Eleanor in Disguise

With the effortlessly hilarious June Squibb channeling a squinting Queen Elizabeth on the poster, you might think Eleanor the Great is a feel-good comedy and no more.

Oh, there’s more, much more to Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut despite all the laughs from the opening credits to when Eleanor Morgenstein (Squibb) turns out the night-light.

Before long you might squirm with laughter at references to the Holocaust, but memories of it steer the plot when we learn that Eleanor had been an inseparable companion to a Holocaust survivor who passed away before the film begins.

All the comedy serves as disguise; Eleanor the Great is about how we deal with grief.

To tell you what Eleanor does would be to spoil most, if not all, of Johansson’s deft surprises. To avoid that, I’ll say only that it catches the attention of a novice journalist, Nina, played by Erin Kellyman, which, in turn, catches the attention of veteran journalist Roger, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Roger hosts one of NYC’s most popular TV news-shows, New York Fabric, and is about to make Eleanor famous much to the dismay of Erin who has learned something after the fact. Their story becomes as central to the film as Eleanor’s when we consider that they are father and daughter, both dealing with a heavy, recent loss of their own. The humane professionalism of both offsets the antics of what most critics call “the witty, proudly troublesome” Eleanor.

Most critics–and many Screening Room patrons this week– have called the film surprising. As surprised as anyone, I tried to think of a film to which it might be compared–a film about which you could say, “If you liked Eleanor, you might also like ________.”

Of course, if you’re a fan of the nonagenarian June Squibb, there’s her breakout hit. As an octogenarian, she stole the opening scenes of the show with a supporting role in the little-noticed but superbly crafted indy film, Nebraska (2013). And she could have been auditioning for the role of Mr. Magoo’s soulmate in the title role of the wild and wacky Thelma (2024).

As for the tone and feel of the film, however, the only comparison my memory offers to Eleanor the Great is Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005) in which an aging Joan Plowright, also in the title role, also tells a story that may be called wrong, but is her way of making things right.

Like Eleanor, and like Roger and Erin, Mrs. Palfrey was also dealing with grief.

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30268321/

June Squibb as Eleanor and Erin Kellyman as Nina,
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/scarlett-johansson-directorial-debut-eleanor-193633756.html;_ylt=AwrFG9eIj95oIsQYNk2WnIlQ;_ylu=c2VjA2ZwLWF0dHJpYgRzbGsDcnVybA–

Empathy a la Mode

Did you notice how immediately and severely Democrats were condemned for celebrating the assassination? Some condemned the entire Democratic Party.

It began with accusations made by MAGA officials, broadcast by right-wing media, and quickly spread by those who take accusations at face value.

This is what happens when people immerse themselves in social media. What’s missed is that, within an hour of the reports, statements of condemnation and of condolences were issued by numerous prominent Democrats, including G. Newsom, K. Harris, J. Schumer, H. Jefferies, the Obamas, the Clintons, and the Bidens.

In that list alone are two of several women demeaned by Charlie Kirk as “affirmative action hires” who “lacked the brain processing power” to hold positions they took from white people.

Compare the Democrats’ response to this week’s assassination to the aftermath of the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband when top Republicans, including Donald Trump, joked about it, adding innuendo that it was the result of a gay relationship gone awry.

One Republican voice, however, wasn’t joking when he called for “some amazing patriot” to bail Paul Pelosi’s attacker out of jail. The voice was that of Charlie Kirk.

Yes, there were a few fanatics who posted gleeful approval. But turning them into anything representing the Democratic Party would be laughable were we not talking about an assassination.

No doubt a few who celebrate live right here in Essex County. According to one of my misguided friend’s “logic,” all of us, therefore, must be “violent extremists… reveling in a man’s death.”

This is why Trump and the MAGA movement do all they can whenever they can to discredit the press. As people turn away from fact-checked news sources, they rely on social media and are susceptible to its theatrics as well as to appeals to emotions and fears.

This, in turn, is how demagogues such as Kirk rise to national acclaim. Articulate, energetic, and always open to questions, he turned prejudice into virtue just by smiling when he said things such as:

I can’t stand empathy. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that… does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics.

Turns out that “empathy,” from the Greek word for “feeling,” was commonly used in America a century ago, often in reference to immigrants arriving here to start life anew.

Having always steered clear of the New Age movement, I’m unaware of its lingo, but there was certainly a bump for the word in 2010 when Pres. Obama used it to describe Elena Kagan when nominating her to the Supreme Court.

Republican senators pounced with scorn and ridicule as if the word meant “anti-American.” Obama himself hastened to dilute it by insisting that Kagan would be strict in her adherence to the law.

Seven years later, the new Trump administration likely had this in mind when it proposed a revision of the “Give me your tired, your poor” proclamation on the Statue of Liberty to make it less, well, empathetic.

A year after that, Trump was grudgingly reluctant to lower flags in tribute to Senator and war-hero John McCain. Compare that to his immediate order to lower them for Kirk.

As I write, the MAGA crowd may not be using the word “empathy,” but they now condemn Democrats for not being empathetic enough.

Irony doubles when we consider that Kirk also proclaimed:

I think it’s worth it to have a cost; unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year. So that we can have our Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights.

Had he been given a day to live, which side would he have taken in the debate he always welcomed?

Would he acknowledge that his imminent death would be but the cost of freedom–as he would surely say of the three Denver high school students shot on the same day–and now in critical condition–should they die?

Or would he condemn his own shooting after allowing for others to be “unfortunately” shot?

Could call that the modern American version of “To be, or not to be,” except there would be none of Hamlet’s procrastination.

MAGA’s MO is to insist on whatever fits the moment. And this is the most detrimental consequence of immersion in social media:

There is no such thing as contradiction, there’s only Now.

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Photo from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/politics/emma-lazarus-poem-statue-of-liberty/index.html

If Elected, I Will Not Serve

Sorry to disappoint so many well-wishers over these past 18 months, but I must withdraw my candidacy to be Newburyport’s mayor.

My write-in offer was good only if no competent candidate challenged the serial disaster known as Sean Reardon.

Really, if the city wants a smiley-faced showman for mayor, my 25 years experience in Renaissance festivals trumps–in both senses of the word–Reardon’s five years of ingratiating photo-ops.

All a moot point, as the recent entry of one of the City Council’s most thoughtful, prepared, principled, and always-ready-to-take-a-stand members puts competence on the ballot.

Granted, it is worrisome that Jim McCauley will no longer be on the council–and just as disappointing that Connie Preston and Heath Granas will also be gone.

Those three have been the front line of public advocacy at council meetings chaired by someone who just cannot stop channeling Rip Van Winkle.

Other councilors have their moments but seem susceptible to Dead Cameron’s anesthesia. Some just sink back into silence while a few try to reconcile two sides of impossible disputes.

Afroz Khan seems to forget that she has already praised one side after praising the other, and then re-praises the first, after which she returns to the second and starts again.

She unleashes sentences longer than the freight trains that haul coal out of West Virginia, and appears oblivious to the several department heads, the library archivist, the entire clerks office, and several volunteers already run-down, mangled and bloody on Reardon’s tracks.

Then there’s Ben Harman who also came through for the library volunteers in key moments, but who rivals Khan with fine-people-on-both-sides attempts to defend the indefensible.

Days ago, when Mayor Reardon announced an initiative to “strengthen collaboration and transparency in Newburyport,” I had to ask if it was real or if it was satire.

Like hearing an arsonist call for an improved fire department. But Harman actually fell for it.

Did he forget the gag order that Reardon imposed on City Hall employees earlier this year, forbidding them from speaking to City Councilors (such as Harman) about city issues?

Did he forget the mayor’s efforts to avoid an investigation of the library, and then to discredit the report that an independent investigation finally produced?

Harman’s gullibility is the local equivalent to that of Maine’s US senator who voted not to impeach Trump because, she explained with a chuckle, “I think he learned his lesson.”

Congrats, Ben! You are now the Susan Collins of Newburyport!

Let’s hope that the new candidates for council seats understand that representative government calls for considering an entire menu rather than nodding their heads to whatever the mayor orders.

What the council needs most are members who can snap Rip Van Cameron out of his coma. His favorite phrases–”within our purview” and “stay in our lane”–are like snores to cover the anguished appeals and outcries of dozens of public servants, ranging from library volunteers to the City Clerk’s office.

They also range from heads of city departments to members of various boards, all of them either terminated or abandoning ship before Reardon can steer it into yet another iceberg of litigation.

Making that point in a letter urging the council to rid the city of a Human Resources director who thought her entire job description was to say “yes” to the mayor, former mayor Donna Holaday pointed to a City Hall that more resembles a shop of horrors, asking:

So how many more lawsuits will we have to face? Why are all the Department Heads leaving? D[epartment of] P[ublic] S[ervices], Finance, Clerk, Water, Police, Fire, Health ……Why is morale so poor? Isn’t that the role of HR?

Yes, those of you who recall my attacks on the former mayor regarding the waterfront a decade ago, may be amazed that I quote her now.

But that may be the ultimate measure of just how detrimental Sean Reardon’s tenure as mayor has been, which is why I ask would-be supporters to count me out of the race.

Please don’t make me the Ralph Nader of Newburyport.

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Does this look like mayoral material to you? Photo by Paul Shaughnessy, King Richard’s Faire, 2025.

Riffing on a Riff

When Santa Rosa called to wish me a Happy Bastille Day (also our daughter’s anniversary–what was she, daughter, trying to tell us?), she, mother, added something that took me completely by surprise: The two of them will be riding Amtrak coast to coast, west to east next month.

I answered that I had good news and bad news: Amtrack’s Cleveland station is a stone’s roll from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A beetle could walk the freeway overpass in under two hours.

Unfortunately, the one and only Chicago-to-Boston-via-NYC train pulls into Cleveland just ten minutes before “Six O’Clock in the morning when it’s still too early to knock“, so you may be singing “So Tired, tired of waiting” before you can croon “Here Comes the Sun, Little Darling.” All of that, and you’ll still be waiting a few hours before the doors light your fire.

I actually did that in 2008 on a return trip from Chicago, taking a long walk to find breakfast and enjoy the architecture downtown, followed by the newly, gorgeously landscaped Erie waterfront. If I were still that young, I’d intercept them to do it again.

Today, I’d approach the Rock Hall with a bit of history I just stumbled upon. Someone put a hint on social media, but it was barely half the story. Back in 1961 when I was but 10 years old, a rock and roller I do not recall released a song I never heard of:

In 1965, shortly before I turned 14, The Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” was #1 on the American chart:

That same year, the Yardbirds had a song I don’t recall, perhaps a track on an album I never heard, called “I’m Not Talking”:

Turns out to be a cover of a Mose Allison track on a 1964 album that replaces Allison’s piano styling with Parker-turned-Harrison:

In 1969, Yardbirds 2.0 took another whack with it for an instrumental intriguingly named “Moby Dick” on an album titled Led Zeppelin II, mostly a drum solo to re-create the final scene of the novel I guess:

Three years later, the Allman Brothers returned to the original riff set to the lyrics of an early Sixties composition by Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson II titled “One Way Out”:

And lastly (as far as I know), Deep Purple chipped in with “Rat Bat Blue” in 1973, a tune that turns into something that sounds like Bach-Goes-to-Coney-Island before slamming the door with “C’mon Baby, Douse My Fire” and returning to “Watch &/or Feel My Fine Step”:

All these years I have heard and talked of “the folk process,” how regional and ethnic tunes are picked up, re-imagined, adapted, styled, and re-created as something new. Reaching further back, I was always impressed by the classical composers readiness to redo the melodies of others with “variations on a theme,” and the willingness of the original composers to have it happen. Plagiarism? They considered it a compliment.

Czech composer Anton Dvorak with his New World Symphony and the USA’s own Aaron Copeland with Appalachian Spring both turned quaint American folk tunes into international favorites on the classical scene, giving many other songs like them more currency on every musical scene.

Perhaps that’s how it was in rock until 1976 when The Chiffons won a suit against George Harrison for “consciously” plagiarizing their early-60s hit “He’s So Fine” with “My Sweet Lord.”

A friend laughs: If Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Vivaldi lived like that, they’d have spent all their time in court. I guess we are just lucky that the disease of litigation didn’t spread until the glory days of rock and roll had passed. An account would have been Biblical: Blind Faith sueth Jethro Tull; Jethro Tull sueth The Eagles; The Eagles sueth America; America sueth Grand Funk Railroad…

And Grand Funk Railroad screeches into Cleveland where you can hear it all if you are patient.

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Everyone knows of the glass pyramid where most everything is on six or seven floors, but the entire building is in the shape of t]a guitar with the neck stretching over Lake Erie. Inside that neck are the plaques of all inductees while the rest is mostly museum displays with a gift shop, a Sirius radio station, and a cafeteria on an upper floor surrounded by a tall wall with characters and objects from Pink Floyd’s album among the odds and ends. A creation of the renowned architect I.M. Pei, it would be worth a tour if it was empty. https://www.fmsp.com/projects/rock-roll-hall-of-fame-and-museum/

Meanwhile, in Newburyport…

When Ward 2 Councilor Jennie Donahue stormed out of a City Council meeting, she called a fellow councilor a two-word name I never heard in the Bible.

First word, “ableist” is of modern coinage for anyone who has no physical handicap.

Second word will never appear in a column of mine unless I tell you of the time I tried to assist a fickle can-opener with my finger and drew a few drops of blood.

I was there. Sitting in the second row of benches provided for the public, I watched Councilor Jim McCauley spring from his seat to clear Donahue’s path. He did fairly well, but his ankle may have taken a slight glance from a red-tipped cane that was not slowing down for anything or anyone.

Memo to McCauley: No good deed goes unpunished.

Memo to self: Never sit in that first row.

Also there was Stephanie Niketic (NIK-a-tish) who opposed Donahue for the Ward 2 seat in the last election only to lose by 12 votes.

Niketic attends many council meetings, committee meetings, sub-committee meetings, sub-sub meetings regarding all civic issues. She takes more notes each time than I’d bother with in a tedious decade of such things.

From them, she issues a free newsletter available to anyone with an email account, always a thorough, factual report of all she can glean of issues not just for Ward 2, but city-wide.

Also there were Jane Snow. who provides a similar service with frequent updates on social media, and Jean Costello, who offers a comprehensive blog called “Government at a Glance.”

Three valuable resources emphasizing facts and announcing all up-coming public meetings. For comic relief and satiric provocation, there’s also the Onion-esque Walt Thompson with “Newburyport Observer” on Facebook.

Thanks to all four, there’s no lack of internal info regarding Port politics for anyone willing to look. Democracy at its finest.

The trend may have begun just over a decade ago when former councilor Bob Cronin wrote extensive descriptions of City Hall business for a free weekly paper.

Should’ve asked about that when I ran into him at the Custom House Maritime Museum. Instead, I stupidly asked if he ever considers another run for office.

His “No” about took my head off. The five exclamation points that followed hammered my question mark into a dangling double-hyphen.

Trying to salvage some dignity for myself, I then made the idiotic mistake of asking if he saw my satirical announcement for mayor. He chuckled, and I dug my hole deeper:

“It was a joke! People took it literally!”

“Jack, there’s no joking in politics!”

Well, that explains why I’m unfit for public office. But I am in the information business, and while I might joke about an authoritarian president or an inept mayor, a ridiculous parade down Pennsylvania Ave. or pot-holes on State Street, I’m obliged to set records straight.

Soon after Donahue blasted her way out of City Hall, her apology appeared in the Daily News. Like many apologies from public officials—including Mayor Sean Reardon’s for his blundering maltreatment of library volunteers—it was a drop of “sorry” followed by a fire-hose of excuses verging on self-pity.

Weeks later, Niketic began the process for a rematch for the Ward 2 seat this November. Asked for comment, here’s what Donahue told the Daily News:

“I will say that unfortunately, her motivation seems to only be directed to unseat me and to point out my flaws. I really don’t know what she brings to the table other than just being not me.”

Is it even conceivable that Donahue is unaware of Niketic’s newsletter? Or was she just hoping that Ward 2 voters are unaware and wants to keep it that way?

A moot point now that Donahue has suddenly and surprisingly withdrawn her candidacy, but there’s a lesson to be learned regarding those quick to belittle and deny the civic contributions of others.

Or quick to calling others something left behind in Exodus and without season in Ecclesiastes.

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Not the meeting I’ve described, but most of the people named are here: Jennie Donahue is the woman at the table with the red bandana; Mayor Sean Reardon is in the white suit seated behind her; Stephanie Niketic is in the back row off to the left in a black shirt next to someone wearing shades on his or her head; I think it’s Jane Snow with the white hair and wearing white whose face is obscured by the young fellow in the front row; and off to the left, Jim McCauley is barely visible seated at the table just past the blonde woman wearing black. Photo: Newburyport *Daily News.*

Any 4-Letters Starting with J

When I first saw it in the gift-shop of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, I knew I’d get a lot of mileage out of it. As a bonus, deep red is a nice addition to my endless collection of black, blue, and ash T-shirts.

My black “Newburyport Stands with Ukraine” T still draws more comments, especially at the now weekly “No Kings” rallies I attend. But these are simply expressions of agreement–while also satisfying my ulterior motive of not wanting to hold a sign or wave a flag.

“Call me” compels people to ask: “Call you what?”

Seriously, I’ve walked down State Street, and people in parked cars roll (or buzz) down windows to ask that question. Patrons walking into the Screening Room ask it so often that I now wash the shirt in my kitchen sink in between trips to the laundromat so I can wear it there twice a week.

At times, I simply turn around and show them this:

Not that I expect anyone to call me by the name of that Biblical outcast taken by the flippantly philosophical and skittishly obsessive narrator of Moby-Dick, but I wouldn’t mind if they did. Had I been born around 1800, I would be he. Most who ask recognize the name, but even for those who do not, what usually happens is that I tell them of the annual marathon reading of the book on the first weekend after New Year’s.

Depending on the scene, I’ll save that plug for later, and see how much banter I can generate:

“Call you what?”

“Charming, handsome, witty, erudite, bold, courageous, imaginative, inspiring, inspired…” and on and on until I’m interrupted:

“I meant your name!”

“Oh, I thought you wanted my preferred adjectives.”

And on it goes before I show or describe the back and pitch the marathon, emphasizing the words “free of charge.”

Yes, I add my first name which can, at times, be confusing, but I’m just starting to realize that this shirt may be the right fit for an end to that confusion. Baptized “John” into a family flush with Johns–yes, the name is fluid with puns–I became “Jackie” in my childhood, and “ja-KEE” as my mother voiced it until just short of my 50th birthday.

In college, 25 miles south of everyone who knew me, professors began classes by reading roll calls with our formal names. Shy as I’ve always been, I never corrected anyone, and so in the fall of 1968, I became John or Jack depending on which end of Massachusetts Route 114 I was matriculating. When I went west, the same thing happened at South Dakota State University except that 1,700 miles was too long for weekend visits, so it was hit the road, Jack, and make yourself comfortable, John.

And so it is that friends from Salem and from anywhere west of the Mississippi know me as John, while family in the Merrimack Valley and friends from my native Lawrence call me Jack. When I returned from the west and started writing for a newspaper in Newburyport, it was out of deference to family that the byline would be Jack. Had I landed in Salem and started writing columns for the Salem Evening News, it would have been John.

In other words, or with both names, I was never fussy. In fact, I usually invite anyone who asks to call me by any four-letter word that starts with J. What a joke! All my life, many people have called me “Jerk” without the invitation.

To be honest, I’d prefer that people address me by the name they first used. That includes a few from both Salem and Lawrence who call me by my last name–something common in the Sixties. But I don’t mind when Salemites or westerners attempt “Jack.” As I say, I’m not picky, and I’m too shy to correct anyone.

The exception is when friends say both: “Jack-John” or “John-Jack.” Not only is it grating on the ear, but it gives me a vague feeling of playing an undefined role in my own life rather than being my own person. Confidence is everything that holds one together, and without it we are helpless. That double name when I hear it–or read it in an email–is like a bucket of uncertainty poured on top of me. Sensation is physical, and I shake, as if trying to get it off.

Considering that we had a president of the USA back in the Sixties who used both names interchangeably, it’s hard to figure why anyone would struggle with this now. Joking about it doesn’t seem to help. When I’ve told people it depends on whether they want me in a bathroom or in the trunk of a car, their faces turn from confused to horrified.

Thankfully, this doesn’t happen more than twice or thrice a month. Prompted, no doubt, by the “John” on my email account. If it were more than that, say twice a week, I might wash this shirt every night to wear every day:

“Call you what?”

“Call me what you’ve always called me.”

If it’s someone I don’t know, I give them “Jack,” the more recent, local name, adding something to help them remember it: “If you need a lift, call me.”

Such a trick of memory for “John” would be at best unpleasant, and possibly lewd.

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A Toast to Easy Livin’

In a local coffee shop, a fellow asks me to excuse him while he tacks a picture to the wall behind me. As I look up, I spot a Hamm’s Beer logo on his tan colored cap.

Oh, the memories! He’s both amused and a bit confused when I tell him of its popularity in the Dakotas as I recall it some 45 to 50 years ago, or about when his parents were learning to walk. He thought it a Southern brew, telling me it’s quite popular there. Takes me by surprise, as the brewery is in St. Paul, Minnesota. But I’ll take his word for it, ’cause I sure as hell ain’t going anywhere below Mason-Dixon now that the Supreme Court has reversed the outcome of the Civil War.

This happens a day before my friend and neighbor in the Easy Livin’ Trailer Court back in the Carter years celebrates a birthday, and so I send a reminder along with the wish. He’s as surprised as I to hear that the beer we so often quaffed together “From the Land of the Sky Blue Water” rivals Lone Star and Dixie, or whatever it calls itself now, down by the Gulf of Mexico, as all sane and reasonable people will always call it. Then he adds what appears to be a typographical error:

I’d even rank the Hamm’s bear a close second in popularity right behind Yogi and BooBoo.

Beers named Yogi and BooBoo??? How is it I never heard of those? And is there anywhere I can get one within a day-trip of Easy Livin’ Plum Island?

And how can it be second to two? And, while I’m nitpicking it, why the? He continues with another odd the:

Even though the Hamm’s bear looks to have made several changes over the years, I remember him most during the Harmon Killebrew years in advertisements during the Minnesota Twins games.

Him??? I thought we were talking about beer! Before Samuel Adams appeared in the mid-80s, the only beer that might, um, ah, well, prefer that pronoun was Billy Beer. That made it’s debut while I was still in Dakota soon after a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia, prevailed upon his brother to get rid of the federal restrictions on marketing beer that gave a few large breweries a stranglehold on the industry. That brother happened to be president of the USA, and opening opportunities for local brewers may have been the only easy task he had in his four years.

Billy Beer was easily the worst beer I ever tasted. Still is. In fact, it may be the worst anything to ever insult, abuse, and defile human taste buds. Beer drinkers apparently agreed, as it was nowhere to be found within two weeks of its greatly anticipated debut. We all tried it. No one that I knew ever bought it a second time.

Still trying to solve the puzzle, I recall that Killebrew, one of baseball’s greatest sluggers, had retired before I ever went west of the Mississippi, or for that matter, west of Ohio’s flaming Cuyahoga. Finally, it occurs to me that my friend was seeing Hamm’s commercials on a Sioux Falls TV station while I was still seeing ads for a Rhode Island brew–“Hi Neighbor! Have a ‘Gansett!”–beamed from Beantown.

As so often happens with this lo-tech Boomer in this hi-tech world, I put an end to my confusion by doing what I should have done right away. My last click was on “images,” and poof! There he was:

And so it all falls into place. Since Yogi & BooBoo always appear together, my friend regarded them as one. But how is it I never saw the bear? The slogan, yes, and it reminds me of Hamm’s chief rival, Schmidt, also from St. Paul, “The Brew that Grew with the Great Northwest.” Also refreshing, but Hamm’s was more smooth.

Oh, the memories!

And the coincidence! Never gave that beer a thought over a decade after I last drank it. Not even when I joined a Renaissance faire and was told I needed a “character name.” My choice, “Hamm Lynn,” was a nod to the legendary Pied Piper of Hamlin, but now it’s also a toast to my years at the Easy Livin’ Trailer Court next door to an alfalfa field that stretched forever into the western horizon of Brookings, South Dakota.

Here on Easy Livin’ Island, off the coast half a continent away with a view that stretches forever over an estuary to the Massachusetts mainland, I’ll drink to that.

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Oh, Say, Will We Stand?

Flying over my front door this 4th of July will by the same flag that I bring to No Kings rallies. Must say I’ve had a bit of history with Old Glory.

Back in 1993, I noticed a badly torn, faded flag atop a pole on US 1 in Salisbury. Hoist side hung by just one grommet to the rope, waving like a crudely twisted streamer rather than as any recognizable rectangle.

After a couple weeks, I wrote a column for the weekly paper headlined: “Nagged by a ragged flag on a local drag.”

The ragged flag was gone the next day.

From the beginning of the MAGA movement in 2015, I have mentioned displays of our flag with the Republican president’s snarling face and various slogans on it.

More than once, I quoted the U.S. Flag Code which Trump supporters continue to violate, most notably when they desecrated the Stars and Stripes on the ends of poles used as battering rams against police protecting the US Capitol.

In conversations, I compared that to the silent, non-disruptive protests of athletes who knelt during the national anthem. Seemed to me that a peaceful exercise of the First Amendment did not “disrespect” American values but amplified them.

Lost a few friends over that. Others wondered if I was the same guy sure to request silence for the national anthem when we gathered to watch games.

In 2018, I wrote a column, still available in this paper’s archives, headlined “Oh, say, can we hear?”

WEEI’s broadcasts of the Boston Red Sox, instead of airing the national anthem before games, returned from a commercial break telling us that the anthem had “been brought to you by…”

And then they named the sponsor.

Talk about nagging! I emailed WEEI, the Red Sox, the Boston Globe (part owner of the team), the Better Business Bureau, and Mutual of America, the sponsor usually named. No answers.

To the state Attorney General’s office, I appealed not for the sake of patriotism, but on the grounds of truth in advertising. Answer was quick: no victim, no crime.

Because I do not believe, as many do, that anyone has any preferential claim to the flag or the anthem, I was reluctant to appeal to veterans’ groups. When I finally did, the response was no more than a shrug, as if to say, that ship has sailed.

More like sunk. In 2021, I gave up and kept the radio off until after the first pitch was scheduled. At the start of this year, I must have forgotten all about it and was pleasantly surprised to hear the anthem before the first pitch.

WEEI now airs it before every game.

A friend jokes that my appeal jolted someone into action, but that it takes a few years for bureaucracies to act. More likely, I was just early to a protest that others had joined.

Unfortunately, this happens when rights are being stripped from us and provisions of the Constitution are being openly violated.

Checks and balances? Gone thanks to a complicit Supreme Court and a Republican Party soaked in cowardice.

Tipping point for me was a June 10 letter to this paper headlined, “They’re coming for our children,” describing 14-year-olds riding a subway to school when a Trump goon squad, armed and masked, enters the car and demands IDs.

From my Plum Island neighbor, C. Peter Erickson:

“Why that particular car, on any one particular subway train? This had to be a random search; profiling. Two of our granddaughter’s teenage friends were taken off the train. Now, she is afraid to go to school. One does not have to be targeted to be traumatized.

“We are all collateral damage. I am challenged to recognize the America that I have known for more than seven decades.”

So am I, and because of it, I retract my 2018 column. The lines, “land of the free and home of the brave,” are no longer true.

Until that changes, I am deaf to a song I have cherished my entire life.

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My 2018 column:

https://www.newburyportnews.com/columns/garveys-view-what-so-proudly-we-pre-empt/article_d9593d4f-7600-5ef5-8408-89bcf5490f98.html

Most games at Fenway begin with the anthem sung and/or played by local musicians, some by soloists or small bands, and often by community groups, including veterans’ organizations, schools, police and fire departments, and more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9nknla-RiE

Outdoor Chairs

On the first day following an extreme heat wave, I take my car for an annual inspection to a place where I know they have chairs outside and a decent view along 1A approaching Ipswich.

As I do for all doctor and dentist appointments, I bring a magazine and a bottle of water and honestly do not care how long I wait. At times I wish I could wait longer, and on a few occasions, I’ve considered asking around a waiting room if anyone wanted to go before me.

Not to advertise or brag or anything, but I drive a Nissan Versa, one of those cars in which nothing ever goes wrong, so these check-ups seem like mere formality compared to the adventures I’ve lately had with my dermatologist and urologist.

Business is brisk, as three people are separately seated in the waiting room, and two others stand at the doorway. One of the two mechanics lets me know I’ve established my place, but keeps walking back to the garage to keep the line moving.

I thought he’d take my registration and $35, but when he doesn’t, I take them back to the Nissan and tuck them into the steering wheel.

Ah, the outdoor chairs! Both empty, so I’m incredulous that those other folk would rather sit in a cramped, airless room dominated by an over-sized counter on such a pleasant day. But I’m grateful for a chance to read my magazine without interruption.

Been looking forward to this lengthy article on the environment since Harper’s arrived in my mailbox. Had to finish a novel first, and then there were things I had to write myself. Finally, I can sit down with “The Geological Sublime: Butterflies, deep time, and climate change.”

Opening is riveting, a quote suggesting that we must stop “making” history, followed by:

The earthquake shook us awake at 4:31 in the morning.

Makes me gasp and look up. And so I meet the eye of a woman hobbling in with the help of a cane. And so it begins: “Such a nice cool day after that inferno!”

“Yes, I’ll take this all year long,” I rejoin pleasantly enough while fixing my eyes back on the mag.

Before she reaches the door, the other mechanic walks out: “Hello Kathy! You’ll be right after this fellow here. Might as well take that seat if you like the day so much.”

This, of course, is the last thing I want, but I roll with it. We chat about why we both come to this place for inspections. “I come here for all my work. They take good care of me,” she smiles.

I mention the chairs, leaving out any desire to read. She tells me that rain is due tomorrow, and I tell her that I didn’t know, that I’m out of the habit of looking at forecasts.

“Habit? I’m a farmer. I have no choice.”

Oh, the memories! In my busking days, I paid so close attention to the meteorological maps in the Globe, day by day, that I could read the isobars and predict the next few days myself.

She’s amused: “Well, you could have been a consultant for us at Herrick Farm!”

Herrick! Best corn I’ve ever tasted. Many places up here in Essex County have good corn, but even theirs can be disappointing after you taste Herrick’s. Still, I had to be sure: “You have the farmstand on 133?”

“Yes!”

“Ha! I get all my corn there ever since I found it.”

“Found it?”

“Well, do you recall a place called Marshview on Route 1 up in Newbury?”

“Yes! Yes! That was our corn!”

My daughter and I became addicted to Marshview corn back in the early 90s. When it went out of business, I wondered who took its corn crop. I shopped around, and nothing came close until I drove to Herrick’s stand. But only now do I know.

“Mystery solved!” I concluded, stretching my hand out within two feet of my own approaching car. The mechanic got out laughing, able to tell that there was some happy coincidence in his arrival–and perhaps grateful that he avoided hitting me with my own car. I stood, introducing myself to the woman with “See you at the stand!”

As I got in the car and drove off, I, too, was laughing. I went there craving an essay on climate change and left after a conversation about meteorology and agriculture. The essay can wait, and you could even say that the conversation gave me a head start.

Once back home, I took a chair outside.

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The roadside stand on 133: https://herrickfarm.net/

Fill to Me the Parting Glass

Can’t think of a film that took and shook me by surprise any more than The Life of Chuck, based on a Steven King story, now playing in cinemas everywhere.

In recent years, perhaps Don’t Look Up, and if I may reach into the past, I’ll include 1995’s Dolores Claiborne, also a child of King’s imagination, an older sister to The Life of Chuck.

Chuck is also a riff on Walt Whitman’s “I am vast, I contain multitudes.” That line from Song of Myself plays a leitmotif through three acts offered in reverse order. Unsung are any lines from John Donne’s “Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” but Chuck rings those bells as clearly as it sings of multitudes.

Act Three opens the film with an environmentally plausible horror story, while Act Two is titled “Buskers Forever.” I should probably recuse myself from a review a film in which busking is so prominent, but not before I recommend the dance scene featuring Tom Hiddleston (the oldest of four actors cast as Charles Krantz at different ages) and Annalise Basso as Janice Halliday, one of a dozen compelling characters who appear in just one or two scenes that make Chuck a film you’ll want to see a second time.

Another reason: Chuck is genre-bending puzzle that all falls into place at the end in Act One. I’ll quit the description here rather than invoke a spoiler alert. But I will mention that the narration by Nick Offerman, mesmerizing and at times hilarious from start to finish, is something you’ll be hearing for a day or two after.

To sum up The Life of Chuck, nothing I could say could match the lilting Celtic (and Renaissance faire) favorite, “The Parting Glass” that plays during end credits. Summed up not just by the lyrics, but by the warmth with which Gregory Alan Isakov sings and strums it.

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The Life of Chuck plays at The Newburyport Screening Room through Thursday, July 3, each day at 4:15 pm.