College Editor 

I'm playing around with Blogger technology to add photos to the site. I have no idea what I'm doing. This looked like a good one to start with. Yes, I used to have hair on top.

Sparkle Time: "Valley of the Dolls" Due on DVD!

Ace Village Voice columnist Michael Musto has exciting news for culture vultures: the prayers of 50,000,000 Jacqueline Susann fans will be answered in 2006 when the greatest bad movie ever made, "Valley of the Dolls," debuts on DVD. Musto writes in his "La Dolce Musto" column that the DVD "is being sumptuously repackaged, and there will even be special featrues, like a documentary I've been interviewed for."

Since this summer I have become a dues-paying member of the cult of VOTD. I always had the vague impression that it was incredibly racy, and I always liked the poignant theme song as performed by Dionne Warwick (true story: I was once in the Toys R Us store in Westport CT and the public address system actually played this song; some eager-beaver marketer took the "dolls" reference too literally).

The weight of second-hand impressions finally pushed me to read the paperback. Its sweeping plot staggers from 1945 New York to swingin' Hollywood in the 1960s and back to New York. Susann's time as an actress gives the early sections about the Broadway scene a real sense of authenticity.

Still hungry to go deeper into VOTD, I found the movie through the NY Public Library. The movie brings the book to fetid life, with some of the most unintentionally hilarious dialogue and bizarre cinematography ever made. A carpet-chewing Patty Duke brings just the right tone to scrappy singer/star Neely O'Hara, while lovely and doomed Sharon Tate plays the lovely and doomed Jennifer North. Richard Dreyfuss makes a blink-and-he's-gone appearance, by the way. I would definitely see VOTD again, this time with a group of people so we can savor certain parts and let our jaws drop in unison.

The British website Dollsoup has a great discussion of the movie, with prime bits of dialogue, such as the famous Helen Lawson/Neely O'Hara battle):

Helen Lawson: They kicked you outa Hollywood, so ya come crawling back to Broadway. Well Brooahdway doesn't go for BOOOZE and dope.

As the mood strikes me, I'll provide more random wisdom from the book and the movie. In the meantime, as I trudge through the search for creative and romantic fulfillment, I'll tell myself, in the immortal pep-talk words spoken by Neely O'Hara to Neely O'Hara:

SPARKLE, MISSION2MOSCOW, SPARKLE!

12 Years Gone: The Return of Jody Watley

In 1993, during marital crisis No. 177, I raced along the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, feeling exceptionally down about the wreckage of my life. Then radio played a song with lyrics that captured a mood a despair and loss of love. It hit me very hard.

I did not hear the song again for 12 years, until three days after I posted an entry on my new fave radio station, the Mix 102.7 FM in New York. I wrote about that kind of dance music, and immediately the universe hurls the music back at me: same parkway, different station, same electrified response. Could this be a "compulsion of music," similar to my madcap experience discussed a week ago about "The Da Vinci Code"?

This time, however, I listened carefully and learned that the artist was Jody Watley. I searched online and found, indeed, she recorded the song in 1987 with the title, "Don't You Want Me." The lyrics that packed such a jolt are:

Are you looking for a new love?
Or does commitment seem to bring you down?

Twelve years later, the song sounded as powerful as ever. However, changing life circumstances altered my emotional response. It is no longer a lament for love slipping away, day by day. Rather, I view it as an aural artifact from a past time of life -- and as a checklist of enquiries that can be useful now that I've moved far beyond the wreckage of 1993.

A Compulsion of Words: Morrie Schwartz Edition, Rena Frank Chapter

Last Tuesday "Nightline" on ABC finished concluded its 25-year run with Ted Koppel. The final episode looked back on the most popular episodes Nightlight ever ran, involving retired college professor Morrie Schwartz. He had inspired, through his public battle of Lou Gehrig's Disease, the book "Tuesdays with Morrie" by sportswriter Mitch Albom.

The book appeared in 1998; in typical fashion, my interest lagged the general public's by years. I found a copy at a summer library sale and grabbed it. I read it about six weeks before the Nightlight rebroadcast. This congruence of book and viewing, although not as striking as "The Da Vinci Code" episode discussed last week, is still eerie.

The book touched me on several levels. I had my own Morrie. For 13 years I volunteered with Dorot, a group that served the Jewish elderly in New York. My Morrie, if you will, was Rena Frank, a retired nurse who escaped Germany in 1938 for England, settling into New York in 1952. We spoke at least weekly on the phone. My visits to her apartment at 216 W. 102nd Street lasted all afternoon, fortified by cucumber sandwiches, tea, and cookies. I never left without a bulging envelope full of newspaper articles that she thought would interest me, along with copies of "Hadassah" magazine and the annual City of Berlin calendar.

Rena had an amazing sense of timing. In the 1980s my freelance lifestyle allowed me to travel a month at a time. I would return from places like London, Australia, and Moscow and 15 minutes later the phone would ring. "Oh, hello, Mission2Moscow, I vas just going to liff a message for you," Rena would say in her thick German accent. I imagined she had been calling to "liff a message" every 15 minutes for several hours, waiting for me to pick up.

Once, a year into our relationship, I staggered home from a holiday office party with a few too many screwdrivers sloshing in my low-alcohol-tolerance bloodstream. The phone rang. "Hellllo, Mission2Moscow," she chirped.

"Hi, Rena, I just walked in the door and I think I'm going to be siiiick . . . " I said, and, indeed, I was. We chuckled about that for years.

She died on January 18, 1994, exactly six months shy of the birth of my son. I am bitterly disappointed that Rena, of all people, did not live to see that happy occasion.

I could say a lot more, and I will, later. Everybody should have a Morrie, a Rena, in their lives. They prepare us -- prepare me -- to be a Morrie or Rena to a generation not yet born.

Dater's Choice: Pick Four out of Five

An old software development maxim always charms me: “You can have it Fast, you can have it Good, or you can have it Cheap. Pick Two.” In short, you can’t have it all.

I've decided that a similar analysis applies in the Jewish dating world. The thought came to me after two lissome ladies in the Mid-Atlantic region replied to emails I sent them remarking on my height-challenged stature. One wrote back, "I hate to admit it but, although you sound quite interesting and I usually don't let height make a difference, I am afraid that 4" difference in our height (without shoes) was too much of a difference. I am sorry. I just grew too much!!!"

To which I replied, software development glowing red-hot in my synapses, "Good luck on the quest for the tall single straight Jewish male! At least I got four out of the five key attributes. Here's hoping you find five-out-of-five, or a four-out-of-five that works." I did not suggest she read this article, but perhaps she would benefit from it.

The process works the same in boy-girl matters as in project management. If you can't achieve the ideal, what attributes matter the most? Given the dimensions of . . .

Height
Marital Status
Sexual Orientation
Religion
Gender

. . . which one is least important? Time and again "height" has been an absolute deal-killer, except for a handful of women with truly progressive views on these matters. My attitude: If if doesn't bother me, why should it bother you? As my ever-so-practical mother used to say, "There's more to love." And. as I wrote to one woman, "Seen horizontally, I'm quite tall."

I'll even throw out the "gender" factor to focus on the first four. Which three out of four matter? How about a nice tall Episcopalian, or a tall married man -- a tall married man can be ever so charming and sophisticated, and you know he's going to ask for a divorce very soon, because he said so.

I have a vision of the future for some of these people. I see her at a bar mitzvah, five or 10 years from now, still searching. Her voice sounds alarmingly like that of comedienne Phyllis Diller. "That Mission2Moscow feller was interested in me, but he was only 5' 5!! No sirree bob, I like to wear heels and he was just too darned short," she cackles maniacally, unaware of time and tide's toll on her own appearance. "I've got my standards -- no compromising on men who aren't six feet tall!"

Then she grabs the bar mitzvah boy's tallest friend. "Come on, sonny, let's go do the hokey-pokey. Stand up straight!"

Suddenly, across the room, she spies the tall vision of her dreams and she glides over. After some talk, she realizes, finally, what attribute is worth a compromise.

Final thought: the two Mid-Atlantic women mentioned above are in their 40s and 50s and have never married. IMHO (blog talk, look it up), their odds of going five-for-five approach absolute zero. But if they hit for the dating cycle, I'll be the first to congratulate them.

42 Years Later: Another November 22

The American media thrives on anniversaries, remembrance of the same things passing again and again.

And yet today, November 22, 2005, 42 years after November 22, 1963, barely anybody has a comment. A Google news search on "November 22, 1963" turns up only 31 hits, hardly any from major media outlets. The silence is odd, unsettling in its deviation from the ritualized mourning common in our society.

With all the recent misfortunes and blind alleys, Americans are too tired or distracted to memorialize the past. For once, we are leaving the dead to rest.

John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963. I am now three years older than he was on that day.

Watch Out: It's a Republican (Laff) Riot

In 1982 I attended an event that so traumatized me that I lost my appetite for political stand-up comedy for decades. I took a date to a radical comedy night at Stuyvesant High School in New York. After four or five wretched acts, along the lines, "Hey man, Reagan really sucks, man," we snuck out to comfort ourselves with ice cream and Tab.

Except for one or two nights of improv, I never again had any interest in comedy clubs. The pain of bad political comedy remained raw and unhealed. Then, perhaps soothed by the calm balm of John Roberts as the new Chief Justice, my interest in stand-up comedy perked up. I started to get in touch with my long-suppressed desire for political stand-up by checking out a Margaret Cho CD from the library. While I disagree with her politically, Cho was very amusing and sometimes moving. "Say," I thought, "This political stand-up isn't so bad. Could some of it, left or right, actually be funny? How long should I let one horrid experience keep me away from the potential enjoyment the comic experience?"

Encouraged by my "date" with Margaret Cho, I bravely decided to "come out of the comic closet." My venue of choice: Don't Tell Mama in New York with its "Republican Riot" line-up for Friday Nov. 18. Leaving my office high over swanky Park Avenue, I wandered to West 46th Street. I was shown to a small round table about five minutes before show time, joining about seven other patrons. Hmmm, I thought, New York connoisseurs of Republican humor must be otherwise occupied tonight.

I did see none other than Mr. Ivan Lenin, Russian-born creative soul and driving force behind the group Communists For Kerry (CFK). I'd met Ivan before when photographing CFK at the Aug. 29, 2004 anti-war rally in New York, and later at a CFK street theater event at Union Square before the November election. We chatted after the show, and I'm happy to do some log-rolling for my fellow blognik.

The evening began right on time when MC Julia Gorin, a prolific writer and comic who came to the US from the USSR, headed on stage. The lineup featured Greg Banks, gay GOP comic (on crutches, no less, counting twice on the diversity-o-meter); Jewish marine veteran Dave Rosner (who showed his flat, hairy stomach), Indian-Japanese voiceover master Daniel Nainan, and New York Post editorial writer Robert George, with Gorin hitting the stage between acts with HIGHLY un-PC material regarding certain participants in the War on Terror (hint: they aren't Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus).

The material and yuk level varied. One comic shouted to the crowd, "Do you want tax cuts?" and we shouted back, "Yeah!" That pretty much rocked the house. Hey, you had to be there.

Naiman tickled the audience with imitations of his Indian father and Japanese mother. I can see him becoming the straight male Indian-Japanese conservative equivalent of Margaret Cho, a high compliment indeed. Robert George, self-described black Catholic West Indian Republican, had a polished delivery and plainly knows how to work a room.

Gorin closed the night with her material, including scabrous comments on Oprah Magazine's interview with the would-be girlfriend of a suicide bomber. She drew on her background an an immigrant to critique the US Jewish community, saying something like, "A lot of American Jews were disappointed when they found out Russian Jews moved to the US and became Republicans. They said, 'If we had known you'd become conservatives, we would have left your ass in Russia!'"

Bottom line: Conservatives can be funny, although, as with anybody, they've got to be funny first and conservative second. Was I snorting and drooling with helpless mirth? Not really, but I stayed amused, most of the time. More important, Republic Riot renewed my faith in political stand-up comedy, whether it comes from the left, the center, the right, the far right, or East Texas. Today, I can dream of the day when Margaret Cho, Oprah Winfrey, and Julia Gorin share a stage and a hug, sisters in arms, declaring their allegiance to truth, justice, and the American way of political comedy.

And then they introduce Oprah Magazine's Man of the Year, Sen. Zell Miller.

Like I said, I'm dreaming.

The Compulsion of Words

Twice in my life a compulsion gripped me to finish a book, to race ahead and be done with it for some reason I didn't understand.

This first happened when I read John Hersey's "Hiroshima," about the atomic bomb attack on Japan. I finished this book late on the night of Sept. 9, 2001.

The second happened today, when I slogged through the last 150 pages of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Ordinarily this type of book would take me two weeks to read; it had a level of mechanical mystery that moved the plot forward, but the writing and concept did not inspire me in the way of, say, "A Conspiracy of Paper" by David Liss. Yet I decided to shorten the reading cycle on an obligation-free Saturday and so I kept pushing forward.

I finished it around 6:15 pm, and a half-hour later I was signing in at the local Jewish Community Center for "Tapestry: A Community Celebration of Jewish Learning." I had no idea what classes I would take. Most were filled, so I selected two from those that remained open. The first was on Kabbalah. The second was on "The Jewish View of Human Sexuality," presented by the rabbi from the local Young Israel.

At the beginning of the session he announced, "I'm going to talk about something from the book 'The Da Vinci Code.'" This stunned me; I had finished the book barely an hour earlier. And I hardly expected an Orthodox rabbi to discuss a book on esoteric practices and the (fictional) hidden history of the Catholic Church.

The rabbi discussed Talmudic passages on sex, dealing with the big preconception (Jews don't have sex through a hole in a sheet), obligations, the commentaries against sex standing up (which reminded me of the joke that Southern Baptists don't have sex standing up because somebody might think they were dancing), and my favorite Talmudic story about the Garden of Eden (before Eve arrived on the scene, Adam had sex with all the animals, and found them lacking).

Near the end of the class the rabbi handed us copies of pages 308-309 and 445-446. I won't give the book away, but the passages indeed connected to the theme of the class. With the book so fresh in my mind, the lesson had a vivid immediacy. Read the book, and you'll never look at the Star of David the same way.

Still, I have to wonder at what strange cosmic force pushed me along on Saturday, page after page, until I finished. Some actions lie beyond rational thought.

The Republicans Attack! Weapon of Choice: Progressive Rock

Going back to at least Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" theme two decades ago, the Republicans have shown a knack for communicating their message. In the past week, they've unleashed another attention-getting message. It caught my attention not just for what it says -- that Democrats saw Saddam Hussein as a threat -- but how it says it. Go here and click on the video link on the home page.

Listen to the soundtrack playing behind the Democratic talking heads. Rather than pull ominous classical music, the GOP marketing mavens selected the bewitching riff from "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" by Traffic, from 1971. What midnight planning session led to this stroke of genius, I know not, but the choice works incredibly well.

What's the message of the music? I doubt the GOP is taking a subliminal poke at the Democrats with the title of the song (which stops when Pres. Bush speaks at the end of the 3:45-long video). Perhaps it suggests that Republicans know all about great pop-culture references, with "Low Spark" a counter-intuitive choice from a group associated with "square" culture.

Most deliciously, maybe the music is deliberately ambiguous, not meant to chastise or wave flags, but to simply unfold and let the viewers locate their own emotional response.

A Modest Improvement for Sir Eric's Song, "Cocaine"

Over the summer, during a long drive to Washington, D.C., young Shmoikel and I checked out different radio stations. We finally settled on a classic rock station that wowwed me with a broader selection of songs than these tightly formatted stations usually play. Somewhere around the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore the station played Eric Clapton's version of "Cocaine," by J.J. Cale.

Something clicked in me. I realized that this song cried out for some slight editing. The song resonates, but even the classics benefit from occasional spiffing up -- in the same spirit that generations of grade schoolers have tinkered with the lyrics to the "Star Spangled Banner" (speaking of Fort McHenry . . . )

So here's what I did. As the song played on the radio, the revised -- and, I think, improved -- version of "Cocaine" burst full-fledged into my mind. I simply substituted the word "SpongeBob" whenever Sir Eric mentioned "cocaine." And you know what? The song rocked! Just read the new lyrics below. I'm sure you'll agree with me:

By j. j. cale (revised by Mission2Moscow)

If you wanna hang out you’ve got to take her out; SpongeBob.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; SpongeBob.
When your day is done and you wanna run; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; SpongeBob.
Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

Now, honestly, isn't that better? Some of you may scoff, and say, "Come on, Mission2Moscow, that's a stupid idea. Eric Clapton was singing about drugs, not a beloved TV cartoon character." That's true, up to a point, but Sir Eric sang about cocaine only because SpongeBob hadn't been invented yet. I think it very likely that Sir Eric may want to re-record the song after he reads this post (if I can get it to him past his manager, lawyer, and security guards).

All I ask is that you give this new version a fair listening. Just get up off your tuchis, go to your CD collection and pull out a Clapton CD with this song. Put it on your CD player. Crank it up loud, now a little louder. And every time Sir Eric sings "cocaine," shout "SpongeBob." You might want to even have your kids in the room to join the fun, since they love SpongeBob, too. Yell loud enough, and your kids won't ask what "cocaine" is.

I'm not ashamed to say I did exactly this on I-95, singing lustily, and the toll collectors really got into the spirit of it, often breaking out in song with me as I handed my money to them. Not once did DEA agents stop me to ask why I was playing this particular song over and over.

Like I said, it rocks. Try it and then I dare you to tell me I'm wrong.