"I saw Derek Jeter play baseball"

     Imagine someone asking you to name the five greatest Yankees.  Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle roll of the tongue automatically.  Up until recently, many people would argue about who should have filled that fifth slot.  Surely, Yogi Berra would have been in contention.  If we include pitchers (and we should), Whitey Ford and Mariano Rivera would be likely choices.  But there is no question, none, that Derek Jeter belongs in that inner circle.  While each generation produces one or two players that can be considered "all-time greats," it has been a while since the Yankees fielded such a candidate.  Considering the Yankees have been (by far) the most successful franchise in the game, Derek Jeter is the first Yankee to join that limited group of men who amassed 3,000 hits.   In Derek's case, 3,400 odd-hits over  20 years averages over 170 hits per season.  Even in a statistic-crazed sport like baseball, that's quite an achievement--both in longevity and consistency.  For someone who has been a Yankee fan dating back to the tail end of Joe DiMaggio's career, I have had many thrills as a Yankee fan.  It seems a special gift to have had another in the form of this quiet young man add to those thrills.  And now, he, too, belongs to history.  I doubt  I'll see another Jeter in my life, but that's okay.  How few of us get to claim even one such as "our own."
    When I was a kid, I remember my late father telling me how he once met Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on a train.  At the time, it seemed hard to believe that two such great baseball players would have traveled on such a pedestrian conveyance as a passenger train.  For me, at age six or seven, a magic carpet would have seemed more fitting.  But both Ruth and Gehrig, men of almost supernatural abilities and strength succumbed to all too mortal illnesses; Ruth to cancer and Gehrig to the disease that now bears his name.  But how I envied people (and there were many, then) who saw them play ball for the great Yankee teams of the 20's and '30's.
     I, of course, have nothing to complain about as a baseball fan.  I remember when the New York Yankees won five World Series in a row, and, more recently three in a row (and three out of four).  I saw DiMaggio play at the tail end of his career (in the company of my late father), saw Mickey Mantle in his prime (even once, in the bleachers with my mother), Willie Mays at the old Polo Grounds and Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and all the "Boys of Summer" at Ebbetts Field.
   So, yes, I saw many of the greats and witnessed (either live or listening in on radio or TV) many great moments.  I took my son, Jason, to a number of games; later accompanied by grand-children Allison and David.  David actually witnessed A-Rod's 600th home run, an historic feat now dimmed by PED revelations.  My son, Larry, was with me at Old-Timer's Day in 1979 or '80, when it was announced that the twice-fired Billy Martin would be rehired yet again, following the interregnum reign of Bob Lemon.  I cheered loudly and mindlessly as my link to the Yankees of the 50's was being maintained by Billy's forthcoming reinstatement.  I think that Larry was more than a little embarrassed to hear the usually restrained, button-downed me scream hoarsely as the Yankees of old, Woodling, Heinrich, Mantle and DiMaggio were introduced.  Only Yogi Berra, then at outs with the Yankees for having been unceremoniously fired as manager by "Boss" Steinbrenner, was not present.
   On Wednesday, along with Daughter-in-law, Yael, I took two of Larry's children--seven year-old Julia and five year-old Isaac to see their first Yankee game.  It was not, of course, "just" their first Yankee game--a rite of passage in itself, but Derek Jeter's penultimate home game as a Yankee.  Who would have thought, twenty-years ago, that this earnest nineteen year-old would go on to become one of the all-time greats--not only of the Yankees--but of baseball itself.  Certainly not I.  And yet, here he was at age 40, having amassed (seemingly by accretion) records that lead the Yankees in all but home runs and RBI's.  Not unlike Henry Aaron, who never hit fifty home runs in his life, "suddenly" eclipsed the once-thought unbreakable record of Babe Ruth's 714 homers, so Jeter is suddenly sixth on the all-time list of the most hits of anyone who ever played the game!  And both Aaron and Jeter did it so slowly and quietly, that it is only at the end that we sit back and marvel at their staggering accomplishments.  Unfortunately, many of the great records of other stars of Jeter's era have a well-deserved taint to them because of the prevalence of steroid use--admitted and otherwise.  Players of great ability like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez will always have their statistics viewed with skepticism--and rightly so--although they would have doubtless been  Hall of Famers without the PED's.  But Derek Jeter's twenty years in the big leagues was part of that era as well, and his reputation as a ballplayer and person remains unblemished.  As a result, his lifetime stats stand on their own, as does he as his generation's pre-eminent player.
   Alas, not everyone goes out in a blaze of glory, and today's game marked the Yankee's official elimination from the post-season, an extreme rarity for the franchise.  Jeter was not playing shortstop that day, so his only appearances would be as the designated hitter.  The Yanks squandered an early three-run lead, and appeared to be cruising until the Buck Showalter's Baltimore Orioles (a much better team, by the way) answered back with a six-run fourth inning to take a lead they never surrendered. But ever hopeful,  I watched with my grand-children on this day I told them they would never forget, as Jeter went oh-for-four.  Fans hoping for a fifth at bat had their hopes dashed when Jeter was stranded in the on-deck circle in the bottom of the ninth.
   The Stadium and its environs were replete with Jeter memorabilia (official and otherwise), and I succumbed by purchasing a "Farewell, Captain" T-shirt in Yankee blue, with Derek's soon-to-be retired number 2 encircled on the back.  The Steiner collectibles were in full force as the Jeter monogrammed bases were replaced a couple of times during the game, each one to doubtless fetch hundreds of dollars from fans hungry for a special souvenir.  I have long harbored hopes of cornering the market in Jeter-used pine tar, but I suppose Mr. Steiner's beaten me to that as well.
   Baseball, of course, is a young man's game, and at forty, Derek Jeter is no longer who he was, and knows his time has come.   After a season ending ankle break in 2012, Derek played only briefly--and not well-- in 2013.  Not wanting to go out in such a fashion, he announced that he would be returning for one more (and final) season in 2014.  And return he did, as the Yankee's shortstop--a very demanding position that he continued to play in a workmanlike, if no longer spectacular, manner.  His .250-ish batting average was very respectable for most big league shortstops, but--at almost 60 points below his lifetime average-- hardly what we've come to regard as "Jeterian."  His lifetime statistics--not least of all his 3,400-plus hits, and unrivaled post-season play all but guarantee his first-ballot (if not unanimous) selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
    We each have our own Jeter memories.  Mine, not surprisingly, include that ridiculous play he says he practiced, when he raced from shortstop to halfway between home and first to retrieve an errant throw and (on the run) back-flip the ball to get an astonished Jeremy Giambi out at the plate.  Also included is his leaping into the stands to catch a foul ball off of third, emerging bloodied, but unbowed. I'll also remember his patented inside-out doubles down the right field line and the grounders on which he would move far to his right for and, leaping high in the air, catch the runner by half a step with his throw from the outfield grass.  Close your eyes and picture that play as I do.
    But wait.  Jeter could not end his career without giving us another such moment, could he.  The very next night, September 25, 2014, a game took place that almost never happened.  The weather forecast was dire, and it had rained for much of the day.  Had the game been canceled, that would have been it. But the skies cleared just enough for an unimpeded night game.  Jeter was back at short, with the TV cameras incessant focused on his unusually nervous face.  At times, he seemed distracted, almost lost in the moment.  He smashed a RBI producing double in the first inning, just barely missing a home run, and the Yankees tied the game 2-2.  Hiroki Kuroda settled down, and the Yankees added to the lead, coasting into the 9th inning, leading 5-2.  David Robertson, faced with the unenviable task of replacing Mariano Rivera as Yankees closer, was finishing an excellent season.   But I watched in disbelief as a one-out walk led to a two-run homer, cutting the lead to 5-4, and a second homer off Robertson tied the game at five-all.  In what was possibly the worst blown save of his career, Robertson ended the inning a dejected man, certain he had let Jeter down in his final home game.  But the broadcasters were all aware of the potential drama, and gave voice to what we all were thinking.  Jeter was due up third, and maybe, just maybe, he had one final moment of glory in him.  The stage was certainly set when a September call-up named Pirella singled, and was pinch run-for by another roster addition, a young man named Richardson.  Brett Gardner cooperated by laying down a sacrifice bunt, the winning run now in scoring position.  The crowd went wild as Mighty Casey--no, no, wrong story--Derek Jeter strode to the plate.   Oh no, I prayed to the baseball gods, don't let this end badly.  Jeter, however, ever the gamer, delivered a classic inside-out single to right, with the speedy Richardson possibly being among the few men in the game fast enough to beat the throw to the plate.  Jeter was ecstatic, and so was Yankees' Universe.  As John Stirling screamed "The-eeee Yankees Win," we had our happy ending, and so did Jeter.  The closing ceremonies were wonderful, as Jeter was embraced by the other members of the core four, Bernie Williams, Joe Torre.  Perfect and fitting.  And, irony of ironies, an unexpected win for the almost goat, David Robertson.
     Let's end this salute to the sixth most prolific hitter of all-time by putting that final moment in freeze frame.   And now my grandchildren (all but little Joey, who is just a year old) can join  me in saying "I saw Derek Jeter play."

Robin Williams (1951-2014)

   Robin William's death at 63 would have been tragic enough under any conditions, but when we found out that he had died at his own hand, it took on a new, and tragic, dimension.
   Many years ago, my wife and I were invited to a party at the home of a psychiatrist.  Little did I know it at the time, but my younger son, then perhaps a year or so old, would someday be a psychiatrist himself.  In any case, a slip of Freudians (new collective noun?) had gathered in a circle, and were talking shop, while I, a fledgling lawyer, was trying to keep pace with their exclusionary conversation.  One man, dressed in a natty white suit, was talking about depression.  Wishing to contribute to a conversation too arcane for my level of clinical ignorance, I ventured forth with the following: "Oh, I'm occasionally depressed."  "No you haven't been," countered white suit in his first recognition of my presence, "you have no idea of what depression is." He was, of course, correct.  I thought depression, at least in common parlance, meant being "blue," "down in the dumps," or simply sad.  I had no idea how little I shared--even at my saddest--with people for whom getting out of bed in the morning is a monumental challenge, or, indeed, people for whom self-inflicted death is preferable to the pain of life.
   So it obviously was with poor Robin Williams.
   It seemed to me that Robin was more likely bipolar than "simply" depressed.  I say this as a layman, based on the manic quality of Robin's humor.  Not since the days of Jonathan Winters , had I ever encountered as ready an improvisational wit as Robin Williams.  And with all due respect to Jonathan--who had his own demons to contend with--Robin left him in the dust.  Robin Williams was, perhaps, the best comic improvisor we have ever seen.  To be sure, there have been wittier, and funnier comics than Robin.  For one thing, subtlety was not his strong suit.  But, that said, no one has ever combined the skills of dramatic and comedic acting, along with stand-up  and ad-libbing skills as did Robin Williams.  He was the "whole package."  His was a comedy that scorned the aid of the most skilled comedy writer.  From what I understand (and this we could witness in some of his best roles), Robin, for all his egotism--and, let's face it--modesty is not something we associate with successful comics, was able to take a side seat to others in some of his best dramatic roles.  Think, for a moment, about his supporting roles in "Dead Poet's Society," "Awakenings," "Good Will Hunting" (his Oscar), and "The Birdcage."  In each of these wonderful roles, Robin underplayed his parts in aid of the movie and its stars.  In "Birdcage," for example (which led to "La Cage a Folles") Robin played a gay man who, along with his partner, Nathan Lane, have to convince the prospective in-laws of Lane's son, that they are straight.  Before I saw the movie,  I was sure Robin was going to play the role as an over-the-top queen.  Not so; if anything, he underplayed his part, allowing the (then) lesser-known Nathan Lane the limelight.
   Almost everyone reading this blog knows enough about Robin's career to obviate the need for me to spend much time on his brilliant resume as a performer.  From his start as "Mork," (of "Mork and Mindy" fame) through "Good Morning Vietnam," to "Mrs. Doubtfire," and "Alladin," he will be remembered as one of the greats--a cliche, to be sure, but true.
   What makes this so difficult a piece to write is reconciling the joy that was the public Robin Williams with the dark sorrow that must have shadowed him throughout his adult life.  I frequently write about heroes (or role models) of my youth who have died after long and productive lives.  Needless to say, Robin Williams has left behind an ouevre impressive enough for anyone's career.  More's the tragedy that it was caught short by his own hand.  I'll miss you, Robin, as there is truly no one who will ever take your place.  Indeed, no one could. Fortunately, you will live on forever in videos and dvds.  But, what a loss; what a waste!

Memories of Red and Maverick

    Not that I need any reminders of the passage of time, but several recent deaths have triggered Proustian-like memories of days gone by.  Louis Zamperini, the hero of "Unbroken" death was reported on July 4th (a most fitting day to remember such an extraordinary human being).  
His life will be remembered through that marvelous book by Laura Hillenbrand, and the upcoming movie of his life, directed by Angelina Jolie.  And just two days ago, at a Yankee game with three of my fraternity brothers, we learned that another of our brothers had just passed away, the second in a week.  But today, my thoughts are with others, one famous; the other all but obscure.
    While both Lou Klotz and James Garner had photo-accompanied articles in the New York Times's obituary section, I don't imagine too many people were even aware of who Lou Klotz was, and why his name resonated with me (and, perhaps you as well).  For those people old enough to remember the Harlem Globetrotters of the early-mid 1950's, you may recall that the NBA then was almost entirely lily-white.  When I first started following  professional basketball, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the New York Knicks (a former Trotter) was the only black player in the entire league.  Those were the days of the underhand foul shot (now "free throw") and the two-handed set-shot (now nonexistent).
    Lou Klotz (a mere 5'7") had been a professional basketball player with the pre-NBA Baltimore Bullets, and was a master of the two-handed set shot (as was, among others, Carl Braun of the Knicks).  Back in those days, the Globetrotters had two types of opponents.  One was the college All-Stars, recent graduates, with whom they toured,  who were soon to fill the ranks of the NBA.  Against them, the Trotters didn't have much of an opportunity to clown around.  That said, the Trotters won most of the time, but the games were tight.  As the NBA integrated, the need for the Globetrotters to test their mettle against the best of the mostly-white collegians waned.  It became, ironically, more difficult for the Globetrotters to obtain the best of the new crop of black ballplayers, as they were (happily for all of
us) lured away to the NBA.  One interesting exception, for a short period of time, was the great Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain.
    For people to see the Globetrotters at their most entertaining, of course, you needed an unwritten understanding that their opponents wouldn't interfere with the fun and games.  Enter the Washington Generals and their player-manager, Lou "Red" Klotz.  I first saw them in about 1953, when one of my late father's law clients, Dick Miles, was the reigning U.S. Table Tennis champion, and who would put on an exhibition match during halftime at the Globetrotters games.  It was because of Dick Miles that I first got to see the Trotters, and their long-suffering "opponents," the Washington Generals."  As the Times's obit reported, they went by several names (e.g. "The Boston Shamrocks," The New Jersey Generals," etc.).  I remember them mostly as representing our nation's capitol about as successfully as did the old Washington Senators.  Lou and the Generals played earnestly, never missing shots on purpose, but never really trying to steal the ball or otherwise mess with the routines people had come to see.  I read that the Generals won only one game against the Trotters, who blew what would have been the game-winning shot, only to fall prey to a two-handed set shot (natch!) from Lou.  It was touching to read that Lou's #3 Jersey is one of only a handful retired by the Trotters, along with such legendary stars as Goose Tatum, Marques Haynes, and, yes, Wilt Chamberlain.
       The other death was of the much better known James Garner, best known for his TV roles in the eponymous "Maverick" and "Rockford Files."  Although, as the Times reported, Maverick was a gambler and Rockford a private eye, Garner considered them essentially the same character.  Bret Maverick was a dapper gambler, who rarely drew a gun, relying on his a wit and sense of self-preservation to stay alive.  Also appearing as a regular on the show was Jack Kelly (as Bret's younger brother, Bart) and, in five guest appearances, the recently departed Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (as his cousin "Dandy" Jim Buckley).  Roger Moore, later to be James Bond, played cousin Beauregard Maverick. (Amazingly, Jack Kelly appeared more times on the show than its star, James Garner--83 to 60.  I guess Jim was phasing out in the last season or so.)  For the trivia buffs among you, several actors who went on to great fame appeared in Maverick episodes; among them, Clint Eastwood. Robert Redford and--as Billy the Kid--Cabaret emcee, Joel Grey.  (My late parents were close friends with character actor Hans Conried, who was frequently a guest in our Manhattan apartment. When Hans appeared on "Maverick," in the forgettable role of Homer Eakin, his star quality achieved new lustre in my early teen-age eyes.)
     Filled with aphorisms and bon-mots, Bret Maverick would frequently invoke his late father's wisdom (e.g. "As my old Daddy used to say, never draw to an inside straight") or his own sense of irony when confronted with a swindling financier ("If you can't trust your banker, who can you trust?)  I loved watching "Maverick," and did so religiously along with the group of five guys with whom I hung around. To this day, I can remember the words and tune of its theme song and its sponsor, "Marlboro" cigarettes, which cited its three "f's" of distinction--"filter, flavor, flip--top box." ( I suppose they could have gone four-F by adding "fatal' to the mix, but those were different times.) My friends and I were not only loyal "Maverick" fans, but puffed away on Marlboros during our weekly poker games (2 cents to ante, 4 on a pair, and 6 on the final card).
      James Garner, of course, was more than a TV actor, although that is his most lasting legacy.  He was a masterful light comedian.  If you want to see him at his best, check out "The Americanization of Emily," in which he played an Admiral's aide dedicated to doing anything to avoid exposure to the D-Day invasion.  The slightly demented Admiral (Melvyn Douglas) wants the first fatality on D-Day to be a sailor, and guess who he has in mind for the role?   Julie Andrews is marvelous as a patriotic, stiff upper-lipped Brit, who wishes that her boyfriend, Garner, was just a little bit braver and less cynical.
     When James Garner died at 86, I saw that he was born the same year as my late brother-in-law, Richard Neimeth.  Dick would have turned 86 yesterday.  I remember him taking me to see some of those Globetrotter games when I was thirteen or fourteen, and us joking about just who this Red Klotz guy was.  Now they're all gone, and I miss them all; especially Dick.

Pete Seeger: "So Long, it's been good to know you."

•     Two weeks ago, I received an early morning e-mail from a friend, informing me that Pete Seeger had died at 94.  The obituaries that soon followed, ranged from enthusiastic encomiums on his contributions to the causes of world peace, civil rights and the environment, to those which critically dwelled on his Communist Party membership and/or sympathies. Presumably, either of these assessments could be said to have informed both his music and public positions.  It is, nonetheless, rare to see the same man both hailed as an American patriot and castigated as "Stalin's Songbird."   
•     All the commentators, however, agreed that Seeger's status as our nation's most influential and prominent folksinger was undisputed.   Can we separate the man from his music?  More importantly, should we?  I think the two were inextricably intertwined, and that bearing this in mind is essential to understanding Pete Seeger and his role as a public person.   Let's agree with the obituary writers on one thing: Pete's contribution to the world of folk music was second to none. Even if you removed his public positions on issues global and local ("think globally, act locally" was among his favorite sayings), forgot about his political sympathies (expressed and otherwise), and limited your knowledge of the man and his music to songs of apolitical Americana, Seeger's contribution would be immeasurable.  That said, we are not likely to--nor should we--view him simply as a folksinger.  Pete Seeger, from the time he came of age until the time of his death, was a political person with a long-held (though carefully orchestrated) world view.  While one can honestly say (as Pete often did) "I am a communist with a small 'c'," it seems dissembling for a person to describe himself that way when that same person was, for some time, an upper-case (as in "Card Carrying") Communist as well. That Seeger's views evolved over the years is doubtless as true as it would be for any intelligent person who examines the world around him and learns from it.  But it is equally true that Pete's expressed world view was affected by the ideological blinders which prevented him from criticizing anything or anyone to his political left.     
•   Many people look at Seeger's standing up to the notorious House Committee of Un-American Activities ("HUAC") as an exemplar of his courage and commitment to civil liberties.  He, unlike many other "unfriendly" witnesses before HUAC did not invoke the Fifth Amendment (against self-incrimination) but, rather, the First Amendment.  His position was that his political views, affiliations and voting patterns were private and, as such, protected from governmental inquiries.  That some of these activities may have been worthy of government inquiry does not detract from the contribution he (and other controversial figures throughout history) made to the cause of civil liberties.  He had displayed similar courage both before and after the HUAC appearance when he was attacked by a stone-throwing mob after performing along with Paul Robeson in Peekskill in 1949, as well as his countless appearances down South during the civil rights struggles of the 60's.  One of the most powerful, though lesser-known songs associated with and sung by Pete (though composed by Walter Lowenfels and fellow-Weaver, Lee Hays) is "Wasn't That a Time." This song was also performed by the Weavers in a bowdlerized version, until Lee Hays toughened it up in the Weavers 1980 reunion at Carnegie Hall.  It was written in 1948, against the backdrop of the HUAC hearings and Smith Act prosecutions, neither of which lent luster to the causes of civil liberties and freedom of expression.  In the song's original lyrics, the writers asserted, "there is no freedom in a land where free men go to jail."  Gee, Pete could have been singing those lines with far greater applicability to Mother Russia than the U. S. of A.  That said, they still were powerful words, albeit with less strength than they would have had had Seeger's indignation been world-wide.  Clearly, he would not have been able to sing those lines in the U.S.S.R. had the song been about, say, crushing the Hungarian freedom fighters, or the toleration of dissent within the Soviet Union.      
•    Growing up as a left-liberal on Manhattan's Upper West Side, I started singing Pete's  songs at my "progressive" (lower-case "p") Camp Birchwoods by the tender age of nine.  By the time I went away to college, I probably owned about ten of his albums (on the Folkways label, natch!), not to mention everything recorded by the Weavers.  I had also seen him perform, with or without the Weavers, at least a couple of times a year since I was fourteen.  I went to all the Hoots, sang along with all the pro-union, ban-the-bomb and civil rights songs, and don't regret a moment of having done so.  Those were wonderful, "feel good," times, and there was nothing (before or after) that compared to singing along with Pete.     
•    Some old communist friends of my parents (who wouldn't have hurt a fly, let alone storm a barricade) gifted me the rare "Songs for John Doe," the 78-rpm recordings of anti-war (WWII, that is) songs made during the interregnum between the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact of 1940, and Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941.  All of a sudden, the "I hate war and so does Eleanor, but we won't be glad till everybody's dead" lyrics vanished along with any undistributed copies of the album, as the party line changed to embrace the (reinstated) war against fascism. By the way, Pete had been a pre-pact anti-fascist during the Spanish Civil War, and his version of "Viva la Quince Brigada remains an anti-fascist classic that I can still sing and play from memory.  But look, Pete was only twenty-one or so when he recorded "Songs for John Doe," and the just past 1930's was a time when many people of good will saw the possibility of of a better world emerging from the ashes of the Great Depression.  The "Soviet Experiment" had a lot of non-communists excited, and communism offered a muscular response to the ills facing the world: a strong labor movement, resistance to fascism,  and a vigorous anti-Jim Crow activism.  
•    It was often said by anti-communists that the communists exploited legitimate grievances.  True though that was, much of America was doing nothing to address those grievances. And, let's face it, capitalism was not exactly showering itself in glory.  To borrow a phrase from Clifford Odets, perhaps we were all "Waiting for Lefty" in a country where the communists were the not only the most forceful voice for change, but among the few speaking out.     Getting back to the Hitler-Stalin pact, at the time of its signing, a lot of idealistic, but disillusioned, people left the Party which they had either joined or "fellow-traveled." Not so Pete.  He continued to swing and sway with the "good old party line." This unpleasant reality was something about I resisted acknowledging until my mid-twenties, by which time I begrudgingly realized that Pete, for all his noble sentiments, never found a left-wing cause he didn't like. As Pete himself (much) later related, while clearly a communist sympathizer, he didn't actually join the Party until 1942.  By then he was twenty-three, and even though the Soviet Union had become our wartime ally, he knew they had, until recently, been allies with Nazi Germany. He also doubtless knew that the U.S.S.R. was infamous for its "show trials," penalized freedom of speech with Gulags, imprisonment and death, not to mention the official government policy of starving the Kulaks.  While this last atrocity began in the 30's, when Pete was too young to have known about it in any meaningful way, it had been broadly publicized in the United States by 1941--and was--by any definition, a genocide involving 5-15 million people.  
•    Do I lay this at Pete's feet, or at those of the wide-eyed intellectuals who were taken in by "The God that Failed?"  Of course not, but it was worthy of criticism and unworthy of silence.  Is it possible to be in favor of the right things for the wrong reasons, and if so, is that preferable to silence?  Clearly.     
•    And so, we admirers of Pete Seeger are forced to confront the conundrum of assessing a life that was both on the right and wrong side of history--often at the same time.  Perhaps I'd best leave this to the philosophers.  Though I'm clearly not the first to point this out, it was--and is--important to separate art from politics--even when they are intertwined in the mind of the performer.  Whether, for example, Wagner intended the Nibelungen to be a metaphor for Jews (or whether he was Hitler's favorite composer) is immaterial to appreciating the "Ring Series" for the masterpiece it is.  I liked John Wayne a lot more than I liked his politics, and recognize the extraordinary acting abilities of Vanessa Redgrave even as I deplore her  political sympathies.     
•    Ever mindful of Shakespeare's words from Marc Antony's eulogy for Caesar, I don't want to be guilty of a doing a "so let it be with Seeger" by interring the good with his bones as I make his evils long live after him.  The sadness of Pete's sins (acknowledged and otherwise) is that they detract from the integrity of his otherwise great achievements.  But that said, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  "Turn, Turn, Turn," "The Bells of Rhymney," "If I had a Hammer," and the overtly political  "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" stand on their own as classics.  Some of his lesser-known songs are among my favorites:  "Empty Pocket Blues,"  "Oh Had I a Golden Thread,"  "My Rainbow Race," and "Autherine."  And don't forget that he introduced much of the world to the aforementioned "Wasn't that a Time? "Guantanamera," "Wimoweh," and the ur campfire song,"Kumbaya. "     
•    I know I'm leaving out some songs that I've forgotten.  So be it, as such are the burdens of memory.  Pete was a fine musician, revolutionizing both folk banjo and the twelve-string-guitar.  Without him, the folk revival of the 60's would probably never taken place.  It is ironic that the blacklist kept him from reaping many of its benefits. Pete had a terrific folk voice and a gifted ability to arrange and harmonize.  And, as a live performer, fuggedaboutit!  Nobody could touch him.     
•    The last time I heard Pete was in September of 2012.  It was at the Brooklyn College leg of a nationwide tour saluting the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie's birth.  Arlo Guthrie was supposed to be the headliner, but had to back out at the last minute for personal reasons.  Pete, who had virtually retired from performing due to a much diminished voice (he was, after all, 92), was a last-minute replacement. Considering that I never expected to hear him perform live again, this was a special treat for both my wife (whom I had dragged along to yet another folk concert) and me.  Pete talked a lot about the origins of the song "Reuben James," which was about the first U.S. ship sunk in World War II, a little over a month before Pearl Harbor.   It is a great and rousing song, set to the tune of the Carter Family's "Wildwood Flower" and filled with Woody's incomparable lyrics. Although Pete didn't hit the high notes, both the song and his performance were high notes in and of themselves.  And that night, all I could think of was Pete Seeger the performer. The concert hall was filled with love.    
•     The first time I heard Pete sing  "Reuben James" was fifty-five years ago, at a Carnegie Hall concert he gave with his guest, the great blues harp artist, Sonny Terry.  I attended the concert with a group of fellow campers from the previously mentioned Camp Birchwoods.  Seated alone in the back row was a shrunken Woody Guthrie, huddled in an overcoat.   None of us had ever I heard the song before, and Pete began it with an excerpt from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."  He quoted words that could stand as his own epitaph:         
•    "Have you heard  it was good to gain the day?  I also say it is good to fail.  Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.  Vivas to those who have failed, and to those whose war vessels sunk in the sea: and to those themselves sunk in the sea, equal to the greatest heroes known."       
•    I will never forget that song, that performance, and its poetic introduction.  I don't know whether Pete intuited that how much I wanted to hear the song again that night in 2012, but I like to think so; he was that way with an audience.  Pete has now joined his wife, Toshi, who passed away just about a year ago.  I also like to think that he is  reunited with Woody as I imagined in my song, "The Folksingers' Sweet Bye and Bye."  Pete Seeger was not only a witness to a unique time in our nation's history, but was an active and effective participant in making that history. So long, Pete.  Warts and all, it has been good to know you.

 

Inside the Gaslight Cafe: Circa 1961

    Yesterday, my wife, Riki, and I went to see "Inside Llewyn Davis," the Coen brothers paean to the Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early 60's.   The movie draws loosely on the life and career of the late Dave Van Ronk, a paterfamilias of the young folkies who flocked to the Village in the early 60's.  The center of that scene--at least as far as I was concerned--was a small cafe on MacDougal Street called The Gaslight.  It was run by a dignified southern gentleman named John Hood.  It was home to a number of established and upcoming folkies and comedians.  It was there, for example, that I first heard Bill Cosby.  Dave Van Ronk, who died in 2002 at the age of 65,  was not only a regular at the Gaslight, but the gatekeeper of its "open mike" nights.  It was at such such open mikes that people like yours truly hoped to get "noticed" among people destined for, if not greatness, celebrity status among folkies.  Having, for example, to follow the late Richie Havens, a performer of astonishing originality, was--to put it mildly--intimidating.  I remember hearing a very young and gawky harmonica player named John Sebastian play back-up to a long-forgotten guitarist.  I would never have thought that he would have gone on to be a gold album lead singer in The Loving Spoonful, but there he was, at the beginning.
    As for its headliners, the Gaslight featured such stalwarts as Doc Watson, the legendary guitarist and folksinger, the most talented folk instrumentalist I've ever had the pleasure of hearing.  Blind since birth,  Doc was an absolute master of both flat and finger-picking styles, along with a pleasant and unpretentious voice.  Mississippi John Hurt, an equally legendary performer whose 78 RPM sides from the late 1920's were collectors items, was rediscovered and brought to New York.  Mississippi John had a clean and silken blues-picking style and a rough, but sweet voice.  Performing in a battered fedora that he never removed, Hurt was a nice and simple man who always seemed a bit bemused by the attention suddenly focused on him by all these eager young white urbanites.
   Ramblin' Jack Elliott (ne Adnopoz), a Brooklyn born son of Jewish doctor who decided he preferred to be a cowboy, and--a la Bob Dylan--transformed himself into a new identity.  Interestingly, Both Van Ronk and Ramblin' Jack were inspirations to the young Dylan, whose songs and styles he soaked up until he exhausted them (their styles, that is), and moved on.  Another regular at the Gaslight was the talented, but still under-recogized Oklahoma transplant, Tom Paxton.  In the film, Paxton is portrayed by a character named Nelson.  Like Paxton, he first appeared in the Village while still in the Army at Fort Dix in nearby New Jersey.  The clean-cut Paxton went on to be one of the most enduring and prolific singer/songwriters to come out of the 60's.  His songs were recorded by the most commercially  successful folksingers of the day, including the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.  Among his many memorable songs are "The Last Thing on My Mind," "Ramblin' Boy,""Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound," and the clever parody, "Yuppies in the Sky."  Also featured in the film is a quartet representing the wonderful Irish group, "The Clancy Brothers," who, along with lead singer, Tommy Makem, were a mainstay of the Village scene.  Llewyn responds to the praise heaped on them by the proprietor of the Gaslight (more like Gerde's Mike Porco than the reserved Mr. Hood), by limiting his compliments to their distinctive fisherman's sweaters.
    The immensely talented--and tormented--topical singer/songwriter, Phil Ochs, was also a Gaslight regular.  Ever in Dylan's shadow, Ochs was never able to make the successful transition from folk to the mainstream success he so wanted. Ochs succumbed to the twin demons of alcohol and depression, and took his own life while still in his mid-thirties.  Ochs was more enduringly committed to folk music as an agent for political change than was Dylan, although Dylan's was the more brilliant talent--something Ochs knew all too well.  (As Bing Crosby once said of Frank Sinatra--"A voice like that comes along only once in a lifetime; too bad it was during mine."  Bing, however, made the better career adjustment.)
   As for the movies's inspiration, Dave Van Ronk, whose posthumously published memoir, "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" (co-written by Elijah Wald), was not the struggling loner portrayed by Oscar Isaac in "Inside Llewyn Davis." While never able to achieve the commercial success of his acolytes, Van Ronk, with his manager and then-wife, Terri, was not constantly in search of "crash pads," but, rather, provided his own Village apartment to others, such as Dylan.  Van Ronk, like Llewyn Davis had been a merchant seaman, but left those days behind him by the time he settled in the Village. Trained in jazz, Van Ronk took the guitar far beyond the simple three or four-chord strums of many folkies.  He immersed himself in the blues styles of the great Delta bluesmen he admired.  Van Ronk was more than an imitator; he was an adapter.  Not even the Reverend Gary Davis (another Gaslight performer), Mance Lipscomb, or Mississippi John Hurt, would have dreamed of transcribing ragtime piano classics like "The Entertainer," (theme song from "The Sting"), "The St. Louis Tickle," and many others to the guitar.  I believe to this day that Van Ronk did the best adaptation of "The House of the Rising Sun," (co-opted first by Dylan on his first album, then picked up by the animals and transformed into a monster hit, without a penny to Van Ronk.)  Van Ronk did a masterful adaptation  of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" (which he called "Clouds"), and was set to release it as a commercial single, when Judy Collins beat him to the punch and enjoyed significant success with what is now considered the definitive version of the song.
    As for the Gaslight itself, the movie faithfully captures the outside of the folk club, but makes the inside a blend of (the) two other famous folkie haunts,  "The Bitter End," and "Gerdes Folk City," both of which had liquor licenses, something the real Gaslight (but not its cinematic stand-in) lacked.  And Oscar Isaac, whose character is admittedly based loosely on Van Ronk, does his songs beautifully, singing in in a less distinctive, but better voice than Van Ronk, and playing guitar in a manner true to Van Ronk's stylings.
     "Inside Llewyn Davis" is a picaresque journey through the Greenwich Village of my youth.  A symbolically effective (if unsubtle) closing to the movie has Llewyn Davis leaving the microphone as the changing of the guard--in the form of a young Bob Dylan--replaces him on stage, both literally and figuratively.   Davis has come full circle from the flashback that follows the film's opening scene, as we again see him meet the man who (unexplainably) beat him up at the beginning. This is now understood as being in response to Davis's drunken heckling of the man's wife (a Jean Ritchie-like autoharpist) the night before.
   For my wife, Riki (still recovering from years of "folk fatigue") "Inside Llewyn Davis"  was enjoyed better at a distance than when lived through.  The Coen brothers have done a very good job in bringing this era to life.
    As a long-time Van Ronk admirer (warts and all), I commend the reader to "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" and the listener to (as a starter) "Dave Van Ronk--A Chrestomathy."  Sadly, Dave (and most of the Gaslight regulars) are long-gone, but their spirits live on in this lovingly-made film.  It certainly took me back, and for those of you who were never there, it's an earnest re-creation of a long-ago time that, for me, seems like just yesterday.