Marginalized!

When did this word get its negative connotation, as referring to someone or something that's "unimportant", "a sideshow", "hardly worth it, save as a footnote to history" or "significant, maybe formerly, but now pushed out of the way like a hopelessly stalled wreck, its sidetracking richly earned." With so much unadulterated, pure CRAP between life's margins, especially in this time and place: not long before the Mayan doomsday clock is supposed to strike thirteen here on ol' played-out planet Earth, how about setting our sights on the hidden treasures of life off the highway, well off the "frenetic freeway" and safely tucked in and on her shoulders, or even further away into the woods, beyond any outer guard rails where no one has, hopefully, peed or tossed too many beer bottles or condoms to shatter the illusion of escape to this Shangri-la and from a not-so-kind humankind? There are so many times when not being at the center of attention is quickly discovered to be, as ex-con Ms. Stewart so often tells us, "a good thing!"

It was a pleasant surprise for a, hopefully, innocuous narcissist like myself, when a gorgeous redheaded lady in a smart plum colored pantsuit rang my doorbell early this past summer and gazed briefly, but with the proper degree of professional seductiveness and intensity, to inquire if I were aware of the joys that a complete set of volumes of such-and-such brand encyclopedia could bring into my life. Attention was being paid, regardless of the reason, by this pulchritudinous young specimen of the fairer sex and my self-centeredness was initially tickled enormously. Reason at that moment, actually asked for a moment of my time however, and even though my libido trumped my lumbago and the chance to hold court was nearly irresistible, an even more pleasant surprise than the aforementioned one was that I wanted to hear what that little voice of common sense was trying to tell me. Rationality, I heard, politely enquired of me: "do you need an encyclopedia?" Voices in my head of the non-delusional variety: revolutionary phenomena (not rare instances of sanity, I assure you, but most novel in their simple non-convoluted sensibleness), perhaps signs that my mature years were becoming exceptionally ripe and (especially for a guy with no great track record for practicality), were finally having their say. In one fell swoop of oblique honesty and whimsy, my fantasies of fruitful flirtatiousness shunted aside, I softly declared to this lovely creature, with no malice or trace of sarcasm (and only a hint of sorrow and contrition, as in "I'm sorry to have to inflict my personal burdens and failures on you, but one must, in order to properly answer your question"): "I'm very sorry. I am an illiterate." So conversation stopping. So liberating. So effective. So time saving. So mean. So long.

Alone with my '53 Encyclopedia Britannica, I've no glitzy top notch sales gal to feign "in crowd" status with, no monthly invoices with the prestigious return address and icon of Lotsa Learnin', Inc., Teachers to the Upwardly Mobile since 1969!, nor any chance to trade in coupons for trips to Burkina Faso attached to the rear inner cover of volume 1: "AArdvaark-BUmpkin." I have just willfully played a part in having been marginalized. Will Homeland Security send me an E-mail for not being a patriot and spending some greenbacks on a new American made (sort of) tool of Higher Education, though printed in Singapore? Will I be out of the loop the next time Trivial Pursuit is pursued at someone's next barbecue/charades/sitdown/buffet? Well, blow me down, I will have done been marginalized again!

I had been teased, deservedly so, for agreeing to subscribe to "Jet" magazine some forty plus summers earlier after a pixieish black woman explained my part in her task of racking up points to win a college scholarship via subscription sales. My assent led to wags offering the usual proposals to me, Mr. Softy, to help me become the proud owner of the Brooklyn bridge (and several others of the same name) and to purchase a giant warehouse of previously owned but near "mint" refrigerators a little northeast of Nome, Alaska. Well, I've come a long way baby, from the prepossessing young man (and middle aged one) who almost always aimed to please (and as an atypical non-bar hopper in those salad days, rarely had to be told to "please aim" by fussy bouncers who didn't get my old chestnut explaining the toting of my mug of "suds" to the sanitary facility: "I'm cutting out the middle man."). Now I'm trying to please myself. Instances of my efforts at sales resistance are: no subscriptions not really wanted and no third helpings of quadruple-cheese Mac'n Cheese, lasagna or rugelach accepted (or safely digested) from Italian/Jewish mothers of friends. Laughable baby steps for an incorrigible "shirt off my back" type? Well yes, they are. But who's to judge harshly? Forget not the afflicted one in "Greaser's Palace" and his cry of most relative joy: "I can crawl! I can crawl!! (zounds, an allusion to part of this blog's title, first one since early '11!)"

There's something so delicious about not being part of the Passing Parade. Heck, it's really the Epitome of Peachiness to not even be aware of the dull roar of that struggling gang of Accomplishers and Strivers, their ever frazzled neurons and twitching "Gotta Haves" lashing them ever onward as they strain while in harness, like part of a great team of colts and fillies seemingly bound for glory, but more often than not, merely bound. To not be "front and center", to think of "limelight" as a wonderful shade of green to dapple one's already dappled skin (with "geezer" freckles) with its curious rays to match one's vodka lime ricky as one seeks just the right position in one's banana leaf hammock, nowhere near Nome: that's the life for me. "High Diddle-de-dee! Non-entity: that's me!"

To be forgotten: "A consummation devoutly to be wished?" There is a most telling moment in Fellini's "La Strada" in which Anthony Quinn's circus strongman character can no longer tolerate the disintegration of his assistant and companion, the simple waif Gelsomina. She has been traumatized by his provoked killing of a fellow performer. Their vagabond existence is dogged by her insistent and agonized conscience. He mistakes her pain for fear of arrest and lashes out at her with: "No one is even thinking about us!" This craving to be invisible and to continue to not think or reflect: as he has lived his entire life, is clearly threatened by this death, the reality and implications of which he tries to escape until the film's final scene. Well, this is not exactly the kind of forgetfulness I had in mind. If there are wonders and ecstasies to experience on these highly recommended sidelines of marginalization, how could oblivion play a part in the goings-on? Oblivious to unpleasantness? Yes. How about to stress and stupidity? No argument there, though these seemingly minor abhorrences have a way of demanding more and more attention if ignored too mindlessly. To a limited degree, yes, bring on the psychic anesthesia! But preserving consciousness, that's really the trickiness and worthwhile challenge of this art of being deliriously happily marginalized and yet truly alive! Think and reflect. Do good. And you've "got to serve somebody" as Bob Dylan admonished. How lovely to be one of Geo. H.W. Bush's "points of light" but to never have your light singled out. To have hurled one's body in front of and between a speeding car and a young child-woman on the verge of achieving aspirations of rewarding work and the creation of her own family: all preserved possibilities and then realizations thanks to such a supreme sacrifice, now this is a marginalization that the cynical and terminally selfish do not relish pondering. To contrive to bring about this series of events is another matter: mental illness is so finely separated from true heroism. Still, one ought to pray for an increasingly well honed practice of self-marginalization that might make that scenario possible if danger were to demand it: a sort of healthy antidote to the self-anihilations of the Haters. P.C. forbids naming names, but you know who you are and you can have and keep the conventional and current connotation of "marginalized." It fits you, you "Dead Enders" as Mr. Rumsfeld named you, though prematurely.

Well, enough. "Heavy" happily, rhymes with "Chevy", "levee", and "bevy" (Don MacLean taught us most of this a "long long time ago") and the sunny side of American history shines on, the current gloom notwithstanding. Don't want to be marginalized, positively or otherwise? That's A-okay in my book. Youth and/or vigor are made for the struggle and achievement is the human way and best path for most whose time and philosophical crystallizations have not yet arrived. Go for it. Living, loving: it's a dirty, immaculate, bleak, wondrous kaleidoscope of all the senses and it must be played out on those relentless blacktops of experience, hope and fear, anticipation, rollicking sweet joy and blackest sorrow. The margins won't do. But whenever time or tide has shown, as always it does eventually: that "it waits for no man", then there are special nooks and crannies away from the madding crowd, not hideouts, but refuges for a short time where the weary can rest and a pause may truly refresh if not restore an old soul.

The Fading Sounds of the Gentler Side of 1960s' Pop Rock

The supposition of many, if not most fans, critics, students or any interested party of the cultural flux of that era in American history, conveniently referred to as the "'60s", is that it was indeed, a time of upheaval and great conflict, reflected in its popular music that is often generally termed similarly, i.e. disturbing, loud, psychedelic, revolutionary and even violent. These are accurate adjectives for describing much of that period's music and probably the majority of the offerings meriting these labels exclusively, also deserved to be called, frankly, worthless. However, there was such an undeniable ferment (or fermentation) in the arts at that time, including and especially in popular music, that the tremendous force and prolificacy of the resulting creations made for, inevitably, more than a few gems, regardless of their sub-genre or the number of decibels of certain tunes.

As this blogger has a strong inclination toward the great American folk traditions of ballads and simpler songs, usually mournful, but also upbeat, melodic and novel, the tunes that I would like to primarily discuss here are the ones, not rare, that are beloved by so many, then and now, and that were, though pop tunes, hardly political or social manifestos of noise and mayhem. And yet they were smack dab in the middle (if not at the top) of many an "official" top pop tunes chart of 40-45 years ago. Sentiments expressed in a song of the "June, moon and spoon" variety, had never really gone away by the, let's say: 1965-1973 period. Young persons were the still burgeoning audiences for popular music (as the early moguls of the business of Rock'n'Roll had happily first discovered in the mid-1950's) and those "peaking" as teenagers (and consumers) by 1966 were still more than inclined to find satisfaction rather than satiety with songs about true romance and the joys and pangs of love's peaks and valleys in numbers such as "Walk Away Renee", "Pretty Ballerina", "Mr. Diengly Sad", "A Lover's Concerto", "Cherish", "The Love Theme From 'Romeo and Juliet'" and so many others. Even the spate of novelty rock'n'roll songs at the end of the '50s: "Flying Purple People Eater" and "Witch Doctor" couldn't crowd out soaringly sentimental hits like Al Hibbler's "Unchained Melody" or Earl Grant's phenomenal "The End." Songs of great longing, love, hope and despair never fail to strike those deep chords just made for plucking by the right recording artist and songwriter, whatever the era.

A few more come to mind, with personal memories, as for most of us, intertwined sweetly (or bittersweetly) with each tune. "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas came wrapped in a beautiful package of moodiness, isolation and reflection, while their "much" later (in terms of the group's many evolvements, though theirs was a chronologically brief lifespan) "Safe In My Garden" was equally hauntingly exquisite but its not so hidden subtext spoke of a great foreboding. Even the irresistibly libidinal and exuberant Young Rascals ("Good Lovin'" and "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore"), later simply The Rascals, turned to these softer numbers: their "Groovin'" and "How Can I Be Sure?" being perhaps their best examples of tender sentiments and a delicacy that they (and most others) expressed with strings, organs, harmonicas and other orchestral arrangements rarely used in pop tunes up to that time. Still others, pearls that do not deserve the amnesia that time often brings, were Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman", Oliver's "Jean", "Traces" by the Classics IV, Jim Croce's "Time In A Bottle" and the personally haunting "Out In The Country" by Three Dog Night.

Instrumentalists made the occasional inroad into the Top Ten charts and they were all, assuredly beautiful and free from any dissonance or unpleasant bombast. Besides the aforementioned theme from the film "Romeo and Juliet", there was "Love Is Blue", Paul Mauriat's evocative offering that some deejay accurately remarked, soon after its release, would be "the sleeper" of the year (1968), "Windmills of My Mind" and "Classical Gas" (forgotten, but not by me: please remember or discover its achingly poignant "B" side of "Long Time Blues", albeit a vocal by Mason Williams, which deserves a resurrection in some form).

Well, I've hardly roamed or advanced much beyond the confines of a personal Memory Lane, but I can confidently assert that these musical creations were and continue to be special gifts from an era that curiously, in so many ways, ushered in so many objectionable phenomena in socio-political and ethical realms. But in the world of music, much wonderment and delight was born, including the more typically remembered: raucous and iconic mega-hits of that age. Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", The Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love", "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers and even the particularly dark offerings of The Doors ("Light My Fire" and "Touch Me") all had special power and compelling qualities that even the most squeamish devotees of gentler genres of popular music usually grudgingly conceded had made their marks. There was a reaction perhaps, to some of these "heavy" sounds at the turn of the decade. Groups like The Carpenters, The Cowsills and others made great strides commercially with softer, and in many cases (particularly through the remarkably and flawlessly lovely voice of the late Karen Carpenter) matchless recorded "jewels." Yet, some of these were almost too polished, their artists' professional skills resulting in a kind of over control of the music, however unalloyed their beauty. No, it was those scattered little beauties, from that above mentioned and circumscribed period, perhaps more than coincidental to my own teen years and callow early twenties, that captivate and cause me to cry out, yet in silence: "Listen for a voice a long time gone. 'A Long Time Gone' is a silent song."

Playing II

My left wrist is only ever so slightly swollen. Yesterday I returned to the scene, an Astoria public playground, where eight weeks ago the experience caused me to wax almost rhapsodic about handball playing, my good health and the appeal of exercise, companionship and the great outdoors. Well, today I am aware that I did not appreciate sufficiently, those sentiments of mid-summer.

The dew point was horribly similar to that of late July, though temperatures were properly autumnal. The spur was a small window of rainlessness that IS appreciated after the obscene August experienced here in the northeast (not the greatest amount of rain in N.Y.C. history's eighth month of the year, but the greatest rain in any month in our city's annals). I scooted down there to meet my phlegmatic pal and fellow player, Mr. B. I was eager and I had what I needed to compete: sneakers not yet a danger, i.e. no flopping soles about to secede from their uppers, relatively decent "play" pants not too likely to fall and trip me given my sturdy belt, and the same ball as used before (a gift from B.). There was a sort of nervous energy on my part. I had played like a 30 year old in my impressionistic assessment of July's proceedings. Now I would display equal, nay, more masterful savvy and predominance on the court and over my cautious and seemingly tentative partner. A game of "eleven" (first to score eleven points, by a margin of at least two points wins) was determined to be played. In a few short minutes I am leading 10-4. I score no more points in this first game. The 12-10 final score is disturbing. In an effort to ward off my steadily charging opponent's advances I am increasingly counter-attacking but am really just defensively lunging for fabulous "gets" that, guess what? I'm not getting: the ensuing drama just the desperation of an easily tiring man whose aggressive style almost imperceptibly becomes erratic. I lose the next two games by slightly less close scores. Somewhere during the event, maybe at the close of the first "heartbreaker" I had sprinted with abandon to return a deftly placed "love tap" close to the bottom of the court's concrete wall on the extreme left. I did not make the play and my momentum carried me beyond the wall and off to the side, its far boundary being a strong and very tall chain link fence painted black and separating the court from an equally high building close enough to the other side of the fence to prevent any great "give" by the wire metal barrier. I braced for the crash with the inevitable consequence of my speed and mass being slowed by my left palm, and of course, wrist and surrounding ligaments, muscle and bone. "It's only a sprain", I keep telling myself. There was little pain, as I concentrated on avenging, unsuccessfully, the first game's result. Today, after much ice yesterday evening (arguably, too much) some discomfort is still there, but rest seems to assure that nothing is broken as I'm pain free when not moving the hand about.

Losing is not a subject that I care to discuss at length. At least, I'm not ready to do so in this little blog today. It's undeniably a sore point. And the focus on carving one's name on some sort of victory tree, or to "count" a supposed success based on, well, counting of a certain number of points, is very deep in the human psyche and the avoidance of failing in this regard is as old as the first foot race, wherein the prospective no.2 man stuck out his leg at the last moment (trying to hide the dastardly move while in close proximity to his fleeter opponent) to send the hated golden boy sprawling into the dust. "Sore loser" is much less repugnant a term than "arrogant winner" in my experience. However, my long years of being, usually, in the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" category has perhaps skewered my objectivity, as smilingly modest and magnanimous victors within my ken, i.e. guys who've regularly"whupped me", still come across as monstrous hyenas, laughing up their sleeve, or stifling a "hoot" with some thinly veiled patronizing remark like "great job" or "you're a tough competitor!"

Now I must seek to truly embrace the genuine meanings behind my platitudes of earlier: those about good health, thanking God for the gift of our corporeal beings and the delights of a cardio-vascular workout, regardless of our delusions of the grandeur of athletic mastery. It's a hard lesson to learn for we of the Perhaps Permanently Swollen Egos Society. If it is the terminal affliction that I fear it is, there is, at least, warm comfort in knowing that my wrist's current modest bulge will not successfully compete with such a malady. Still, I may no longer run like a man possessed, to avoid inflations or deflations of wrists, egos or anything else. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" may be the cry of the well-adjusted of textbook fame. Well, sometimes we no.2's choose to abstain from everything and "playing", we feel, ought to truly be an option, not the dictate of an extroverted society that scolds the overly sensitive and we whose thresholds of pain are sometimes even lower than our self-esteem. As Ruby Red Dress once said: "Leave me alone. Why don't you leave me alone?" You go girl (or not)!

Friends Flee, Worms Wait

The above bit of alliteration is directly borrowed from the late great monologist (and self-described performer of "stand up tragedy") Brother Theodore (1906-2001), an Austrian Jew who escaped the Nazi regime (and likely, The Holocaust) and whose exceedingly dark humor tickled my funny bone and those of my circle of friends from our young adulthood to well into our middle age. This is not intended as an essay on Theodore, though I won't resist the temptation to quote him further here (the lovable and "tormented" man cannot and will not be denied his immortal "two cents", which I will throw in for him in The Great Poker Game of Life and Death…hell, I'll stake him to whatever his noble shade whispers in my ear he needs to keep playing and the pot going... or boiling).

What I'm aiming at I'm not entirely certain. Morbidity is in the air, but the interest for me is this thing known as comedy (relative to the former), its lifeblood so often, if not exclusively, supplied and nourished by death and despair. I am not so pompous as to suppose that I can deliver a treatise on the subject of Comedy, about which even the casual observer of a certain age (mine) has probably absorbed the following via the admonitions of performers like Carson and Leno: once you try to analyze it or propose a formulaic guide to getting laughs or defining it, you're at sea, have become un-funny and are with no illuminating results to show for your efforts. Actually, I only agree superficially with that view. Perhaps Carson and others didn't wish to divulge any trade secrets. There are, after all, simple physiological and psychological conditions, which, if in place when a joke is delivered, a hearty guffaw will come into the world, i.e. one will have "made a baby." Surprise is a key element. Timing too, of course, is a huge factor. The juxtaposition of incongruous elements is also well known. Surely also, there is that intangible, or rather many intangible entities that are inextricable from the personhood of the joker as well as the "joke-ee", as it were (we're all familiar with the stony silence of a culturally alien audience or the perpetually clogged aisles of a theatre whose ticket holders, happily predisposed, keep rolling in them). What makes a line delivered by a Jackie Gleason so howlingly hilarious, while the product of a Joyce Randolph's delivery of the same, a mere titter? Is it a question of "personality?" Or perhaps it's an expectation of the joy of watching Gleason's Kramden (that particular creation depicting a unique human soul) suffering or having his swollen ego punctured with an imagined but unmistakable sound that's mimetically an auditory "dead ringer" for that of dignity-shattering flatulence?

During my lost youth and days as an aimless undergraduate, there was one class I rarely cut and one book for it that I actually attempted to and may have indeed completed reading. The English professor and taskmaster involved was a young and swarthy Southerner who did not suffer fools in his classroom, and fear of punishment was one of the last motives still operative within my brain's fog enshrouded value system. The title of one of this assigned book's chapters was, I believe,"The Broken Circle" and a subtitle was something to the effect of "The Narrow Escape Through Comedy" (a pause here, as I now utilize the magic carpet ride known as "googling" to hopefully offer accurate and exact information to you, dear reader, as I am not so proud as to fancy my brittle memory adequate enough for transmitting the facts I am trying to share). I do recall writing a more than acceptable essay about the chapter, as a genuine interest in the subject (quite apart from the spur of the professor's whip cracking) had already germinated back then.

Ahem…yes, I have just returned from another part of the galaxy of cyberspace and can now report the title of the book as "The Bias of Comedy and the Narrow Escape Into Faith" and its author as Nathan Scott, Jr. Well, that advances things very little. Am still left with some faded forty year old memories, but am sure that their collective upshot was this: comedy provides the vehicle to get us out of psychic jams. Like some sort of four wheel drive with a turbo charged engine, comedy allows the muck and mire of life's quandaries and gloom to be shaken off as traction is achieved and our destination (a kinship with the divine?) is perceived as within sight. One passage I remember, referenced Kazantzakis' "Zorba The Greek" and it told of the character's monumental plan to bring timber or some valuable natural resource down (or was it up?) a mountain by way of a complex Rube Goldberg-like seriers of pulleys and wooden poles and numerous other devices and contrivances. At a critical moment, perhaps the maiden attempt to put the system in play, the entire project literally collapses and dreams as well as materiel come tumbling down from the heights. Zorba's friend, the rational young Englishman and others, all predictably wince and lament the colossal failure. Zorba sees it differently. He commences a long sustained outburst of delirious laughter and seems to derive new energy from the fiasco. "Live and Laugh At It All" is the final lyric of "Life Is Just A Bowl of Cherries" and seems to me, to encapsulate Zorba's world view or that of any of life's truly "successful" persons, i.e. great comedians: those who continually achieve a kind of transfiguration of their material if not of themselves. That is, they seem to convert nearly everything, however bitter and dire the circumstances, into a glowing reality with a laughing, sunshiny lightness and golden quality. I am not speaking of a sugar coated explication that tries to drown out the awful reality of a situation with a sort of distracting din of stirring tunes or saccharin jingles of encouragement (e.g. Gleason's Kramden's dutiful and later hilarious recitation: "Pins and needles/Needles and pins/A happy man is a man who grins!"). No, this is a luminous something, maybe the irrepressible human spirit incarnate. Whatever it is, it's a very real phenomenon, its messengers majestic in their tattered rags. The clown, the vagabond, Basehart's "Il Matto" in "La Strada", Chaplin's tramp, the phrase "A fool for Christ": all seem to speak to this relationship of the apparently silly, friendless and insignificant to the cosmically wondrous and overwhelming.

"I have gazed into the Abyss. And the Abyss has gazed into me. And neither of us liked what we saw." Yes, that's vintage Theodore (a redundancy perhaps: dear Brother T. was an "old soul" at conception, I'll bet, and his utterances were classics the instant they came out of his mouth). He's not merely whistling past the graveyard here alone. He has with him a full orchestra accompanied by the Brooklyn Dodgers' Sym-Phony Band, the Little Rascals' immortal International Silver String Submarine Band, and an army of kazooists and glockenspielists, all telling Death to go suck on a lemon.

Another thought about the scoring of points by the guys with the white hats: C.S. Lewis in his "Screwtape Letters" reminds us that the Devil doesn't have much of a sense of humor. In fact, the old Ultimate Reprobate simply can't abide any poking of fun, particularly at his expense. This severe case of pridefulness (Duh!! He IS Satan, remember?) causes him to climb (and scratch) the walls of his lair in howling agony when one mocks and belittles His Blackholeship. So the obvious ought to be encouraged. Tease the heaven out of or into Ol' Scratch. Take him down a peg with ridicule and knock off his haughty top hat with a well placed comedic snowball (this kind will have a chance) or rotten tomato. All good comedy, satire and intelligent vituperation accomplishes this. Theodore does not do it with a frontal assault, but he's a steady ally of more conventional clowns while donning his metaphorical and irrevocably dingy white hat (he "has seen too much" to own a pristine one and in actuality his performance costume was a black turtleneck sweater and his sole prop: a flashlight) while chipping away at El Diablo's severe and austere dismissiveness of humanity with his (Theodore's) malevolent histrionics and intimidating presence that is a brilliant imitation of The Evil One's message, usually punctuated with a delightfully disarming turn, like a luger that is pointed and shoots with a resulting unfurled banner hanging from the "rod's" barrel with the one word: "BANG!" One of his actual deflations of demonic balloons: "Upon my death my head is to be immediately severed from my body and is to be replaced with a bouquet of broccoli. It's the artist in me." This was topped by the surprisingly tender and plaintive "Dear God, if you exist please help me. And if you don't exist, please help me anyway!" How more deeply and succinctly has anyone besides Theodore expressed the whys and wherefores of religion?

Well, what to do and where to go? Friends don't necessarily flee, but worms assuredly wait, though cremation can, no doubt, pre-empt 'em. Then again: about friends, and relatives, and certainly nodding acquaintances and others of one's Gemeinschaft world, here are the cold hard facts as far as I can tell. I have noted them as I have grown older and there's clearly a pattern with my many older relatives and friends who have died or are dying. As their universes contract, there are fewer and fewer who enquire of them and their health. They're no longer "in with the in crowd." And I am guilty as well, with less frequent visits and easier and easier rationales to stay away. Even with Theodore, I learned of his passing a year or two after the fact and I felt a bit ashamed of myself after all the years of genuine joy and delight he had so generously given to me. This was especially so since I had had the pleasure to talk with and to meet him on two occasions, (though not unusually so, given his lifestyle in the '70s and '80s: he was in the Manhattan directory then listed simply as "Theodore"). I was just an ordinary fan, but there was nothing ordinary about the thirst for recognition and love that his gaze plus his courteous and reserved handshake communicated. Self-reflection, self-centeredness, contemplation, introspection, intelligence and outstanding comedic talent: Theodore had all of these in superabundance. If I've any of the above, they're just little droplets compared to his oceanic supply. But we both shared, I'm guessing, a recognition of the irrevocability of the hands we are all dealt (regardless of any possibly varying views about free will), the idea captured by his forever memorable: "I would rather be a contented pinworm than a tormented Brother Theodore, but unfortunately, I have no choice in the matter." But you did choose, my dear friend, to use your talents, whether God-given or not, to love your brothers (and sisters), by sharing your angst unstintingly and forever healingly.

Crumbling Meatloaf

Does this happen to you? More importantly, are you afraid of this happening to you when special guests are coming for dinner? What could be more demoralizing than a slice of meatloaf failing to salute your efforts at sculpting a solid, unified chunk of fat, protein and cholesterol by not behaving like a solid, unified chunk of fat, protein and cholesterol? Is there a hen one can scold for her non-binding eggs that were fervently relied upon? Or did you forget to use any eggs? Is there perhaps a Babalu's New Improved Meatloaf Binding Gel or other face saver that you neglected to purchase though you were fairly importuned to do so by those heroic Rescuers From Inadequacy down on Madison Avenue?

What about "the heartbreak of psoriasis" or those other moldy oldies, catchphrases designed to milk your insecurities of every last ounce of "jitters juice"until you're a desiccated bag of bones rattling in horror over your terminal inferiority? Did I mention the other schemes to also milk you dry via the flight of the last measly greenbacks in and out of your cowhide wallet? Remember "ring around the collar?" Could you ever face the world again if this sartorial faux pas was revealed to all? No? Then my friend, better cough up and grab a box of this or that extra concentrated laundry detergent. Or if you're a hoary and grizzled American consumer like this blogger, what about "Aren't you glad you use Dial? Don't you wish everybody did?"? Nothing like the specter of B.O. to trigger the clang-clang of emergency bells in your head and to spur one on to action, i.e. again, emptying your wallet and buying the above mentioned brand of soap: the antidote to antisocial phenomena like perspiration and bacteria that seem to enjoy ganging up on you and sending the fruit of their co-mingling: an awful stench wafting across towards that cutie who you imagined had just winked at you.

How about "Some guys have It! Some guys never will!"? The image of a certain bottle of cologne being pitched by this little ditty of nearly a half century ago was repeatedly drilled into our brains and the commercial was broadcast to great effect. It was, in fact, too good an ad. Some of the more scared rabbits among us took this jingle to mean that a Calvinistic pre-destination was the operative reality when trying to understand whose love life was going to be a successful one (and whose wasn't). The manly scent remained on store shelves in many cases where despair took root.

And speaking of roots, whatever happened to "Does she or doesn't she? Only her hair dresser knows for sure."? Aimed especially at gals and their insecurities over nature's first gray hairs, these lines became a national gag with numerous variations, e.g. "Does he or doesn't he? Only his capo knows for sure (trying to guess if some guy is a hitman or not)."

And what of halitosis, a damnable menace to world peace if ever there was one? Enter "Binaca." Remember that tiny little glass bottle about the size of your thumb that held the concentratedly potent magic potion that supposedly banished uber-doggy breath seemingly forever? The incredibly explosive and refreshing sensation of this product seemed to guarantee absolutely fresh breath. One could feel so good about the tingling in one's mouth that the seduction into a world of narcissistic delight could and did, easily distract one from noticing if there was any effect, positive or negative, on a potential job interviewer or sweetheart. Some earlier brands, particularly toothpastes, limited their claims to cosmetic improvements, as in: "you'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with (or 'when you go steady with': to keep firmly in mind the connection with romantic bliss and the joy of faithfulness to one's brand of toothpaste as well as one's darling) Pepsodent!"

All in all, the blatant appeals found in today's advertisements to one's baser instincts for say, recreational sex, greed and/or gluttony (think: sauce and cheese stuffed into the crusts of already generously topped pizzas) and subtler siren songs selling thinly veiled violence (the current ad extolling an automobile's virtues of speed and power comes to mind: "aggression in its most elegant form") were simply not predominant or were, arguably, non-existent in the television ads of my youth. One could appeal then to shame, conscience and the punishment of loneliness to sell a product. Avoiding sorrow and isolation, as promised by certain companies, whether their motivations were altruistic or not, gave a kind of heroic sheen to the blandishments of these pitchmen of yore. Of course, they were just out to make a buck, no different than today. But in order to improve their bottom line, they had to "toe the line" of society's norms of half a century ago and more. One did not wish to offend at mid-century. Cooperating with others was encouraged. And advertisers had to reflect this ethos. Counter-culturists of the '60s derided these views as repressive and limiting in what they viewed as a push towards conformity. But was it so bad, when people were enjoined not to hurt others' feelings, when cleanliness was not condemned as a psychological disorder or akin to fascistic intolerance, and when sexual success was linked to concepts like hygiene, love, family feeling and procreation?

Reminding folks of their shortcomings and anxieties to help turn a profit with a good, bad or indifferent service or product is not unique to any age, but contrastingly, advertisers of the 21st century seems to continue to emphasize, and more intensely so, the trends of the waning years of the 20th: encouraging us to pay no heed to any checks on our appetites, or to any vestigial societal urgings toward self-improvement and finally, to welcome an infantile consumerism where getting over on others is now deemed a virtue (the spate of "reality" television programs brings this point home in spades). "Hooray for me and the hell with you" seems no longer the war cry of the spoiled brat of yesteryear who, one trusted, would receive his or her comeuppance with Dad's arrival home from work. Today Dad's not working and/or may not be in the picture. If he's part of the family, it's not a stretch to imagine that he is the culprit who taught such "Me Generation" behavior and "Me II" is poised to repeat the folly. Still, spontaneous retro-decency is not unheard of, and re-awakenings, both cultural and spiritual are, happily, not exclusively miraculous phenomena. Keep praying in any event, keep your powder dry and your meatloaf moist or the yolk'll be on you.