Editor's note: I wrote this song two weeks ago in my hotel room in the Greater Detroit area. I've written my fair share of songs in hotel rooms. Sometimes I come up with a great one and sometimes I don't. I'll let you decide whether or not this song is up to snuff. Enjoy.
"Not For Real"
I. First verse
All you see
All you hear
All you have is so cheating
All you own
All you earn
All you make is so fleeting
A castle of sand
A cup of ashes
A one night stand
A thousand lashes
Chorus:
Not for real
Not for real
Not for real
Ghosts of fevered imaginations
Not for real
Phantoms of severed relations
Not for real
Shades of flaccid machinations
Not for real
...this time
II. Second verse
All you build
All you grow
All you sow is so craven
All you take
All you steal
All you blow is so graven
A castle of sand
A chalice of ashes
A one night stand
A thousand lashes
Chorus:
Not for real
Not for real
Not for real
Ghosts of fevered imaginations
Not for real
Phantoms of severed relations
Not for real
Shades of flaccid machinations
Not for real
...this time
Bridge:
No beach to walk on
No eyes filled with love
No sense for sensation
How does it feel to survive the storm?
Chorus:
Not for real
Not for real
Not for real
Ghosts of fevered imaginations
Not for real
Phantoms of severed relations
Not for real
Shades of flaccid machinations
Not for real
...this time
(c) 07/30/2007 by Matthew DiBiase
Monday, July 30, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Travels with Matt: Take One, Studio A
Some of my favorite moments in my travels have been when I was allowed to participate in some act that helped convey the sense of the historical place I was visiting. One beautiful example was when I visited Colonial Williamsburg in 1995. Another happened yesterday when I visited the site of the original Motown Record recording studio on 2648 West Grand Boulevard in downtown Detroit.
I had just finished a morning visit at the Edsel and Clara Ford mansion located at Grosse Point Shores (Michigan’s equivalent of the Hamptons for New Yorkers). Now I was venturing into downtown Detroit, into a world diametrically opposite of that Grosse Pointe.
The Motown Museum (it has been converted into such) is situated next to a funeral parlor. The house itself is quite small and yet from that small house containing one recording studio, Berry Gordy, Jr. and the rest of the Gordy family altered not only the face of music but also the entire world as well. How much of the world’s culture since 1958 has been influenced or changed by Motown music? The Motown sound is a cultural icon on par with Elvis, the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones; the Motown forming at least a healthy portion of the carapace of world music.
I was part of a tour group as we were ushered into the various rooms containing artifacts from the various artists who were discovered by Motown: Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, etc. Our tour guide gave us a lovely demonstration. She told us that Berry Gordy used a hole in the ceiling that exposed the attic as an echo chamber. The tour guide stood underneath the hole and clapped her hands loudly and what we heard was the same echoing handclaps that start the Supreme’s classic Baby Love.
But the best was saved for last. The final stop was inside Studio A proper. For me this was a first for me. I have never set foot inside an actual recording studio. I came close twice. Once in New Orleans in 1993 when I visited the late Allen Toussaint’s Sea Saint Studios and the other time was a few years ago when I visited RCA Studios where Elvis and many other Country and Western legends recorded their music. I saw the outside of the studio but never got to go into the studio. Now, at Motown, I (along with the others in the tour group) was going to do just that.
For starters, the studio was very small and cramped. The mikes hung from the ceiling and when you added the studio musicians along with the recording artists proper it makes for a very tight squeeze. (The tour guide also mentioned that there was no air conditioning when they were recording there from 1958 to 1972 so add intense heat and cigarette smoke to the atmospherics of the place and what you got—as the tour guide put it—was what the Motown artists called the “Snake Pit”).
We stood inside the studio and what followed took us all by surprise. The tour guide asked all the men to stand on one side of the studio and the women on the other side. There were six or seven guys in the group—counting myself. The tour guide then asked us to watch her every move. The tour guide proceeded to teach us the famous dance steps used by the Temptations and asked us to sing the chorus to their classic hit My Girl. And so picture yours truly who cannot dance a bloody dance step at all, moving his hips and hands and singing that famed chorus, “My Girl, My Girl, My Girl, talking about My Girl. My Girl!”
Luckily I survived and drew a round of hysterical laughter from the ladies in the group but then the joke was on them. Now the tour guide asked all the women to switch sides with the men and they were then taught the famous dance steps of the Supremes and had them do Stop! In the name of Love.
And the ladies did it. Quite lovely, I must say.
And with that the tour guide proudly told us that now each of us could truthfully proclaim that we had performed live in Motown Studios!
And with that the tour was over.
I will treasure (and savor) that moment for the rest of my life. I still have one question though. I wonder if they let you do that the famed Abbey Road studios in London, England?????
Forlorn Hope!
It’s nice to see a fantasy come true.
If you ever visit Detroit, please visit the Motown Museum. It’s a true American Experience.
I had just finished a morning visit at the Edsel and Clara Ford mansion located at Grosse Point Shores (Michigan’s equivalent of the Hamptons for New Yorkers). Now I was venturing into downtown Detroit, into a world diametrically opposite of that Grosse Pointe.
The Motown Museum (it has been converted into such) is situated next to a funeral parlor. The house itself is quite small and yet from that small house containing one recording studio, Berry Gordy, Jr. and the rest of the Gordy family altered not only the face of music but also the entire world as well. How much of the world’s culture since 1958 has been influenced or changed by Motown music? The Motown sound is a cultural icon on par with Elvis, the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones; the Motown forming at least a healthy portion of the carapace of world music.
I was part of a tour group as we were ushered into the various rooms containing artifacts from the various artists who were discovered by Motown: Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, etc. Our tour guide gave us a lovely demonstration. She told us that Berry Gordy used a hole in the ceiling that exposed the attic as an echo chamber. The tour guide stood underneath the hole and clapped her hands loudly and what we heard was the same echoing handclaps that start the Supreme’s classic Baby Love.
But the best was saved for last. The final stop was inside Studio A proper. For me this was a first for me. I have never set foot inside an actual recording studio. I came close twice. Once in New Orleans in 1993 when I visited the late Allen Toussaint’s Sea Saint Studios and the other time was a few years ago when I visited RCA Studios where Elvis and many other Country and Western legends recorded their music. I saw the outside of the studio but never got to go into the studio. Now, at Motown, I (along with the others in the tour group) was going to do just that.
For starters, the studio was very small and cramped. The mikes hung from the ceiling and when you added the studio musicians along with the recording artists proper it makes for a very tight squeeze. (The tour guide also mentioned that there was no air conditioning when they were recording there from 1958 to 1972 so add intense heat and cigarette smoke to the atmospherics of the place and what you got—as the tour guide put it—was what the Motown artists called the “Snake Pit”).
We stood inside the studio and what followed took us all by surprise. The tour guide asked all the men to stand on one side of the studio and the women on the other side. There were six or seven guys in the group—counting myself. The tour guide then asked us to watch her every move. The tour guide proceeded to teach us the famous dance steps used by the Temptations and asked us to sing the chorus to their classic hit My Girl. And so picture yours truly who cannot dance a bloody dance step at all, moving his hips and hands and singing that famed chorus, “My Girl, My Girl, My Girl, talking about My Girl. My Girl!”
Luckily I survived and drew a round of hysterical laughter from the ladies in the group but then the joke was on them. Now the tour guide asked all the women to switch sides with the men and they were then taught the famous dance steps of the Supremes and had them do Stop! In the name of Love.
And the ladies did it. Quite lovely, I must say.
And with that the tour guide proudly told us that now each of us could truthfully proclaim that we had performed live in Motown Studios!
And with that the tour was over.
I will treasure (and savor) that moment for the rest of my life. I still have one question though. I wonder if they let you do that the famed Abbey Road studios in London, England?????
Forlorn Hope!
It’s nice to see a fantasy come true.
If you ever visit Detroit, please visit the Motown Museum. It’s a true American Experience.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Libby Commutation: Presidential Lese Majeste
President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence was not so much an act of beneficence to a loyal member of his Administration than it was a rare opportunity for an increasingly beleaguered President to strike back against his political and personal enemies. The commutation must be seen in that context; with the War in Iraq increasingly becoming America’s greatest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam; with the defection of a handful of Republican Senators (with more to follow) who now denounce the President’s policies on Iraq; with the potential legal challenges in the Federal Courts towards the Bush’s Administration’s domestic spying policies and the holding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay the commutation (and future pardoning) of Libby was the only way for President Bush to strike back without having to be held accountable for his actions.
The Constitutionally mandated presidential power to grant pardons and reprieves is one of the few aspects of absolute monarchy present in American jurisprudence. Bush’s commutation of Libby is the third notable Presidential commutation in American history. (The others were Richard Nixon’s commutation of Lieutenant Calley’s prison sentence for committing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1971 and President Harry Truman’s commutation of the death sentences to life imprisonment for two Puerto Rican nationalists who tried to assassinate him in 1950). The President’s power to grant pardons or reprieves is limitless. (The late President Ford provided an excellent explication on this issue in his memoirs A Time to Heal when he was explaining his motives for pardoning Richard Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal).
Despite the President’s actions those who argue for limitations on the Presidential power to grant pardons or reprieves err. The problem lies not with the power to pardon but with the individual misusing that power—which, of course, was what happened here. Such misuse is not new but has emerged only recently in American history. Actually President George W. Bush had ample precedent to draw from when he commuted Libby’s sentence. His father George H.W. Bush (in 1993, during the waning days of his Presidency) pardoned all Reagan-Bush Administration officials who had been convicted for crimes committed during the Iran Contra scandal. Bill Clinton pardoned a convicted fugitive millionaire who contributed money to his political campaigns in the waning hours of his Presidency. No, what President George W. Bush did was not the last time we will see this pathetic display of Presidential lese majeste.
No other Presidential action demonstrates Bush’s contempt for the Constitution he swore twice to uphold than this. Indeed the commutation of Libby was the penultimate blow the Bush Administration has thrown against Valerie Plame (the coup de grace will come when President pardons Libby after the 2008 Presidential Election) and it came from the person who orchestrated the illegal outing of her status as an active CIA operative—George W. Bush.
The Constitutionally mandated presidential power to grant pardons and reprieves is one of the few aspects of absolute monarchy present in American jurisprudence. Bush’s commutation of Libby is the third notable Presidential commutation in American history. (The others were Richard Nixon’s commutation of Lieutenant Calley’s prison sentence for committing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1971 and President Harry Truman’s commutation of the death sentences to life imprisonment for two Puerto Rican nationalists who tried to assassinate him in 1950). The President’s power to grant pardons or reprieves is limitless. (The late President Ford provided an excellent explication on this issue in his memoirs A Time to Heal when he was explaining his motives for pardoning Richard Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal).
Despite the President’s actions those who argue for limitations on the Presidential power to grant pardons or reprieves err. The problem lies not with the power to pardon but with the individual misusing that power—which, of course, was what happened here. Such misuse is not new but has emerged only recently in American history. Actually President George W. Bush had ample precedent to draw from when he commuted Libby’s sentence. His father George H.W. Bush (in 1993, during the waning days of his Presidency) pardoned all Reagan-Bush Administration officials who had been convicted for crimes committed during the Iran Contra scandal. Bill Clinton pardoned a convicted fugitive millionaire who contributed money to his political campaigns in the waning hours of his Presidency. No, what President George W. Bush did was not the last time we will see this pathetic display of Presidential lese majeste.
No other Presidential action demonstrates Bush’s contempt for the Constitution he swore twice to uphold than this. Indeed the commutation of Libby was the penultimate blow the Bush Administration has thrown against Valerie Plame (the coup de grace will come when President pardons Libby after the 2008 Presidential Election) and it came from the person who orchestrated the illegal outing of her status as an active CIA operative—George W. Bush.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Remembering the Monterey Pop Festival
“Your mother is high and she doesn’t even know it!”
--David Crosby, Monterey Pop Festival
“I’m going to sacrifice something I really love…for all you beautiful people”
--Jimi Hendrix, Monterey Pop Festival
“This is where it all ends.”
--Pete Townshend, Monterey Pop Festival
Forty years ago the Monterey Pop Festival took place outside San Francisco. It was a three day music festival featuring an unprecedented eclectic congregation of musical performers representing much of the musical spectrum at the time. Never before had any promoter put together such a widely diverse collection of musicians playing such deeply contrasting styles of music. The Monterey Pop festival combined acts like Lou Rawls with the Jimi Hendrix Experience; Laura Nyro with Janis Joplin; Simon and Garfunkel with Country Joe and the Fish; the Who with Ravi Shankar. The list goes on and on.
When it comes to commemorating the great rock festivals of the past, Monterey tends to be ignored in favor of Woodstock, Altamont, Live Aid, or, just recently, Live8, but without Monterey the latter named festivals would not have been possible. Monterey set the precedent for all the festivals that followed in its wake. Indeed, Monterey was, in many ways, a superior production to Woodstock or Altamont. Unlike Woodstock, Monterey was not declared a disaster area. Unlike Woodstock, the organizers of the festival did not lose control of the 50,000 people who attended the three-day festival. (One of the reasons why Woodstock became a free concert was because the organizers did not provide proper crowd control and tens of thousands of gate-crashers overwhelmed the area thus forcing the organizers to declare the show a free show—lest they risk a major riot).
Monterey was different. The audiences were well behaved (if you turned a blind eye towards the drugs that circulated freely around—LSD, STP, and Mexican marijuana were the drugs of choice at the festival for performers and fans alike).
And there was, of course, the music itself. Monterey was the breakout show for Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who. It was also one of the few times that the Mamas and the Papas (the late John Phillips was one of the key organizers of the festival) performed live in public. Decades later Michelle Phillips later told an interviewer that during their glory years they only performed roughly forty-some shows in a three year period; adding that if you saw the Mamas and the Papas live in concert then you were in for a rare treat. Indeed the Mamas and the Papas were the very last show of the festival. Monterey also marked the end of an era for certain bands. David Crosby performed his last gig with the Byrds at Monterey (indeed when you listen to the Byrds set on the CD box set of the Monterey Festival you can sense the tension in the band because Crosby is the only person doing any talking on the stage and you can sense his disenchantment in having to maintain the Byrds folk-rock image. Furthermore you also can catch a bizarre glimpse of what David Crosby was like when he was stoned out of his mind—which he was all throughout the festival. After each song, Crosby would regale the audience with some stoned dementia. As he later writes in his memoir Long Time Gone, “I did it all stoned.”
Neil Young, a member of Buffalo Springfield, would refuse to perform onstage at Monterey because he wanted to leave the band. Interestingly, David Crosby filled in for Neil Young, performing alongside Stephen Stills in a wicked prelude to the eventual formation of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Even more interesting is the presence of musicians performing what we now call world music. Hugh Masekela from South Africa and Ravi Shankar of India both performed sterling sets—especially the latter. Shankar was given the whole afternoon of the first day of the Festival to perform his music—which he did with wonderful verve and spirituality—his set is the last performance featured in D.A. Pennebaker’s magnificent documentary film of the Monterey Pop Festival.
And then there are the iconic moments, permanently etched in the consciousness of our kaleidoscopic memories of the Summer of Love: the Who annihilating the laid-back California crowd with My Generation while smashing their instruments with desperate abandon. (Pete Townshend smashed his guitar so violently he wrenched his back in the process); and the most famous snapshot memory of them all: Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire after he had humped his amplifiers during a raucous version of Wild Thing. How many different versions and from how many different camera angles have we seen that moment of Jimi ushering forth a strange fire from his guitar as the instrument issues anguished fuzz tones while it burns helplessly and then Hendrix smashing it to bits while the young ladies of the audience gasp and gape in horror at the spectacle?
At that moment Jimi Hendrix was launched as a superstar in America….
And three years later he would be dead, along with Janis Joplin, and the late Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones who crossed eight time zones by plane solely to introduce Jimi Hendrix to America. If you look at the Pennebaker film of Monterey, you will see a roll call of the dead: Jimi, Janis, Keith Moon, John Phillips, Michael Bloomfield of the Electric Flag, Bob Hite of Canned Heat, Brian Jones, Mama Cass Elliott, Nico of the Velvet Underground (Brian Jones’ date at the Festival), Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and the list goes on….
If I had a time machine, I would have loved to have been there because when you look at the film of the event you see a lot of people having a very wonderful time. After all it was the Summer of Love but all too soon it was going to get ugly and death would claim a lot of beautiful people.
Rest in Peace.
--David Crosby, Monterey Pop Festival
“I’m going to sacrifice something I really love…for all you beautiful people”
--Jimi Hendrix, Monterey Pop Festival
“This is where it all ends.”
--Pete Townshend, Monterey Pop Festival
Forty years ago the Monterey Pop Festival took place outside San Francisco. It was a three day music festival featuring an unprecedented eclectic congregation of musical performers representing much of the musical spectrum at the time. Never before had any promoter put together such a widely diverse collection of musicians playing such deeply contrasting styles of music. The Monterey Pop festival combined acts like Lou Rawls with the Jimi Hendrix Experience; Laura Nyro with Janis Joplin; Simon and Garfunkel with Country Joe and the Fish; the Who with Ravi Shankar. The list goes on and on.
When it comes to commemorating the great rock festivals of the past, Monterey tends to be ignored in favor of Woodstock, Altamont, Live Aid, or, just recently, Live8, but without Monterey the latter named festivals would not have been possible. Monterey set the precedent for all the festivals that followed in its wake. Indeed, Monterey was, in many ways, a superior production to Woodstock or Altamont. Unlike Woodstock, Monterey was not declared a disaster area. Unlike Woodstock, the organizers of the festival did not lose control of the 50,000 people who attended the three-day festival. (One of the reasons why Woodstock became a free concert was because the organizers did not provide proper crowd control and tens of thousands of gate-crashers overwhelmed the area thus forcing the organizers to declare the show a free show—lest they risk a major riot).
Monterey was different. The audiences were well behaved (if you turned a blind eye towards the drugs that circulated freely around—LSD, STP, and Mexican marijuana were the drugs of choice at the festival for performers and fans alike).
And there was, of course, the music itself. Monterey was the breakout show for Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who. It was also one of the few times that the Mamas and the Papas (the late John Phillips was one of the key organizers of the festival) performed live in public. Decades later Michelle Phillips later told an interviewer that during their glory years they only performed roughly forty-some shows in a three year period; adding that if you saw the Mamas and the Papas live in concert then you were in for a rare treat. Indeed the Mamas and the Papas were the very last show of the festival. Monterey also marked the end of an era for certain bands. David Crosby performed his last gig with the Byrds at Monterey (indeed when you listen to the Byrds set on the CD box set of the Monterey Festival you can sense the tension in the band because Crosby is the only person doing any talking on the stage and you can sense his disenchantment in having to maintain the Byrds folk-rock image. Furthermore you also can catch a bizarre glimpse of what David Crosby was like when he was stoned out of his mind—which he was all throughout the festival. After each song, Crosby would regale the audience with some stoned dementia. As he later writes in his memoir Long Time Gone, “I did it all stoned.”
Neil Young, a member of Buffalo Springfield, would refuse to perform onstage at Monterey because he wanted to leave the band. Interestingly, David Crosby filled in for Neil Young, performing alongside Stephen Stills in a wicked prelude to the eventual formation of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
Even more interesting is the presence of musicians performing what we now call world music. Hugh Masekela from South Africa and Ravi Shankar of India both performed sterling sets—especially the latter. Shankar was given the whole afternoon of the first day of the Festival to perform his music—which he did with wonderful verve and spirituality—his set is the last performance featured in D.A. Pennebaker’s magnificent documentary film of the Monterey Pop Festival.
And then there are the iconic moments, permanently etched in the consciousness of our kaleidoscopic memories of the Summer of Love: the Who annihilating the laid-back California crowd with My Generation while smashing their instruments with desperate abandon. (Pete Townshend smashed his guitar so violently he wrenched his back in the process); and the most famous snapshot memory of them all: Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire after he had humped his amplifiers during a raucous version of Wild Thing. How many different versions and from how many different camera angles have we seen that moment of Jimi ushering forth a strange fire from his guitar as the instrument issues anguished fuzz tones while it burns helplessly and then Hendrix smashing it to bits while the young ladies of the audience gasp and gape in horror at the spectacle?
At that moment Jimi Hendrix was launched as a superstar in America….
And three years later he would be dead, along with Janis Joplin, and the late Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones who crossed eight time zones by plane solely to introduce Jimi Hendrix to America. If you look at the Pennebaker film of Monterey, you will see a roll call of the dead: Jimi, Janis, Keith Moon, John Phillips, Michael Bloomfield of the Electric Flag, Bob Hite of Canned Heat, Brian Jones, Mama Cass Elliott, Nico of the Velvet Underground (Brian Jones’ date at the Festival), Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and the list goes on….
If I had a time machine, I would have loved to have been there because when you look at the film of the event you see a lot of people having a very wonderful time. After all it was the Summer of Love but all too soon it was going to get ugly and death would claim a lot of beautiful people.
Rest in Peace.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
And I'm never going back to my old school
We like to look at our K-12 years with nostalgia but how do those who suffered through their K-12 years cope with their memories? Twenty five years ago this week I graduated from Delran High School. I remember suffocating inside an un-air-conditioned gymnasium while a vicious thunderstorm rumbled outside. I remember the anger, emptiness, and sadness I felt while listening to the insincere blessings for the future being offered by my peers and school faculty members.
Looking back at my years in the Delran school system, I’ve come to the conclusion that it resembled an abattoir where the students were treated like beef cattle; herded indiscriminately from room to room; zapped in the head periodically until we were dismembered into digestible pieces to be processed, sold, and consumed by the giant machine called Society. During those years I saw Social Darwinism at its worst: a philosophy of poison the weak and pity the strong; of bullying run rampant while most teachers deliberately turned a blind eye towards it and, a few evil ones, who would deliberately set up situations where weak students were terrorized.
There were only a handful of excellent teachers during my school years: Mrs. Scanlon, my third grade teacher; in middle school: Mr. Dodd, who taught science, and Mr. MacKiernan, who taught math; in high school: Mr. Reiss who taught cosmology, Miss May who taught Spanish, and Miss Weiss who taught me how to type. They were very, very good and to them I offer a heartfelt ‘thank you’.
Most of the teachers I had were either: harmless, anonymous, or (on certain occasions) clueless.
And then were the amoral charlatans masquerading as educators. I remember them especially because they did a lot of damage not only to me but to a lot of other innocent students as well.
I remember a fourth grade teacher who brutally spanked a male student in front of the entire class on the last day of school all the while proudly proclaiming, “I’ve wanted to do this to you for a long time!” (After the spanking, the kid fled in terror). I remember a middle school teacher who thought it funny to open the door to the bathroom in the back of the classroom while a student was relieving himself. (I wonder if the student in question thought it was funny).
I remember another middle school teacher who spent more time verbally browbeating his students instead of teaching English. One time he gave a seventh-grade female student such a vicious, savage tongue-lashing that she was shaking and sobbing hysterically. What was her heinous crime? She was chewing gum in class.
I remember a high school math teacher who had a student’s personal diary stolen just for the fun of it. I remember when he “returned” the diary to the student in question he had this enormous grin on his face because he had obviously read what was written inside the diary. And then there was the gym teacher (and coach of one of the athletic teams) who ordered a larger student to physically abuse a small, weaker student in front of a class because the smaller kid had quit one of the athletic teams. This same teacher also liked to wrestle his female students in front of the class too.
That is why I felt so angry, empty, and sad when it came time for me to graduate. I wonder if others have felt the same anger, the same despair, and the same emptiness when they were cast into the outside world under similar circumstances? How did they cope with the horrors of their scholastic experience? Did it make them stronger or wiser? Or did it leave them to wander forlornly as survivors, as swimmers searching for a lifeline in an ocean of despair?
Sometimes schools can destroy as well as build.
Looking back at my years in the Delran school system, I’ve come to the conclusion that it resembled an abattoir where the students were treated like beef cattle; herded indiscriminately from room to room; zapped in the head periodically until we were dismembered into digestible pieces to be processed, sold, and consumed by the giant machine called Society. During those years I saw Social Darwinism at its worst: a philosophy of poison the weak and pity the strong; of bullying run rampant while most teachers deliberately turned a blind eye towards it and, a few evil ones, who would deliberately set up situations where weak students were terrorized.
There were only a handful of excellent teachers during my school years: Mrs. Scanlon, my third grade teacher; in middle school: Mr. Dodd, who taught science, and Mr. MacKiernan, who taught math; in high school: Mr. Reiss who taught cosmology, Miss May who taught Spanish, and Miss Weiss who taught me how to type. They were very, very good and to them I offer a heartfelt ‘thank you’.
Most of the teachers I had were either: harmless, anonymous, or (on certain occasions) clueless.
And then were the amoral charlatans masquerading as educators. I remember them especially because they did a lot of damage not only to me but to a lot of other innocent students as well.
I remember a fourth grade teacher who brutally spanked a male student in front of the entire class on the last day of school all the while proudly proclaiming, “I’ve wanted to do this to you for a long time!” (After the spanking, the kid fled in terror). I remember a middle school teacher who thought it funny to open the door to the bathroom in the back of the classroom while a student was relieving himself. (I wonder if the student in question thought it was funny).
I remember another middle school teacher who spent more time verbally browbeating his students instead of teaching English. One time he gave a seventh-grade female student such a vicious, savage tongue-lashing that she was shaking and sobbing hysterically. What was her heinous crime? She was chewing gum in class.
I remember a high school math teacher who had a student’s personal diary stolen just for the fun of it. I remember when he “returned” the diary to the student in question he had this enormous grin on his face because he had obviously read what was written inside the diary. And then there was the gym teacher (and coach of one of the athletic teams) who ordered a larger student to physically abuse a small, weaker student in front of a class because the smaller kid had quit one of the athletic teams. This same teacher also liked to wrestle his female students in front of the class too.
That is why I felt so angry, empty, and sad when it came time for me to graduate. I wonder if others have felt the same anger, the same despair, and the same emptiness when they were cast into the outside world under similar circumstances? How did they cope with the horrors of their scholastic experience? Did it make them stronger or wiser? Or did it leave them to wander forlornly as survivors, as swimmers searching for a lifeline in an ocean of despair?
Sometimes schools can destroy as well as build.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Sgt. Pepper: Forty Years On
June 1 will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. If ever there was a landmark moment in the history of rock music or should I say the history of music as a whole, the release of Sgt. Pepper definitely fits the bill. No album before had contained such radical sounds, exotic arrangements in instrumentation, ground-breaking lyricism, alternative forms of musical production, and new revolutionary concepts in album cover design. Sgt. Pepper did all that and more.
When the album debuted on radio stations throughout the world on June 1 it became a signature moment in the 1960s. I have read several literary and periodical accounts about where people were and what were they were doing when they first heard Sgt. Pepper being played. Although some critics today feel that Sgt. Pepper has become dated and that the Beatles Abbey Road album surpasses Sgt. Pepper I beg to differ. The musical content of Sgt. Pepper has not lost its vitality despite the critics need for revisionism. Even if the album reflected the Beatles interpretation of the psychedelic movement in music it still, unlike other classic psychedelic albums, endures mightily as a paradigm of that hallucinogenic era.
The album was a result of seven hundred hours of recording sessions spanning from late November 1966 to early April 1967. The Beatles, freed from the vicissitudes of live performing; secure in their status as the greatest rock and roll band in the world; and able to demand total control of their musical work and unlimited time in the recording studio, harnessed their collective musical energies and produced this magnum opus. What other rock band at the time would have the courage to hire a 41-piece orchestra to perform in full costume dress without a score, merely asking them to go from their lowest to their highest notes on their respective instruments in only 24 bars as the Beatles did in the song A Day in the Life? What other rock band could write a song based solely on the written content of a 19th-century poster as the Beatles did in Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite? What other rock band could keep studio personnel waiting for interminable hours as they argued and scratched their heads about what exotic instruments to use in each song they recorded for Sgt. Pepper?
Before Sgt. Pepper recording sessions were done discreetly and seldom attracted notice (after all the audience didn’t want to know about the labor pains, all it wanted to see was the baby). The Beatles changed that. Sgt. Pepper was the first rock and roll album where the recording session was the event, drawing celebrity audiences and involving various and sundry personalities to add color, humor, and inspiration to the proceedings. Now such events are commonplace but the Beatles set the precedent. Not only that recording artists were never allowed to record at their leisure. The Beatles altered the equation. They could record whenever they so desired and it was up to the recording company to accommodate their schedule.
Before Sgt. Pepper albums were compendiums of twelve to fourteen songs hastily thrown together and put forth as mere product. The Beatles changed that. Now albums could be coherent, singular statements issued as manifestos to a public dying for The Word.
Before Sgt. Pepper album covers were mundane forms of packaging. The Beatles changed that. Even to this day the Sgt. Pepper album cover remains the most daring and memorable of its kind in musical history, spawning several imitations, parodies, and the like in the forty years since its release. (EMI, the Beatles recording company, was afraid of lawsuits because of the album cover content and briefly considered releasing the album in brown paper bags as if it were pornography).
All four Beatles shined brightly in Sgt. Pepper. John Lennon’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a masterpiece which combines a lush sound with shimmering lyrics and an astonishing economy of instrumentation. Paul McCartney’s bass guitar playing in Lucy, It’s Getting Better, Fixing a Hole, and Lovely Rita is audaciously magnificent and represents some of the greatest bass lines in rock and roll history. George Harrison’s lead guitar solos in Fixing a Hole and Good Morning, Good Morning are tight and expressive and his sole composition, the raga-like Within You, Without You, is one of his finest lyrical efforts. Ringo Starr’s lead vocal in With a Little Help from my Friends is the finest one in all his Beatles work. His drumming in A Day in the Life provides a dark punctuation to John and Paul’s lyrics and his subtle, delicately innovative use of hi-hat kicks in Fixing a Hole reveals Ringo at his very best.
Today, with the advent of compact discs and downloading of music on the internet, albums no longer possess their singular appeal and have lost all meaning as coherent artistic statements. The musical world will never experience a moment like it did when Sgt. Pepper graced the airwaves and filled musical stores worldwide. No other album has sparked such a revolution in how music is recorded, produced, and presented to the public. So let us remember a time when the world was still young (relatively speaking) and there was still hope for the future and there was even a hope that the world could be changed for the better where everyone could live as one under tangerine trees and marmalade skies while riding inside newspaper taxis appearing on the shore waiting to take us away, all the while looking for the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Like John Lennon wrote forty years ago, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
When the album debuted on radio stations throughout the world on June 1 it became a signature moment in the 1960s. I have read several literary and periodical accounts about where people were and what were they were doing when they first heard Sgt. Pepper being played. Although some critics today feel that Sgt. Pepper has become dated and that the Beatles Abbey Road album surpasses Sgt. Pepper I beg to differ. The musical content of Sgt. Pepper has not lost its vitality despite the critics need for revisionism. Even if the album reflected the Beatles interpretation of the psychedelic movement in music it still, unlike other classic psychedelic albums, endures mightily as a paradigm of that hallucinogenic era.
The album was a result of seven hundred hours of recording sessions spanning from late November 1966 to early April 1967. The Beatles, freed from the vicissitudes of live performing; secure in their status as the greatest rock and roll band in the world; and able to demand total control of their musical work and unlimited time in the recording studio, harnessed their collective musical energies and produced this magnum opus. What other rock band at the time would have the courage to hire a 41-piece orchestra to perform in full costume dress without a score, merely asking them to go from their lowest to their highest notes on their respective instruments in only 24 bars as the Beatles did in the song A Day in the Life? What other rock band could write a song based solely on the written content of a 19th-century poster as the Beatles did in Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite? What other rock band could keep studio personnel waiting for interminable hours as they argued and scratched their heads about what exotic instruments to use in each song they recorded for Sgt. Pepper?
Before Sgt. Pepper recording sessions were done discreetly and seldom attracted notice (after all the audience didn’t want to know about the labor pains, all it wanted to see was the baby). The Beatles changed that. Sgt. Pepper was the first rock and roll album where the recording session was the event, drawing celebrity audiences and involving various and sundry personalities to add color, humor, and inspiration to the proceedings. Now such events are commonplace but the Beatles set the precedent. Not only that recording artists were never allowed to record at their leisure. The Beatles altered the equation. They could record whenever they so desired and it was up to the recording company to accommodate their schedule.
Before Sgt. Pepper albums were compendiums of twelve to fourteen songs hastily thrown together and put forth as mere product. The Beatles changed that. Now albums could be coherent, singular statements issued as manifestos to a public dying for The Word.
Before Sgt. Pepper album covers were mundane forms of packaging. The Beatles changed that. Even to this day the Sgt. Pepper album cover remains the most daring and memorable of its kind in musical history, spawning several imitations, parodies, and the like in the forty years since its release. (EMI, the Beatles recording company, was afraid of lawsuits because of the album cover content and briefly considered releasing the album in brown paper bags as if it were pornography).
All four Beatles shined brightly in Sgt. Pepper. John Lennon’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a masterpiece which combines a lush sound with shimmering lyrics and an astonishing economy of instrumentation. Paul McCartney’s bass guitar playing in Lucy, It’s Getting Better, Fixing a Hole, and Lovely Rita is audaciously magnificent and represents some of the greatest bass lines in rock and roll history. George Harrison’s lead guitar solos in Fixing a Hole and Good Morning, Good Morning are tight and expressive and his sole composition, the raga-like Within You, Without You, is one of his finest lyrical efforts. Ringo Starr’s lead vocal in With a Little Help from my Friends is the finest one in all his Beatles work. His drumming in A Day in the Life provides a dark punctuation to John and Paul’s lyrics and his subtle, delicately innovative use of hi-hat kicks in Fixing a Hole reveals Ringo at his very best.
Today, with the advent of compact discs and downloading of music on the internet, albums no longer possess their singular appeal and have lost all meaning as coherent artistic statements. The musical world will never experience a moment like it did when Sgt. Pepper graced the airwaves and filled musical stores worldwide. No other album has sparked such a revolution in how music is recorded, produced, and presented to the public. So let us remember a time when the world was still young (relatively speaking) and there was still hope for the future and there was even a hope that the world could be changed for the better where everyone could live as one under tangerine trees and marmalade skies while riding inside newspaper taxis appearing on the shore waiting to take us away, all the while looking for the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Like John Lennon wrote forty years ago, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Football Talk
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
--Satchel Paige
The “controversy” over the Philadelphia Eagles drafting of quarterback prospect Kevin Kolb and what the move augurs for the future of Eagles starting QB Donovan McNabb is more media-hype than actual fodder for Eagle fans. If Donovan McNabb actually allows the drafting of Kolb to upset him and knock him off his game then it doesn’t speak well of McNabb’s ability to handle pressure situations. As it is, McNabb has been more concerned about completing his rehab from his injuries that prematurely ended his season and prepping himself for training camp in July—a totally proper course for him to take.
Why did Andy Reid draft Kolb? Amidst all the screaming (mostly from the media) there is the realization that twice now Donovan McNabb has been unable to complete a regular season with the Eagles due to serious, major injury. The fact that McNabb is potentially brittle should be a cause for concern amongst the Eagles brain trust. When draft day came and Kevin Kolb was still available on the draft board, the Eagles did the logical thing and drafted him. People forget that NFL football is a charnel house where careers can abruptly end on any given Sunday. During the 1980s the average NFL player’s career was only 3.2 seasons (I’m not sure what the average is now).
We’d like to be sentimental and allow established NFL heroes to feel safe at their positions but if you speak to any established NFL star they will tell you there is no such thing as safe in the NFL. I remember last season seeing a commercial featuring recently retired New York Giants running back Tiki Barber discussing how he became an All-Pro starter. He said, quite matter-of-factly, that he became a starter when someone got hurt and he filled in and showed such great ability that he took the injured man’s job away from him.
NFL history is replete with instances of so-called established players losing their starting positions to bright young back-ups who had the patience and luck to show that they could outperform the starter. In the 1960s Quarterback Craig Morton spent five years as Don Meredith’s back-up for the Dallas Cowboys until Meredith retired in 1969. Morton got the starting job only to find his back-up, Roger Staubach, breathing down his neck and, in 1971, becoming the starting quarterback for the Cowboys and leading them to two Super Bowl titles. During the late 1960s the Oakland Raiders had Daryle Lamonica and George Blanda at quarterback but that didn’t stop the team from drafting a very brash and wild quarterback from Alabama named Kenny Stabler. Stabler waited in obscurity for several seasons until 1973 when Coach John Madden, in an attempt at revitalizing an inconsistent Raider offense, allowed Stabler to start a game to see what Stabler was made of. (John Madden tells the story beautifully in his best-selling book One Knee Equals Two Feet). Stabler got the offense moving and remained the Raider starting quarterback for the rest of the season and eventually led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl title in 1977. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is another prime example. He was able to do what Drew Bledsoe could not do after many years with the Patriots: lead the Patriots to three Super Bowl titles.
Does the drafting of Kevin Kolb mean that Donovan McNabb’s days as an Eagle are numbered? That’s for McNabb and Andy Reid to decide. First, McNabb has to show that he has fully recovered from his serious leg injuries. What happens if his recovery is still not complete? Then Andy Reid needs to use his back-ups (A.J. Feeley and Kevin Kolb) until McNabb can show that he is ready. Second, McNabb still must prove that he can lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory—which he hasn’t done yet. The NFL is filled with good quarterbacks but there are only a tiny few who have led their teams to Super Bowl titles. Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl nor did Jim Kelly. John Elway had to wait a very long time before he won his two Super Bowl titles.
The jury is still out on Donovan McNabb. What happens if Andy Reid decides that McNabb doesn’t have the stuff to be a Joe Montana or a Tom Brady or even a Peyton Manning for that matter? Then Reid must find someone who has the same stuff the above-mentioned quarterbacks possess. It could be A.J. Feeley or it could be Kevin Kolb or it could be someone else? Only time will tell.
How Donovan McNabb deals with this will speak volumes about him as an athlete, team leader, and as a person. The answer lies with him and what he does on the playing field.
It’s going to be a very interesting season.
--Satchel Paige
The “controversy” over the Philadelphia Eagles drafting of quarterback prospect Kevin Kolb and what the move augurs for the future of Eagles starting QB Donovan McNabb is more media-hype than actual fodder for Eagle fans. If Donovan McNabb actually allows the drafting of Kolb to upset him and knock him off his game then it doesn’t speak well of McNabb’s ability to handle pressure situations. As it is, McNabb has been more concerned about completing his rehab from his injuries that prematurely ended his season and prepping himself for training camp in July—a totally proper course for him to take.
Why did Andy Reid draft Kolb? Amidst all the screaming (mostly from the media) there is the realization that twice now Donovan McNabb has been unable to complete a regular season with the Eagles due to serious, major injury. The fact that McNabb is potentially brittle should be a cause for concern amongst the Eagles brain trust. When draft day came and Kevin Kolb was still available on the draft board, the Eagles did the logical thing and drafted him. People forget that NFL football is a charnel house where careers can abruptly end on any given Sunday. During the 1980s the average NFL player’s career was only 3.2 seasons (I’m not sure what the average is now).
We’d like to be sentimental and allow established NFL heroes to feel safe at their positions but if you speak to any established NFL star they will tell you there is no such thing as safe in the NFL. I remember last season seeing a commercial featuring recently retired New York Giants running back Tiki Barber discussing how he became an All-Pro starter. He said, quite matter-of-factly, that he became a starter when someone got hurt and he filled in and showed such great ability that he took the injured man’s job away from him.
NFL history is replete with instances of so-called established players losing their starting positions to bright young back-ups who had the patience and luck to show that they could outperform the starter. In the 1960s Quarterback Craig Morton spent five years as Don Meredith’s back-up for the Dallas Cowboys until Meredith retired in 1969. Morton got the starting job only to find his back-up, Roger Staubach, breathing down his neck and, in 1971, becoming the starting quarterback for the Cowboys and leading them to two Super Bowl titles. During the late 1960s the Oakland Raiders had Daryle Lamonica and George Blanda at quarterback but that didn’t stop the team from drafting a very brash and wild quarterback from Alabama named Kenny Stabler. Stabler waited in obscurity for several seasons until 1973 when Coach John Madden, in an attempt at revitalizing an inconsistent Raider offense, allowed Stabler to start a game to see what Stabler was made of. (John Madden tells the story beautifully in his best-selling book One Knee Equals Two Feet). Stabler got the offense moving and remained the Raider starting quarterback for the rest of the season and eventually led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl title in 1977. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is another prime example. He was able to do what Drew Bledsoe could not do after many years with the Patriots: lead the Patriots to three Super Bowl titles.
Does the drafting of Kevin Kolb mean that Donovan McNabb’s days as an Eagle are numbered? That’s for McNabb and Andy Reid to decide. First, McNabb has to show that he has fully recovered from his serious leg injuries. What happens if his recovery is still not complete? Then Andy Reid needs to use his back-ups (A.J. Feeley and Kevin Kolb) until McNabb can show that he is ready. Second, McNabb still must prove that he can lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory—which he hasn’t done yet. The NFL is filled with good quarterbacks but there are only a tiny few who have led their teams to Super Bowl titles. Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl nor did Jim Kelly. John Elway had to wait a very long time before he won his two Super Bowl titles.
The jury is still out on Donovan McNabb. What happens if Andy Reid decides that McNabb doesn’t have the stuff to be a Joe Montana or a Tom Brady or even a Peyton Manning for that matter? Then Reid must find someone who has the same stuff the above-mentioned quarterbacks possess. It could be A.J. Feeley or it could be Kevin Kolb or it could be someone else? Only time will tell.
How Donovan McNabb deals with this will speak volumes about him as an athlete, team leader, and as a person. The answer lies with him and what he does on the playing field.
It’s going to be a very interesting season.
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