Happy Holidays?

     As are many if not most of us, I am ambivalent about the holiday season. At various times I have celebrated Chanukah, Christmas, and Winter Solstice, but none of them speaks to me. Nor will Kwanzaa do the trick, for the obvious reason that I am not African American. I admire Kwanzaa as a made-to-order holiday, though; it is far less offensive that most of the other holidays celebrated this time of year. It doesn't pretend to be what it is not.

     And yet at the same time I enjoy at least some of the trappings of the season. The decorations are festive; I enjoy getting and giving gifts; the holiday songs are fun; and even the cheesy holiday movies on The Hallmark Channel have a certain weird charm. Not that there are not classy holiday movies as well--I look forward to It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Bishop's Wife every year. My wife Carol enjoys lighting the candles every December, and although I unfailingly chide her for it (she's not Jewish, after all, although I was born that way) I rather enjoy the repetitive ceremony. It doesn't go as far as potato latkes, unfortunately, but those I can get in our favorite Russian restaurant in Chicago, complete with sour cream and apple sauce.

     Carol is deeply involved in the local Unitarian Universalist chapter, but I can't bring myself to engage in even this least offensive type of non-religious religion. I profess myself an atheist, and I guess I am about as hard-core as it gets, as I have nothing but scorn for those who profess a belief in some god or other. I honestly cannot understand how an educated adult in the twenty-first century can truly believe such hogwash. I mostly keep this to myself, since some good old boy with a gun might take it into his empty little head to teach me a lesson and send me to the hell that does not exist. Or worse, that I might become the target for conversion by some Mormon or Catholic or Seventh Day Adventist or whatever.

     Which brings me to the subject of the Church of Scientology. It is well known the its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, was a failed science fiction writer. What is less well known is that he made the entire thing up out of whole cloth in order to win a bet. Here's the story, which I heard from another, more successful, science fiction writer of the same vintage (Frederik Pohl), who was married to a friend of ours.

     In the late forties or early fifties, a bunch of would-be writers, including Pohl and Hubbard, were living in Toronto and barely making ends meet. Hubbard told the others that he bet that he could make up a religion that people would swallow. He then proceeded to invent Scientology, and the rest is history. It is no coincidence that he wrote a number of very bad novels in support of his religious revelation. Nor is it a coincidence that he made a fortune from it. Fred Pohl was a better writer, and he eventually did okay, but he had way too much integrity to take Hubbard's way out.

     Incidentally, although I have no personal insight, I presume something along the same lines happened when some nut invented the Mormon faith as well. Magic glasses, indeed! Although I must admit, if you're going to believe six impossible things before breakfast, like for example a guy being executed and then rising from the dead three days later; or a burning bush talking to another guy, who then shows up with a couple of magic tablets giving the people commandments, then I guess believing in magic glasses is no great stretch. The great thing about the Mormons, though, is that whenever he wants to the head guy can have a revelation and change church doctrine for all time. That's what he did maybe 40 years ago to allow people of African descent to be full members of the church, and presumably what he will do to allow gays and lesbians and the transgendered the same privileges in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.

     None of which has much to do with the holiday season, which stimulated this blog entry in the first place. Some days I just have to vent, and this turned out to be one of those days. A friend of mine, who blogs much better than I do (probably because she writes much better than I do), sees the holiday season as a time of change and transformation. Letitia Moffitt posted today: "So much of what happens in life is beyond our control, it’s nice that at least for a little while, we can change things, or hold on to them, or both, as necessary." I couldn't agree more.

     I am, however, much more ambivalent, not to say pessimistic, than that. I really enjoy giving gifts, the more lavish the better. But while I enjoy receiving gifts, I prefer things like books and DVDs; the bigger stuff I get for myself. And I prefer staying home and watching a movie to going to parties or, heavens forfend, traveling to visit relatives. The gift thing I sort of understand; we never had much when I was a kid, and I am simultaneously delighted I can afford more now and trained to expect less for myself. 

     That goes along with giving to charity. Since I can afford more now, I try my best to give about 10% after taxes; I sometimes make it and I sometimes don't. I am very picky about where I will give my money, though. Generally speaking I want no religious affiliation. That includes things like the national Habitat for Humanity, although I will give $100 from time to time to the local chapter, upon the Board of which I once sat for three years. Before I will give to a charity I check on how much of their money is actually given to the cause they support. Far too many spend way too much on fundraising, and pay their CEOs way too much, including several you might think were good if you didn't look it up. Much of my giving goes to local and regional food banks, and Doctors Without Borders. This year Planned Parenthood gets a nod, for obvious reasons, although I prefer to make a more political statement with a contribution to NARAL. I'm also involved with a local effort to save an historic Art Deco movie theater, and I plan to continue to give to them until the place is fully restored and once again up and running. The key word in most of these is local.

     I have slowed down considerably in the rate at which I post blog entries. I presume this is just part of the natural aging process (I'm pushing 70 fairly hard); I don't have as much I want to say. I've more or less given up on three book projects, which for me is unusual. I keep saying I won't be in any more plays, but so far I always find an excuse to audition just one more time. At the moment I'm in Kurt Vonnegut's Who Am I This Time for the Charleston Community Theatre, and the local university is doing Romeo and Juliet in the Spring. I've started thinking I could do Capulet rather well, and those students need a role model, right? Carol thinks I might do better as Juliet's grandfather, but she doesn't seem to realize I can still play 40 convincingly. Well, 50. Okay, 60. But he could be that old, right? Any maybe the actor playing Mercutio will really break a leg and . . . . 

     Sorry; got a little carried away there. Happy holidays, or in the words of the character I was born to play, "Bah, Humbug!"

The Bronx Is Up And The Battery's Down

New York, New York --
A hell of a town,
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down.
The People ride in a hole in the ground.
New York, New York --
It's a hell of a town. 

--Comden and Green, "New York, New York" from On the Town

Carol and I returned last night from a long weekend (Friday-Tuesday) visit to New York City.  The ostensible purpose for our visit was so I could be a contestant on a National Public Radio quiz show, "Ask Me Another," about which more later.  While we were there, though, we visited with some old friends, went to a couple of museums, saw a couple of Broadway musicals, went to Rockefeller Center, ate some good meals, rode the subway, took some taxi rides, took the train from New Jersey to Penn Station and back (twice), and were solicited so many times by so many people wanting us to buy so many things that we lost track of where we were going.

Despite my use of its lyrics above, we did not see the current revival of On the Town.  Instead we saw the Tony Award winners for Best New Musical for 2013 and 2014, Kinky Boots and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.  What we really wanted to see was the new Royal Shakespeare Company's two-part production of Wolf Hall, but previews didn't start until three days after we left.  I also wanted to see The Interview, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and two or three others, but although I would have been happy seeing two shows a day for a week my companions would not have been so we compromised on two major musicals.  Both were wonderful, and I can't recommend them highly enough.  I don't intend to do a full-scale review here, just a few random observations.  Some things have changed since my first trip to see Broadway shows in the sixties, and some things have remained exactly the same.  I'm not sure if all the changes are for the better.

I'll start with production quality and production values.  The acting, singing, and dancing remain at world-class levels.  After all, jazz and the Broadway musical are the only two original American art forms, and we still do both better than anyone else in the world.  And nobody does Broadway musicals better than Broadway.  The sets, costumes, and especially the lighting set the standard for the rest of the world.  I single out the lighting for special praise because of the revolution the computer brought to the industry.  When I learned lighting design in the sixties we simply could not have imagined what is not only possible but commonplace today.  As early as the seventies computerized dimmer control changed everything.

On the other hand I think the orchestra pit has suffered in the intervening years.  There are fewer musicians and consequently a less full sound.  It is apparently common if not expected for the conductor to play the electronic keyboard as well.  The musicians double and triple on instruments, as often as not electronic in nature.  Everything is amplified, including the singers.  Something has been lost, although no doubt something else has been gained.

The thing I love about seeing a Broadway show is the precision and the timing.  There is real discipline on that stage, and nobody ever lets the audience know there has been a mistake.  For example, in the performance of Kinky Boots that we saw one of the chorus members half fell down a very steep flight of stairs during a production number.  She recovered herself without changing her facial expression, and the other chorus members treated her exactly as if nothing had happened despite the fact that she came close to breaking her leg.  Similarly, in the matinee of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder that we saw the understudy, or standby, performed the leading role.  I was somewhat disappointed since I had heard how magnificent the actor normally playing the role (or rather roles; he plays about eight members of a family, both men and women) is.  The understudy, however, was very nearly perfect, only having problems with one or two hats and wigs.  I doubt if any member of the audience felt cheated in any way; I certainly didn't.  And his performance, which drew a sincere standing ovation, included a number of songs in greatly divergent characters.

I wish the physical buildings in which these magnificent theatre pieces are performed were completely up to the task.  Broadway theatres are mostly very old, and some have been adapted to the demands of modern production better than others.  This is primarily due to economics, given the cost of real estate in New York and the necessity for long runs at full or near capacity just to break even. Given that most Broadway shows, including musicals, lose money, it's a wonder any more are ever staged.  It used to be the case that a musical had to run for two years at full capacity to break even; these days it is more like four years.  Production costs, both initial and ongoing, have skyrocketed, causing ticket prices to increase tenfold or more.  I remember seeing Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha for $10.00; nowadays the same seats cost $92.00 and up.  Broadway is pricing itself out of reach of the middle class.

The museums of New York are also world-class, and there are many more of them than anyone could see in a week.  Our friends from New Jersey are members (read donors) at about a dozen, and they have a hard time keeping up with just those.  We chose the easy way out since we get to the city so infrequently and this time just went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  I would have liked to have gone to the Guggenheim and perhaps the Cloisters as well, but there just wasn't time.  And even at these we had to choose between seeing our favorite bits of the permanent collection and one or more of the special exhibitions being staged.  We ended up going to see the Impressionists, Cubists, Expressionists, and the like, and going to a lecture for donors about science in the collections.  We also had a very nice lunch at MoMA (it surprises many people that there are usually very good cafes or cafeterias at good art museums) before going on to see a show.

Our friends, not yet retired, had to go to work on Monday, so Carol and I checked into our Times Square hotel on Sunday and did the tourist thing on Monday, wandering up to Rockefeller Center.  I wanted to have lunch at the Rainbow Room, but the line was too long so we ate at the hotel instead.  I also decided to forego my trip to the Observatory at the Top of the Rock and went shopping with Carol instead.  Unfortunately she found neither the new gloves (having left one in a taxi) nor the new handbag she wanted.

After our late lunch/early dinner we found the subway to Brooklyn (the R train, for the record) and rode it for about 45 minutes to the Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street stop.  From there it was about four blocks to the Bell House, a bar with a found-space theatre) where my show was taping.  I met the producer and the host and settled in until it was my turn.  As it turned out that was about an hour and a half later, when I was finally called to the stage for my quiz.  The topic was perfect for me--a combination of word game and name of television shows.  I was primed and ready.

A brief word on how I got there.  I've been listening to this show for a couple of years, playing along with the quizzes and usually doing pretty well.  When they told how to apply to be a contestant I happened to be listening on my computer so I opened another window and did what they said.  A few days later I got an email from the producer along with a quiz to fill out and send in.  The quiz had sections that were word games, television games, number games, fiction games, music games, and people in the news games.  Generally I did very well, and when I didn't know an answer I tried to say something funny.  A few weeks later I got another email telling my I was a finalist and would get a telephone interview.  That went very well, and I got another email inviting me to be a contestant. This was NPR and not CBS, so the prizes were not large and travel expenses would be my own responsibility.  I'm happy to go to New York whenever I can, so I was happy to accept.  Somewhat to my surprise Carol wanted to go along, so we planned our trip.

Back to the show.  There was a little pre-quiz banter among the host, the house musician, my opponent, and me, and it went very well and drew some big audience laughter.  Then the quiz started, and I slowly died.  Of the six questions I answered one; some of the others I didn't know, and some of the others that I did know my opponent buzzed in first.  In a few minutes it was over; she had won and would move on to the final round.  I would not.  My entirely silent revenge, though, was that I knew all of the answers to final round questions, and she did not.  Even though she is an academic dean.  But by then, of course, it was too late.

We took the subway back to Times Square (the F train this time; apparently the R train is a shuttle after 7:00) and came home the next day.  I was in a deep funk, but have since pulled out of it.  The whole trip was fun, and made me remember why I love New York.  The shows, the museums, the shopping, the food, the subways.  New York, New York; it's a helluva town.

I Was A Card-Carrying Member of the N.R.A.

NOVEMBER 23, 2014 11:32AM

I Was A Card-Carrying Member of the N.R.A.

I learned to hunt before I was ten years old.  We lived in Phoenix, and my Dad went deer hunting every year and rabbit hunting every month.  We ate so much game from one end of the year to the next that I imagine we would have gone hungry if he hadn't hunted.  Not that hunting was particularly cheap; rifles and shotguns were expensive, and ammunition wasn't cheap.  Not to mention that hunting required camping supplies, heavier clothing than we normally wore even in the winter, and sometimes significant travel.  But we were a hunting and fishing family, and even my mother joined in.

I'll never forget the first rabbit I killed, the summer I turned ten.  I had a small over-and-under .22 caliber rifle and .410 gauge shotgun, and we had gone hunting in the desert near Horshoe Dam, about 50 miles north of Phoenix.  The area was thick with cholla cactus, which could be quite dangerous, and we were a mile or so from the road.  We were hunting cotton-tail rabbits as opposed to jackrabbits, which according to my Dad were fit only for dog food. Cotton-tails are significantly smaller than jackrabbits, and consequently significantly more difficult to shoot.  A skinned and gutted cotton-tail is roughly the size of a small chicken, and when cooked tastes remarkably the same.  We would normally bring home four to six of them, and my Mom would cook one and freeze the rest.  I had been hunting for several weekends without getting one, and had only seen two or three during that entire time.  This time one jumped up right in front of me, ran about thirty feet, and then stopped under a cholla.  I guess she thought she was hiding, but she didn't move a muscle.  I took a shot at her with the .22 and missed, and she still didn't move.  Rather than reload the .22 I took careful aim with the .410 and fired.  The good thing about a shotgun is that it sends out a wide spread of shot, and if you are anywhere in the neighborhood you will hit what you aim at.  On this day that poor rabbit's number was up, and I proudly carried it back to the truck attached to my belt with a hook through its hind leg after I field dressed it.  We ate it for dinner.

I had joined the Cub Scouts when I was eight (my Mom was the Den Mother and my Dad was the Scoutmaster, so I didn't really have a lot of choice) and moved up to the Boy Scouts when I turned eleven.  As a Boy Scout you start as a Tenderfoot, earn your Second Class badge in about three months, and then your First Class badge in another six months ot so.  After First Class you earn higher ranks by earning Merit Badges in various disciplines, such as Camping, Hiking, Swimming, and Personal Fitness.  Several of the disciplines are required if you wish to become an Eagle Scout, but there are several elective disciplines as well.   I had earned my First Class badge by the time I turned twelve, and began accumulating Merit Badges.

One of the elective disciplines was Marksmanship.  At summer camp each year I began spending time at the shooting range.  We used .22 caliber rifles, which by then I had been shooting for years.  In fact I had graduated from my over-and-under .22/.410 to a Mossberg bolt action .22 with a seven-cartridge clip.  I was not able to bring my own rifle to the range, of course, but I was extremely familiar with shooting a .22.  So from the beginning I did very well.

In shooting targets a perfect score is 50, which is earned by placing five shots out of five in the bull's eye.  In order to earn the Marksmanship Merit Badge I had to shoot 10 targets at 45 or better in the prone position, 10 targets at 40 or better in the kneeling position, and 10 targets at 35 or better in the standing position.  Obviously, shooting high scores is easier in the prone position and harder in the standing position. The reason should be obvious: in the prone position you can support the rifle more easily than in the kneeling position or the standing position. There were also other requirements, such as passing a gun safety course, but I was able to earn the Marksmanship Merit Badge in one week during my first summer of Boy Scout Camp.  

But I also learned there were other awards available.  The National Rifle Association gave medals for scoring 10 targets at 30 or higher in each postion, with additional medals for 10 targets at five points higher in each position.  So my goal became to earn the 3o, 35, 40, 45, and 50 medals in each position.  But first I had to join the N.R.A.  So I did.

In doing so I wasn't making any kind of political statement.  I didn't even understand that there was any kind of a political statement to be made.  I was just a kid who liked to shoot rifles and wanted the medals that they gave out.  I paid my very reasonable dues and began to earn medals.

When I got to high school (after having earned my Eagle Scout badge, by the way), this came in handy in a couple of ways.  At that time I had to take either P.E. or R.O.T.C., and I chose R.O.T.C.  I was looking for a way to pay for college, and did not yet realize that scholarships would be available that would pay the whole bill (this was the early 1960s, when such scholarships were still available).  One of the things I was condsidering was trying for an appointment to one of the service academies, and I thought that R.O.T.C. might help with that. Alternatively, I knew that if I took R.O.T.C. in college it would come with a scholarhip and end with a commission.  I actually did end up with an appointment to West Point, and when I turned it down my mother very nearly disowned me.  But that's another story.

Anyway, I discovered that I was allowed to wear some of my N.R.A. shooting medals on my R.O.T.C. uniform, automatically making me the most-decorated cadet in the corps. I moved up the ranks fairly quickly, earning Cadet of the Month honors during my first year and commanding a platoon during my second year.  I was on track for a company in my third year and batallion staff in my fourth (not batalliom commander; everybody knew who was the best cadet in line for that slot, and it wasn't me), but along the way I quit the R.O.T.C.  That, too, is another story. While I remained on the R.O.T.C., however, I was entitled to wear my Cadet of the Month medal as well as my 50-score prone medal, my 50-score kneeling medal, but only a 45-score standing medal.  I guess I would have done better with a .410 gauge shotgun.  I never did get that 50-score standing medal.

The other thing that my N.R.A. medals did for me was get me on the high school rifle team.  The R.O.T.C. instructor invited me to try out, and based on my first ten targets he invited me to join the team.  Technically any student in the high school could have been on the team, but in actual practice only boys in R.O.T.C. were allowed to compete.  We had competitions with other rifle teams from around the State on weekends, with qualification for the State tournament based on performance throughout the season.  A score of 50 on a target was standard, so in addition to hitting a target in the bull's eye, you had to hit in the sweet spot of the bull's eye.  It was almost like Olympic shooting in that regard. I did very well prone, moderately well kneeling, but only average standing. I helped the team win a number of meets, but did not qualify for State my first year.  When I quit the R.O.T.C. during my second year I was, of course, dropped from the rifle team.

 Rabbit hunting wasn't my only hunting experience during my adolescence.  We also hunted, and shot, javelina, turkeys, doves, deer, antelope, and elk.  I never personally got an elk, although I was present when my Dad got one.  While deer and antelope weigh in the vicinity of 100-200 pounds field dressed, an elk will run 600-800 pounds field dressed.  Although we had always butchered our own game, this was too much for us to butcher at home, so we sought professional help.  This raised the per-pound cost, of course, but it gave us enough meat for a long time. 

We hunted turkey with shotguns rather than rifles.  I had graduated from my .410 to a 12 gauge with a pump action, and was lucky just once on a turkey hunt.  I did very well with doves, though, going out on opening day four years in a row.  This led to one of my brushes with fame, meeting and eating breakfast with baseball star and broadcaster Dizzy Dean.  My other early brush with fame was being Barry Goldwater's paper boy (he tipped well), but that's another story.

For deer, antelope. and elk we used .30 caliber rifles.  At various times I owned and shot a .308 Winchester, a classic .30-30 Winchester, and a .357 Magnum.  The latter was too much rifle for me, so I mostly used my .308.  My Dad taught me to shoot these, and I got some practice on the range as well.  Each of these rifles had a scope, and so had to be sighted in each year at least once.  While hunting, of course, we fired them very little.

Opening day was always on a Friday in November, and I took the Thursday and Friday off from high school every year.  These were excused absences, as the high school administrators understood the need to hunt. We traveled north to Prescott or Flagstaff or Payson, where we set up camp with our tent and prepared for the hunt the next day.  The hunt itself was mobile, with us hiking for miles looking for game.  I myself preferred to find a place to hunker down on a ridge and scan the ground on either side with binoculars.  In this way I was able to track deer running from other hunters, and was successful in my last two years. Although whitetail deer were available in Arizona, we always hunted mule deer, which were somewhat larger.  My first buck was only about ninety pounds, but my second one dressed out to over a hundred and fifty.

At that time, anyone who wanted a deer license could get one, although we were limited to one buck per year.  Does were not hunted. In order to hunt antelope, elk, bison, or wild sheep, a hunter had to enter into a lottery.  I was drawn for antelope once (and was successful) and elk three times (unsuccessful each time).  I also tried for deer twice with bow and arrow, but never even saw one.  I suspect that even if I had I would have missed, or even worse I would have merely wounded an animal, since I was never very good with a bow.  I saw my Dad get one once, though, and know it can be done.  For years he kept the neckbone on our mantle, with the razor head of the arrow buried in it so deeply that it would not come out even with pliers.

Incidentally, in Illinois where I now live hunting deer with .30 caliber rifles is illegal; shotguns must be used.  We were able to use rifles because of the lack of population density, and would have considered using shotguns to be absurd.

After I left the R.O.T.C. I gave up my membership in the N.R.A. It was simply np longer worth it to me.  I haven't hunted or even shot a rifle or shotgun since 1965.  While I think the N.R.A. does some good things, like providing hunter safety courses, it has evolved into a political organization the main purpose of which is lobbying against gun control.  As such it is on the wrong side of an important issue, and I could never support it.

But for two years I was a card-carrying member.  And I don't regret it one bit.

Blog Migration

Today I got word that my previous blog site was being taken down.  No reason was given, just a terse announcement.  This is hardly a life-changing event, but it is somewhat disconcerting.  I had spent a fair amount of time placing my blog in the first place, and much more time drafting, editing, and publishing blog entries.  These blogs led directly to the publication of two books, and some thoughtful exchanges with people I knew before and people I met online only because of the blog. Not being able to continue to publish my blog would have been inconvenient and disappointing.

Fortunately there are many other sites out there that host blogs, and after some minimal research I have chosen this one.  It feels a little incestuous, since I also maintain an email account and some cloud storage with the company that runs it.  The main reason I am migrating here is that it was a seamless transition, and that I didn't have to do any exotic formatting.

So while this blog is much shorter than my usual, it is all that I need to say at this point.  I will, as usual, announce any new blog entries on Facebook and Twitter, and there will certainly be some in the fairly near future.  We're going to NYC later this week, where we will see a couple of Broadway musicals and I'll appear on an NPR quiz show.  Tomorrow is oral argument in the Illinois Supreme Court in the pension theft case, and a decision is expected by this summer.  We are scheduled for trips to Oregon in July and Phoenix in October.  I'll be in a production of Our American Cousin, the play Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated, in April  There will be lots of things to blog about.

Stay tuned; it could be a wild ride.