Biden Must Go

 

In the 1930s humorist Will Rogers quipped, “I'm not a member of any political party. I am a Democrat.” That was funny in the age of Franklin Roosevelt and Democratic dominance. These days it's descriptive. Once again the Democratic Party is poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

A lot of Democrats seemed shocked to discover that Joe Biden is as mentally sharp as an anvil. This shouldn’t be news. At age 81, Biden is simply not up to the task of another term as President of the United states. As a senior citizen I would be the first to say there's no shame in getting older. Yet I would also admit I am not as alert as I was when I was teaching. I forget things, struggle for words, and tire more easily. Though I’m younger than Biden if you asked me whether I had enough bandwidth to shape foreign and domestic policy, I’d remember the word “No!” in a heartbeat.

 

Biden simply should not have run for reelection. Starry-eyed supporters have tried to make excuses for his pathetic performance against Donald Trump last week. You can massage it, deny it, or deflect it any way you wish but Donald Trump ate Biden’s lunch. Of course, Trump lied; he wouldn't know truth if it bit him in his XXXL keister. Biden defenders trumpet all of the good things Biden did in his first term. They're not wrong, but they are clueless.

 

My wife's grandmother once told of hearing Adlai Stevenson speak in 1952. He was dynamic, a term seldom connected to Mr. Biden, and she and her sister rushed to the stage to congratulate Stevenson. One of them gushed, “That was a wonderful speech. I'm going to vote for you and so will every thinking American.” Stevenson merely shook his head and replied, “Not enough, not enough.” He was trounced in the general election by the genial political neophyte Dwight Eisenhower. General Eisenhower turned out to be a decent president in his two terms in office. That will not be the case if Trump wins.

 

American political life is considerably more impoverished today than in 1952. I'm not sure that any Democratic presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy has understood that. When Republicans accuse Democrats of being elitists, they're not wrong. It's a big reason why Democrats lose elections they should win. Instead of shifting tactics, party bigwigs create excuses. To the present day Democrats outnumber Republicans in voter registration, but more voters are unaligned than belong to the two parties put together. Democrats certainly fail to note that things such as sound bites, fear, and likability matter more than any issue other than domestic economics.

 

Let us survey lost elections Democrats should have won. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey failed to differentiate his from Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policies. Did he not notice that antiwar candidates Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy won 5.2 million votes in primaries he didn’t even enter? Four years later, one-note George McGovern was slaughtered by Richard Nixon, who was already being investigated for malfeasance. 

 

In 1980, Jimmy Carter struggled for traction against the vague Ronald Reagan. Yet voters deemed Reagan more likable partly because Carter allowed party policymakers to shape him into blandness. Carter was the first of non-entities to follow. Michael Dukakis anyone? How about Al Gore or John Kerry? In 1988, 2000, and 2004 Democratic regulars blamed dirty tricks for defeat. Was that the reason, or was it that Dukakis was a boring technocrat, Al Gore could have put caffeinated cheetahs to sleep, and John Kerry played the role of elitist?

 

Bill Clinton had charisma and energy, but also paved the way for Donald Trump by proving that morality and lying didn’t matter. He became a Republican in sheep’s clothing; look at policies Reagan failed to enact and Clinton passed them. Barack Obama stands alone in being a principled and truthful Democrat, though even he admits underestimating Republican perfidy. We all know what happened in the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton ran a horrible campaign and lost to the despicable Trump. Once again elitists cried she was treated unfairly and that Trump cheated. (Funny, that’s what he said about 2020.) Have Democrats been asleep since 1960? Politics are dirty! Winning has become impression management, not articulating policy. So-called presidential debates are all about impressions; they are not substantive debates at all!

 

 

 

If Biden remains on the ticket, the best hope is that Trump’s diet and temper induce a heart attack or that he will go to jail. Face it; he'll never see the inside of a jail and I doubt he has a heart. The wise course of action would be to thank Joe Biden for his service and replace him with a  more vigorous and mentally astute individual who can forcefully state Democratic positions on Ukraine, immigration, Israel, the economy, respect for minorities, climate change, and reproductive rights. If the election were held next week, only the last of those would have as much traction as a Smart Car.

 

Rob Weir

The Magic of Motown Lacks Versimilitude

 

The Magic of Motown

Academy of Music 

June 22, 2024  

 

 

Back when we both did freelance work at a local arts paper a friend and I had a friendly debate over how to judge a performance. He was always more charitable, so I accepted his assertion that it wasn't fair to hold novices to the same standards as seasoned pros. In essence, you shouldn't review a community theater production the same way you would a Broadway cast doing the same show. 

 

Back then we had an A/B slant on things, but I wonder if maybe we sliced that too neatly. Is there anything between an amateur and a professional? This thought occurred when I saw a stage show titled The Magic of Motown. It had some wonderful highs but also several lows. 

 

It's a great idea to honor Motown. In 1959 Berry Gordy opened a studio in Detroit soon dubbed Hitsville U.S.A. If you didn't live through the 1960s it's almost impossible to explain how much Motown and rivals like Stax meant to young people. At a tense moment in time, Motown bridged the gap between black and white kids better than any demonstration, manifesto, or politician. Gordy had a genius for spotting and cultivating talent.   

 

At the beginning of the 60s the early promise of rock had stalled. There was always great music to be found in city subcultures, but if the radio was your doorway to the world the airwaves didn't sizzle, they recycled–crooners, teenybopper death ballads, doo wop, over-the-top fading celebrities, and an endless parade of “girl groups.” (That was actually the term!) Were it not for Dylan, The Beatles, and Motown I don't know how we would have made it to acid rock and the Summer of Love. 

 

Motown wasn't good; it was spectacular! Gordy recorded one sensation after another: The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, and many others. 

 

As for The Magic of Motown, pros or amateurs? Aye, there's the rub. What is it if a show costs half as much as what you'd pay to see a 1A  act? How do we classify a cast that is somewhere between cosplay and a tribute band? The Magic of Motown show was also running on the cheap. There was supposed to be a six-piece band but, depending on tells it, illness forced it to cancel or there was a dispute in the ranks. There were supposed to be 18 singers, but only half that many were in attendance. Nonetheless, some of the ticket prices hit three figures. 

 

 Most of the performances–despite occasional technical glitches–were fine, but the overall effect was that of a group of impersonators trying to make us think they were channeling the past. That's pretty difficult to do with pictures on the Real Deals projected on a massive screen behind them. I'd listen to any one of the show performers sing, but don't ask me to believe that the beefy woman with bad white eye shadow is comparable to Aretha. (Who could be?) And for heaven's sake don't try to pass off a boa-wearing giggling granddaughter as Diana Ross or ask me to imagine that the same singers were Stevie Wonder, David Ruffin, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green. Ironically, a highlight was when the same granddaughter did a dead-on impersonation of Michael Jackson from his “ABC” days with The Jackson 5. That choreography was crisp and energetic . 

 

As the night wore on, I got the sense that the cast was valiantly donning one costume after another and soldering on, but knew they were treading water. The audience was polite and several were wildly enthusiastic, but the latter fell short of what I'm accustomed to seeing at the venue. I wonder if everyone would have felt better had they paid half as much. I worked the show and paid nothing, but my brightest spot was playing some old Motown at home.

 

If Magic of Motown has a reboot, a good starting point would be to keep the biggest icons on their pedestals. To paraphrase an old Motown hit, there ain't no mountain high enough to inhabit the talents of Diana Ross, Aretha, Smokey Robinson, or The Temptations. We’re talking diva, the Queen of Soul, the premier male group of the era, and a singer whose voice was like being massaged with velvet. It’s fine to call the show an “interpretation,” a “remembrance,” or a “cover,” but don’t try to step into the skins of giants.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Easy Summer Reads: Robert Parker

 

 

I noticed that most of the books on the summer bestseller list are romances. I didn't take them seriously when Janice Radway told us we should in 1984, and I don't take them seriously now even though they have their own academic journal. Occasionally I read one just to see if they're still mindless pap. They are.

 

Yet, it would be churlish to tell anyone they should read serious literature instead. I'm happy when someone actually reads a book of any sort in the age of Dumbing Down America. Plus, I love mysteries and detective novels that a lot of literary snobs would call pap. They might be right, but I’d much rather read Tana French or Louise Penny than James Joyce or Jane Austen.

 

Plus, it's beach time and who wants to get sand in their first edition of Dickens? Read a romance if that's your thing. If not, perhaps you'd like to try some of Robert Parker’s Spenser series. Where to start if you’re a newbie? Parker penned 39 of them before his death in 2010. If you’re not a completist you might be tempted to read whatever comes your way. That's not the best strategy because the characters evolve and you’ll be dazed and confused.

 

It makes more sense to sample Parker by decades to get a handle on things. Confession: I'm not overly fond of his novels from the 1970s. The ‘70s were a tacky decade to live through–doubt knit, wide ties and trousers, bad hair, stack-heeled shoes, gas guzzlers, stagflation, and disco–so why relive it? The best reason is to learn about key players who appear in better novels from the 1980s on.

 

The Spenser novels are like Star Trek: character-driven. Plotting was never Parker’s forte, which is why he could crank ‘em out. Many of the stories are formulaic and involve improbable resolutions, but the fun comes from seeing how the characters grow, laughing at the wisecracks, and marveling over how such a macho guy is remarkably sensitive about race and gender. He’s stuck on himself, as prone to violence as you’d expect an ex-boxer to be, and eats and drinks like a starved hog, but he’s also surprisingly erudite and settles into being a one-woman guy. Once you learn about his inner circle–Susan Silverman, his lover; Hawk, his African American friend who marches to his own drummer; and law enforcement allies Healy, Belson, and Quirk, it scarcely matters if you lose a Parker on the beach; you can just grab 

 another book. 

 

 

For the 1970s, I suggest starting with God Save the Child (1974), the book in which he meets Susan. She’s a high school guidance counselor in this one, though she’ll soon climb up the psychology ladder. She’s also a semi-liberated woman, but that too will change. Hawk is present, though he’s not yet Spenser’s partner in crime. That’s the correct term. As a private investigator Spenser gets results because he bends, breaks, and ignores rules. (Hawk never bothered with them in the first place.)

 

The plot centers on the dysfunctional Bartlett family: Roger, a rough-around-the-edges construction contractor; Margery, a bored housewife who fancies herself a “creative person;” and their identity-confused son Kevin. The latter goes missing and Spenser has to sort through everything from an obnoxious local cop, serving as the insufferable Margery’s bodyguard, being threatened by a body builder, visiting a gay bar, psychobabble, a possible kidnapping, extortion, and a dead lawyer. Read it for background, but for heaven’s sake don’t stop there as far better novels lie ahead. If you want more from the 1970s, Mortal Stakes (1975) is pretty decent and involves the Red Sox.  If you missed, the link will take you to an earlier review. 

 

Once you’re grounded, jump to Ceremony (1982). By then, Spenser and Susan are joined at the pelvis and Hawk is integral to the series. You’ll meet April Kyle who appears in two future novels. Her father wants Spenser to find her, as he’s furious that she’s working as a prostitute. You will learn that Spenser seldom sees himself as a save-the-world social worker. He will cut deals with organized crime figures as long as they keep their word and reckons it’s nobody’s business if a person’s chosen life offends moralists or busybodies.

 

As it transpires, April might indeed be in jeopardy. Ceremony takes us inside a very seedy world of non-consensual pornography and dangers on the street. It takes place in various Massachusetts locales, Boston’s Combat Zone, Rhode Island, and New York City. In the latter you will meet Patricia Utley, the madam of a high-class stable of prostitutes. She’s another person who reappears later. Ceremony has real grit to it to go with the wisecracks. Plus, who can resist the prescience of having a street pimp who calls himself “Trumps?”

 

Those three will get you started and I’ll post a few more suggestions in future columns.

 

Rob Weir