“…it is arguably the most incredible monument ever created by humankind. I can think of no other that embodies genius on so many levels: imagination, art, engineering, magnitude, poetics, idealism. And perhaps my passion is also due in no small part to the fact that we grew up with it in our backyard, so to speak. And that my grandparents came through nearby Ellis Island; a fulfillment of a welcoming written upon the Statue’s base.”
There would be no state of being for which to be thankful, for what one day would become of me.
No Cigar
When a baby was born
and after being informed
in bare-walled rooms
of the verdict
men would share their erections;
those prominent cigars
totems of triumph.
The cockring about
the condom of cellophane
proclaimed gender
in accordance with colors
pink or blue;
an unwritten law.
This before the dawn of pollution
and tainted air
the puffing in a land called Honor Me
blowing smoke
at a bleeding-heart hoax.
Yet in time the aroma
became a stench of disapproval
so strong
it caused flaccidity
and self-based desire
to lie fallow. Gratification
would now need to take place
in a self-induced foggy retreat
circle-jerks seeking to immunize
from the truth beyond the windows:
that the world we knew was growing stale.
Winter wilted
snowcaps melted
polar bears wandered
penguins were lost.
Whereupon a man
offered to buy Greenland
and was rebuked by a nasty woman
who without anesthetics
had borne two children
while tilting at carbon ejaculations.
In short, no cigar.
--- Ron Vazzano
Finito
Featuring...
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
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Irony Italian Style
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Haiku
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A Coupla' More Fiftieths
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Quote of the Month
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No Cigar
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P.S. Woodstock
September 2019
Haiku
On the pending visit, I will read that poem on the wall yet again. And in so doing, ponder a koan-like implication of The Cooch’s suggested editing, as it relates to my shot at existence. (And later on, to his). Oh, the irony.
A Coupla’ More Fiftieths
As the summer days melt away, you might have thought we were done with 50th anniversaries of landmark events, having just gone over the Moon and continuing on through Woodstock (though a postscript to follow a bit later). And that’s just as well as it seemed that they had begun to run together, what with the endless media retrospectives:
“400,000 land on Max Yasgur’s moon. Neil Armstrong’s first words:
‘…the brown acid that is circulating around us isn’t too good. It's suggested that you do stay away from that. Of course, it's your own lunar trip so be my guest.’”
But not so fast. This month also has a couple of moments that will live on in our socio-economic history.
1. “Money, Money, Money, Muh-ney”
This one is so far under the radar, it hardly registers a blip. Maybe a dozen people, if that, would know that this September 2nd marks the 50th anniversary of the first…
could have been the work of Bank in Rockville Center, computer). There is even a doubt want to overnight one
This feat of “techno-tactile” magic, that just as well
a wizard, was first performed in 1969 by the Chemical
New York. (Even before our first blind date with a personal T-Shirt in commemoration. I kid you not. And you will no to have it in time for the ATM Party you'll now want to throw.
“ATM! ATM!”
Prior to the arrival of this miracle money machine, if you wanted to get cash on a weekend, you’d probably have to hold up a gas station or a convenience store. Which was rather inconvenient.
As a point of information should it come up at some point, there are now over 400,000 ATM’s in the U.S. And as for convenience stores, many of which of course have ATM’s? There are 153,000 of them throughout the land, within which—bold and in the face of security cameras (smile) —18,000 robberies a year still take place.
But on to some fun stuff.
2. Abbey Road
Ok. So maybe this doesn’t quite rise to the level of a defining or tipping-point moment. One that would change the way we look at the world. Or in the case of an ATM, how we look at our wallets.
At the time, there certainly was no “Breaking News” that screamed out:
The Beatles Record Their Last Album
The Fab Four are Breaking Up!
Who knew? Even McCartney seemed uncertain:
“I think it was in a way the feeling that it might be our last, so let’s just show ‘em what we can do, let’s show each other what we can do, and let’s try to have a good time doing it.”
Abbey Road was the 11th of their 12 studio recorded albums. August 20, 1969 would mark the last time all four Beatles would be in a recording studio together. (A date which happens to be my birthday. Thanks guys, you shouldn’t have).
Abbey Road (heretofore AR) was released on September 26, 1969. (October 3rd in the U.S.) I remember walking over to Alexander’s (long gone) department store on Queens Boulevard the following day, to pick up a copy. For the record (pun intended), Let It Be had been recorded earlier that year, and was their last album to be released (April of 1970).
Though AR was an immediate commercial success— if they did a complete album of farting it would have topped the charts— it originally got mixed reviews. In retrospect, many critics now consider it to be among The Beatles' best. Some calling it a masterpiece, while in particular, deconstructing the nuances in the medley that ends the album. Rolling Stone puts it in 14th place of the best 500 albums ever made.
The Beatles have always been greater than the sum of their parts. One that was always evolving and cutting new paths. As Rolling Stone put it… “The Beatles hadn’t just made music – they had made their times, as surely as any political force, and more beneficently than most.” (9/3/09)
Though AR was nowhere near the immersive experience of Sgt. Pepper, which so captured the zeitgeist of the times (JUNE, 2017 MUSE-LETTER, "It was Fifty Years Ago Today, Sgt. Pepper Taught the Band to Play"), it did leave its own indelible mark.
Beyond the music, especially that ending medley, and Something, which Frank Sinatra called “the greatest love song ever written” (though erroneously attributing it to Lennon and McCartney), there’s the album cover itself. It had neither the group’s name nor title on the front. The first time that was ever done. It merits a few words on how it all came to be, as it is arguably the most recognizable album cover in the history of pop music. And to think it was all improvised.
Their original idea, was to call the album Everest. Then fly to the foothills of Mount Everest to have a photo taken of them standing before it, which would serve as the front cover. But as they were late in getting the album itself finished to meet the targeted release date, there was hardly enough time to concentrate on its graphic representation.
Paul came up with an impromptu Plan B. Why not just call it Abbey Road. Go outside. Walk across it. Take a photo of them doing so.
Coulda’ sworn I just saw them go by.
It took all of ten minutes, and six photos, from which they chose the one with them walking in sync. And for all its simplicity, it had an almost evocative feel of something spiritual, and loaded with implicit symbolism (for those in search of it). In large part, as it seemed to be a procession of some kind? A funeral, said conspiracy theorists reading in between the zebra lines! It’s obvious. And Paul, being the only one barefoot? Means he's dead! Of course. It's obvious.
Fifty years later, it continues to draw a steady stream of people each year, as if on a pilgrimage to walk the walk and become one with the gods of the mythical 60’s. And in lieu of a bible, there’s that album cover to behold.
All a rather silly excercise, yet somehow irresistible in a cultish sort of way. Especially for someone old enough, who takes a certain pride in having been around before gods became gods, and icons became icons. (Those zebra lines could stand a repainting by the way).
Today one can "visit" Abbey Road via EarthCam. In the flesh, on August 8th for the 50th anniversary of a crossing that transcends that of Hannibal and his Alps, or Washington and his Delaware, well, it got a little crowded:
The crossing has since become, probably the most parodied image this side of the Mona Lisa.
Even Paul couldn’t resist it in his 1993 album Paul is Live, spoofing the myth of his untimely demise.
Quote of the Month
And in the end the love you take
Is equal to the love you make.
Irony Italian Style
First there was “The Mooch.” Anthony Scaramuccie. An Italian-American blue-collar kid from the Island; a self-described “street-hustling guido.” Who therefore, presumably, knew bullshit—to be coarse as is now the norm in political discourse— when he heard it. Yet he became a Trump apologist. An enabler. One who has gone from here…
October 2018
“I know him well, and I believe he has an intellect that is uniquely suited to the presidency…”
“He never let anyone know he was gathering information to make policy out of it…. So he made it seem like he was chatting, talking economics and trade policy the way you’d talk about the New York Mets. Then he synthesized all the responses into one position…”
...to there.
August 2019
“…Recently he (the president) has said things that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country."
“We recognize the president is a clear and present danger for the American society, the American culture,”
“He's acting in a way that's completely unstable…”
“He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision. And so therefore, that’s why he has no empathy.“
In the Italian I never learned to speak, resisting as a child, Grandma’s efforts to teach me: “Ciò che ti ha tenuto?” Or, “What kept you?”
Before I go further, I know some readers won’t go further. Satirical jabs here or there, or droll commentary in the political arena seem acceptable. Especially if aimed (and they have been) at both parties. But some have bristled when a Muse-Letter seems to throw a roundhouse, from an opposite corner of the ring. But that’s rare. I mean, I've done pieces on the Toy Hall of Fame, the death of a Hawaiian snail, the making of a pencil. Hardly the stuff of polemics. But now, as the little kid in a Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, The Emperor's New Clothes cries out…
One sycophant down; another follows. From The Mooch we go on to one whom I’ll dub “The Cooch.” Ken Cuccinelli
He is the Acting (because he can’t be serious) Director of the United States and Immigration Services—a title no doubt longer than he will, or should be, on this job. Last month he sought to parse, indeed rewrite, Emma Lazarus’ totemic poem The New Colossus. The one emboldened in bronze that has been mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty since 1903. The one bearing the lines:
The irony here is so thick, you couldn’t cut through it with a blowtorch.
The Cooch’s grandfather Dominick Luigi Cuccinelli, who was conceived in Italy and born in Hoboken, did not make it past the fifth grade. As an adult, he was able to find work here and there in New Jersey shipyards. In my old neighborhood, this sort of catch-as-catch-can employment, was described as “shaping up down the docks.”
Humble beginnings were true of The Cooch’s great-grandfather as well. Who had zero education and was also dirt poor. Which poses this question, I had to walk myself through:
Given a man with such a “resume,”
how could he and his pregnant wife
prove to immigration officials
that they could meet the criteria for entry,
that their future great-grandson, The Cooch
is now arrogantly and tersely calling for?
This really rankles on a very personal level. My grandparents, who helped raise me, had a similar backstory. Probably worse, in that my grandmother had been raised in an orphanage (Oliver! without the singing). They might have been the “wretched refuse” standing in this purgatory of a line, toting their life belongings, hoping to get into heaven. Which is how they viewed America.
To be clear about this, as I noted last year (AUGUST, 2018 MUSE-LETTER Upon Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge):
Of course, the immigration issue is one of complexity. Of course, there are laws that need to be followed. Of course, there are the proper screenings that need to take place. That has always been the case. Even for my aforementioned grandparents, who arrived here over a hundred years ago.
And I went on further to pose a not so fatitious question, which I would include in a piece I performed at a venue in Chelsea based on that "Muse-Letter essay":
Would Jesus Christ have ever been admitted to this country? Homeless out of work carpenter, with apparently some sort of cult following?
The statue beckons, so on to it now. And a thumbnail of how it came to be a symbol of welcoming, compassion and aspiration.
As every second-grader knows, it’s a gift from France. (Has one country ever given something so extraordinary to another? Putin gave Trump a soccer ball). It was originally named Liberty Enlightening the World, and had nothing to do at the outset with immigration, as “Cooch-ites” have been quick to note,
When the pieces were shipped here and assembled (hopefully the instructions were easy to follow… Insert Torch, Flame-side Up [A] into Right Hand Slot [B]), and placed in the harbor in proximity to Ellis Island— a gateway for immigrants— it was ripe for a new interpretation.
And the story is hardly over, as we are now only too well aware. It been a point of contention in some quarters, even prior to this most recent re-examination of Lazarus and her poem.
For example, I never knew that former KKK leader David Duke, wrote a whole chapter on Emma Lazarus in one of his books, calling her the ‘Jewess who tried to ruin the U.S.’ (“There were fine writers on both sides”). I wonder if David Douche had to work at being despicable, or did it just come naturally? A prodigy in white nationalism?
This September 11th I will traverse those 354 steps up to the crown of the “Mother of Exiles,” as I’ve done at various times before (assuming a nagging foot injury has sufficiently healed by then). I view it as a pilgrimage of sorts in homage to our country and its “Golden Door.” A door that America has taken pride in, as on the other side of it, lay a land of opportunity; a heaven and a haven. Which made us unique and respected in eyes of the world.
Obviously, I’m a big fan of the statue, and I've written about it several times on this site. I once unabashedly stated (OCTOBER, 2010 MUSE-LETTER) that:
Which The Cooch thinks should read:
P.S. Woodstock
In the piece I did on Woodstock last month, I asked if any readers had attended, and if so, would they like to share that experience. I got one response that I’ll recount here in full with the writer’s permission. Thank you Steve Seligman.
“Reading about Woodstock: 50 Years after! Memories!
Was able to spend 3 days there…the first day with my 5 year old son and a friend with his son. Had a summer place in Monticello. Wasn’t even aware of the festival. Hit unbelievable traffic. Police opened the left lane for travelers like me ( it was obvious who was going to the festival…and who wasn’t). Police were great. The kids were openly smoking weed, sitting on top of cars, singing, dancing and making a lot of noise,
The police that weren’t directing traffic were among the revelers and seemed to be enjoying the situation. I passed literally thousands of kids on the way who were waiting by the side of the road. Peaceful all the way.
Took my kids fishing every weekend in Bethel. Knew all the back roads. That’s how we got in and out every day. And we were among the many “Good Samaritans”. We filled my huge old Mercury with sandwiches, made and donated by everyone in our summer place, and bottles of water. Filled the trunk (couldn’t close it), the entire back seat and boxes tied to the top of the car. When we pulled up that day no one came to the car. Didn’t understand. It was obvious we were loaded with food & water. I went over to a group of kids and asked why they weren’t coming over for the food? “We have no money”. It turns out the some of the “Good Samaritans” had been “selling” food & water. We yelled out “free food & water”. It was gone in a flash. More fun than the music. A lot of smiles…including ours😊
P.S. It turns out that Sharon (who would become Steve’s wife one day…they’ve been married 27 years), was one of those revelers by the side of the road; waiting to get started. She never made it. She was among the thousands that gave up and went home.”
In a follow up email, the subject of which he called, “Perfect Ending!” he concurred with a summation that I had arrived at from afar:
"A celebration of that one summer in a life—a present and perfect circle of moment— when one will never again be this young, this innocent, this unaccountable."
Nothing beats the being there, and a line from Steve’s email in particular, also strikes me as a metaphor with wider application: “It was obvious who was going to the festival…and who wasn’t.”
Shades of the Ken Kesey’s pronouncement as taken from Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:
“You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”
Commentary is always welcomed and directed to:
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