Media Published Columns
"Helter Skelter" a Column for The City Club
DEIONE SANDERS
June 2001
Deione Sanders had a migraine. During the singing of the National Anthem by a talented young lady who successfully navigated the bridge between bluegrass whine and operatic aria, Deione hung his head and clutched the pinstriped trousers of his Louisville River Bats uniform. His head was hanging at the reverse of attention. In the top half of the first inning, Deione made a half-hearted effort after a line drive to left field, and played a single, or possibly a quality major league defensive catch, into a double. At the end of the inning he walked in from left field to the third base dugout, following the foul line in case he lost his way. Then he retired from the game. A young prodigy named Mike Malloy took his lead-off spot in the batting order in the home half of the first inning. The sun was just beginning to set behind the third base bleachers.
I had returned to the scene of my many collegiate crimes, Louisville, Kentucky, and was wedged in with an announced 6,634 attendees at Deione's obsequies at Louisville Slugger Field, on the banks of the Ohio. I must digress and ask, "do ticket managers at professional baseball parks learn this type of creative math from the folks at the Federal Office of Management and Budget?" There could not have been more than 2,500 tops in the seats that evening.
Springtime in Kentucky may mean the bloom of the rose at Churchill Downs and the first Saturday in May to many, but for me, Louisville will always mean baseball. Louisville is pronounced Looie-ville, if you're from north of the Mason-Dixon. The Southern pronunciation is a combination of the rolled Tuscan R and the guttural growl of certain tribes indigenous to Niger Valley and far too difficult for Yankees to approximate. The river town has a long baseball heritage. It is the birthplace of Hall of Famer, Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, and where John Hillrich turned his first wooden bat on a lathe behind his house. Honus Wagner played baseball in the River City at the turn of the century, and if you know who Deione Sanders is, but don’t know of the great Hans Wagner, pick up The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter, the best book ever spoken about baseball.
It's also where I failed at college baseball and only succeeded marginally well at college. But, I had a lot of fun those 30 plus years ago. What I was doing at a ballgame on a cool Ohio Valley spring night depends to whom you might pose that particular question. But, the correct answer is I longed for Springtime in Kentucky and had grown increasingly lazy as well as ill-tempered as I approached two score and eleven and decided, with my wife’s considerable blessing, to give everybody a break and cross the great divide for a few days. For those who hoped for four more years, five days would have to do.
Back to the game. . . . By the time Deione had departed, the moon had become a slim crescent in the sky. The ballpark bratwurst was cooked as only a town with a huge German-American population can cook them, and the beer was cold and pure. And it was human organ donor night at the ball park. You read that correctly, Human Organ Donor Night, not "bat night" or "arm band night", but "human organ donor night". The first pitch was thrown out by a man who, it was claimed, was the second successful hand transplant patient. No, he used the other one! And we were unmercifully implored to donate livers, kidneys, lungs, ligaments, and any other spare parts we would not be using after retiring to the great dugout in the sky to the 70,000 patients on the donor waiting list. Although some feared the bratwurst after these announcements, I knew better. Besides, I have a strong stomach. I once watched my college baseball team get pounded by Lewis College, 22-0, and I didn’t even play, so Organ Donor Night did not throw me off of my bratwurst. The beer might have helped. But, a rumor swept through the crowd that Deione was in the clubhouse looking for a heart, since many in the 6,666 announced had come with the express purpose of seeing him hit and run and slide. But he stayed in the clubhouse waiting for May 1st when he was to be called up to the big league Cincinnati Reds, and the River Bats will need to have New Left Field Donor night to try to make up for the loss of Deione International League leading 460 batting average. But maybe a transplant of some pitching arms should be the first operation for the Louisville Nine. Indianapolis (politically incorrect) Indians riddled the Louisville pitching staff on the way to an 8-4 victory that was really over in the third inning. But the night was springtime Kentucky beautiful. There was cold beer and hot brats under what became a beautiful Kentucky moon above the new Louisville Slugger Field, and I was happy that I had transplanted myself back to my old Kentucky home to watch a little baseball.
The next evening Deione returned, migraine having subsided or having picked up a new heart. He had three hits in five at-bats and played flawlessly in the field. Later the next week he would take the 90-mile trip upriver to Cincinnati where the Reds would indeed place him in their outfield while Ken Griffey, Jr., seeks a hamstring transplant on the disabled list. Me? I returned home from my Springtime Kentucky transplant having been donated what all baseball fanatics seek. The sound of wood on horsehide, and the slap of leather around the baseball.
KRISPY KREME V. VOTING FOR KUER
July 2001
The lady behind the counter at the Krispy Kreme Donut Emporium on Bardstown Road in Louisville, Kentucky took my order and promptly punched it on to the touch screen of her computer–cash register. She erred apparently, uttered a scatalogical explicative and quickly corrected the problem, took my bill and handed me change and soon thereafter my donuts. Hence, we observe the difference in our American Democracy between donut sellers and the sellers of the substance of my donut lady’s explicative in our Capitol, Washington, D.C.
You see in the sixties and early seventies when I lived in Louisville and frequented the same donut shop, they had an old-fashioned cash register. Little else has changed in the structure of the place, but they do have a simplified computer system to tally the take. And this brings to mind the last Presidential Election and the fiasco in Florida and elsewhere, where the people who tally our votes are still living in the sixties with their outmoded vote registers.
Congress continues to drag its collective feet over voting reform. The GOP and our doopty doo president seem satisfied with the fact that hundreds of thousands of votes went uncounted because Krispy Kreme donuts feels methods of arithmetic are more important when counting plain cake and blueberry swirl donuts than the victors do about the most basic of democratic procedures, counting votes. Let’s make this clear. We don’t need a lot of committee hearings on the fact that a large portion of the voting machines in this country’s precincts can’t count, miscount, or screw up the count of the bedrock American principal of one person one vote. The studies were completed long before the last election fiasco, and although the estimate to bring this country’s voting machines in line with Krispy Kreme Donuts is between 500 million and 5 billion dollars (this is the government doing the estimating, after all) that is donuts (punfully intended) when considered against President W’s proposed trillion dollar tax cut plan. While Senator Orrin resurrects the anti-flag burning crusade yet, once again, the non-symbolic reality of a democracy that can’t accurately tally votes is more than a laughing stock and is the real symbol of the euthanasia of voters by a political class in Washington that finds no important issue too easy to forget and avoid. This collective amnesia on the part of Congress should be remembered by the voters next election, but then no one will be certain that their vote really counts. But, believe me, that new Krispy Kreme donut shop in Provo will be able to tally the take.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
August 2001
Random Thoughts
from a Random Mind
at a Random Time
I always get real lazy in the dog days of summer, which for me extends from approximately January 15th until December 25th. By the way, during August, we often hear or see "dog days" written or spoken in public as though it has something to do with canine familiars; our heavy breathing, lethargic, best friends. It, however, refers to the "Dog Star", which is most prominently displayed in the northern hemisphere during these insufferable months. So, as the Humane Society reminds, don't blame these hot dog days on Fido. But I digress. . . . Being lazy as I am, I am late in providing this screed to the web master, who has threatened me with all kinds of computer mayhem, including something called the City Club Virus. And so I thought a few quick and dirty random thoughts might be appropriate to save my megabytes. I, however, live my life randomly, and if you doubt that, ask my wife, or my one friend other than her, Bill Parker.
BILL CLINTON IN HARLEM
Bill Clinton’s move to Harlem has apparently caused grave concern on a number of fronts. For me, the real issue is why we spend so much money for any ex-president’s office space. The bill for security and rent, not even taking into account the costs for phone sex and condoms for Clinton, will be well in excess of a million and half dollars a year. This is something, as a taxpayer, that does give me the fantoads. I think a double-wide in Hot Springs is sufficient. Some black folk, however, have complained that they want to keep Harlem black and have balked at white Billy polluting the neighborhood. These folks, at least in my judgment, rank very high on the David Duke stupidity scale. Black protesters carrying signs and screaming racial purity slogans, loudly demanded that Bill stay out of Harlem because it would be the ruin of the neighborhood. No, not because of his reputation, or because Monica might stop by, but because of the color of his skin. This virulent type of stupidity seems to be acceptable in some circles even if it is a flagrant disregard of the overturning of the separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson in a long line of cases that culminated in Brown v. The Board of Education in 1954.
If I’m getting too legal here, then just let me say it simply;
The principle premise that governs the movement of everybody in this country is that race is not a factor, whether it be black or white or any of the other colors that are commonly attributed to Homo Stupidius Americanus. Harlem has never been totally black, in fact, even now there is a strong presence of non-African Americans in Harlem and the Bronx. Can my fellow Italians, (I’m proudly Italian on my mother’s side), attempt to prohibit anybody who is not a "little Italian" from moving into Little Italy at the intersection of Mulberry and Cosa Nostra Streets? I think not! It’s this attitude of separation simply on the basis of race or religion which has continued to lead to the stupidities of the Irish Republican Army refusing to turn over their weapons of Protestant Destruction and the Israelis and the Palestinians continuing their mutual pogroms in the Sinai. Is anybody else sick of this attitude and the cost in psychic, as well as physical, human tolls that it takes.
It's okie dokie with me if Billy is moving to Harlem. I just wish I didn’t have to pay for it.
THE OLYMPICS REDOUX
Salt Lake County’s new mayor, Nancy Workman, recently said that, "We, Utonians, have to improve our image with the world, since the world will be coming here in February". I ask the question, "Why?" What’s wrong with our image? It’s the image that has provided the impetus for the International Olympic Committee to bribe their way here in the first place. Frankly, I think all of this image consciousness when it comes to Utah, is ridiculous. Now, we’re worried about our liquor laws. We should’ve been worried about them since prohibition (and changing them solely for a few drunk tourists isn’t the reason to change them).
We’re worried that people might think Utah is too conservative. Once again, it seems to me that, this is something we should’ve been worried about for a considerable period of time, like the last four times we elected Orrin Hatch to the United States Senate. Insofar as changing things, simply for the Olympics, I tend to disagree. The Olympics are going to make money for a very few people here, once the construction is all done. And the people that are going to most benefit from it will be the people in the Lear jets who fly into the executive terminal in Salt Lake City. It won’t be you or I. LaGrande or LaDonna. We will simply be left holding the bag, which will be empty, and then we will be asked to fill it with our tax dollars.
FROM THE "JUSTICE WILL FREEZE BEER" DEPARTMENTt
Speaking of the Liquor Commission, Commissioner Hale and his buddies finally got their come-uppancies by our 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Anybody who has ever been to a Utah Liquor Commission meeting recognizes that the statement of English Wag, Charles Lamb that "your justice will freeze beer" was made for the people out at DABC. Brian Barnard, a civil rights lawyer, deserves a pat on the back by all hardy men, a kiss on the cheek by a pretty girl and a long tall cold one for his efforts on behalf of the people who are forced to appear in front of the kangaroo court, which is the liquor commission. By the way, these comments are my own and not intended to in anyway, reflect on the management of this particular website. But I have a right to freedom of speech and opinion, just like the 10th Circuit held the people who sell Chavez-Regal.
TELEVISION
Other than the more than occasional sporting event and my religious pursuit of the ESPN Sports Center, I don’t watch a lot of television, but a couple of programs are to be recommended. The new Nero Wolfe series on A&E is one of the best detective programs on television. I don’t watch many police shows, lawyer shows or detective shows because I see the real thing everyday and I recognize that most detectives (other than the ones that work for me) couldn’t find themselves out of the restrooms at Linquist Field if they were given a map. But Nero Wolfe has always been one of my favorite literary characters and Rex Stout, the great writer who wrote over 73 Wolfe novels, novellas and short stories, during his life would be happy, I believe, with the way the fat man is portrayed in the series which bears the protagonists name. I’ve read all of the Wolfe over and would attest under oath that Timothy Hutton who plays the wisecracking amanuensis, Archie Goodwin, to Wolfe has captured Stout’s characters perfectly. If you want a great book to read, pick up the first Wolfe book written in the ‘30's by Stout, Fer de Lance, and follow it up by watching the program on A&E on Sunday. Also, my favorite new entertainer, Wayne Brady’s new summer replacement show is so reminiscent of the great Flip Wilson, with Brady’s own twist, that it is equally hilarious and worth watching.
NEWSPAPER WARS
Finally, those of you who might read the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News as I do, to keep up on Utah’s national image, probably have noted the inordinate amount of newsprint provided to the ongoing lawsuit between the Tribune and the Deseret News. This comes under the large, WHO CARES, column. Both the Tribune and the Deseret News editorial writers have never hesitated to lambaste lawyers for overly litigating the issues and wasting court time and taxpayers money on frivolous lawsuits. Obviously, they don’t read their own editorials. I dare say that if we were to poll the public on who actually reads these articles about this "journalistic case of the century" that it would probably result in a few journalism professors and maybe six or seven people from their own newspapers who are in editorial positions. To the Trib & News–We don’t care!!!
Adieu!
BASEBALL
September 2001
The Utah Criminal Code makes theft a crime, either a felony or misdemeanor, depending upon the value of the property that is stolen. For example, if you steal something valued at less than $300, that is considered a class B misdemeanor, for which you could go to jail for up to 6 months and pay fines and fees of up to $1,850. If you steal something over the amount of $1,000 but less than $5,000, the more serious theft is charged as a third degree felony, upon which you can receive a term at the Utah State Prison of up to five years and a fine in the amount of $8,750.
There is no crime nor punishment in the Utah Criminal Code for stealing a child’s innocence. It is not a crime to be one of those overbearing parents who want their issue to become the next John McEnroe or Kerry Wood or Tiger Woods or Loren Woods, or even James Woods, for that matter. Parents, in the worst tradition of stage door mothers and fathers, drive their children to bend and even break the rules so that they can hit the lottery when their children becomes superstars. These people, like the parents of Bronx teenager Danny Almonte, are the worst thieves of all. Their dreams of glory, for themselves and their children, are besotted with the dreams of material wealth and personal acclimation. They seldom care or are deterred by thoughts of the tribulations they ultimately drag their children through.
As we reflect on sports in America, and those of us who kneel before our big screens on our equivalent of prayer rugs -- a barcalounger that has a built-in refrigerator and remote control, that can change channels and put picture-in-picture in a nanosecond -- might want to think about our own complicity in all of this.
The Almonte story reminded me of a poem I wrote a number of years ago while reflecting on a summer day, when business took me between Provo and Ogden primarily on the back roads because of freeway construction. I noticed, at midday, the numbers of empty baseball diamonds, that at one point in our history would have been filled with kids just having fun, playing sandlot ball. I spent most of my summer days from the ages of six to fourteen on similar dusty diamonds and they remain some of the fondest memories of my life.
LITTLE LEAGUE VS. SAND LOT
A game on sandlots,
when t-shirt and faded levis
were the only uniform
of every summer day.
No organized parented leagues
with coaches emulating Vince Lombardi,
where winning and the standings
were not just everything,
but the only thing,
and the game, the joy, became encased
in parental dreams,
lived through their little leaguers . . .
Adults’ lost childhood
foisted on their no field, no hit
9-year-old issue . . .
Who lost the joy of the game.
The kids who were for eternity
kidnapped from the sandlot,
and bound to the organized,
lockstep of the little league
organization only to satisfy
the dreams of adults,
whose futile attempts,
to remake their own childhood
through their offspring,
was doomed to fail
before the first pitch was even thrown.
And, the sandlot park
no longer sprouted the joy of a game,
but just adult weeds and brambles.
And so we might want to consider the brambles we sow when we turn every child’s event into a made-for-TV production. Just may be we’re complicate with Señor Almonte.
I AM PART OF ALL I SEE
October 2001
Alfred Lord Tennyson
We went for our late evening walk the other night, my good friend and I. She has never been able to follow too closely in a straight line, and so when I let her off the leash on the Capitol Grounds above our house, she wandered to her favorite places, pulled by smells that entice only dogs, and by the ghosts that she sometimes chases. In the twelve years that she, my wife and her sister dog, Idaho, have shared quarters, Sam (Samantha, her papers say) has always blazed her own path. But, I’ve never known a sweeter “person” than this yellow lab who wagged her tail right into my heart; a heart which, as I looked at her scurry from ghost to ghost, felt like someone had reached in and grabbed it so suffocatingly tight that water welled in my eyes, and I found my self trying to stifle the sucking, choking sound that came with the tears. The doctor told us the other day that she has a tumor the size of a small golf ball on her liver, and my heart aches whenever I think of life without this kindest of canines.
As we strolled past the Vietnam Memorial, I felt guilty for the constant prayers I have been sending out into the Universe of the Unknown asking for a miracle to save her, and her sister, who is now too arthritic to join us on anything more that a short jaunt around the block. I knew two of the men whose names are etched in the Marble at that monument. Young men, like I was once, who died in a stupid war and who never had a dozen years with benign spirits like Sam and Ida. If God allowed these men and others like them to die over the prayers of their families so many decades ago, good men, honest young men who never got a real run at life, isn’t it a sacrilege for me to ask for a reprieve for myself and my wife over the lives of our pets?
Pets? Not really! Pals, kids, friends, roommates is more like it. The love of an animal transcends, or is at least different from, any other type of love homo sapiens sapiens have ever been able to attempt to quantify. Unless you have animals, no not just an animal, – a dog, and have shared their unabiding love, then you can’t possibly understand the meanderings on this page.
We turned the corner behind the Capitol and Sam started looking back in the direction of our house. She doesn’t like to be away from Ida for any extended period of time. I anthropomorphize human feelings to her, I know, but it seems as though she feels guilty when we walk alone. I know about guilt. Can I continue to bother God with pleas for mercy, when the burden of tearful transmissions from New York City alone, not to mention Washington DC, and Kabul, Afghanistan, must have the prayer lines jammed to the breaking point with new tragedies every day. Loved ones lost or missing, children robbed of parents, parents keening over dead or mutilated children.
Did I mention that Sam saved a kitten once? It’s true. On a walk much like the other night, she pulled my wife into the gutter of a street where we found the work of some misanthrope who had scattered a litter of newborns to suffer and die ignominiously. Sam found one alive and we took him home, named him after my brother who loved cats, and Idaho and Sam mothered him along side my wife’s hourly feedings with an eyedropper, to adult cathood. Never has so much dog slobber gone to save such a mortal enemy; the cat named Nick. But, their constant licking stimulated this little survivor who Sam found with the umbilical chord still attached. We never have mentioned this transgression around other canines. But, maybe we should have in a time of so much hate, where innocent people are killed simply because they work in a tall building. Where God is used as an excuse for cowardice and hate. Where in Palestine and Jerusalem and Kabul and, yes, even here in the good old U.S. of A., we hate on the basis of distant beliefs, maybe supposed mortal enemies like Cats and Dogs who can over come their own inbred sense of inter-genus and species conflict are a lesson for all of us humans supposedly made in “God’s Image”. Just maybe someone like Sam, who so blithely overcame her innate ability to destroy a mortal enemy, is worth a prayer or two. Maybe there is a lesson in this old, sick dog and her old arthritic sister’s lives. Maybe crazy old St. Francis of Assisi was right to refer to animals as brother dog and sister cat. They are family after all.
By the time we returned to Casa-Yengich, she was tired. Happy to be close to her dog sister, Idaho, and her real boss, as well as mine, my wife, Kay. She lay down and was asleep in front of the living room couch in a few milliseconds. My heart hurt so bad that I simply can’t find words in any language to express my feelings. But, I don’t feel guilty about praying for her to get better anymore. She taught me another lesson in humanity–this old dog.
HE WALKED INTO THE OFFICE
November 2001
I heard the commotion outside my inner-office door the other day and immediately knew that trouble was coming through the door, soon enough. The secretaries who work for us had not seen him before and did not realize that the cause of the commotion has an easement into my life whenever he determines that it’s use is appropriate to bother me. I hollered through the door, "Just let the son-of-a-bitch in" but the words hadn’t escaped before the door opened to the miscreant as he flung a couple of epithet’s over his shoulder towards the office staff.
He slumped in one of the brown leather chairs whose cushions have been rubbed white by the countless fannies of the innocent, the guilty and the in-between over the 26 years of my law practice. He crossed his legs and stared at me. If Helen of Troy’s face, as Homer tells us, launched a thousand ships; his cracked and weather-beaten mug, furrowed by countless rivers of whiskey, could have sunk twice that number. His uniform hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw him almost two years before. He wore thread-bare levis worn through at the cuffs, since they were unhemmed and about an inch too long. Faded, muddy Nike cross-trainers and a thread-bare, dirty, plaid Pendleton shirt which partially covered an off-off-white T-shirt that said, "If God was alive he sure as Hell wouldn’t talk to Jerry Falwell." A battered San Francisco Giants cap was tugged down to his eyebrows to complete the ensemble.
His coal, black eyes passionately glared at me and he spoke before I could. "I want you to do something about it", he said. He always starts these one-sided conversations this way and has since we worked at Kennecott together many years ago; me on a college track gang; he having been busted both out of the army as well as down from many easier jobs on the Copper to the regular track gang on the dumps at Kennecott. "You want me to stop what?", I said. "I want you to tell that (and I’ll skip the explicatives) Senator of ours from Pittsburgh, that those of us that fought for this country didn’t mean for some skinny pants, rich kid from Texas to take everybody’s rights away simply because some people blew up a building in New York."
I began to tell him that Senator Hatch doesn’t listen to me very often, but he interrupted and said, "I’ll be Goddamned (and he pronounced the deity’s name with a low guttural growl that would have scared Moses) if we should have people tried in some sort of Goddamn (the growl got deeper and David spun in his tomb) military tribunal instead of a Court of Law. He spit out the word "law" and I anticipated what was coming next. "And you know how I feel about you Goddamn lawyers and judges." He kicked my desk for emphasis. "But any man, even an A-Rab, (he never was much on political correctness or gender equality) whose accused of sumpthin’, ought to have the right to a jury trial before the government can convict him." I can’t even describe the disgust and degradation that he put into the word "government".
I’m seldom speechless but I’ve been known to be unusually quiet in the presence of this old coot. He just sat there and stared at me until he sucked up enough air to say, "What are you going to do about it?" I waited and hoped he would either have a heart attack so I could get him out of my office by calling the paramedics or morgue or as quite often happens, he’d get thirsty and ask me for a nip out of the bottle I keep in the bottom drawer of my desk, but it wasn’t going to happen this time. He just stared at me underneath the brim of the cap. I finally commented, "Well, I’m not going to be able to do anything about it unless somebody gets charged and then I’ll defend them, because I agree with you on this one. George Bush is dead wrong." He laughed and I laughed with him, because that wasn’t news. He knows how I feel about Republicans.
"You know", I said. "We rounded up the Japanese in World War II and the Supreme Court said it was okay." I shouldn’t have said Supreme Court because he looked at me and belched, "Well who gives a Goddamn (Abraham rose up) what those people in Washington say, they’re all political hacks anyway." With that I couldn’t disagree so I let him go on. He said, "Yeah, we put the Japanese in prison camps. Some of those people I worked with up at Kennecott, too; they were good American citizens. Put ‘em there just because they’re short and yellow and their eyes are different." I didn’t want to comment on that particular description; but don’t even ask what he says about Germans. Besides, he said it, I didn’t. He went on , "You know they took your grandfather’s stuff during the big war, too, just because he was a Dago, excuse me, Italian." He pronounced it, "eye-tal-an". I said, "I knew". And, I did realize that the FBI had taken my grandfather’s one possession of value, an old Philco radio, because he shared the nationality of Mussolini. He said, "Just because these folks are gypsies or "Koo-Waitese" doesn’t mean they’re all terrorists you know." I agreed.
He grunted, "I’m outta here", and he pushed himself up out of the chair and said, "Well, you make sure people understand it. You call that Senator from Pennsylvania and let him know, too. And tell that Major Generalissimo Ashcan, too." I started to correct him, "Attorney General Ashcroft", but by then he was out the door, which he slammed for effect. I heard him arguing over parking validations outside. But as I sat there, I thought to myself, "I doubt if Orrin Hatch really cares, since he isn’t Italian or Arab or Japanese". And I know Aschan, eh, croft, doesn’t. There won’t be anybody trying to put either of them on trial in any secret court. But I agree that the rest of us should care. Some of us do.
A WEEPING GUITAR
December 2001
"Back then…when we were fab"
- George Harrison
Requiescat in Pace, George
Guitars are weeping at the passing of another one of the Fab Four. For my generation of post-World War II Baby Boomers, the Beatles were to us what Alfred Lord Tennyson, and T.S. Elliot, Ruldoph Valentino and Glenn Miller and Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable with a dash of the Marx Brothers thrown in for good measure, were to our parents’ generation.
In the post-traumatic end of our innocence after the slaying of JFK, and the perpetual fears of Nuclear Winter it may be difficult for those not adolescents in the ‘60s to comprehend the impact of the Beatles on America and the world at that time. They were more than performers who, like Elvis, seemed to appall Ed Sullivan and the rest of the so-called "establishment". They were in fact our voice, concedingly a well-packaged voice in the Madison Avenue sense, for the angst we baby boomers felt. Sometimes the echo of that voice was off key.
I played my first air-guitar solo in Mr. Haycock’s shop class at Mt. Jordan Jr. High school on a T-Square, with Marlon Moore on drums (screwdrivers on a desk top), Lanie Wilkes on Bass (a Yardstick) and Mike Day on Rhythm guitar (pure air). The real Beatles were on the radio. That was 1963. All those years ago. But I can’t help bringing the old air-guitar out of its case when I’m alone and I listen to While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I still can’t sing on key, but I do love the Beatles individually and as a group, and the passing of another of the four is a meaningful reminder that all of our "lots are being shaken in the urn and we are destined sooner or later to join Charon in his skiff" for the trip across the River, Styx. (To paraphrase the poet Horace). And, yet today with George’s passing Eastern mysticism seems to provide a comfort to us left in the wake of his latest journey, the one we will all take, eventually. His obvious lack of fear of the approaching boatman is yet, again, a point of divergence for those of us old, fat and possibly bald, who will follow him probably sooner than later.
The Beatles were our leaders. They were our poets. They were our troubadours–our Shakespeare. They showed us a vision of life, which was Dante-esque in the ten years that ranged from I Want to Hold your Hand to A Day in the Life to Revolution, and then to Harrison’s Something.
When they were Fab, they opened up Carnaby Street and Haight Ashbury as a mirror to the pretension of the ‘50's. They caused, even led, a social revolution. They were our reality then; those of us who turned our crew cuts in for long hair, and pegged pants in for bell bottoms. George Harrison has been referred to as the silent Beatle, the quiet Beatle and maybe he was both quiet and silent standing as he did beside the revolutionary Lennon and the charismatic McCartney. As with most fans, followers and lovers of his music, what I could glean through his songs and the persona that sifted through the distillation of the media glare was a stoic, honest bloke, who could really play guitar. And, his passing reminded me that his place and the place of the Beatles in my life as with many of my generation contains this fitting epitaph. The world was a better place because of George Harrison, and his music allowed me as either an adolescent or a middle-aged man to realize that I was a better person to pick up a T-square and play air-guitar and sing his songs off-key than I would’ve been if I just used that T-Square to draw lines in wood shop class.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
January 2002
1. The loss of George Harrison is a further reminder of the poetry of rock and roll. It is not only the music which moved and continues to move us, but also the lyrics. Pick up Paul McCartney’s book, "Blackbird Singing". This poetic compendium contains both first time published poems and song lyrics. McCartney’s poetic confrontation of late teen angst in A Day in the Life is reminiscent of the best of the great Twentieth Century Italian Poet, Eugenio Montale; Ob La Di Ob Li Da reminds us of the nonsense verse of E.E. Cummings and Eleanor Rigby is a poetic reminder of Flaubert’s great story "The Simple Heart". The poetry at its best is compelling at its worst it just needs a catchy Lennon-McCartney tune to make it memorable. McCartney also reminds us that real men can read and write poetry. Poetry also abounds in the release of Caroline Kennedy Schottsberg’s anthology of her late mother Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’ favorite poems. Both, the book and the audio cassette or C.D. are treasures. Although, the old Latin Maxim "degustibus non est disputandem" (one should not argue over matter of taste) applies to any poetry anthology; and hence, Jackie’s favorites might not be yours or mine. The anthology contains a broad spectrum of poetry, from the patriotic to childrens’ poetry to well-known and loved standards. Caroline’s introduction to each section are prescient and excellent windows to Jackie’s favorites; and an unanticipated , but wonderful, bonus are the few of young Jackie Bouvier’s poems. This is an excellent introduction to poetry.
2. So why is it we give some public persona’s a walk when they do or say something incredibly stupid, but others are, metaphorically speaking, stoned from public view. The comparison of Al Campanis and Jimmy "The Greek" Snider with Reggie White and Charles Barkley always lurks in the back of the Justice Center of my medulla. All four made racially, gender-based or sexually offensive remarks. Yet the ESPN crowd fawns all over Chuck and the Reverend Reggie while when Campanis (who it should be noted was personally supportive of his teammate, Jackie Robinson) and Snider (who was just a big goof, anyway) remain poster children for intolerance. Which brings me to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the two right-wing zealots and god-brothers, who if there is a god, must have her rolling her eyes every time these two pseudo-christens open their greedy yaps. You’ll remember that this dynamic duo blamed all of us "secular humanists" as well as the ACLU, paganists, feminists, and homosexuals as primary aiders and abettors in the September 11th attacks by their brethren Muslim fundamentalists. In a fit of remote control frenzy during yet another Menlove Dodge Commercial the other night, I found the Rev. Jerry still on the TV yammering and begging for money. If the theological realities of Yahweh of the old testament really existed in the present day, and God was a participatory player in history’s time-line, he undoubtedly would have turned Jerry into a burning bush by now, and done it during "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" as a sign that she really does care. But, as it is, Jerry, Pat, Chuckie and Reverend Reggie are still in the game unlike Al and Jimmy. Which either means that God likes a good joke; God is testing us; or she isn’t listening very well these days.
3. Let me just take a short stand (I’m only 5'8") on BYU vs. BCS. First, to make it clear, I am not unbiased on this issue. I loathe the Cougars. I tell all my friends that the "Y" on the Utah County Mountain really stands for "Yengich", and I cannot imagine how, given BYU’s stance on everything from Playboy magazines to the Rodin Sculpture, that the Provo Academy of Religion is even an accredited institution of higher learning. BUT, . . . (BIG BUT HERE), in fact, a bigger butt than Roseanne Barr, they deserve a BCS bid, which is to say, a $13 million dollar bowl payout. And don’t give me strength of schedule. Miami plays Rutgers and Rutgers is not exactly the Florida State Seminoles of New Jersey. Nebraska gave up how many hundreds of points to Colorado and Colorado has two losses. Time for a real playoff or an Anti-Trust Suit. I’m always in favor of anything that puts more sports on T.V. or gets dollars into my fellow lawyers pockets. And, by the way, if the Mountain Standard Time Zone schools are so weak, then why won’t anyone back East or in the West coast play home and home series with them.
Sometimes I feel like Gilda Radner's character "Rosanne Rosannadanna". So after watching the 3 quarters of BYU Getting pounded by a good Croation Quarterback From Hawaii (Rolovich)... I can only say concerning the above screed "NEVER MIND".
4. Finally, if you want to read a real writer. Then go to my friend, John Schulian, who now writes a column for MSNBC. John, the lead former writer for such TV series as Slap Maxwell, Miami Vice and Hercules among others, also was an award winning columnist for the Baltimore Evening Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer to name a few. He can be found at http://www.msnbc.com/news. This cat can write. Go see what a real pro can do with words.
Buona Sera
DEATH COMES TO UTAH
March 2002
Death walked through the door and took two dear friends and mentors of mine recently. Death has a way of surprising us all, sometimes coming with the warning of illness and age. But the appearance of those twin accomplices never completely takes away the surprise when the reaper finally comes calling.
LIONEL FRANKEL was my first criminal law professor at the University of Utah College of Law back in my salad days when I wanted to change the world and actually believed that it could be done. I guess that attitude was part of the hangover of the sixties that some of us have never been able to completely shake.
ED BARTON was a retired police officer who crossed the divide to the other side and worked as the chief investigator at the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association after I had graduated from law school and was working as a public defender.
From both of these men I learned the importance of bringing humanism to the defense of people charged with everything from the very minor to the most egregious of sins and offenses against man and government.
Lionel Frankel was one of the most decent men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I had many law professors that I respected and even loved, but I place him at the crest of the wave of those who taught the importance of ethics and decency as companions to the law books that law students read. Ed Barton and I, as I said at his funeral, did many cases together and drank a few cases ourselves while working on them, and he taught me that all policemen, contrary to our sixties radical beliefs, are not pigs, and that the system of justice is not portrayed in black or white from either side of the courtroom.
I quite literally fell in love with the criminal law and the idea of being a defense attorney in Lionel Frankel’s first-year criminal law class. My copy of the case book that we used that year, Kadish and Paulsen, Criminal Law and Procedure sits on my bookshelf in my office and is heavily underlined in yellow, red and other colors, with marginal scribblings of a neophyte lawyer who wanted to grow up to be Clarence Darrow, Louie Nizer or Earl Rogers. There are days when Professor Frankel still walks to court with me and there are many days when I wish I could find him to discuss a particularly thorny issue in the law’s Bramble Bush. But I have not lost his sense of the need for decency in the criminal justice system. Professor Frankel believed that contrary to news media portrayals, being charged with a crime didn’t mean being convicted, and questioning the government on issues of guilt or innocence was the highest calling a lawyer could follow. I learned that lesson and a lot more from Lionel Frankel.
With Ed Barton I saw the sun rise on more than one occasion over Second South. Trailing Barton after our day at the office or in the courtroom was completed, he led me on a merry chase through the high points and the low points of the low life in Salt Lake City. He was called the Mayor of Second South because as a police officer that had been the area he patrolled. He knew all of the pimps and the whores and the madams, the after-hours clubs, the gamblers, the thieves, and the junkies. Following him around that area in its heyday, the Mecca for vice and sin in Salt Lake City remains one of the great learning experiences in my life. A location where no university would ever have a satellite campus, particularly in this day and age of political correctness. But I learned from Barton, who once took a bullet through his police officer’s uniform and into his belly and nearly died because of it, that treating people who commit crimes or are involved in crime with decency is the responsibility of everybody, police and defense attorneys alike, and that the system, to be a system, should be careful in judging people on the basis of where they live or with whom they associate. Some of the most decent people I’ve met in 26 years of practicing law, I met on 2 street. People struggling with their habits or their lifestyles or simply struggling to find a way in a world that seemed to have passed them by, or was not made for them in the first place.
Like a certain rabbi who lived 2000 years ago, Barton always looked past the crime and grime to the humanity of these folks on the margins of the light cast from Temple Square. And, he did it with a good nature and without regret even with that scar as a reminder of man’s potential inhumanity to man; or maybe because of it.
The teachers in our lives come in many different guises. I have been blessed with many great teachers who should share any success that I’ve had and none of the failures. Two of the best I had as a lawyer were Lionel Frankel and Ed Barton. Their presence will be missed. But for me and others who learned at their feet, their teachings hopefully will continue to bring rewards and remembrances.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
April 2002
JUDGING THE FEDERAL JUDGE
A number of criminal defense attorneys have opposed the nomination of Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, for a federal judgeship here in Utah. The media wants to make this a "defense lawyers versus conservative prosecutor" issue but nothing could be further from the truth. Most of us oppose the Cassell’s nomination because he’s never really been a practicing lawyer. Recently, Senator Hatch has taken to making nominations to the federal bench, not on the basis of experience in court, but on ideology. Cassell is a conservative ideologist and someone who seldom supports the rights of individuals against a big government incursion.
Mr. Cassell is also not a native to Utah nor has he practiced law in Utah to any degree of consistency. Many of us believe that federal judicial appointments should not be premised upon the conservative or liberal background of an individual, but rather, their experience as a lawyer.
As party litigants who come before judges, who are not experienced trial practitioners quite often discover, the knowledge and ability that come with practicing routinely in courts, for a number of years, assists in the prompt processing of cases and processing cases with a modicum of justice.
It behooves us, even though our senior senator is from Pennsylvania, to have people who have lived and worked in Utah (native Utahns, if possible) from areas, even other than Salt Lake City, appointed to the federal judiciary.
If you feel the same way as I do, email Senator Hatch or Senator Leahy at:
senator_hatch@hatch.senate.gov
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
FILM TECHNIQUE
Someone please investigate the quality of speed that the directors and video editors who work for ESPN are taking. My guess is that they must be using mass quantities of crystal methamphetamine in the control room in Bristol, Connecticut. Maybe I’m getting old, but the quick cuts of a "less than a second" visual and the sideways and upside-down camera angles and the in and out of focus camera technique taken directly from MTV videos is beginning to make it difficult to actually see what the announcers are talking about. Either these guys think they’re Federico Fellini or they’re using too much meth.
Does anyone agree with this or am I just becoming an old curmudgeon, or both?
FREE TICKETS
In the recent Olympics (and I will write more about this later), Chris Cannon, our erstwhile congressman from Utah County complained about the problem with U.S. House members and their staff not getting free tickets to the Olympic venues. Cannon was roundly criticized for this opinion, that he has a right to freebies, but I applaud it. Ol’ Chris is willing to state openly what we all know to be the truth. That is, once you become a member of the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, you expect people, not only to kiss your backside, but to slip things under the table to you and to directly hand gifts to you without any question about the ethical implications. It’s unusual for a politician to be this forthcoming when it comes to this type of gift grab. My kudos to Cannon for being up-front about the fact that politicians not only accept, but demand freebies that are denied us mere citizens.
THE "F" WORD
Mitt Romney supposedly used the "F" word, which is to say "Fuck" in a number of run-on declarative sentences during the Olympics. A storm of controversy rained as to whether or not Mitt has actually used that word since he was in high school. Of course he has, saying "flip" or "F off" or "F"in’ A or "flipin’ A" or any of the other colloquial usages of the sense of the word is the same as saying the real thing. It’s the intent with which the word is offered, not it’s colloquial usage.
I’ve always followed Mark Twain’s admonition "when angry, count to ten, when real angry swear." Mitt shouldn’t be embarrassed that he unknowingly followed Twain’s advice, only that he’s unwilling to admit that he did.
By the way, I decided to try to give up taking the Lord’s name in vain as part of my Lenten devotion. I have broken the pledge 29 times so far. I’ve agreed to give $5.00 per violation to a charity when the final tally is in. Any suggestions. . . email City Club at yengichmustpay@thecityclubonline.com with your choice of a charity. (NOTE: this email is no longer active)
CAPITOL PUNISHMENT
For those of you "eye for an eyers" out there who support the death penalty–some sobering news. Recently, another inmate, Juan Melendez, was released from Florida after spending 17 years and 8 months on death row. Even though there was no physical evidence linking him to a killing for which he was convicted, prosecutors pursued Melendez with a vengeance. After Melendez lost several rounds of appeals in Florida and in the federal courts, a transcript of another man’s confession to the crime was released by prosecutors. Melendez, who was innocent, was released from prison after almost 18 years. It is a startling fact that so many people have been released recently from death row after having been improperly convicted or having been found that they are innocent. One doesn’t know how many innocent people have actually been executed. Efforts to clear their names stop after the cyanide injection or the hot lead ends their quest for freedom. It’s popular to talk about justice and toughness in the same breath by people who are neither tough or just. But one wonders, where is the justice for men like Melendez and where is the toughness in seeking reparations from prosecutors who hide evidence or don’t pursue exculpatory evidence as vigorously as they pursue the grim reaper for individuals?
Arrivederci!
NO I AM NOT DEAD
September 2002
I am in New York, Manhattan, the city that never sleeps. The city of Rudy the G. and J. Lo. The city where life moves as fast as a Croatian cabby on speed, where if you snooze you don't only lose, you get buried. You can't be one of the walking dead in this city. This, after all, is not Provo. You either move or get walked over, you either swim your own course or you drown.
To quote a famous t-shirt saying of the 1980's "I (HEART) NEW YORK".
Lots of people hate Manhattan. They cite the muggers, the thuggers, the buggerers and Alfonse D'Amato as reasons, and I can see their point, particularly with Alphonse the Goof.
This is the city of tabloid news and Donald Trump. I guess that is redundant, but you see what I mean. As much of a pain in the Old Bronx that The Donald is, you've got to give him credit. When everyone else was bailing on Manhattan in the 1970's and Mayor Lindsay was trying to get the Indians to take the island back, Trump started buying up real estate faster than George Steinbrenner buys winning baseball teams. His risk paid off and now every corner has a Trump this or a Trump that . . . if he could just work on that comb-over.
Yes, The Donald is certainly New York and you have to give him credit. Just like Joe Torre, the tower of strength in the Yankee clubhouse, (Torre means tower in Italian) . Someone who can stand up to the boss and keep his job, a real New Yorker.
After a day of wandering the terrain of this amazing place all I can say is, "I (heart) New York". I saw a woman kick a pigeon at Columbus Square, an irony here since in Italian old Chris' name means pigeon.
I saw a man, I am sure is ESPN's Baseball Tonight's Harold Reynolds, hustling an attractive young lady at an outdoor table on Columbus Avenue. To be sure, as a native Utahn, I make occasional cross-racial, identification mistakes. I identified a number of African American ticket brokers during the Olympics as Billy Dee Williams.
I then witnessed a t-cup poodle stop traffic in the middle of West 57th street when it decided, over it's upscale, east side owner's vociferous objection to take a Bud Selig in the crosswalk. I (heart) this town, even the poodles have a bad 'tude.
I was in Mickey Mantle's restaurant (speaking of Bud Selig) this afternoon when I heard that there will be no strike or lock-out in major league baseball. I immediately had two draught beers and made an obscene reference to George Steinbrenner. I think The Mick would be proud of me. The fact is those morons who play, own and manage the big league game finally made a decision for the game and its fans.
And, a personal note, New York also allows old Ron to use his tickets to the Red Sox vs. Yankees on Labor Day. Talk about enlightened self-interest.
Well, my notes are a jumble of mush, since I just spilled my beer on them. I've nobly decided that my readers (or reader) need me. Maybe it's the fact that I'm in the City where Mark Twain and O.Henry both breathed their last ornery breaths, or because I walked by the site of William Dean Howells house on Central Park West, or that I ran through Strawberry Fields in Central Park this morning. The muse is loose, or the moose is loose, you decide. And, Greetings from The Plaza Hotel.
I LOVE THIS TOWN.
DRUMS OF WAR
October 2002
Well, George W. Bush, our erstwhile fitness guru and Commander In Chief, has decided to invade Iraq. His robotic, Stepford Wivesque Constituancy, (which is to say all good coinservative Rebpublicans and Democrats), are lapping at his feet howling and saying me too, me too. That is not a misprint by the way. COINservative is the word for money-grubbing politicians who are using the War with Iraq as a means to take heat off their buddies in Corporate America. Buddies who pay them off to avoid real issues like Campaign Reform, Corporate Double Dealing and Corporate Welfare.
George W. wants war, and dad-gum it, many so-called Patriots are chomping at the old bit to send your kids to do the killin' and be killed. Even Bill Clinton is all for attacking Saddam. Do you see the irony here children?
You won't see Bill or George on the battlefield. Hell, like many of us, they dodged the draft when they were young enough to fight in a war. Oh, how quickly we forget Vietnam, as we get old. That goes for many Journalists and Editorial Writers over 45 years of age, who forget their own days of ducking a stupid war. A war brought about for reasons, which history records, was wrong-headed from the get go. These over 45, overweight white guys, want war, and by God they want it now. Of course, they and theirs won't be fighting the war. Do you think for one minute that the Bush Twins are going to Iraq, to put on a gas mask, to fight the infidels? Or perhaps, Chelsea Clinton is going to saddle up in camouflage to go kill Saddam's henchmen? Hardly folks. Do you think that the corporate thieves are going to send their children? The answer rhymes with what our President is . . . Nope!
When George W. went on TV to sell the war to us, it was reminiscent of Tricky Dicky Nixon's "Secret Strategy" to end the war in Vietnam.
It was all smoke and mirrors, laced with lies and campaign contributions. Bush's sell job was not any better, particularly as his own CIA chief said the next day that "Saddam is not an immediate threat". We've been lied to enough about this type of stuff in the 20th Century. American's have an obligation to make sure that we don't start the 21st Century by running down the same road of duplicity and lies. America doesn't need to build another generation of marbled War Memorials, inscribed with the names of our dead sons.
Stand up and be counted! The greatest patriot is the one who calls bullshit when his government is lying to him and hiding under the chimera of Patriotism.