In Another Land

Greetings from Salt Lake City, Utah, where I am visiting for a month. There is plenty of snow and coldness here, and I am suffering from airplane nose, which is a severe drying of the nasal mucous membranes brought on initially by the necessary oxygen flow during the flight out here and then exacerbated by the lack of humidity in this desert valley. I will probably get adjusted to the dryness just as I am about to leave for Baltimore, home of dampness and mold.

It is nice to be on vacation, especially here with so many familyfriends who care about my welfare and health. Our grandson and his significant other are here in the same house, and those two have been cooking and baking like there is no tomorrow. Every meal is like "eating out." The only difference is that these two youngsters use top-quality ingredients and lots of time and patience. A couple of days ago, we were treated to a pumpkin pie, for example, that was made from "scratch," including baking the actual pumpkin (not opening a can of pumpkin pie filling) and making a crust out of roasted pecans (ones that they roasted themselves). Last night, we had roasted stuffed red peppers, stuffed with organic vegetables and quinoa, topped with a singularly creative mustard-basil sauce. It was spectacular. Every meal here is a "hummer," meaning that there is a great deal of approval in the form of loud hums throughout the entire meal.

There is much reading, relaxing, and movie-going here. We last saw "Invictus," and even though some reviewers have called it overly emotionally manipulative, we enjoyed it. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon did a good job in their respective roles, and I think Clint Eastwood did the right thing by concentrating primarily on the rugby team theme and not on the political situation during this trying time of transition. I felt it was touching and poignant.

Despite some pretty serious back pain from lumbar stenosis, I am still determined to get out and about and not miss very much of the continued newness of being all the way across the country and into a landscape that is so dissimilar from the Chesapeake Bay.

Merry Christmas to all, whatever your faith or lack of it.

Who is Leroy Robertson?

And why should you care? Curiosity, more than anything. And maybe a little gratitude for his work. Leroy J. Robertson was born on December 21, 1896, and died on July 25, 1971. He was an American composer and music educator. Born in Fountain Green, Utah, he studied violin, composition, and public school music at the New England Conservatory and in Europe. He received an MA degree from the University of Utah and a PhD from the University of Southern California. He was chairman of the music department at Brigham Young University from 1925 to 1948 and at the University of Utah from 1948 to 1962. He was instrumental in the promotion of the Utah Symphony and of classical music in Salt Lake City. For this reason alone, he should be remembered because the Utah Symphony is one of the finest in the country. One can attend the symphony at Abravanel Hall, sit in the upper reaches of the balcony (as I have done many times), and hear gorgeous music in an acoustically perfect building for $17 a ticket.

He is best known for his Oratorio from the Book of Mormon. This very long oratorio was composed by Robertson over many years and finally completed in 1953. The Lord's Prayer from that oratorio was recorded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and released as a 45 rpm single on the flip side of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and it hit the top 50 charts in the late 1950s.

A full-length 33 rpm vinyl album called THE LORD'S PRAYER was recorded on August 27, 1958, (released in 1959) with Dr. Richard P. Condie, director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Eugene Ormandy, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and organists Alexander Schriener and Frank W. Asper. In October 1963, this record was RIAA certified as a "GOLD" record with sales over $1,000,000.

It was in 1963 that I first heard the Robertson composition of The Lord's Prayer. Before I fell asleep, I listened to a radio station that had a "talk show"on from 11 p.m. until midnight. Back in those days, radio stations went off the air at midnight (as did TV stations). This particular radio station played the Robertson version of The Lord's Prayer (by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Philadelphia Orchestra, as cited above) before it went off the air. I was so taken with this composition that I made it a point to stay awake every night just to listen to it at midnight. Those were the days before I had enough money to buy my own record player, so I relied on the radio to hear this intriguing composition. I've never owned the recording until just this week, but I've carried that song in my head for the past 46 years. I've been looking for this recording for that long, and after 46 years, I finally found it. I hope it fascinates you as much as it has me for nearly half a century. You can listen to it by clicking on the Happy Thanksgiving blog (Smilebox) below.

This excessive admiration for Robertson is not meant to take anything away from Albert Hay Malotte (1895-1964), the American pianist, organist, composer, and educator who wrote probably the most popular and frequently heard version of The Lord's Prayer. His career as an organist began in Chicago where he played for silent pictures and later concertized throughout the US and Europe. During World War II, he held the rank of Captain in the Special Services for two years while he toured with the USO and entertained troops in New Guinea, Australia, and Europe. At one point, he sponsored his own troup of entertainers that included Dame Judith Anderson, Ann Triola, and Helen McClure Preister. Malotte was an amateur pilot, avid golfer, and even boxed with Jack Dempsey in Memphis, Tennessee. He spent most of his career as a composer in Hollywood.

Malotte composed a number of film scores, including mostly uncredited music for animations from the Disney studios. Although two movies for which he composed scores won best Short Subject Academy Awards (Ferdinand the Bull in 1939 and The Ugly Duckling in 1940), he is best remembered for a setting of the Lord's Prayer. Written in 1935, it was recorded by the baritone John Charles Thomas and remained highly popular for use as a solo in churches and at weddings in the US for some decades. He composed a number of other religious pieces including settings of the Beatitudes and of the Twenty-third Psalm which have also remained popular as solos. His secular songs such as "Ferdinand the bull" (from the Disney animated short of the same name), "For my mother" (a setting of a poem by 12-year-old Bobby Sutherland), and "I am proud to be an American" are less well remembered. Some of his works are collected in the library of the University of California Los Angeles and the Library of Congress. In addition, Malotte wrote uncredited stock music for many other films in the 1930s and early 1940s including twenty-two of the Disney Silly Symphonies and other shorts such Little Hiawatha as well as Ferdinand the Bull. He also composed cantatas, oratorios, musicals and ballets. Malotte owned Apple Valley Music.

He died of pneumonia and is buried in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

Happy Thanksgiving

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This Ship Has Sailed

In another life, a half-century ago, I was at the end of my teenage years when I met a small group of unconventional women who impaled me with endless confusion, contradiction, denial, confined independence, co-dependence, restrained nonconformity, realism, hurt, passion, shame, guilt, danger, anxiety, validation, thrill, and unfettered, raw experience. I was their willing apprentice for only a couple of years. Then I moved to another state and pretty much lost contact with them and their daily lives, adventures, and misadventures.

As is often seen in dysfunctional group dynamics, the leader of this closely knit cadre was an alcoholic: Cubby. Charismatic as hell. Strong. Independent. Chivalrous. Outspoken. Powerful. Wealthy. Influential. Intelligent. Daring. Well known, yet intensely private. She had much to hide and hide from. Her impression on me lasted well beyond her physical presence on this planet. She died just short of her 69th birthday in 1994. No one notified me. No one felt there was a reason to. I hadn't kept in touch with any of them for many years, and yet they were as big a part of me as though I lived next door. Youth is an impressionable time, and certain things become indelible and permanent.

Her significant other preceded her in death by many years. It was a tragic illness and an untimely end, the result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. I watched from afar, disabled by my own sense of inadequacy to re-introduce myself into this tight circle of grieving friends. Her "best bud" Florine, at another, more professional and yet kindred, level of intimacy, died in 2002, having to endure life without Cubby for another 8 years before she succumbed. I know it was hard to live without Cubby. I only "knew" Cubby for a couple of years. Florine knew and worked with her for a lifetime.

Two other members of this tribe are unaccounted for by my reckoning. They might be dead or alive. I don't know, and there is no way for me to find out. I suspect at least one of them is gone---Doris, a massively obese, highly intelligent, extremely well read, wounded woman who I imagine could not have survived the biologic imperative of her corpulence.

The last renegade, Sis, passed over the golden bridge just last month on Hallowe'en, All Hallow's Eve. I prefer to think of this timing as some kind of practical joke perpetrated by Sis. She was nothing if not ironic.

Hallowe'en, a pagan tradition, was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain (Hallowe'en), more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were able to mingle with the living because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld. In some alternate universe that we can only guess at, there may have been many attempts by Cubby and Florine to induce Sis to come on over during the past decade or so, but Sis held out until All Hallow's Eve of 2009. She was stubborn that way and always had an outspoken mind of her own. In the earlier days, to which I was an actual witness, when the others of the cabal did not want to join Sis in something she had planned, she would say, "OK, then, I'll just get new friends." And she did. She was not going to be stifled in her social activities by these recalcitrant couch potatoes who preferred to sit around talking for hours in Cubby's living room, where all important things came to fruition and were made real. Sis always came back, however, despite disgustingly stomping out of the sanctum sanctorum on various occasions.

Sis is, as far as I can determine, the last to cross over from among the inner circle of this notorious group of unusual women. She left me with a couple of pithy shibboleths that were burned into my consciousness at age 19 and are to this day frequently repeated: "Anticipation is greater than realization" and "You can tell everything you need to know about a person by taking a trip with them." Even though I didn't heed the first of these mottos as much as I should have, I was always aware of its veracity as I reflected on dismaying circumstances in my life after they had broken my heart. As for the second motto, I have learned that I am able to travel comfortably with very few people. Taking a trip with someone does provide a valuable learning experience, most often a negative one, I've found. On both counts, Sis was right. Another thing she always said was this: "Never leave home without a jacket." This is such practical advice that it amazes me I wouldn't think of it on my own, but I often didn't and lived to regret it. Sis didn't say much, but what she said was believable. I should have listened more carefully. Now she's gone.

I learned of her death quite by accident yesterday. I had written to her every few years since 1964. In the early days of my departure from the Gopher State, I had even come back from the Wolverine State to visit with her, but there was an uneasiness to our visits. She never did quite forgive me for leaving. Despite her inexpression, she really was quite fond of me. In later years, I wrote to her every now and then, and sometimes she would answer and sometimes not. In the past 5 or so years, I began to wonder if she was still alive, so I would "google" her, and it would always come up with her address and phone number, so I tried calling her many times, but there was never an answer or an answering machine. Yesterday, I "googled" her again, just for the hell of it. I got back an obituary from her local newspaper. She had died at the end of last month. It was a shock to me. Now I know it's over. The group is gone. But, trust me, they live on and will do so until I am gone too.

Youth is an impressionable time, and certain things become indelible and permanent. Young love is one of these.

FRICKERS

In the current spirit of calling a spade a spade and putting away "political correctness" (as advocated by Glenn Beck on yesterday's show), I have created a new acronym: FRICKERS. If you are easily offended, you should stop reading right now. This is adult content, so reader caution is advised. FRICKERS stands for Far Right Ignorant Corporatist Kooky Evildoing Racist Sluts. There is no other way to say it. If Glenn Beck can freely express his political incorrectness on national television, then I guess that means I can freely express my political incorrectness on my own private blog (which has an audience of maybe 6). I am touting my "freedom of speech" the same way that Carrie Prejean is currently touting hers (incorrectly) on every national television show she can book. So here we go.

The bodies of the fallen dead and wounded at Fort Hood were not even cold when the FRICKERS began the race to score political points and inject hate speech into the national shock and grieving due to this godforsaken tragedy. The FRICKERS couldn’t call this an act of Islamic jihadist terrorism fast enough. Why? Because they are peeing their pants in the rush to claim that we have now had a terrorist attack on American soil under President Obama’s watch. It is their factless conclusion now that Obama can’t keep us safe, just as Cheney warned. Told you so!

The FRICKERS are highly incensed that Obama (and the White House) refuses to label this criminality as a terrorist act. Since FRICKERS specialize in fomenting IGNORANT RAGE among the ignorant masses for political gain, this worn-out tactic is not a surprise, but it is no less maddening and no less stupid.

There haven’t been enough consistent investigative results, or even time to sort through all the complexities, so that we can reliably conclude the Fort Hood massacre was the act of an Islamic jihadist instead of the act of a mentally ill man (of course, I personally think that anyone who kills another human being (or animal) without a morally good reason is mentally ill). But that doesn’t stop the FRICKERS from pumping up the volume on “terrorism” 24x7 since this incident in Texas. Since they hate Obama and all he stands for so much, any event will do to further their aim to depose him, deride him, disgrace him, and criticize him and the policies of this administration.

Blaming this murderous event on Obama is like blaming Richard Nixon for the Manson murders. He was President at the time, right? Or how about blaming the Lincoln assassination on Abraham Lincoln? After all, he was the President when he was shot to death. Using that logic, I guess we can finally rightly blame 9/11 on George W. Bush since he was President when that true act of terrorism occurred. However, you won’t hear the FRICKERS say anything about Bush in that regard. No, sir. Bush kept us SAFE for 7 years, but Obama has failed, just like Rush Limbaugh, AHIC, has wished and worked so hard for.

In addition, the FRICKERS are not done blaming the US Army for this either---that is, the US Army under Barack Obama. They don’t mention, of course, that the internal military, Homeland Security, and FBI investigations done on Major Hasan were instituted under the George W. Bush regime, and nothing discovered then was apparently considered the potential threat this turned out to be.

The claim is that “political correctness” kept the military (only the military under Obama, that is) from calling “a spade a spade” (another derogatory, racist phrase the FRICKERS are only too happy now to use on cable TV). If only we would, according to Glenn Beck, dispense with all this freakin’ political correctness, this tragedy and so many other adverse incidents could be prevented.

Because of freakin' political correctness, we are reluctant to label Muslims as Islamic terrorists or label anybody as fat-fatties, winos, homeless bums, whores, communists, radicals, Marxists, socialists, and so forth. You pick the hate target, and you get to call a spade a spade because now we are DONE with political correctness. You don’t like a black person, you can go ahead and call him or her the N-word. You don’t like a gay person, you can now call that person a queer or fag. You don’t like a homeless person, you can now call that person a bum, wino, or worthless piece of shit who just doesn’t want to work for a living and wants to live in a Nanny state. You don’t like an overweight person, you can now go ahead and call him or her a fat-fatty. Glenn Beck, the chief overthrower of political correctness and advocate of free speech, and his comrade FRICKERS keep pushing the hate envelope to see how much ignorant rage they can conjure up in this moment of grief, sorrow, and utter dismay.

If you took a survey of all the FRICKERS who appear on national cable “news” channels alone, I’ll bet nearly all of them would claim to be Christian as would all of their blind, dumb, factless, ignorant, hate-filled, racist, sexist followers and admirers.

Here’s another consideration: The Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House bill on healthcare reform (putting all kinds of new restrictions on women’s healthcare coverage for abortion services) is a kind of jihad of its own. Small-government advocates (i.e., far-right conservatives) constantly scream that they do not want the government restricting the rights and freedoms of the individual citizen, especially when it comes to healthcare, guns, and taxes, and that is why they oppose any kind of healthcare reform or gun control. They don’t want the government to come between them and their doctors (or between them and their guns). On the other hand, these FRICKERS don’t mind one bit having their favorite policies and laws restrict the right of a woman to choose her reproductive freedom (which is still legal in this country, according to Roe v. Wade). Is this terrorism or jihad (“holy war”) against women? It sure seems to be.

According to the dictionary, terrorism is "the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear." I guess this makes the FRICKERS terrorists and jihadists, using the “logic” they have applied to the Fort Hood massacre and to the current healthcare reform “debate.”

All this makes about as much sense to me as the pro-lifers who hate abortion but support capital punishment, useless war, and the slaughtering of animals to put on their dinner plates every day. Acts of terror and death everywhere you look. Life is good in this country, ain’t it?

IBG and YBG

At this critical point in my lifetime, I know that I have already lived far longer than I can ever expect to live into the future. Death is inevitable now, and it's a lot closer than I would like it to be. As Woody Allen once observed, and I paraphrase, he understands about his own death and even respects it; he just doesn't want to be there when it happens. That pretty much sums it up for me too.

Many of the things that are going on in this effed-up world right now are not going to come to resolution in my lifetime, nor yours, I suspect, unless you are extremely young. I doubt the very young are reading this blog (it could happen, I suppose, but it's unlikely). Thus, IBG and YBG. I'll be gone and you'll be gone. When we are gone, nothing that is happening or evolving right now, for good or evil, will matter to us.

One of the things not resolved, if even resolvable, is the situation in Afghanistan. Critics of Obama claim he is "dithering" and putting our troops at risk while taking too long to make a decision about whether to send an additional 40,000 (or whatever number) troops to F'd-ghanistan. The hawks, the sleaze-bags that make their obscene fortunes in the military-industrial complex, want to perpetuate this futile war and reap more profit from nation-building or whatever other opportunities arise when military, civilian, and mercenary elements are called upon to occupy a foreign territory. War is good business. The stock market likes war as much as it likes unemployment. Billions of dollars are spent. We don't even have a clue how many trillions of dollars will have been wasted between Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. In other times, in other hands, those billions and trillions could have set this country on a path of positivity, social justice, and meaningful, livable employment for all. But no. We have "national security" issues to protect. We have to root out al-Qaeda (if that were even possible). We have to defeat the Taliban (it will never happen).

For the many reasons that the warmongers and hawks wish to perpetuate this so-called war in Afghanistan (and Iraq), we now need to re-institute the draft. Our all-volunteer military has done more than its share. The only way to keep the supply of soldiers and other personnel going throughout what could end up to be another decade in the Middle East is to draft everybody into the military. Young, middle-aged, old...they all need to go there and "serve their country." Men, women, teenagers...they all need to take a turn. Politicians, their sons and daughters, CEOs, bankers, Wall Street financiers, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Senators, Representatives, their children, their wives, their mothers...they all need to be drafted and spend a rotation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (soon) Pakistan and Iran. Send everybody over there in the next 5-10 years. That includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, and the whole bunch of right-wing batshit-crazy lunatics on FOX. No deferrals, not even for Dick Cheney. Hell, I'll go. I'll go in a wheelchair. If it's so goddamned important that we send another 40,000 soldiers there to die in big numbers, let's all go. Not one death will have been worth it in the end. BRING BACK THE DRAFT SO WE ALL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE IRRESPECTIVE OF WEALTH OR AGE OR ABILITY.

Are we so deluded that we think we will ever defeat the Taliban? Or al-Qaeda? And now, what's the difference between them? There used to be a discernible difference between them, but over the past 8 long years we've already been in F'd-ghanistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have chained themselves to each other in a death spiral. They are aligned. They don't care who dies. Innocent women and children, civilians, people just trying to live, as hard as that is over there (and increasingly here now)...they don't care. They are an enemy best sealed off and ignored. We can't do that while we are actively engaged in that part of the world unless we simply mathematically outnumber them. If we send the entire population of America to F'd-ghanistan, would it be enough to defeat them? Let's try it. Let's just shut down this country and go there. All of us. Last one out, turn off the lights. No sense having this country all lit up wasting energy while we are all gone.

Who wants to be the next on the plane? I don't see the warmongers in the "media" or elsewhere volunteering for duty. Are we going to turn our backs to the television when Obama sends 40,000 more? Or 20,000 more? Does it matter how many? Many more of these soldiers will be killed. For what? Do we know?

Here's another idea. Instead of the draft, let's just bring everybody home. Now. Let's just friggin' mind our own business for a change. We have plenty of "business" to mind at the moment. I am sick of the death panels in the Middle East and America. Instead of pulling the plug on Gramma, let's send her to Afghanistan where at least her death will have made the cable news.

Impression Management

It amazes me how much time and effort some people spend on impression management, the process through which people try to control or manage the impressions or perceptions that other people form of them. It is both a goal-directed conscious and perhaps an unconscious attempt to influence others, and it usually results in shameless self-aggrandizement or self-promotion, most often at the expense of truth and authenticity. Thus, it is a sad and somewhat pitiable pursuit.

There are those who always appear to be happy, successful, and materially well off, no matter what is actually going on in their lives. They try to display only their good qualities and achievements (and brag about their material possessions, who they know, or where they've been) because they think others will then like them and not see them as inadequate and imperfect human beings.

It doesn't take much analysis to figure out that this constantly displayed image of "happiness" and "success" and "materiality" is not authentic or even remotely true. Rather than risk being seen as ordinary humans with faults, foibles, and unwanted character and personality traits, mythic prevarications seem to be their preferred way to impress others, gain respect (and awe), demand attention, and even instigate jealousy, envy, or resentment. Look at me! I'm SOMEbody! I have things you don't have! I'm all that and a bag of chips! Don't you wish you were more like ME?

It has been said that people talk (or write) for two reasons: To communicate information or to gain sympathy. I think there is a third reason: To impress others.

As Lewis Black has said, "The political parties in this country are a bowl of shit looking in the mirror." The same can be said of impression managers. Anyone who is trying to impress you is already a liar.