A couple of items in the Times today caught me eye. First there was a fire at the Morris Park Gym up there on Morris Park Avenue in the North Bronx. I lived two blocks away from that Gym at 586 Morris Park Avenue. (The things we remember.) On occasion I would stop in and watch, mostly Golden Glove hopefuls, working out. Periodically a trainer would ask if I wanted to try a little workout in the ring. I did once, got one good smack in the nose that started to bleed and that ended of my boxing career.
There were many old time boxers who hung out at the gym and dreamed of comebacks. There was old Italian guy who they called “smash” mostly because thats what his face looked like. He would run up and down the street shadow boxing with some unseen opponent. Kids would go find a bell somewheres and when they saw Smash they would hit the bell and he’d come tearing out as though he was in the ring yelling, “where is he where is he?” Kids would point, “he’s over there. Pointing in another direction “No he’s over there.” and this poor old guy would go punching and yelling “where’s the bastard. Wheres that yella sonamabitch.”
One long Spring evening as the game with “Smash was going on my Papa came by and happened to see what was happening. He called me over sat me down on the stoop and asked, “why are you torturing that poor man?” I said I thought he liked the idea of boxing and that’s what he was doing.” Papa disagreed. He said,” the mans brain has been punched so much that he now is punch drunk and can’t do anything else. He is sick and should not be tormented by a bunch of kids taking advantage of his sickness to get a few laughs, that's just cruel.” “But” Papa I said “he seems to enjoy it.” “No” he said, “he just can’t help himself and that's how we know he is sick. So I don’t want you to be part of that anymore. It’s cruel and we don’t believe in being cruel to others or animals like our dog or cat.”
When my Papa left all the kids gathered round the stoop wanting to know what he said? I told them as best I could. They talked about it for a while and then they agreed we wouldn’t do that anymore.Yet periodically I would see Smash running up and down Morris park Avenue shadow boxing with a shadow. I never saw the kids do the bell thing again.
Second piece that caught my eye was an Obituary to Lester Rodney who I had occasion to meet back in the 30ies. He was a sports writer for the Daily Worker a communist newspaper. As the Obit said he was a very early champion of Black athletes in the major leagues. “In 1936, more than a decade before Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier, Mr.Rodney pressured the baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the major league club owners to end baseball’s racial barrier.”
“In recounting the mounting pressures baseball faced to end its color barrier Arnold Rampersad wrote in his 1997 biography of Jackie Robinson that the most vigorous effort came from the “Communist press.” He added, “that if Robinson was perceived by civil rights workers ---and especially Martin luther King as a historical turning point, anybody who facilitated the emergence of Jackie Robinson should be seen as one of the heroes of race integration.” He was referring to Lester Rodney.
It is sad that that the role of the left in the history of the 20th Century is often denigrated to mostly the horrors of Stalin in the Soviet Union. It is the obituaries that periodically we learn of the the Lester Rodneys of the thirties of which I consider myself to be a part. The left in this country was in the forefront of most of the movements for change that had direct bearing on the dramatic improvement of the plight of the working class that nowadays is called the middle class. (With the loss of manufacturing it is rapidly disappearing. (More about that in my next blog.)
I found it interesting that this obituary appeared on XMas eve period of time when the christian world is celebrating the man I believe was the first socialist thinker Jesus Christ. He and my father had an awful lot in common. For that I am so very thankful.
Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday and a Better New year.
Thank you kate N.H.W.Y.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Celebrities
Warning: This Blog is rated “R”. (Need to do this as I have some readers who have who have told me their children shouldn’t hear bad words.) Oh well, what can I say.
Celebrities
I have long been fascinated with our country’s intense interest in the lives of our chosen. These are people in the worlds of entertainment, sports and politics. At a very young age I learned of celebrities like Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey and movie stars like Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix, Gloria Swanson and so on. They were written about in The Daily News, The Mirror, and most notorious, The Police Gazette. I do remember one Gazette headline, “Crooner Russ Colombo Shot by a Pal?” All the boys in PS 34 thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Fatty Arbuckle, the 350 pound comedian, got on top of some Hollywood starlet and killed her. Now that was almost as much fun as the Colombo thing, but there was that extra zest of sex. We didn’t have a clue what that was about, but we knew it was forbidden fruit.
Than there was the case of Errol Flynn and his encounter with a Starlet on his yacht. In the 30ies and 40ies there were all kinds of law suites that could result from some casual assignation, like “alienation of affection.” This girl friend of Flynn’s sued him for that and so the whole steamy story ended up in the tabloids. The young women described to the judge what happened on the boat. Flynn invited her to come on down to the cabin. Then he got undressed. The judge asked,”Did he have all his clothes off?” “No,” replied the woman, “he kept his shoes on.” Later on in the trial the judge asked Flynn why he kept his shoes on? Flynn replied, “Your honor, you have to be very careful about athletes foot.” Well of course the whole country got a great laugh out of that one. Yes, I know what your thinking, so how come Schrank remembers that so well? I’ll tell you later.
Keep in mind that was all well before television. Radio was just in its infancy. That meant the major source for this stuff came from the tabloids. We would pick it up primarily from our parents or older kids who were reading the tabloids. What was it that made this stuff about celebrities private lives so interesting and engaging?
With the advent of television this kind of celebrity gossip has become a major business enterprise. Which brings me to yes, you guessed it, Tiger Woods. I was sitting in a bar in St Croix. It was sometime around 4.30 and all the blue collar pickup-truck guys were there. The PGA was on the tube and it was Tiger’s first big win. The guys at the bar are pissin’ and moanin’. “Jesus Christ, now the fuckin’ niggers are gonna take over the only white man’s game.” I said, “Well, you got to admit he is one cool golfer.” That of course went nowheres, as I was told how we white folks have lost football, basketball and even baseball, the country’s signature sport. What did impress even the worst of the bar crowd was Tiger’s cool.
So what happened? We seem to have an obsessive need to create these celebrity heroes. We imbue them with all kinds of magical powers. They are not supposed to have any ordinary human foibles. Sports fans buy team jackets and jerseys to wear because, as one guy explained to me, “It makes me feel just like him.” With all this we still have that puritan streak that wants us to think of our heroes as chaste, sincere homebodies. It’s the sex stuff that we really eat up, because all of us have the same desires that we try to tamp down, but so often get the best of us. That’s why I remembered the Errol Flynn story so vividly. So what is going on here?
I need to go back to Walden Pond and Henry David Thoreau, who suggested that “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” If that was true back in Thoreau’s time how much worse must it be now? Back then there was opportunity to gain some identity through individual effort, to make a living and support a family. The mass society that we live in now has very little room for individuals to become much more than another number in the world of people going to work in the office towers of the city or the assembly lines of the factory. It is in that “desperation” that people try to live another life by creating a closeness with a celebrity of their own choosing. We imbue them with the characteristics we admire and feel uplifted because he or she is us and we are them. The fans made Tiger Woods into somebody he obviously never was. It’s as if he was imagined by his fans into this chaste, clean, cool homebody where the word “cheated” would never be heard. Yes, like in “Home on the Range.”
It’s not that Woods went off the track. It’s his legions of fans who were off the track right along. They needed him to be this pure cool golfer who could show the world how great we are. Now he has behaved like so many who live in quiet desperation that we can no longer abide with him. He has really betrayed his fans by acting like so many of them. He broke that hero mold, so what have we got left. Nothing but that dammed old “quiet desperation.”
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Celebrities
I have long been fascinated with our country’s intense interest in the lives of our chosen. These are people in the worlds of entertainment, sports and politics. At a very young age I learned of celebrities like Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey and movie stars like Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix, Gloria Swanson and so on. They were written about in The Daily News, The Mirror, and most notorious, The Police Gazette. I do remember one Gazette headline, “Crooner Russ Colombo Shot by a Pal?” All the boys in PS 34 thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Fatty Arbuckle, the 350 pound comedian, got on top of some Hollywood starlet and killed her. Now that was almost as much fun as the Colombo thing, but there was that extra zest of sex. We didn’t have a clue what that was about, but we knew it was forbidden fruit.
Than there was the case of Errol Flynn and his encounter with a Starlet on his yacht. In the 30ies and 40ies there were all kinds of law suites that could result from some casual assignation, like “alienation of affection.” This girl friend of Flynn’s sued him for that and so the whole steamy story ended up in the tabloids. The young women described to the judge what happened on the boat. Flynn invited her to come on down to the cabin. Then he got undressed. The judge asked,”Did he have all his clothes off?” “No,” replied the woman, “he kept his shoes on.” Later on in the trial the judge asked Flynn why he kept his shoes on? Flynn replied, “Your honor, you have to be very careful about athletes foot.” Well of course the whole country got a great laugh out of that one. Yes, I know what your thinking, so how come Schrank remembers that so well? I’ll tell you later.
Keep in mind that was all well before television. Radio was just in its infancy. That meant the major source for this stuff came from the tabloids. We would pick it up primarily from our parents or older kids who were reading the tabloids. What was it that made this stuff about celebrities private lives so interesting and engaging?
With the advent of television this kind of celebrity gossip has become a major business enterprise. Which brings me to yes, you guessed it, Tiger Woods. I was sitting in a bar in St Croix. It was sometime around 4.30 and all the blue collar pickup-truck guys were there. The PGA was on the tube and it was Tiger’s first big win. The guys at the bar are pissin’ and moanin’. “Jesus Christ, now the fuckin’ niggers are gonna take over the only white man’s game.” I said, “Well, you got to admit he is one cool golfer.” That of course went nowheres, as I was told how we white folks have lost football, basketball and even baseball, the country’s signature sport. What did impress even the worst of the bar crowd was Tiger’s cool.
So what happened? We seem to have an obsessive need to create these celebrity heroes. We imbue them with all kinds of magical powers. They are not supposed to have any ordinary human foibles. Sports fans buy team jackets and jerseys to wear because, as one guy explained to me, “It makes me feel just like him.” With all this we still have that puritan streak that wants us to think of our heroes as chaste, sincere homebodies. It’s the sex stuff that we really eat up, because all of us have the same desires that we try to tamp down, but so often get the best of us. That’s why I remembered the Errol Flynn story so vividly. So what is going on here?
I need to go back to Walden Pond and Henry David Thoreau, who suggested that “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” If that was true back in Thoreau’s time how much worse must it be now? Back then there was opportunity to gain some identity through individual effort, to make a living and support a family. The mass society that we live in now has very little room for individuals to become much more than another number in the world of people going to work in the office towers of the city or the assembly lines of the factory. It is in that “desperation” that people try to live another life by creating a closeness with a celebrity of their own choosing. We imbue them with the characteristics we admire and feel uplifted because he or she is us and we are them. The fans made Tiger Woods into somebody he obviously never was. It’s as if he was imagined by his fans into this chaste, clean, cool homebody where the word “cheated” would never be heard. Yes, like in “Home on the Range.”
It’s not that Woods went off the track. It’s his legions of fans who were off the track right along. They needed him to be this pure cool golfer who could show the world how great we are. Now he has behaved like so many who live in quiet desperation that we can no longer abide with him. He has really betrayed his fans by acting like so many of them. He broke that hero mold, so what have we got left. Nothing but that dammed old “quiet desperation.”
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Afghanistan Dither
After many weeks of “dither,” this word seldom heard or used burst into prominence. The right wing accused Obama of dithering, i.e. lacking decision making regarding the war in Afghanistan. I went to Webster to see what exactly it meant to “dither.” “Dither: Trembling, quivering. State of great agitation, excitable confusion. To act hesitatingly or in a disturbed or excited manner.”
There you have it. Now which word is referring to Obama? Well he was not quivering or in great agitation, so I guess he was hesitating. How dare he hesitate when we are supposed to be off to war. Yes, McCain, Beck, Huckabee, et al were accusing the President of the brand new crime of “dithering” over what to do with the war in Afghanistan. The White House insisted that the President was very deeply involved studying his options with all his top advisors. In fact the Sunday Times reported that he had been in constant discussions with 16 of his top advisors, half of whom were military and the others Cabinet members like Clinton, Biden, Rice and Emanuel. That’s who he had been dithering with for weeks trying to figure out what to do about the Afganistan war.
They came to the conclusion that they would send in 30,000 more troops and create some benchmarks to be met for the Afganis’ under Karzai. In exchange for this effort we would start to draw down our troops by 2011. Here’s the thing that drives me nuts. We have this big kabuki gathering of Generals and other high level government bureaucrats. Each plays their role. “I am the General so give me more troops and stuff. I am Special Envoy so I tell Karzai to shape up or else. As Secretary of State I will get support amongst allies,” and so on and so forth.
I don’t believe that any of this had beans to do with the final decision. During the campaign Obama made clear his opposition to escalating the war. Now he’s the President, so what happened? What is missing from the West Point speech and the long newspaper articles is the political considerations that that went into the decision making process.
Here’s how I think it went. First of all, we have this serious economic situation here at home. If we don’t get the unemployment numbers under control by 2010 Obama is going to take a shellacking in the midterms. If he walks away from Afghanistan, the right wing will use the old excuse that the Dems are soft on terrorists and are giving into our enemies. That’s a serious threat to Obama’s chances in 2012. That’s what went into the Administration’s decision to pick up where George Bush left off. Did we already forget that with all the expose of the “phony war” against non-existent WMD, old George won re-election anyway. In my opinion, if Obama wants a second term, he has to follow the Bush strategy. Political lesson: “It is far better to keep fighting a dumb war that will solve nothing in the end than to take action against it and end it.” The politicos are also haunted by the spectacle of poor old LBJ in his last days; a sort of King Lear victim of the Veitnam fiasco. I am also reminded that we nostalgically cling to our myths of wild west frontier where the lone shootemup cowboy is our legendary hero. We want to relive that in every military encounter.
So as we listen to all the Generals, Special Envoys’ Holbrooke or Mitchell, and assorted other experts, keep in mind that what we are seeing is primarily a political decision. It has more to do with what’s happening on the ground here at home than in the hills of Kandahar, Waziristan or Kabul.
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
There you have it. Now which word is referring to Obama? Well he was not quivering or in great agitation, so I guess he was hesitating. How dare he hesitate when we are supposed to be off to war. Yes, McCain, Beck, Huckabee, et al were accusing the President of the brand new crime of “dithering” over what to do with the war in Afghanistan. The White House insisted that the President was very deeply involved studying his options with all his top advisors. In fact the Sunday Times reported that he had been in constant discussions with 16 of his top advisors, half of whom were military and the others Cabinet members like Clinton, Biden, Rice and Emanuel. That’s who he had been dithering with for weeks trying to figure out what to do about the Afganistan war.
They came to the conclusion that they would send in 30,000 more troops and create some benchmarks to be met for the Afganis’ under Karzai. In exchange for this effort we would start to draw down our troops by 2011. Here’s the thing that drives me nuts. We have this big kabuki gathering of Generals and other high level government bureaucrats. Each plays their role. “I am the General so give me more troops and stuff. I am Special Envoy so I tell Karzai to shape up or else. As Secretary of State I will get support amongst allies,” and so on and so forth.
I don’t believe that any of this had beans to do with the final decision. During the campaign Obama made clear his opposition to escalating the war. Now he’s the President, so what happened? What is missing from the West Point speech and the long newspaper articles is the political considerations that that went into the decision making process.
Here’s how I think it went. First of all, we have this serious economic situation here at home. If we don’t get the unemployment numbers under control by 2010 Obama is going to take a shellacking in the midterms. If he walks away from Afghanistan, the right wing will use the old excuse that the Dems are soft on terrorists and are giving into our enemies. That’s a serious threat to Obama’s chances in 2012. That’s what went into the Administration’s decision to pick up where George Bush left off. Did we already forget that with all the expose of the “phony war” against non-existent WMD, old George won re-election anyway. In my opinion, if Obama wants a second term, he has to follow the Bush strategy. Political lesson: “It is far better to keep fighting a dumb war that will solve nothing in the end than to take action against it and end it.” The politicos are also haunted by the spectacle of poor old LBJ in his last days; a sort of King Lear victim of the Veitnam fiasco. I am also reminded that we nostalgically cling to our myths of wild west frontier where the lone shootemup cowboy is our legendary hero. We want to relive that in every military encounter.
So as we listen to all the Generals, Special Envoys’ Holbrooke or Mitchell, and assorted other experts, keep in mind that what we are seeing is primarily a political decision. It has more to do with what’s happening on the ground here at home than in the hills of Kandahar, Waziristan or Kabul.
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
