There was a stunning, eye-moistening moment in last Sunday's concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Bruce Springsteen introduced Pete Seeger and together, along with Seeger's grandson, they led the crowd in a rousing rendition of "This Land is Your Land."
I have mixed feelings about Mr. Seeger and some of his politics, but this is a great song and I have a certain respect for anyone who's devoted so much of his life to causes he believes will make the world a better place. I remember being taken to a concert he gave out at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium not long after John F. Kennedy was shot. It was exciting, it was entertaining…and I remember that everything he said and everything he sang was, in one way or another, about the worth of every human being on the planet.
And I have to wonder. Seeger is 89 years old. He was close to half that age when I saw him at the Santa Monica Civic. This was back when they still had segregated schools in parts of the South. I wonder what his response would have been if someone had said to him then, "You'll live long enough to sing that song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as America inaugurates a black man as President of the United States."
HBO has been having YouTube pull down all the clips of the event but this one, which appears to be from German television, is apparently outside their sphere of influence or something. So enjoy — and don't be afraid to sing along. Especially if you're watching it on a wireless connection at Starbuck's or some other public place…
The news anchors did a good job this afternoon making us all glad we weren't in Washington for the inauguration. They told of jammed commuter trains, road closures, folks with tickets being turned away, and mile-long lines to use a porta-potty. I suppose it would have been wonderful and inspiring if you could have gotten into the first thirty rows but the way they made it sound, it's a miracle Barack and Michelle made it in. Right now, most of the same news folks are covering the inaugural balls and telling us why we should all be glad we're not at an inaugural ball.
In between, they said a lot of stuff that pretty much came down to variations on "I never thought I'd see this day." Over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews kept saying, "Barack Obama is the President of the United States" as if the oath of office wasn't valid until that sentence had been repeated five hundred times. I heard way too much about what the new President and First Lady were wearing, and there was about a half-hour there where the networks seemed ready to roll the always-on-hand obituary tape on Ted Kennedy.
All in all, it was inspiring but uneventful. I set the TiVo to record three hours of coverage and I figured I'd burn it to a DVD and save it to watch again years from now. But I think a twenty minute clip of the oath and address would be just as good.
By the way: Yes, I know (now) that George W. Bush made that comment about spending political capital after his second inauguration, not his first. But I think the point still applies. One of the first things that soured me on the Bush regime — above and beyond the fact that its primary agenda seemed to be to do anything, including harming the lower and middle class to benefit the wealthy — was this "winner take all" mentality. The Bush definition of bi-partisan cooperation always seemed to be the Democrats in Congress giving him everything he wanted. And of course, what soured me on the Democrats in Congress was that they usually did.
I don't get that Obama is all about that. At least, the first eight hours of his presidency and the run-up to it haven't been like that. He has political capital to spend — probably more than Bush ever had. But so far, there's a nice sense of outreach, as far as he can go without compromising certain key campaign planks. His enemies are going to have a tough time demonizing this guy. I'm not saying they won't be able to do it…but it's going to take a lot of effort.
I'm going to watch Jon Stewart now and see what he has to say about it…
Moving on to more important matters than the total realignment of the United States of America…
Above, we see two great cartoon voice actors. Gary Owens was the voice of Space Ghost and Roger Ramjet. Janet Waldo was the voice of Judy Jetson and Penelope Pitstop.
I get a lot of e-mails here asking me how one can get a career doing voices for cartoons. I send those folks to pages I have here like this one but tomorrow, they have a chance to get even better advice. Tomorrow afternoon, Stu Shostak is devoting his Internet radio program, Stu's Show, to the topic. I will be a guest. My pal, writer-actor Earl Kress will be a guest. Gary Owens and Janet Waldo will be guests. And as a last minute bonus, actor-producer Frank Buxton will be a guest. Frank was the voice of Batfink, among many other roles.
Stu is devoting all his broadcasts this month to animation (next week is Jerry Beck) and they're really good shows. I expect tomorrow will be exceptional, not because of me but because he has three smart, successful performers there to talk candidly about their line of work. I get a lot of messages thanking me for turning people on to Stu's Show.
This is not, please note, a podcast. You can't download it and listen to it whenever you want. You have to "tune in" when it's on…which in this case is from 4 PM to 6 PM Pacific Time, 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern. Stu's Show is done live on Wednesday and that's the best time to listen because, among other reasons, you can call in and ask questions. You can hear the show on your own computer by going to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the appointed hour and clicking where you're told to click. (The show reruns on other days, usually in the same time slot. Check out the site for a full schedule…and while you're there, take note of some of the other fine, free programming.) End of plug.
Not bad for a guy who was unelectable. I have a feeling my friend Roger still thinks that. At least though Roger seems to be turning loose of the certainty that Obama is a socialist who "hangs around with terrorists" (plural, though Roger was unable to name more than one, and not even a recent one). John McCain sure doesn't seem to believe that claptrap that he and his supporters spread around during the election.
A couple of readers of this site argued my remark the other day that my country seemed happy. They aren't happy, I guess, and all insisted that those who voted for McCain aren't happy. I don't think that's true. Every poll suggests that a lot of McCain voters are rooting for Obama…and I suspect that a lot of them, getting a clean look at Obama in a non-election context, are finding more to like about him.
In 2000, there was a quick disappointment in Bush that I expect/trust will not be repeated here. Bush seemed to think that since he'd won, even by a technicality or a questionable Supreme Court vote, he was entitled to all the marbles. Remember that famous remark about spending political capital? It was like Pat Buchanan's memo to Nixon about how it was fine to break the country in two as long as you held onto the bigger piece. Obama seems more likely to include the minority party than to trample over them. At some point, it will probably all come to shove but for the time being, we may have the civil interaction of learned men and women leading us, as opposed to the appeasement of the Talk Radio mob.
Nothing to say that a billion other blogs aren't saying. I don't think this changes everything but it changes an awful lot that needs to be changed. I was going to write a long post but that would have meant acknowledging all the things that could go wrong. And I think I'd like to just enjoy the optimism for a while longer…
Lately, I've seen an awful lot of rude people at live shows…especially people who snap photos and video with their little digital cameras and cameraphones, despite announcements that this is prohibited. I suppose there's always been a certain amount of rudeness this way but in the high-tech era, everyone seems to have some sort of recording device on their person and I guess the temptation to use them is too great.
This is actually an audio link. It's a recording from one of the last performances that Patti LuPone gave as Momma Rose in Gypsy. Someone was snapping pics during the big show-stopping number, "Rose's Turn," so Patti stopped the show and scolded the photo-taker, refusing to continue until the person was ejected. Once that was done, she started the number again from the top…and I'll bet the audience loved it. I also bet none of those people are going to take pictures in a theater for a lonnnng time.
Of course, there's a certain irony here because whoever recorded this audio and posted it to YouTube was violating the same rule just as blatantly as the clown with the camera. I guess they wanted to spread the warning that you should stick to the less obvious methods of rule-breaking. (By the way: The rule against taking photos is not just a matter of the producers wanting to preserve intellectual property. Performers on stage can be momentarily blinded by a flash in the darkness and can stumble or fall. At the very least, they can be distracted and it can harm the show for everyone.)
The audio's a little weak in spots so you might want to crank up your speakers for this. It runs a little over three minutes and the outburst occurs about 45 seconds in…
Here's the answer to the question I asked the other day here…
U.S. Airways has sent $5,000 checks to each of the 150 passengers on Flight 1549 to compensate them for lost luggage and other belongings.
That was the flight that crash-landed in the Hudson River last week after losing power simultaneously in both engines shortly after takeoff. All 155 people aboard survived.
In a letter sent to passengers, an airline executive said she was "truly sorry." The letter also explained that passengers' belongings left in the plane could be stuck with investigators for months.
The airline also said it would reimburse passengers for their ticket costs.
That sounds very fair to me…and not that they did it for this reason, it's good public relations. I hope they aren't letting themselves in for every passenger on any flight whose luggage is lost demanding five grand.
This kind of thing always amuses me. Turner Classic Movies is running a Jack Lemmon film festival every Thursday lately. According to the TCM website, this Thursday they're offering the 1964 Good Neighbor Sam (starring Jack Lemmon) sandwiched between Under the Yum Yum Tree (starring Jack Lemmon) and How to Murder Your Wife (starring Jack Lemmon)…and I assume that's what's actually on. But the on-screen listing for TiVo says the film they're running in that slot is Good Neighbor (starring Billy Dee Williams and not Jack Lemmon). That's a 2001 movie in which Williams plays a cop tracking a serial killer. Not the same thing.
George W. Bush today commuted the sentences of two former Texas border guards who had been convicted of shooting a fleeing (but apparently unarmed) drug smuggler in the ass and then covering-up the shooting. If you try to read up on the history of this case, you can give yourself quite a headache, as the "facts" presented in the press seem at odds with the facts (no quotes) presented in the trial. The two border guards became hero-martyrs to the anti-immigration crowd, many of whom don't think officials should ever be faulted for violence against illegals, especially illegals who smuggle drugs. I don't really have an opinion on the case except to say that if you study the accounts of it, it's obvious a lot of folks on both sides are just making things up.
Of more interest to me is a line in the Associated Press report that says "Bush technically has until noon on Tuesday when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office to exercise his executive pardon authority, but presidential advisers said no more were forthcoming." I hope that's so. If it is, I apologize for my suspicion that Bush wouldn't vacate the premises without a raft of pardons designed to protect him and his crew from prosecution for things like war crimes, war profiteering, civil rights violations and so on. I thought he'd do what his father did, issuing pardons to kill any further exploration of Iran-Contra criminality within that administration.
So then the question is, assuming he's not doing that, is he not doing it because he's convinced no one did anything wrong? Or he's convinced they've destroyed enough evidence? Or does he have some assurance from Obama that this won't happen? It sure wouldn't sit well with some people if our new Attorney General could admit that waterboarding is torture, and then decide to look the other way over the fact that it was done and admitted. And there are other offenses besides that…
Here's a smidgen of Hollywood history — a news report on the ratification vote that ended the very long Writers Guild strike of '88. As I think I've written here before — I've written this in many places — I believe this strike was unavoidable and necessary even if the ultimate contract wasn't all that it should have been. In the 1985 negotiations, the WGA splintered and folded, taking maybe the worst rollbacks in the history of Hollywood labor. The 1988 strike therefore became inevitable as we had to break the pattern of getting slaughtered at the bargaining table and having to go on strike every three years just to keep our underwear.
I voted against the contract but I certainly understood why a majority voted yes. I suppose I knew and maybe hoped it would pass but thought it would be better for the WGA for it to pass by a narrow margin. Assuming the Screen Actors Guild takes something close to the weak offer currently on the table, as I assume they will, they will come to a similar imperative. Which is not to suggest a certainty that they'll be able to achieve the kind of solidarity necessary to rebound.
The meeting seen in this video clip was a surreal experience. It was held on a Sunday morning at the Hollywood Palladium. That Sunday was the last day of that year's Comic-Con in San Diego so I checked out of my hotel on Saturday before noon, spent the rest of that day at the con and the evening at dinner and parties…then left for Los Angeles, for reasons I still do not understand, at about three in the morning. I think I did a minimum of 80 mph all the way (with cars passing me, left and right) and made what is usually a three-hour drive in less than half that time. Got to bed by 5 AM, got up at 9…and on the way to the Palladium, I stopped in at a McDonald's for a Sausage Biscuit With Egg and ran into two writer friends who'd just driven back from San Diego for the vote. It was important enough to make that kind of effort.
This footage is interesting to me because of all the other friends I see in it. The first man you'll see at the podium is not identified but that's the late George Kirgo, who was then the president of the WGA. He intros Brian Walton, who was then our Executive Director and Head Negotiator. Walton did, I believe, a masterful job of holding the Guild together through trying times, pacifying the inevitable dissidents and, most importantly, driving some crafty wedges into the solidarity of the producers who opposed us.
I think (but am not 100% certain) that the bald gent you'll see saying, "Hello, Paul, how are you?" is the late Don Segall. It looks like him but doesn't sound like him. Don Segall was a lovely gent who went from writing comic books (he did the first story of The Creeper with Steve Ditko) to writing and producing TV shows. There's a shot of Harlan Ellison walking in for the strike vote, a quick interview with Francis Moss, a shot of Worley Thorne counting ballots and even a fast chat with Pat McCormick, who we've just been talking about on this page. I see other pals in the background…and once again, I've taken up more of your time to annotate the clip than it's going to take you to watch it…
Greg Ehrbar informs me that BBC Radio 2 is again streaming their recent musical salute to composer Charles Strouse. If you missed it, you have a few days (until Thursday, it seems) to hear it online. Here's the link.
Paul Krugman on what Obama must do once he takes office. I'd like to see the guy start by banning the importation and manufacture of cole slaw but some of the other things Krugman mentions might be nice, too.
Carolyn and I really enjoyed watching We Are One, the big concert which was broadcast live today from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. There's a point with me where too much singing and talking of patriotism gets to sounding rote and insincere. (I always liked Lewis Black's joke about how after a multi-hour Super Bowl pre-game show, he was actually sick of freedom.) But this was a pretty grand event, especially the performance by Garth Brooks…plus, it was great to see Pete Seeger up there, leading the crowd in "This Land is Your Land." It's starting to really feel like it is.
My McCain-voting friends will probably object to me writing the following…but I can't imagine this country having such a deep, moving sense of optimism if the gentleman from Arizona and the lady from Alaska were being sworn in tomorrow. For one thing, the day wouldn't be about change and taking the nation in a new direction. It would have been about trying to be George W. Bush but to be better at it. They wouldn't have had Springsteen and Beyoncé and James Taylor and all the others there today, either. It would have been Pat Boone singing about God first and country second, and interjecting prayers to repeal the estate tax.
By the way: Can anyone tell me why Tom Hanks always looks so pained every time we see him lately? He has honors and money and a spectacular wife, and they gave him the best speech of the afternoon to read. Why does he always look like he's on Celebrity Fear Factor and they're about to make him eat iguana testicles?
It's still a little stunning that we're about to inaugurate Barack "Unelectable" Obama. I keep hearing people ask each other, "Did you ever think you'd see this country make a black man president?" I always tell them, "Yes, but I thought I'd be using a walker and gumming my food before that happened." In a way, it's more amazing that the man is young and bright…and most amazingly, urban. No longer do you have to thicken your country accent and/or go out and chop brush to convince American voters you're one of them.
The best thing though is that he's bringing out the best in us. People may have voted for him because they hated Bush but polls are saying he has a 66%-80% incoming approval rating, which means he's won over a lot of McCain voters. I can't recall an incoming president with such a wave of optimism around him. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
The We Are One concert repeats here and there tomorrow on HBO, and there are a zillion video clips online. In fact, you can watch the whole thing on this page. I'm going to keep it on my TiVo for a while and watch it again.
