Let Me Be Perfectly Barney Frank:

. . .this character is going to be missed!  Even among the pantheon of disgraced pols, Barney towers above the rest.  A raucous high note in the fanfare of the cacphonous, ever-sounding American Rhapsody.

BUDDY HACKETT ??

Never - well, not since Marion Barry - has so destructive, so spiteful, and so high-handed a fellow flauted the laws of decency and decorum and ridden his surfboard to re-election after re-election, until Barney Frank.  And in his role as longtime member and (2007-2011 - he oversaw the disaster as it unfolded) Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney committed his destruction, of the housing market and the financial system, on a global scale.

As a Massachusetts voter, I've reconciled myself to the notoriety he brings our fair Commonwealth.

UMass Press: Big Man On Campus

When he visited the UMass Amherst campus during his book tour in 2010, I wanted to meet Barney.  No axe to grind, but an idea to pitch.  I maneuvered before, during and after his acidic and self-righteous address to the crowd.  Knowing of my intent an unhelpful, second-string UM staffer tried to block my access so I end-ran her, snatched a book and paid for it, got my place in line, and did get the face time.  When Barney heard my pitch he actually stopped, considered what I'd suggested, and took out a card to give me the name of his chief of staff.  And we did indeed follow up!  And I got satisfaction.  They say politics makes strange bedfellows... I'm glad we hit it off.

He lied in a jolly, entertaining way throughout his speech

To recall the Steve Gobie scandal (below)* is almost as rich as to hear this gentleman blame President Bush for failure to adequately regulate Fannie Mae when in fact Frank himself, as partner (1987-1998)  to FNMA senior executive Herb Moses, was neck deep in conflict of interest throughout the decade-plus run-up to the housing crisis and all of the devastation that followed, and still follows, that debacle.

* [from Wikipedia]: In 1985 Frank was still closeted. That year he hired Steve Gobie for sex, a male prostitute, and they became friends more than sexual partners.^[24] Frank housed Gobie and hired him with personal funds as an aide, housekeeper and driver and paid for his attorney and court-ordered psychiatrist.^[24]

In 1987 Frank kicked Gobie out after he was advised by his landlord that Gobie kept escorting despite the support and was doing so in the residence.^[24][25]

I Love You, You Love Me ...

Later that year Gobie's friends convinced him he had a gay male version of Mayflower Madam, a TV movie they had been watching.^[24] In 1989 Gobie tried to initiate a bidding war for the story between WUSA-TV (Channel 9), the Washington Times, and The Washington Post.^[24] He then gave the story to The Washington Times for nothing, in hopes of getting a book contract.^[25] Amid calls for an investigation Frank asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate his relationship "in order to insure that the public record is clear."^[26] The Committee found no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in the alleged illegal activity and dismissed all of Gobie's more scandalous claims; they recommended a reprimand for Frank using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets and for misstatements of fact in a memorandum relating to Gobie's criminal probation record.^[27] The House voted 408–18 to reprimand Frank.^[28][29]

The attempts to censure and expel Frank were led by Republican Larry Craig, whom Frank later criticized for hypocrisy^[30] after Craig's own arrest in 2007 for lewd conduct while soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom.^[31][32][33] Frank won re-election that year with 66 percent of the vote.

. . . 

Hallowe'en and The Visible Hand of the Market: Trick-or-Treat with Alan Greenspan

Smith got it right*

All Hallow's Eve, 2003 and I am the chaperone to my daughter and her fourth grade friends as we wend our way door-to-door toward the upper end of tony Chain Bridge Road, N.W. in Washington, D.C.

Knock! Knock!  A door swings open and NBC Newswoman Andrea Mitchell beams at the kids. I beam back - I've always thought Andrea was delicious.

Wealth Redistribution

Andrea reaches for the large candy bowl and prepares to offer it, but stops herself short as it's nearly empty and in need of replenishment.

Holding the bowl in mid-air, our lady of the house calls back over her shoulder, "Dear! More candy!"


A rustling of plastic is heard, and then a gnarled hand appears from behind the door, extends over the bowl, and deposits a 4 or 5 "fun size" 3 Musketeers bars.

Greenspan: Visible hand of the market

The hand retracts, then appears again - three more times, the hand extends, like The Addams Family's "Thing," but sporting French cuffs and a suit jacket.


Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand acolyte** who freely admits the U.S. income tax system is a wealth redistribution scheme, doling out scarce resources to the needy.

A couple of Romantics

Fun Size from the Fed

...and,

this night, to the irrationally exuberant.



* Smith (1776): "It is not from the benevolence of the Butcher, the Brewer or the Baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages"

** Greenspan (1957): “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.” 
(emphasis mine)
 

Patrick Ewing: Skyscraper

Hoya Saxa Hallelujah !!!!

Fall, 1984.  Georgetown Hoyas are defending NCAA champs after beating Houston 84-75 that spring.

It's a Big Man's Game ...

Mentor/Coach Thompson and disciple

Walking with kooky girlfriend downhill on the north side of Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., 1400 block, on a Georgetown Saturday night - shoulder to shoulder with the hipsters and wannabees, just about in front of Commander Salamander.  Jostling for position as the sidewalks groan.  Suddenly up ahead, looming like Ted Hughes' Iron Man or a gigantic tsunami, comes Patrick Ewing.

Looming...

He's in a pack or entourage and towers head, shoulders and torso above the fray.  The pack at ground level is moving herky-jerky and jostling as well - like Kurt Rambis in the paint.

...But, planing uphill, Patrick is like a giraffe - the long, graceful upper body rocking the same way that a giraffe moves, hinged at the low end of the neck when crossing the veldt at a lazy gallop.

Ewing hove into view, passed above us like the Empire State Building, and was gone!

Jobs for One and All - Walter Isaacson in Silicon Valley

Steve Jobs - Genius

Lots of hooting and hollering today about the new Steve Jobs biography.  I can't wait to read it!

Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson (he's also written bio's of Ben Franklin and Al Einstein) is a fixture of the American literary-intellectual firmament.  Within Time Inc. he helmed TIME Magazine and later CNN; more recently he's been head of the prestigious Aspen Institute.

"The Thinker" - Stanford's Cantor Arts Center

In the autumn of 1994 while he was "Editor of New Media" (a passing fancy) at TIME, Walt was invited to appear on the Stanford University campus for Della Van Heyst's vaunted Stanford Publishing Seminar (Della happened to be romancing FORTUNE Magazine, at the TIME).  I too was invited to join the same panel.

A fresh-faced Cardinal MBA student picked me up at SFO, whisked me to the campus and I wandered in the Rodin sculpture garden - to which I would return in 1997 - before joining the gang for a cookout preceding the evening program.  Walt appeared at the dais with tech reporter/author Kara Swisher, WSJ tech reviewer Walt Mossberg, and me - then Publisher of Discovery Channel Multimedia.

Our most interesting exchange that night, prompted by my observation during discussion of the future of books and magazines, concerned whether writing for interactive media was best and most creatively accomplished 'from whole cloth,' versus when adapted from literary source material.

One half of this Hollywood dichotomy is "Best Writing - Original Screenplay" (in 2011, David Seidler for The King's Speech) - from 1976 to 1978, in a fit of disclosure, the Academy formally referred to this category as "Screenplay written directly for the Screen - Based on factual material or on story material not previously published or produced").  The flip side of course is the Oscar for "Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay" (Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network - from Ben Mezrich's Accidental Billionaires).

Birches not Aspens - Walt Isaacson

At the time I was trying to negotiate a license with Warner Brothers for a CD-ROM tie-in with the upcoming Twister film, and separately (personally) developing a screenplay concept: a re-make of a film that had originally been produced in the mid-60's based on a 1950's Cold War novel. As he was then a Time-Warner executive-suite guy, I drew Walter out on the development processes at HBO and Silver Screen Partners.

I got the T-shirt...

The earnest Stanford kids pursued the thread, lobbing in some excellent comments and questions.

Walter was a nice guy - made some trenchant observations in his interesting New Orleans accent that is bent a bit conspicuously to the Brahmin by time spent in Cambridge.  He came off as pompous, I then thought . . . but not without solid justification, I now think!

Isaacson and I later shared the panel dais again in April, 1995 at the Software Publishers' Association confab in Atlanta.  More of the same, and a lot of fun!

Walt definitely got the big "get" with this book from Simon & Schuster.  Here's an excellent NPR story and interview from Fresh Air.  At this moment when "jobs" are the biggest issue of the election season, and "Jobs" the departing icon of American ingenuity and growth, can the biography fail to captivate?

  I think not !!

Steve Jobs - Zen and the Art of Innovation

R.I.P. Charles Napier - He Put the Square Jaw in "Big Bosoms (and...)"

Napier: "Where's The Growler?!"

Farewell to Charles Napier - a tremendous character actor who embodied the best and the worst of power & authority.  He died at age 75 on Wednesday in Bakersfield, CA.

Napier and his leering, maniacally toothful smile captivated audiences in Super Vixens, Blues Brothers, Rambo, Silence of the Lambs, and a host of other films over his long career.

Russ Meyer's - A Life Well-Lived

My first-ever theater experience of a Russ Meyer film (Campus Cinemas III, Hadley, MA) was Super Vixens, and it's still my favorite of all his masterpieces.  Charles Napier, as homicidal cop Harry Sledge, is the dastardly accelerant that propels the film, bedeviling Clint Ramsey hither and yon.  As Ramsey, Charley Pitts charges from one pair of breasts to another (six abreast -that's twelve breasts all told; fourteen if you count Angel and SuperAngel separately), one step ahead of Sledge, like the Road Runner leading Wile E. Coyote a merry chase.

Napier, Eubanks - Mountaintop Tableaux

You'll think twice, "Hoss!" after seeing how Sledge brutalizes Angel (Shari Eubanks) - beating and stabbing her before electrocuting her - how? - by dropping a plugged-in radio into her bathtub.  In 1975, the whole thing was one of the most gory, protracted killing scenes that had been played out on screen.

Charles "Super Vixen" Napier

Of course in Meyer's world, Shari comes back to life as SuperAngel and runs around the desert in high heels and a crazily-short waitress uniform, the whole thing ultimately leading to a mountain-top square-off punctuated by a long, raucous series of harsh and non-sensical threats and taunts bellowed across the echoing valley by Sledge, like "She'll squeeeeeeeze ya like a lemon!" and "Why buy a cow, when y'can git free milk?!"  SuperAngel ultimately has her revenge in, let's say, the film's explosive climax.

In 1994, I was fortunate to have an introduction to Charles by RM himself when Napier was in Vegas to promote the video release of "Raw Justice" (re-titled for video as "Good Cop, BackCop") in which Charles had played Mayor Stiles, whose daughter's death is to be avenged.  When I met Napier, I persuaded him to re-deliver the 'free milk' line - and he roared when I told him of the movie's indelible power and imagery 'persisting for me from boyhood to adulthood Undiminished, and Unrefined' - he recognized the reference and hooted "Thank you, Mr. Portnoy!"

Super Vixens (1975) - Harry Sledge . . . about to Explode

Russ chided Napier over having given him his first feature break, as a crooked sheriff in Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1970) before casting him for Super Vixens in the defining role of Harry Sledge.  When Chuck rebutted that he'd appeared in two earlier films (a dog Western and an obscure Swedish vehicle) and cameo'd on Star Trek before their meet-up, Meyer rejected those as 'nonsense,' and corrected himself: "Not your first break, but your only important break."

Our star said that he mostly "played (him)self, or some version of (him)self."  But Charles Napier had a serious talent that went beyond central-casting villainy, and was especially admirable playing Judge Garnett in the beautiful film, "Philadelphia."  An Army man before heading to Hollywood, Napier had the features, the intensity, and the talent to capture authority in its best and worst forms.

Charles Napier, b. April 12, 1936 - d. October 5, 2011

God rest his merry soul!

My Cousin the Hero: Jerry Della Salla

My cousin Jerry is an actor and writer, former Diamond Gloves boxer, and all around GREAT KID who was living in Brooklyn ten years ago.  Following September 11, he joined the National Guard, vowing to defend NYC in the event of any future attack.  As way leads on to way, he was eventually called up for the full tour of duty in Iraq.

Jerry reads it and weeps at send-off

PAPI and crew... VINDICATORS!

My brothers and I traveled to NYC in Red Sox caps just following the 2004 baseball season, to meet Jerry the Yankees fan for a send-off lunch before he reported to Fort Dix for training.

The next thing we knew in early 2005, he'd been shipped out with security forces to Abu Ghraib to keep peace following the prison scandal.

Shortly that spring, Jerry was present to defend the prison during a 4+ hour seige involving an internal uprising and multiple coordinated simultaneous external attacks and diversions.  He was shot but the U.S. forces held the line and Jerry later received The Combat Action Badge and is under review for the Purple Heart.  Among Jerry's other medals and citations are the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, The Generals Coin for Excellence, The Iraqi Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Medal.  He's a great soldier and the real deal.

Months later, I broke down in tears, the day the news came that Jerry had returned safely home from the war after serving his full 13 month tour.  He'd made it home.

Subsequently, Jerry participated in a virtual-reality-assisted PTSD therapy session presented by PBS on FRONTLINE.  Watch this - it is riveting.

Jerry continues his career as an actor.  In 2008, Matt Damon cast Jerry, and other "real vets" in the Paul Greengrass film "Green Zone."  As Sgt. Wilkins, Jerry has several great scenes and interesting lines, including one made notorious in which he tells Matt, "We're here to do a job and get home safe, that's all - the reasons don't matter!"

Jerry - as Army Squad Sgt. Jerry Wilkins

On 9/11/01, our cousin Doug Pedalino was reporting to work in New Jersey for the last time; his company was to relocate him the following Monday, 9/17, to the 99th floor of tower #2. If the attack had been carried out a week later - and it might have - we could have lost Dougie.

Give thanks today for your freedom, and count your blessings.

Jerry, you are my hero and I salute you, Cousin!

Remembering Ann Judge

God Bless You and all your loved ones today, Ann, and every day:

Ann C. Judge, b. December 28, 1951, d. September 11, 2001

The Ann Campana Judge Foundation exists to help people.  Please support them.

Ridin' the Storm Out with Bob Hager, NBC News

Robert Hager - Newsman & Family Man

You've seen the dashing Bob Hager on NBC since the late 1960's.  He covered Vietnam and the Palestinian atrocity at the 1972 Munich Olympics.  43 years ago today he was in lock-up, arrested in Chicago while covering the protests at the Democratic National Convention.

Over time, Bob developed a couple of specialized beats, notably Air Disasters (TWA 800, Pan Am 103, ...) and Weather Disasters.  Every year, when NBC changed its new anchor set and logo, Bob would be issued a new company windbreaker to wear on camera as wind, waves and rain battered the coastline somewhere, or as volunteers picked through tornado wreckage.

Well, in 1981, I dated Bob and wife Honey's daughter for several months.  She and I had a great time and once made a trip north, stopping in Westport to visit her old home (and to make a furtive dash up the driveway of neighbor Mary Travers).  This Hager house - and all others the itinerant newsman and his family had inhabited - were lovingly recreated as scale models (Bob had impressive skill as a woodworking hobbyist), and linked by a string of Christmas lights in a village scene that the Hager family would set up each year.  An entire town center made up of their past homes.  I'm a sentimentalist and have never seen a similarly sweet scene, anywhere.

Buck Henry: "Mr. Leech"

Jessica: Golden Girl

My favorite inside-NBC News story that came from Bob (via his lovely daughter who observed the tableaux as a teenager at the time) is of bow-tied old Irving R. Levine chasing the ill-fated but quite gorgeous Jessica Savitch around the Hager living room during a cocktail party, with fingers a-pinching (a bit like Buck Henry coming after Mary Woronov in "Eating Raoul," I always liked to imagine).

With Irene bearing down on the east coast, let's salute Bob Hager, NBC Newsman Emeritus.