takes a great play and helps to make it even better. 

Lighting designer Kirk Bookman handles the delicate lighting changes as Henley segues from one character to another, but making these changes subtle (other than Davis who has his own unique muted red palette with a purple backlight), creating a lighting design which helps the audience feel, not only who’s who or where to look. There are about one hundred lighting cues in this one person play – it is that important to the production. There is one point in the play where Armstrong is remembering when the love of his life, his fourth wife, Lucille, had erected a Christmas tree in their home in Queens.  Armstrong was always on the road and of course there was no such tree in his childhood.  This was his first and he recalls sitting up all night looking at the lights, Henley bathed in dappled yellow, green, and red lights, in a heartfelt scene.

Matt Corey’s sound design includes parts of Armstrong’s beloved songs, either hummed by Henley or heard over Armstrong’s tape recorder, something he invested in midway through his career at the suggestion of Bing Crosby (with whom he was friends for many years but was never invited to his home – a sad commentary).  There is one extended recording of Armstrong’s classic West End Blues, probably the song that established his standing as one of the great jazz innovators of “swinging and singing.”  The music warms the environment and is evocative of Armstrong’s wide range of musical gifts.

Scenic designer Michael Amico has built a perfect set, creating multiple focal points – his dressing table, his oxygen tank, the tape recorder station, a couple of places to sit, so there is always action.  The dressing table doubles as Glaser’s office.  Miles Davis appears only stage left, always in the same spot, kind of a Greek chorus of criticism.

Stage manager James Danford has all the interlocking wheels of these production elements in sync, while Erin Amico’s costume design places us squarely in the early 1970’s, the time of this imaginary, but so very real moment near the end of Armstrong’s incredible career and life.

Teachout said that he approached his first directorial job as if he was not the playwright.  This objectivity, with the remarkable performance of Barry Shabaka Henley, freed his inner voice, his passionate hymn to Louis Armstrong, allowing it to soar.  Don’t miss the opportunity to witness this achievement now at Dramaworks and join in the standing ovation at the conclusion of the play. 

From Schleman’s Rhythm on Record (1936)