Jew Eat Yet?

“Everybody Likes Me!”

One of the advantages of working from home is that I get to spend part of each day working from cool spots all over the city, thanks to my trusty iBook and an abundance of wireless Internet connections in Los Angeles. Yesterday I spent a few hours at my favorite “office,” Susina Bakery on Beverly Blvd. near La Brea. Susina is home to a loyal crowd of writers and editors who spend countless hours nibbling on fine pastries in the blue glow of their laptops and feeding off the wi-fi signal coming from the Starbucks next door. Susina has some of the most exquisite baked goods this side of the 16th arrondissement but I try to limit myself to a plain croissant or perhaps a cornmeal-raspberry scone. Owner Jenna Turner couldn’t be more accommodating to the regulars who set up their home offices on the café’s small tables, nursing their lattes and reworking their screenplays or books.

I was deeply engrossed in a proposal for a book about progressive education called “Teaching on a Tightrope” when a woman and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter sat down at the table next to me. The woman carried a pot of gunpowder tea and poured herself a large cup. She then gave her daughter a few drops in a demi-tasse that was the pefect size for her tiny hands.

The woman’s cell phone rang and she began a conversation with her husband. Normally, sitting next to someone blabbing away on her cell phone would annoy me to no end but the woman was so excited and animated that I didn’t mind the noise. The little girl was running all over the place, which again, under different circumstances would have provoked a tirade of silent judgment, but I was mesmerized by the world she had created with the miniature teacup and the stuffed animal she had set up at the table on the other side of her mother. “I want to talk to Daddy,” she squealed and the woman gave her the phone. After they ended the call, the mother was beaming. The daughter, noticing, was delighted.

“Are you happy, Mommy?” the little girl asked.
“Yes, I am, sweetheart,” the woman replied.

I was so taken by the concept of this little girl inquiring about and being moved by her mother’s happiness that I looked over at her with a big smile on my face. Seeing me, she turned back to her mother and said in a loud stage whisper, “Mommy! Everybody likes me!”

The innocence of that comment brought tears to my eyes. It didn’t matter that the little girl’s assessment wasn’t grounded in “truth,” what was remarkable to me was that she was so unpolluted by neuroses and self-doubt that she could take the approving smile of a total stranger and extrapolate that into the best possible interpretation for herself. Why can’t I do that? My extrapolation techniques only work in reverse. Many people in the course of a day can say positive things to me and I’m glad to hear them but my inner voices kick in before they’ve even finished their thought:

“If they only knew what a fraud I am.”
“They’re wrong, how could they be so misguided?”
“They think that now, but wait until I fuck up, then they’ll change their tune.”
“Yeah, yeah, they’re just saying that to be nice.”

But the second I hear one negative comment I am quick to hyperbolize it into an all-powerful Proclamation of Divine Truth that often results in the polar opposite of the little girl’s observation.

“Everybody hates me!”

I’ve been in therapy long enough to know that such an extreme reaction is my “stuff” coming up, I really don’t believe in my heart that the world hates me. But the daily machinations I have to go through to try to hear and let in any positive comments while not over-dramatizing the negative ones is exhausting to say the least. Of course right now I’m worrying about how unflattering it is to admit all this and I normally wouldn’t. But I can’t get the Susina kid out of my head. So please forgive my online therapy session and feel free to move on if it seems too simplistic or treacly.

For the rest of the day I was acutely aware of how uncomfortable it was for me to hear praise. I love HAVING heard it, I just can’t handle HEARING it as it’s being said. Maybe that’s why I love blogging so much and why I’m such a comment junkie. Tell me in person that you were affected by something I’ve written and the defense mechanisms spring into action, doubting your words and wishing that they would stop. But when I receive comments that are not part of a face-to-face social interaction I am much more likely to take them seriously as a freely given reflection of that person’s feelings.

I’m not proud of this dysfunction and I’m working hard to be able to accept other people’s positive comments with more grace. God knows I believe any comment that I define as critical (“Aha! NOW they’re telling the truth! Wow, what insight!”). I remember once having dinner with Tamar at a conference. Being someone who is much more skilled at expressing her feelings, she began telling me how important our professional editor-author relationship was to her as well as our personal friendship. Without realizing what I was doing, I heard a reflexive “Awwwww” coming out of my mouth. As in, “Aww, isn’t that cute!” As in, “I don’t really feel comfortable hearing that right now so I’m going to dismiss it by marginalizing you as an emotional, demonstrative woman who wears your heart on your sleeve.” Oy. Luckily, I caught myself after this happened a few times and we were able to discuss my uncomfortable reaction. Once I got past my fear of such a statement as somehow being “unsafe,” I was able to hear it, acknowledge it, and express my own reciprocal feelings.

My therapist recently noted that I’m okay with “I felt…” but I still have problems with “I feel…” I can wax on and on (especially in writing) about how I felt sad, depressed, angry, happy in a certain situation, but in the actual moment of the feeling I am rarely able to express or acknowledge it. It’s as if I feel I don’t have a right to my feelings as they’re happening, or I don’t trust them, or I think they might hurt other people, or I dare not make them known for fear of ridicule.

My father is one of the most supportive parents on the planet. My friends used to make fun of his constant over-the-top praise for anything his kids did. (“Look at how well Danny can write upside-down.” “Danny is so brilliant he can do anything.” “Danny knows so much about the movies he should be the new film critic for the Chicago Tribune.”) It was easy to dismiss his comments as the good-natured ravings of a father blinded by his love for his children. I used to complain that my parents were so supportive about everything that I did that their praise lost all meaning because it wasn’t connected to who I really was, it was too generic to count. Then I’d feel horribly guilty for complaining about this when some of my friends were dealing with abusive parents who accused them of being idiots or sluts. My father called me yesterday to tell me how moved he was by my last post about the Marshall Field’s name change. I was suddenly aware of how part of me enjoyed hearing his comments, but part of me couldn’t wait for the positive remarks to end, I was practically holding my breath waiting for him to stop. I didn’t want to be ungracious so I kept trying to deftly change the subject. Why? I turned to my internal “generic praise has no meaning” mantra, and then had to admit to myself that this wasn’t generic, my dad was actually sharing his honest response to something very specific. I realized in that moment that my dismissal of his comments had become such an ingrained reflex I didn’t even realize how unfair it was to both of us.

What am I so afraid of? Oy, don’t answer that. Maybe I should just submit this post to an eTherapist. The little girl’s comment at Susina moved me so much that I spoke to the girl’s mother. She explained that she and her daughter had been talking a lot about emotions that day and so she wasn’t surprised when the girl asked her if she was happy. I told her I thought that was great, especially if sometimes her answer was, “no, I’m not particularly happy right now.” She said that indeed, they’d already been through the gamut of emotions that morning and the girl knew that it was normal to feel sad sometimes, that this wasn’t something you needed to hide or feel ashamed of. Lucky kid. I think the most destructive thing my well meaning parents did as they slogged through their hideous divorce was to blatantly pretend that all was well even in the face of screaming matches and violent episodes. They’d go after each other within full earshot of their children and then afterwards say, “Everything’s okay. Nothing just happened. We weren’t just yelling. We didn’t just break the door down. We love each other very much.” Huh? I can’t remember a single time when either of them sat us down and said, “I realize you just heard that fight and I’m sorry we’re having such a difficult time right now. We’re very sad and upset but we love you very much.” Again, I’m not blaming my parents at this point—they were young and in pain and doing the best they could, but even in less troubled times the modus operandi in my family was to act as if everything was okay, regardless of what was stirring underneath the thin veneer of calm. I sure don’t want to do that with my child and yet I don’t want to reveal too much either. I know that it’s okay and quite beneficial to acknowledge the times when I’m feeling sad or having a bad day, but I have to watch that I don’t go overboard and give her more information than is necessary or healthy for her developmental level or sense of security.

I wonder if I ever had as pure a channel into my feelings as that little girl in the bakery. Is one of our definitions of “maturity” learning how to dismiss or repress our true feelings more skillfully? No wonder I used to envy my relatives who had, shall we say, a more tenuous hold on reality. They may have been barking under the table but at least they were in touch with their emotions.

Field's Special

I don’t know what’s more shocking: that the clueless honchos at the Federated Stores corporation would make the asinine decision to change the name of Marshall Field’s department store on Chicago’s State Street to Macy’s, or the hysterical cries of treason from thousands of current and former Chicagoans (myself included). I do realize that in the grand scheme of things, exchanging one corporate name for another is not a tragedy on par with wars, natural disasters, and other forms of human suffering. But the death of Marshall Field’s evokes a sense of loss that extends far beyond commercial signage and brand identity.

I’ve never seen a store that maintains such an emotional resonance with its customer base. I’m the perfect example. I loathe shopping and you’d have a very hard time dragging me into any of the department stores in southern California. Keep your Nordstroms, Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylors, Saks, Neiman Marcuses, and Barneys. I’ve been to the mouth-watering Food Hall at Harrod’s in London, I’ve found relief from the frigid winter temperatures at the elegant GUM Department Store in Moscow, and I’ve made many a purchase at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. But for me not a single commercial entity on the planet holds a candle to the 153-year-old legacy that is Marshall Field’s.

It would never occur to me to visit Chicago without a stop at Marshall Field’s behemoth downtown store. Even Leah, who has never lived in Chicago a day in her life, can’t wait to go to Field’s whenever we’re in town. It was while my sister was buying two lamps in the well appointed store a few weeks ago that our sales associate Sheneeska told me about the impending decision by the new owners to change the name. I was quickly able to foment a rising panic in the lighting department with my cries of horror and outrage. By the time I left I was promising to join Sheneeska on a picket line if Marshall Field’s were to morph into Macy’s. I’ve yet to come across a single person who is supportive or even neutral on the subject of this name change. On the contrary, anyone who has ever stepped foot in Chicago reacts to the news with the same level of emotion usually reserved for items like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Last week, on the day after the announcement, the Chicago Tribune featured a front-page headline about the decision in the size of type used to herald the end of World War II.

I’m well aware that the store has not been owned by the Field’s family for many years and that some say the quality of the merchandise and service has plummeted from the old days. I’m not sure I agree with this last assessment, especially after having stopped by the once venerable Carson Pirie Scott store on State Street during my trip last month and finding that despite its 1906 signature cast-iron entrance designed by Louis Sullivan, the interior of this landmark is now a total dump, with decaying walls, garish fluorescent lighting, and indifferent salespeople. To be fair, I was only making a quick dash through the store to find the post office on the 2nd floor, but when I returned to Field’s, Sheneeska told me how Carson’s had gone to hell in a handbag in recent years and that of the grand State Street stores, only Marshall Field’s still puts the money and care into its displays.

While I do whip out the credit card at Field’s more than any other department store, the reverence I feel for the place is obviously not about the merchandise—it’s about the memories and the role that Marshall Field’s has played in the lives of so many Chicagoans. Who doesn’t remember their first trip downtown to see the magical Christmas windows at Field’s? In my house this event was anticipated with the same excitement as the annual TV viewing of “The Wizard of Oz.” We dressed in our finest clothes for the visit which was usually followed by dinner at Fritzel’s and a screening at one of the downtown movie palaces such as the Oriental, Roosevelt, or Michael Todd Theatre. Marshall Field’s was not just a store, it was a destination.

Marshall Field's was the first American department store to have its own buyers in European cities. It was the first store to open a fine restaurant on the premises and the first to offer a bridal registry. The incredible Tiffany Ceiling is the largest glass mosaic of its kind, containing over 1,600,000 separate pieces, and the Great Clock at the corner of State and Washington streets which has been keeping time for over a century was immortalized by Norman Rockwell on the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post.”

I feel like my family is intricately connected to Marshall Field’s. For one thing, the flagship of my grandfather’s own chain of clothing stores, Karoll’s Red Hanger Shops, was directly across the street from Marshall Field’s. Though the store and landmark Karoll’s Building started getting a little seedy towards the end of my family’s half-century reign, we used to watch the Christmas Parade on State Street every year from my grandfather’s mezzanine office and gaze across at stately Marshall Field’s, feeling a part of that legacy. When I think of Field’s I especially think of my mother and grandmother and the countless times I visited this store with them. “Give the lady what she wants” was the famous Marshall Field’s slogan, and that they did. During our shopping days we’d always stop in the stunning Walnut Room on the 7th Floor to gorge on Field’s Specials. This lunchtime item hasn’t been on the menu in years but Field’s loyalists can still order it and the longtime waiters will respectfully comply. A Field’s Special consists of a piece of buttered rye bread on top of which is placed a thick slice of swiss cheese and almost an entire head lettuce. Olives, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and tomatoes are affixed to the green base with toothpicks, like ornaments on the gigantic Christmas tree that sits in the center of the elegant restaurant during the holiday season. The plate is then covered with a thick creamy layer of Field’s own phosphorescent Thousand Island dressing. Yum. Top that off with a slice of Frango Mint Ice Cream Pie and you have a quintessential Chicago lunch.

I think every piece of furniture and every tchotchke in my grandparents’ Lake Shore Drive apartment came from Marshall Field’s, as did my grandmother’s couture wardrobe, fur coat, and hats. When I picture my mother, the image in my mind more often than not includes a forest green Marshall Field’s shopping bag. How many times did I meet her under that famous clock? Marshall Field’s was the site of my first elevator ride (did you know that Dorothy Lamour was an elevator operator at Field’s when she was discovered?), my first trip up an escalator (I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to step off properly and I’d get sucked into the mechanism), my favorite raspberry juice/coconut milk concoction at the third floor snack counter, my first book purchase (Shirley MacLaine’s “You Can Get There From Here”), and my first set of china when I moved out. My aunt worked at Field’s as did my friend Helena whose stint at the 7th floor bakery afforded me huge bags of free baked goods including the most delicious pecan cookies stuffed with whole Frango mints. For years my brother ran the audiovisual department at Marshall Field’s making all the training videos for the army of employees and many of the promotional videos seen around the store. I used to love visiting him at work because I got to go to the floors that were not open to the public. Bruce’s office was heady with the luscious aromas from the Frango mint kitchens which were one floor above. The old ladies making the chocolates used to send down trays of new flavors they were trying out. Bruce’s girlfriend at the time was one of the first women vice presidents at the male-dominated company. We were definitely a Field’s family.

It’s not that I have anything against Macy’s. I’d be the last person to begrudge the company its place in the world, especially on its own turf. Watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade has become a ritual in this country on par with overcooked turkey and Aunt Esther’s sweet potato-burnt marshmallow casserole. Macy’s is so much a part of our culture that you could organize a film festival around all the movies that have incorporated the store into their plots. One of my favorite Woody Allen moments is when he and Mia Farrow are trying to escape a band of murdering mafia thugs in “Broadway Danny Rose” and they duck into the warehouse where the gigantic character balloons for the Macy’s parade are being stored. Gunshots fired by the mafiosos puncture the huge helium-filled balloons causing the cast to play out the violent scene in high-pitched Munchkin voices.

The most famous Macy’s movie, of course, is 1947’s “Miracle on 34th Street” starring Maureen O’Hara as a no-nonsense Macy executive who hires an old man to play the store Santa. Finding out that the man (played by Edmund Gwenn) actually believes he is Kris Kringle, she thinks him a total nut. When O’Hara’s daughter Susan, played by 8-year-old Natalie Wood, starts to believe that this man really may be Santa Claus, O’Hara will have none of it.

Natalie Wood: But mother, he spoke Dutch to that girl!
Maureen O’Hara: Darling, I speak French, but that doesn’t make me Joan of Arc.

After the store psychologist gets the old man committed to Bellevue, Gwenn’s character goes to court to prove that he is, in fact, the real Santa. In the end, he wins over Macy’s, New York, and even cynical Maureen O’Hara. Who wouldn’t love Macy’s after watching this heartwarming tale? Founder R.H. Macy is portrayed kindly in the film by character actor Harry Antrim, whose previous claim to fame was starring in the 1938 exploitation flick “Sex Madness”—a cautionary tale about a man who contracts gonorrhea from a sleazy burlesque performer. Was that a premonition, Mr. Macy?

But no matter how good Macy’s looks in the movies, Macy’s ain’t Marshall Field’s and Marshall Field’s ain’t Macy’s. This insane decision to obliterate such an important piece of Chicago history only exacerbates the cliché of Chicago’s rivalry with New York. For a New York institution to take over one of the most iconic, recognized names in the Windy City is as horrifying for Chicagoans as it would be for New Yorkers if the Yankees were rechristened the New York Cubs.

When my mother was dying of cancer six years ago we had some poignant discussions about the existence of an afterlife and how we believed that we’d one day see each other again. We talked about where our astral selves should meet up following my own death. I won't reveal the exact location but I will say that we both simultaneously came up with a favorite spot inside Marshall Field’s State Street store as our meeting place. Among the many reasons why I find this decision to change the name of Marshall Field’s terribly upsetting is the fear that my mom will no longer be able to find me.

Be Good, Rita!

As tensions mount throughout the Gulf Coast, I can only hope that Hurricane Rita takes after its brilliant but volatile namesake and has a bark bigger than her bite. Should we be concerned that Rita Hayworth starred in 1937’s “Trouble in Texas” and that her last film was called “The Wrath of God?”

I can’t remember the last time we ever had two hurricanes of this magnitude so close together. What’s going on? Wilco is supposed to headline at the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend and my sister and her kids were heading down to Texas tomorrow morning. I think she just cancelled her trip, thank God, since the poor Katrina evacuees along with thousands of other Houston residents are now flooding into Austin and need all the hotel rooms they can get. Even though Austin is far from the coast, they’re still anticipating a major storm and supplies are low everywhere. There will be a decision later tonight whether the entire festival is going to be cancelled.

Rita Hayworth died in 1987. Had she lived, she would have been 86 in a few weeks. I’m glad people are taking Hurricane Rita more seriously than they took the actress. Because of her incredible beauty, her abuse at the hands of Columbia Studios president Harry Cohn, and her unusually early descent into Alzheimer’s Disease, I don’t believe she is given the credit she deserves for her acting chops. “We are all tied to our destiny,” Rita said sadly before she slipped away, “and there is no way we can liberate ourselves.” Let’s hope that the same is not true for all those people in the hurricane’s path.

Meet the Blisters

Please forgive me one more bit of family exploitation kvelling but the agency that created my nephews’ current Quaker Oats commercial just posted a five-minute short film about The Blisters that I think is too good to miss. It was directed by Project Greenlight director Scott Smith who is also the creative partner (with Chris Laubauch) of Chicago-based Element79. Click here to go to the agency’s website and then click on “Special Feature: The Blisters.” You’ll find the actual Quaker Oats commercial that’s airing (it will be on the Today Show again tomorrow morning) along with the funny “rockumentary” that Smith made about the band (watch for brief cameos of my sister and Jeff). Can a VH1 “Behind the Music” special be far behind? Are the band members peaking before they hit puberty?

Wilco played the 20th anniversary Farm Aid concert the other night in Illinois and were introduced by none other than Senator Barack Obama. The band gave him a Wilco poster that said “See you at the inauguration” and my first thought was not about what a future Obama presidency might mean to this country but about the panic my sister would go through about what to wear to the inaugural ball. Wilco playing at a presidential inauguration would be very cool but I’d probably never make security clearance if the secret service got wind of my blog.

Garbo Talks, Roberts Doesn't

Although I attended the official celebration of Greta Garbo’s centenary last April, her actual 100th birthday is this coming Sunday. Grattis på födelsedagen, Greta! One person who probably “vanted to be alone” today was John G. Roberts, Jr., after concluding his final 10-hour day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was grueling because of all the hours he had to sit in that chair responding to the sometimes testy senators, but the only possible way he won’t be confirmed at this point is if he shows up on the Capitol steps tomorrow in a bra and a half slip and starts passing out martinis to visiting girl scout troops. I’ll leave the analysis of Roberts' legal mind to the political bloggers, but I have to say that I was far more interested in the extensive NPR radio coverage of the hearings than I thought I’d be—I couldn’t get enough of it. Roberts was a genius at deflecting questions that he didn’t want to answer but still managing to sound sincere. Is it possible that anyone chosen by our doofus President could actually be…dare I say it…a human being?

What Roberts does on that Court will have an enormous impact on our society for many decades to come. Am I a total patsy for buying Roberts’ frequent argument that he couldn’t talk about issues that might come before him in the Supreme Court if he is confirmed? Will I rue the day that I ever believed his assurances that he is not an ideologue? Can any of my ultra-liberal friends explain to me why we should be quaking in our boots about this guy? At first I thought it was outrageous that after Rehnquist died Bush quickly put Roberts  up for Chief Justice instead of as a replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor. I imagined that the other Justices must be fuming that they were overlooked, like the time Mary Richards was mad at Lou Grant for bringing in someone from the outside to produce her show instead of promoting her after all her loyal years at WJM-TV. But then I read today that of the 17 Chief Justices we’ve had, only 5 were appointed from within the Supreme Court (including Rehnquist). Who knew?

I side with the Democratic senators on almost every issue, but it was sorta fun watching them squirm and moan about Roberts’ well spoken and articulate answers that didn’t really say very much. I thought Feinstein was going to lose it during the discussion of right-to-die issues when she cut Roberts off, saying “That wasn't my question! I'm trying to see your feelings as a man, I'm not asking you for a legal view.” 

In the spirit of Andy Hardy Writes a Blog, it’s not hard to figure out what my favorite exchange was at today’s hearing. Senator Schumer was going ballistic about Roberts’ answers, altering his view from Tuesday when he said that he was “pleasantly surprised” by Roberts’ testimony.

“It's as if I asked you what kind of movies you like,” Schumer said, “and you say, ‘I like movies with good acting, I like movies with good directing, I like movies with good cinematography. And I ask you, ‘No, give me an example of a good movie’ and you don't name one. I say, ‘Give me an example of a bad movie,’ you won't name one.

“Then I ask you if you like ‘Casablanca,’ and you respond by saying, ‘Lots of people like ‘Casablanca.’” You tell me it’s widely settled that ‘Casablanca’ is one of the great movies.”

At this point Senator Arlen Specter, the committee chairman, told Schumer that his time was up and called a recess. But as the senators and the audience were standing to leave, Roberts raised his voice to say he’d like a chance to respond. After endless hours of evasion, he was finally going to answer a question head-on.

“’Doctor Zhivago,’” said Roberts. “And ‘North by Northwest.’”

Ha! As far as I’m concerned, you can tell more about a person by what movies they like than you can by their long-winded answers about cloning, executive privilege, or separation of church and state. I’ve never been a huge “Zhivago” fan but I bet the Senate would be surprised to discover the extremely left-wing politics of many of the actors in Roberts’ favorite movie. And I couldn’t help but think of a line that Rod Steiger’s Komarovsky says about Omar Sharif’s Dr. Zhivago:

“There are two kinds of men and only two. And that young man is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He's the kind of man the world pretends to look up to, and in fact despises. He is the kind of man who breeds unhappiness, particularly in women. Do you understand?”

Hmmm. But Roberts can’t go wrong with “North by Northwest” and he’d get my vote on that comment alone. Still, I can’t imagine it’s a favorite among the die-hards of the religious right, especially because of the sexy repartee between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint:

Eve Kendall: I tipped the steward five dollars to seat you here if you should come in.
Roger Thornhill: Is that a proposition?
Eve Kendall: I never discuss making love on an empty stomach.
Roger Thornhill: You've already eaten!
Eve Kendall: But you haven't.

Eve Kendall: I'm a big girl.
Roger Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.

Roger Thornhill: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.
Eve Kendall: What makes you think you have to conceal it?
Roger Thornhill: She might find the idea objectionable.
Eve Kendall: Then again, she might not.

Roger Thornhill: When I was a little boy, I wouldn't even let my mother undress me.
Eve Kendall: Well, you're a big boy now.

That movie is perfection. And by the way, did you know that Jessie Royce Landis, the actress who played Cary Grant’s mother in the film was actually 10 months younger than Grant?

So whatever my fellow lefties think of John G. Roberts, our next Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, at least we can be thankful he isn’t home watching “Knute Rockne, All American” over and over again. You gotta respect a guy who would rather watch Eva Marie Saint tease Cary Grant than see Ronald Reagan win another one for the damn Gipper.

Dead End

I hope that title isn’t a statement on my life at the moment (although it feels like an appropriate comment about my blog since I can’t seem to find any time to write in here lately). That phrase is on my mind because Kendall and I saw the great new production of the Depression-era Sidney Kingsley play “Dead End” at the Ahmanson Theatre the other night. While the play ran on Broadway for two years in the 1930s and was the first command performance of a theatrical production in the White House (thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt), it has rarely been produced since because of its gargantuan 42-member cast and some difficult set pieces including the need to recreate New York’s East River on the stage.

And recreate it they did, by pumping over 11,000 gallons of water into the theatre’s orchestra pit. We don’t actually see the water from the audience but we sure hear it and feel it as the street kids dive, cannonball, and belly flop into the river throughout the play. The Ahmanson provides towels for the people sitting in the first row but Kendall and I sat in the second row and got splashed repeatedly. The rest of the set was equally grand in scale, showing an east side neighborhood in New York that contained a swanky upper class apartment building butting up against seedy and broken down tenements. I’m talking huge four-story buildings with activity going on in every apartment and people hanging out of windows and balconies. Truly amazing, but not in a gimmicky way that takes away from the content of the play like that stupid chandelier in “Phantom of the Opera.”

The story was, of course, made into the 1937 film “Dead End” starring Humphrey Bogart as Baby Face Martin and Sylvia Sidney as long-suffering Drina Gordon. Lillian Hellman adapted Kingsley’s play for the screen and did a great job although some of the more gritty aspects of the story had to be soft-pedaled. One of the main reasons gangster Martin comes back to his old neighborhood is to seek out his old love Francey, played in the film by Claire Trevor. What is painfully clear in the play version, but not so in the movie, is that Francey is now a prostitute and suffering from an advanced case of syphilis. The movie used many of the cast members from the Broadway play, including the street-wise actors who would become known in a series of films as the Dead End Kids, then the East Side Kids, and finally the Bowery Boys.

Despite the 1930s vernacular, the play’s tough look at how poverty clashes with privilege in America’s big cities is as timely today as it was 70 years ago. The cast here is extraordinary. Jeremy Sisto, aka Billy Chenowith of “Six Feet Under,” does a great job with Baby Face Martin, giving a very different interpretation than Bogart’s.  Tom Everett Scott plays Gimpty, a destitute out-of-work architect who is having a doomed affair with a woman living in the luxury apartment building. The kids are played by a group of talented young actors who nail the 30s dialogue perfectly ("Yew da noo kid onna block, aintcha? Yeah, I live on Foist Avenoo between Fifty-toid and Fifty-fawt.”), especially Ricky Ullman as Tommy, the leader of the gang. Apparently Ullman is a teen heartthrob on the Disney Channel but you’d never know it here in his decidedly un-Disney tough kid performance. Baby Face Martin has also returned to the hood to see his mother, brilliantly played by Joyce Van Patten (in the role that made Marjorie Main famous in the original play). Forget the East River—the brief scene between Sisto and Van Patten is worth the price of admission. Joyce Van Patten is a friend of Kendall’s family and it was a treat to spend some time with her after the show. One of my earliest TV memories is watching Joyce Van Patten on “The Danny Kaye Show” (with fellow cast member Harvey Korman). Remember when you couldn’t turn on a TV without seeing a Van Patten, whether it was Joyce, Dick, Vincent, Nels, Tim, Pat, James, or God knows how many others? Where have all the Van Pattens gone? (Should that be the new title of my blog?) Joyce is as charming as ever and thrilled to be part of this play. We saw Jeremy Sisto come out of his dressing room and he looks so different from poor demented Billy—much younger actually. He left the theatre with his dog who has a nice part in the play. 

I’ve been trying to make this NOT sound like a theatre review but I did want to urge people in L.A. to take advantage of the rare opportunity to see a full-scale production of this play while they can (it’s here through mid-October). Kendall is so furious at the negative L.A. Times review of the play that she sent a bitter letter to the paper last night. Here is an excerpt:

Thank you to the Times and Mr. James C. Taylor for a shabby, uninformed and oh-so-bitchy shot in the foot to Los Angeles theatre…faced with a magnificent thing, Mr. Taylor took the approach of a bad-tempered, unhappy child and instead of lauding this production and trying to light a fire under Los Angeles theatergoers to support it, chose to try to knock all the blocks down instead—and with such a true lack of understanding or love for the American theatre or its history that it is my dearest hope his reviews do not grace the pages of my hometown paper again.  I quote: “Since the play is not a staple, why didn’t the creative team trim and rework things a bit…”  This is the attitude towards the written word I expect from Hollywood development executives, not a theatre critic.  Yeah, let’s put another couple dozen writers on “Dead End”, see if we can make something out of it! Mr. Taylor’s main objection to “Dead End” seems to be that “both the play’s politics and its parlance are no longer fresh.”  Well, honey, “Wherefore art thou Romeo” ain’t exactly fresh parlance either, but it still packs a wallop and can open a mind (that isn’t closed shut by its own smugness) to new worlds.  As for the politics, you show me any play running right now that speaks more directly to this country after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  The Dead End kids climbing out the water of the East River on the Ahmanson Theatre stage are the same kids who just got pulled out of the water in New Orleans. And is that rich lady with the Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bags just an out-of-date character in a deservedly forgotten play or doesn’t she bear a startling resemblance to Barbara Bush with her now infamous quote concerning the hurricane survivors now temporarily housed in Houston’s Astrodome: “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

You go, Kendall. Coming from a theatre family, her hackles are easily raised by mean-spirited critics. While her father Oliver Hailey’s plays were performed to great success around the country, the Broadway productions were consistently derailed by vicious reviews. Why do so many critics seem to delight in being cruel? I’ll never forget theatre and movie critic John Simon’s critique of Liza Minnelli in New York Magazine years ago:

That turnipy nose overhanging a forward-gaping mouth and hastily retreating chin, that bulbous cranium with eyes as big (and as inexpressive) as saucers; those are the appurtenances of a clown - a funny clown, not even a sad one.

And then he said of wonderful Shelley Duvall:

The worst and most homeliest thing to hit the screens since Liza Minnelli.

And let’s not forget his vile assessment of Babs Streisand:

A cross between an aardvark and an albino rat surmounted by a platinum-coated horse bun...her acting consists entirely of fishily thrusting out her lips, sounding like a cabbie bellyaching at breakneck speed, and throwing her weight around.

What an ass. Maybe they should have let him write for other sections of the magazine—I’m sure he would have had a field day commenting on the physical appearances of people like Helen Keller, Anne Frank, and Mother Teresa. I hate to reprint his slime here but I ask you, are those legitimate comments from a critic or the ravings of a spoiled brat who was made fun of on the playgrounds of his youth and is now trying to exact some kind of sick revenge? At least there’s some justice—after 40 years he was finally pushed out of New York Magazine last May.

I hope the Los Angeles Times prints Kendall’s letter. Ironic that she wrote it on the very day that I had my first article published in that newspaper, a profile of our historic neighborhood for the real estate section. At least there’s no cruelty in that part of the paper (except for the outrageous and ever increasing prices of Los Angeles homes). The Times printed another story about “Dead End” in today’s paper, and it was a surprising one. Did you know that only two people are still alive from the original Broadway production of the play and that one of them is none other than Earl Blackwell, the creator of the annual list of Worst Dressed Celebrities. Who knew that he was once a Dead End Kid? That seems like a stretch, but I’m holding my tongue from the many bitchy comments coming to mind lest I start sounding like a disgruntled critic.

When You’re Feeling Blue…Have Some Oatmeal!

Oy! My nephews’ Errol Morris-directed Quaker Oats commercial debuts on “The Today Show” tomorrow morning and will also be on during “Scrubs” and a ton of other shows and networks! Keep your eyes out for The Blisters’ TV debut. I haven’t been this interested in a television ad since Robert Conrad was daring us to knock a battery off his shoulder.

The final cut of the commercial came out great. My only regret is that my five-year-old nephew Sam’s avant-garde performance bouncing around the studio didn’t make it in. Can commercials ever have a Special Edition DVD that includes missing footage? Leah and I have been singing the Blisters’ original oatmeal song all day. I love that the kids implied that eating oatmeal could cure depression. I know I always felt nurtured and soothed by hot cereal, maybe there really is some connection to our seratonin levels. Don’t worry, I’m not pandering to my nephews’ sponsor, I already admitted that I’m more of a Cream of Wheat than an oatmeal man. I’m also such a snob that when I do eat oatmeal it’s usually the way more expensive Irish steel-cut oats variety. But I still love Quaker Oats as an ingredient—nothing makes a better oatmeal cookie.

The Blisters’ parents are very responsible and they’re making sure their kids don’t get swelled heads from their TV exposure. Spencer or Sammy aren’t anywhere near as excited about their TV debut as I am. Spencer started fourth grade today and is far more concerned with his new spy game than any commercial. I couldn’t quite get a handle on what this secret world he invented was all about when we were in Chicago last week, I just know that every time I saw Spencer and Leah together they were shooting off toy guns and giving cryptic weather reports. I wish I had a tape of my sister years ago swearing that she’d never allow a toy weapon in her house. Now her son has cabinets in his bedroom that look like the munitions warehouse for the IRA. Sammy started Kindergarten today and is far more excited about being a  “stayer-upper” (no more enforced naps) than a TV personality. Oh well, it’s a good thing Leah wasn’t in the commercial, I’d probably have been ejected from the set by Errol Morris himself. I could see myself turning into the advertising age’s equivalent of Mama Rose: “Smile, honey, tell the nice man how Quaker Oats has changed your life!” My sister and Jeff are hoping that no one makes any connections between the Blisters’ fun opportunity and Wilco. Jeff and Wilco had absolutely nothing to do with the Blisters getting this gig but of course reporters (and one blogging uncle) keep mentioning both in the same breath.

I can’t even remember the last time I saw a commercial. The TV shows I watch are mostly on cable and if I do watch regular television I make a frantic dash for the remote to avoid even a split second of advertising. But this wasn’t always the case. When I was young commercials were a valued component of my obsessive television viewing. I remember certain advertising campaigns way better than the plots on “My Mother the Car” or “Petticoat Junction.” If I see old clips of these commercials I experience the same warm feeling I get from watching home movies. It’s terrifying to look back at some of the commercials from the 1960s and 70s and realize that these were the building blocks of so many of my perceptions about the world and about relationships (starting with the ideal fake couple of Mariette Hartley and James Garner lovingly sparring over their Polaroid cameras). While I’ve forgotten huge chunks of my childhood and later years, I can rattle off endless slogans, ditties, and catch phrases at the drop of a hat.

In the valley of the Jolly (ho, ho, ho) Green Giant
The chicken’s got a certain Wessonality
I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!
What do you want, good grammar or good taste?
From the land of sky blue waters
Please don't squeeze the Charmin
Ancient Chinese secret, huh?
He likes it! Hey Mikey!
You deserve a break today, so get up and get away
Get a bucket of chicken, finger-lickin’ good, have a barrel of fun
This is an uncola nut
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t
Ring around the collar!
My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there
How do you spell relief?
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!
Sorry, Charlie!
You sank my battleship!
Plop, plop, fizz, fizz
Snap, crackle, pop, Rice Krispies
Choosey mothers choose Jif
Leggo my Eggo!
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
I'd rather fight than switch
Who wears short shorts?
You’re soaking in it
Two…two…two mints in one
If it says Libbys Libbys Libbys on the label label label

Scary, isn’t it? I could literally go on for hours. All those commercials taking up precious brain matter that might otherwise be developing an AIDS vaccine or the cure for cancer (oh wait, I’m not a scientist, those brain cells would probably just move over to the “Verbatim Dialogue from I Love Lucy” lobe).

Does it seem crazy to be writing about such meaningless twaddle during the current disaster in our country? I guess I’m of two minds about the blogs I've been reading lately. I’m equally grateful for the people who are writing about the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as I am for the people who are not mentioning it at all. In fact, if I’m doing my job right, some of those commercials I listed above will have already landed with a thud in your consciousness causing you to spend the rest of the day completing the mindless chants (“then you will like it, like it, like it on your table, table, table”). And maybe that will be some temporary relief from the current traumas.

One commercial from the early 70s sticks out in my mind as head and shoulders above the rest. To me it represented the most positive view of our future, a world where pure love and peace had been achieved and the reasons for war no longer existed. And all because of a terribly unhealthy sugary beverage.

On a hilltop in Italy, we assembled young people from all over the world
to bring you this message:

I'd like to buy the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves.

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company.

It’s the real thing, Coke is
What the world wants today
Coca-Cola
It’s the real thing.

Speaking of catch phrases, they cut Spencer’s great line from the commercial, “Oatmeal makes you rock more efficiently.” Apparently two focus groups thought the line sounded fake, that no real nine-year-old would ever say such a thing. But he DID say it, and it was far more natural than anything that ever came out of Mariette Hartley’s mouth.

The Best Years of Our Lives

Today is my 46th birthday and I’m following my wife Kendall’s practice of looking at the films that were released not in the year of my birth but in the year of my “age”—1946. The winner of the Best Picture Oscar that year was William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives.” I take that as a good sign, especially since 45’s winner was “The Lost Weekend” (a story of raging alcoholism) and 47’s was “Gentleman’s Agreement (a story of raging anti-Semitism). Will I one day look back at these as the best years of my life? It’s quite possible. Despite the heartaches and neuroses that have led me to this point, and despite the physical signs of the aging process that can’t be staved off any longer, it is still a relatively happy and healthy time in my life, knock on wood and spit three times, poo poo poo. It’s a questioning time, God knows, but one that I do believe I will look back on with fondness and nostalgia when I’m about to face my own Fade to White. Of course it seems completely surreal to me that I’m 46. How did that happen? I thought I was always going to be “the young one.” Thanks to starting school early and skipping third grade, I was always the youngest kid in all of my social groups and in most of my early jobs. No matter what indecision or angst I was suffering through, I would always calm myself with the thought that I had all the time in the world ahead of me to figure out my life. Not so much the case anymore. At best, and I mean BEST, I am halfway through my life. So what do I make of these past 16,790 days? What have I been doing for those 402,960 hours? Have I wasted a lot of those 24,177,600 minutes? Squandered many of those 1,450,656,000 seconds? (Oh my God, I’ve been alive for almost a BILLION AND A HALF seconds??)

I’m always surprised when I hear people talking about their childhoods or high school or college years as the best years of their lives. Most of my childhood seems very inaccessible to me, like I’m trying to tune in an old Philco black-and-white set that has a lot of static and problems with the vertical hold. The memories that I am finally able call up and write about in here tend to be focused on the cultural markers that implanted themselves in my consciousness whether it’s “Zoom,” “The Waltons,” Julie Newmar, or not going to the New York World’s Fair. For someone whose past seems like a vast terrain of repressed or nonexistent memories, it’s funny how often I try to evoke those years. Is that the raison d’etre of my blog? (Now that I’m 46, can I get away with using terms like raison d’etre?)

I am wracking my brain and I can barely remember a handful of my birthdays. What’s up with that? The only vivid memory I have of a birthday celebration with my family is from September 4, 1970. My mother had organized a themed party for our family dinner. The theme? Happy faces. In later years I had nothing but contempt for the inane yellow symbol that had swept the country in the early 70s. But on this night I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. My mother had hung mobiles from our kitchen ceiling containing dozens of inflated yellow happy faces. She had a happy face tablecloth and happy face napkins, happy face plates and cups, happy face wrapping paper covering my fantastic new portable record player (that played LPs as well as 45s and 78s), and a happy face birthday cake. I remember sitting there in that sea of idiotic yellow faces with my parents and my brother and sister thinking that I had the most loving family in the world and that no one had ever had a better birthday. How could I possibly know that my parents would be divorced a few scant months later and that my mother would be out of our house never to return? It’s funny—I’ve always remembered this birthday but I never thought of the time line until just now. No wonder I’ve always considered this family gathering as the happiest one in my life—it was probably the last one. God only knows what my parents were already going through at that time. My mother must have purchased those endless smiley faces hoping that their blank stares would mask the ugliness that was spreading like mold throughout our house. For me it worked. “Have a nice day!”

I’ve always known that I was born a month premature, but the details of that are lost now that my mother is dead and my father’s memory is spotty about such things. In one version my mother’s labor was induced by her doctor who either got the date wrong or didn’t want to change an upcoming vacation. I had to be kept in an incubator and I soon developed thrush, a disease in the mouth involving the same fungus that exists in vaginal yeast infections (oy). I couldn’t eat and started losing weight even though I was already very tiny and I had to stay in the hospital for weeks. I’ve known this story all my life but it was only this morning that I suddenly started wondering whether some of my “issues” regarding attachment, abandonment, and intimacy could be related to this traumatic entry into the world. One thing that definitely resulted from my condition—my mother was so freaked out that I was so tiny and thin that she started overfeeding me to the level of a Strasbourg goose being plumped up for foie gras. I soon went from being a skinny preemie to a roly poly Michelin baby.

This morning Kendall took Leah and me to a delicious over-the-top brunch at Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton. We wondered why we were passing hundreds of musicians and security guards as we made our way into the hotel until we suddenly found ourselves in a gigantic ballroom surrounded by huge caricatures of Jerry Lewis’s face. We had wandered onto the set of the annual Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, a staple of my birthday weekends (remember the year Dean Martin walked on the set, ending his long-time feud with Jer?). This telethon further induced my parents to overfeed us, lest we start looking like Jerry’s Kids. When we got to the restaurant we realized that almost everyone in there was either from the telethon’s crew or about to appear on the show. Visiting the Beverly Hilton is already like being in a 1972 time warp, but when you’re surrounded by dozens of people you last saw on an episode of “Love American Style” or “Marcus Welby M.D.,” the vision is complete.

Important cultural figures born on September 4th include Daniel Burnham (1846), the Chicago architect who built the world’s first skyscraper, the Reliance Building at State and Washington, which my grandfather owned for 62 years and renamed the Karoll’s Building until he lost it to bankruptcy in the early 90s (it is now the beautifully restored Hotel Burnham); Howard Morris (1919) who was the voice of some of my favorite childhood cartoon characters including Atom Ant, Beetle Bailey, Jughead Jones, and Winnie the Pooh’s Gopher; Dick York (1928) who was the original kinder/gentler Darrin on “Bewitched”; Leonard Frey (1938) who played Mottel “Even a tailor deserves some happiness!” Chomzoil in “Fiddler on the Roof”; and, born in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 4, 2179, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, communications officer for the Starship Enterprise (I told you I was a geek!).

“The Best Years of Our Lives” is not exactly the happy-go-lucky film its title implies. It’s about three American servicemen who return home after the war to find their lives irrevocably changed by their experiences. They each have a difficult time coping with the changes that have taken place in themselves and in the world around them but in the end they come to terms with their disabilities and traumas. They learn to accept that the past they know will never return and to embrace the realities of their present-day lives. Maybe this film is the perfect model for my 46th year!

City of the Big Shoulders

“I could have just told a really funny joke but I decided to eat it instead.”
                                       —Sam Lincoln Tweedy

Just another Will Rogers-like rumination from my five-year-old nephew as he contemplated an unusually shaped carrot on his plate of beef stew at Manny’s Deli. Sometimes I wish I could follow this kid around for several days with a tape recorder and then publish a book of his bizarre and zen-like non sequitirs. Sammy definitely has some unique stuff going on in that head of his.

This may be a very disjointed post. I seem to be incapable of extended cohesive thought when I’m here in the land of my birth. It’s probably a combination of going back into age-old family patterns, fighting the tendency to regress to my 12-year-old emotional state, and the fact that my blood sugar levels are off the charts here since we spend every waking moment planning, eating, or discussing our next meal. On our first night we were having dinner at Lou Malnati’s, a yummy Chicago institution where the pizza has about 2 lbs. of fatty cheese per square inch. As we polished off two deep-dish pies and sat in the restaurant wiping bits of tomato off our mouths and sweat from our brows from the work our digestive tracts needed to do to process all that lethal cheese, my father said in all seriousness, “that was a great appetizer—now where should we go for dinner?”

My sister, who just moved to a great old 1905 house, only got her TV service hooked up yesterday so it was the first time we saw any moving images from New Orleans. Unbelievable how an entire city can change like that overnight. I won’t even try to comment on that nightmare except to say that while I admit I’m predisposed to criticizing George Bush’s actions, I continue to be amazed that even Karl Rove and an army of PR experts can’t manufacture at least the appearance of competence or compassion in the public images of the president responding to this disaster. If I were down there having lost everything and struggling for my family’s survival I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be at our government—billions and billions spent on Iraq while some families stuck there still can't get any help. When I hear people talking about whether New Orleans should be rebuilt at all, I realize that I’m still in denial about the loss of so much of that beautiful historic city. I keep walking around Chicago trying to imagine such a disaster taking its toll on this magnificent city, God forbid. Leaving aside the loss of life for a moment which is obviously horrendous no matter where or how it hits, the thought of this city being destroyed and needing to be rebuilt seems so unfathomable. But of course it could happen here or anywhere (Chicago fire, anyone? The “Big One” hitting L.A.?) and I shudder at the idea of such desperate actions overtaking these cities I know so well. Some of the descriptions of New Orleans remind me of accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto at its worst—children walking by dead, rotting corpses in the middle of the road, scavenging for food and water, increasingly desperate for outside help.

We’ve been staying pretty close to home on this trip, except for going from one meal to the next. My sister has a new GPS system in her car which is amazing but it’s also clear how quickly we become dependent on new technologies. I still can’t get over the fact that this device knows where she is at all times, displaying it on a large bright map, and that it offers constant directions in a soothing female voice she calls Doris. The only problem is that now  my sister can’t travel anywhere without laboriously entering her destination into the system. “But Sue,” I moan, “you’ve driven to dad’s house about 10,000 times—why on earth do you need directions?” “Because I want to see how Doris would do it,” she replies, and then complains when her auto-android takes a few different turns from her normal route. Still, the system is genius. We made a wrong turn yesterday on a downtown interchange and we all freaked out, kvetching about how we were totally lost. But Doris, calm automaton that she is, didn’t miss a beat. “Recalculating route,” she said without a trace of emotion, and promptly gave my sister directions that had us back in the right direction in around 45 seconds. Amazing, but a bit disconcerting to have such an unfamiliar reaction in the front seat with us. Maybe they should invent a Jewish GPS system that offers up a little emotion with her directions:  “Sue, you schlemiel, what the HELL are you doing? You weren’t supposed to turn there!! Now we’re going to be LATE! Okay, genius, turn right at the next intersection, then another right on Fullerton. Oy, what would you do without me??”

I thought Los Angeles was the offensive cell phone use capital of the world but I’ve noticed that in Chicago far more people use those wireless ear pieces that make you look like Lt. Uhura in “Star Trek.” They walk around with these things affixed to their heads all day long, and because they are quite small the impression you get is that you’re in a city of crazy people who are constantly talking to themselves.

Yesterday a man who works for my father stopped by my sister’s house. I haven’t seen him in many years and when he saw me he lurched back, his eyes widening, and exclaimed, “Oh my God, Danny, is that you? You’re so much heavier now, I didn’t recognize you! And you’re so bald!”  Note to self: when I see old  friends who have gained weight, try not to step back in horror and comment. Remember that, unlike you, they have actually been looking at themselves in the mirror during the years you haven’t seen each other. On the other hand, this is an area that gets very tricky for me. I remember when Leah was younger and she used to make innocent comments in airports when she saw people who were very fat, thin, tall, short, in a wheelchair, missing a limb, etc. I would always whisk her away and explain that we mustn’t make comments about such things because it would hurt the other person’s feelings and wasn’t polite. Now while I DO think it’s appropriate social conditioning to teach kids not to offer their loud assessment of other people’s physical traits (“Wow, dad, look at the nose on that lady over there!”) I worry about the hush-hush shame aspect that we’re embedding in our children's heads. It’s also a cultural thing, I think. The man who works for my dad is Hispanic and, freed from the angst-ridden Jewish palette of  neuroses, I don’t think he thought anything of commenting about my weight, it certainly wasn’t meant in a malicious way. Of course I was horrified nonetheless and determined to start getting back into shape the minute I return to L.A. (and get a workable distance away from Lou Malnati’s pizzas).

As I head towards the age of 46 in two  days, I find that I often think about the issues raised on Ronni Bennet’s Time Goes By blog. Questions about age are treated with the same hushed shame as comments about weight or other physical characteristics. “Never ask someone how old they are!” we urgently teach our children. “It’s very impolite.” Why? Why should such a question ever be impolite unless being older than 40 is considered something the person should feel ashamed about—like they did something wrong by surviving past the age of 30? It’s always so refreshing to hear older actresses state their real age without the slightest bit of self-consciousness. Doesn’t everyone realize at this point that we all know anyway, thanks to the Internet Movie Database? Some actresses tend to shave a year off their birth date with every passing year. I think by the time she died, Ann Miller was claiming that she made “Stage Door” when she was 7.

Have you read the great poem about Chicago by Carl Sandburg in which he dubbed it the City of the Big Shoulders? Here’s a portion of the poem that could also well relate to New Orleans and its current ordeal:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them
For I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer:
Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is:
On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city
And I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
So proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job
Here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities.