Around the World with Bob Marley

The past two days I had the pleasure of watching Marley, a 2 ½ hour documentary about Bob Marley. I was familiar with his music and influence, and his lamentable death at the age of 36 from melanoma. But I didn’t know the total history and this documentary covers everything so well and so thoroughly that I will listen to Marley’s music and look for his worldwide influence afresh now.

Marley brims with concert and interview footage of the man, interviews with his children, wives/lovers and band members, and even Jamaican political leader Edward Seaga. This article is an exhaustive look at the movie’s content. What did I learn? Well, everything:

• His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was white and born in Jamaica in 1885. Norval’s mother, Ellen Broomfield, was Syrian Jewish. Norval served in World War I and was not a factor in Marley’s life, although the Marley’s family businesses appear in a key scene in the documentary.
• Marley lived in Wilmington, Delaware, where his mother had immigrated, and he worked on a Chrysler assembly line.
• Marley’s shows primarily attracted white audiences in the U.S. One music promoter wanted him to be the opening act for the Commodores as the only way to draw a crowd.
• Marley was an intense performer and never phoned in a gig, based on the footage. He was always on, always giving it his all.
• Despite an estate valued at $30 million, Marley refused to write a will, owing to his Rastafarian beliefs. The movie lightly touches, in a humorous way, on Marley's lack of estate planning. In reality, families members have been waging bitter court fights over trademarks and business rights for the past 30 years, a tragic aftermath that would make a fascinating documentary on its own, the temporal flip side of love and peace.

Marley came close to being assassinated in 1976 during political turmoil in Jamaica. He was scheduled to play at the Smile Jamaica concert, and, despite some wounds, he did indeed play. The film captures all the electricity and emotion of the concert. I was particularly struck by Marley bringing on stage the two main political rivals in the country, Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, and he embraced both of them in a plea for unity and reconciliation. The moment showed Marley as a man who truly put his philosophy ahead of politics.

The scene made me think – could there be a U.S. performer or personality with the vision, message and respect who could make that kind of gesture? Who could bring political rivals together for a heart-felt moment? Bruce Springsteen comes to mind as a possibility. Oprah Winfrey? Both seem too politically obvious and not likely to embrace somebody they see as afflicted with GOP cooties. After much thinking, the one performer I can see uniting different schools of thought would be the Man in Black, Johnny Cash. His was a hard-bitten, compassionate message from a man who had seen the dark sides of life. He could appeal to anybody. But, unfortunately, he’s dead. Merle Haggard's got the world view and he's still alive, but I can't see him with national appeal. B.B. King? An icon of the blues, world respected, but not exactly a philosopher king.

The film included a striking bonus feature about the impact of Marley’s music worldwide. It’s one thing to say the music still lives, but it’s quite another to concretely show people using the music as the basis of social and political action. That’s what Marley does, brilliantly. Segments from Jamaica, Brazil, Japan, Tibet, India, Kenya and, most tellingly, Tunisia at the start of the Arab Spring, show the power of Marley to get people moving. The range of social situations is amazing, from the violence and poverty of Brazil to the sterile, uneasy prosperity of Japan. In the Tunisia segment, protesters daub song titles on walls and demand their civil rights and free speech with the colors of Jamaica prominent in demonstrations.

What prophet could ask for more?

Giants in Their Days, and Ours

A few weeks ago, I learned of the passing of James Miller of Mission, Texas, the father of my best friend growing up and an anchor of Mission’s civic life since the early 1950s. He was 93 years old.

This news came the day after I finished reading the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, about the extraordinary life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who survived a Pacific Ocean plane crash and horrific treatment by the Japanese as a prisoner of war, and then a post-war descent into alcoholism. He not only survived but underwent a moral regeneration and continues to enjoy life daily – to keep up with him, just visit his website.

The book and the passing will forever link James Miller and Louis Zamperini in my mind. They grew up in the 1920s and 30s, served their nation ably, took what life dished out and bounced back up. I know other men like them, in their late 80s and early 90s now, who returned from the Pacific and Europe to build families and businesses, contribute to their communities, enjoy their grandchildren and appreciate every day of life.

They’re modest about what they do. One man I know, Eric Leiseroff, had the last bar mitzvah in Dresden, Germany in 1938, just before Kristalnacht. He and his mother left Germany on what might have been the last train out to Portugal in mid-June 1941, arriving in New York after the Germans invaded the USSR. Three years later, Leiseroff returned to Germany in the US Army, where his native German speaking skills made him a valuable intelligence GI. After V-E Day, he joined a team hunting down and interrogating members of the SS. After declining an offer to remain in Germany under cover as a spy, he returned to the US, found a job as a paper salesman that he held for 57 years and married. He and his wife just celebrated their 62nd anniversary.

“I had a boring life,” he says. And yet for members of my generation, an incredible one.

I last saw Mr. Miller and his wife Mrs. Miller (Esther by first name, but they were ALWAYS Mr. and Mrs. Miller to me) when I returned to Mission for my 35^th high school reunion on June 2011. A trip to the Millers’ home always highlighted my journey to the past. I usually took a spin through Mr. Miller’s office, where pride of place went to a portrait of him as a Coast Guard officer in World War II. We’d drink tea, nibble on cookies, catch up on the news of the sprawling Miller family, of five children and enough grandchildren and great-grandchildren to populate a small village. My adventures in the Northeast always interested and amused the Millers. During one visit, I said, “I hope you don’t mind that I put a ‘Hillary for President 2008’ bumper sticker on your car,” I joked, and they responded with mock indignation. We’d take photos, say good-bye and I’d leave, always admiring the Texas sunlight filtering through the sturdy mesquite trees in the front yard.

For all their modesty, these are tough old guys, survivors of times and challenges I can barely imagine. No human should endure what Louis Zamperini did, years of abuse followed by years of self-destruction with liquor. How he survived and how he ultimately—and abruptly—conquered his demons was so mesmerizing that Unbroken renewed my often-flagging faith in the power of reading books. The older I get, the more I skate through books, struggling to emotionally connect with either novels or non-fiction. Especially in novels, I often can barely care about the characters. The characters don’t matter, the books’ style and trendiness count for more than coherence or basic readability (perhaps I should take more care in my reading selections). But Hillenbrand writes with total clarity. Every sentence makes sense; every sentence relentlessly propels the story ahead with Dickensian cliffhangers that dared me to not immediately read the next chapter.

Now I’ll try to put the reading lessons to work on a real writing project. I’m signed up November’s National Novel Writing Month event. I’m already way behind – easy rationalizations include weather, no power, other work commitments, need some more excuses? – but I’ve got ideas in my head and I just need to push them through my fingers. If Laura Hillenbrand, who suffers from a severe case of chronic fatigue syndrome, can writer an incredible book about Louis Zamperini, who beat everything that King Neptune and the Japanese Empire could throw at him and keeps chugging along in his mid-90s, then I can surely rouse myself to pound out some pages. These old guys knew how to keep going, maybe I can draw some inspiration from their examples.

A Launch Party for "Narco Estado"

Tuen Voeten goes where angels fear to tred. Few willingly plunge into African war zones or the Mexican drug chaos except souls equipped with a camera and very steady nerves. Voeten, a Dutch photojournalist, follows the action and returns with portfolios that give witness to the terror and humanity found far from his European home.

I met Voeten at a launch event for his latest book, Narco Estado, held at Ye Olde Carlton Arms Hotel in New York. Published by Lannoo Publishers in Belgium, the book contains Voeten’s photos taken during 2009-2011, when drug killings rocketed in Ciudad Juarez, the site of many of the photos, along with the cities of Culiacan and Monterrey. I read daily about the situation in Mexico at Borderland Beat and Frontera List (where I learned of the launch event), and Voeten gives visual shape to the horrific stories. Bodies lie sprawled in cars, on streets, in fields, in buildings, neighbors silently watch the police on the scene, a man with a vision cares for the insane in a desert compound, prostitutes wait for customers on dark and empty streets. With a journalist’s care for documentation, Voeten provides details on the time, location and context of each photo. His website describes the book this way:

From 2009 till 2011, Voeten focused on the drug related violence that is destabilizing Mexico. He visited the epicenter of the violence, Ciudad Juarez, as well as other hot spots such as Culiacan and Michoacan. With introductory essays by El Paso based anthropologist Howard Campbell as well as Culiacan based writer Javier Valdez Cardenas, this hard hitting photobook tries to explains why the drug violence in Mexico can no longer be ignored as a fringe criminal problem, since it is eroding the very fundaments of our human civilization.

Narco Estado is the latest result of a career spent on the edges of civilization. Other projects include. What’s next, I asked him? For now, he’s finishing up his dissertation on Mexican drug violence at a university in Belgium.

The location for the launch party also added to the atmosphere. Over the decades I’ve visited many New York hotels, from the massive Marriott Marquis and Waldorf=Astoria to smaller, sleeker hotels like the W. But I’ve never set foot in a raffish place like the Carlton Arms. Indeed, I never knew it existed until I attended the Voeten event.

Located at non-trendy 160 E. 25^th Street, the Carlton is easy to miss from street level; you ring an bell and ascend a flight of stairs to reach it. And then  . . . the place feels like the setting for a Graham Greene novel, or a throwback to New York in the 1930s. Art decorates the lobby and rooms, overstuffed chairs encourage lounging, the rumpled and effective staff completes the atmosphere. The place has art openings and other events and I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for whatever comes up next. It felt like my kind of place in the city of polished megaliths, the scampering marsupial among the mastodons of lodging.

Ritual and Violation Through the Ages

Here's something new at Times of Israel, touching on issues of ritual and Jewish practice covered in the book. It starts,

The new 9-ll attack in Libya and its aftermath sickened me with images of the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and reports of the violation of his body, dragged through the streets of Benghazi. Seeing the bloody handprints of Americans on a pillar reminded me of the photo from the 2000 lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah, as Aziz Salha waved his blood-drenched hands in triumph after the killings, which also involved the reservists’s bodies being dragged through the streets. 

Separated by almost 12 years but united by the barbarism of the perpetrators, these two acts coincide with thoughts I’ve had lately on death, the rituals of mourning and the deep anguish caused when those rituals are violated. 

With Yom Kippur passed, with its reflections on life and death, I’m struggling to find a narrative thread connecting horrific media images. They contrast violently with my traditional sense of treating the dead.
 

Heartbreakers

We’ve all been there: the first look, the initial teases, the memorable first date, the breathless anticipation, the shy touches and blushes . . . and then the shocking flame-out.

Male-female relationships? That’s kid’s play. No, I’m referring to the heartbreaking cycle I’ve endured with my unrequited passion for TV series I loved and lost.

I’m reflecting on that special kind of pain after NBC pounded me with previews for its new series Revolution throughout the Olympics. I even watched the extended preview with scenes of the U.S. after the collapse of the electrical power grid. The view of a weed-choked Wrigley Field in Chicago echoed the conclusion of Planet of the Apes. I saw a young cast led by a bow-and-arrow wielding heroine, sword play, and the quest to turn the power back on. Of course the preview hinted at a vast, shadowy conspiracy and the need to uncover what was really behind the calamity.

I could love this easily imagined scenario. My passion for conspiracy-minded TV is vast. I watched every episode of 24, which rewarded me with thrills and chills and Elisha Cuthbert for eight uneven but gripping seasons. I even posted essays on 24 fan sites, a pre-blogging kind of expression I’ve never done before or since. I also loved the first season of The Walking Dead when I could get it on video; I even read the very long graphic novel afterward. Years ago, I read Stephen King’s The Stand, which was haunting, and enjoyed the mini-series with Molly Ringwald. I became a fan of Firefly, a beloved and influential series that Fox bungled, long after its cancellation -- my son suggested that one for me.

But I wonder about Revolution. The tease caught my interest. Would this be the start of a beautiful relationship, or merely the latest in a dreary series of network equivalents of one-night stands? I’ve always been a sucker for sci-fi and apocalyptic TV and movies since I watched The Time Tunnel and Lost in Space in the 1960s. Raquel Welch’s Fantastic Voyage and One Million Years B.C. also captivated me, for more hormonal reasons.

In recent years, my devotion led to naught but regret as one sci-fi series after another dished out the wham-bam-thank-you-Van treatment.

My entertainment Walk of Shame started several years ago when I fell hard for FlashForward. The first episodes were brilliant. Everybody on the planet blacked out at the exact same moment, for the exact length of time, and had disturbing visions of their future. FBI agents, wracked by their own dreams, started to unravel what happened. Even as they did, the series itself fell apart. My sense was the writers couldn’t put together a coherent explanation for the blackout or its aftermath. Loose ends piled up, conspiracies became muddier. I missed some episodes, although I hung on to the end, which hinted at the next flash forward dream. Fox cancelled the series. America yawned.

Saddened, I kept hope for quality TV alive with The Event, with semi-immortal aliens captured by the U.S. government in Alaska. The series grew on me as it progressed. The aliens were riven by intrigue and disagreement about the path to take in deciding whether to cooperate or exterminate earthlings. Since aliens are often portrayed in Borg-like agreement on everything, I found this angle refreshing. The series picked up steam and direction as it moved along. The very last scene promised an explosive second season, perhaps on the lines of the movie Independence Day, but that season never happened. A long gap in the airings (curse you, Fox schedulers!), baffling personality changes in the aliens’ leader, and the usual bogus swamp of plot clutter—always involving a sweaty, treasonous Vice President, lurking in White House hallways whispering into his cell phone—sank the series. Viewers fled in droves. Canceled.

I’m feeling sheepish about my most recent ill-starred love. Goaded by relentless promos, I watched most of Fox’s Terra Nova. Go ahead and laugh; looking back, I have to ask, “What was I thinking?” The show threw an attractive multicultural cast in the time-travel blender, built a set that looked like a pre-historic Club Med resort, shook well – and created a mess. I kicked myself for wasting time even as I watched the episodes, hoping the show would coalesce. But it stayed stuck on stupid. Terra Nova had too few rampaging dinosaurs, NO exploding volcanoes and way too much idiotic teen romance.

The writers lacked the courage to truly explore the show’s premise. If you could go back in time to rebuild human society, what would it look like, and how would people interact? (Terra Nova opted for Dawson’s Creek with pterodactyls.) The concept of building a new society in the past is strong enough without gumming it up with Road Warrior-style opposition forces and yet another corporate conspiracy. The ending intrigued me—the settlement leaders discover a 17^th century ship, hinting at past settlers from other eras—but by then millions of other viewers had broken up with Terra Nova and the relationship ended. Adios, dim-witted teens and brontosauruses. Raquel Welch did far more with far less with her fur bikini in One Million Years B.C.

Sometimes I recognize a loser and bail out before I’m too far in. I tried Kiefer Sutherland’s series, Touch, where he was the father of a silent, autistic boy with the power to bring people together through number patterns. Two episodes of cloying global goodness and an impending conspiracy had me reaching for the remote control. I just couldn’t handle an autistic savant.

So that brings me around to Revolution. This is from NBC rather than Fox, so the commercial breaks might be slightly shorter (less time to wash dishes, fold laundry, etc.) and the plotting more focused. I greatly enjoyed executive producer J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield, a story told completely through found footage from cell phones and camcorders of a monster wrecking New York. Abrams’ vision of a powerless America, including shapely women wielding medieval weapons, could lure me back to the TV singles bar one more time in my endless quest for love with a remote control.

Or if it bogs down in its own relentless seriousness and conspiracies, I can always do a Stargate marathon.

Tales of the Book Collector: Judaica

Here's a recent post from the Times of Israel. As it starts:

My enthusiasm for collecting books on Jewish themes soared on a recent vacation that included a stop in downtown Kerrville, Texas. Dropping by a used bookstore, I found a volume I’d never seen before in decades of visits to stores and tag sales. This encounter with the printed word supported my long-time belief: you never know when an appealing tome might pop up, like a doggie in the window, just begging to go home with you.

The very name of the store, Wolfmueller’s Books, sounded promising, fragrant with an antique Teutonic bookiness. Old Mr. Wolfmueller probably shared the Texas Hill Country’s deep German roots. I strolled in and first perused the highlighted section of books by local favorite son, Jewish musician, author and feisty gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman—another excellent signal that something Judaic lurked therein.

Advice to the New Graduate

My son graduated from high school last month and is heading for a college with a strong science and engineering focus next month. The Significant Other and I took him to the local Panera Bread restaurant to celebrate. As we munched, I shared with Shmoikel the fatherly advice gained from my own experiences at Princeton University in 1976-1980, during the glorious Jimmy Carter years. I figured that fashion changes, but technology moves more gradually, and what worked for me in the 1970s would no doubt prove useful for Shmoikel in the 2010s.

"First, you'll need a good solid desk for your IBM Selectric," I opined. "They're excellent typewriters but they are on the heavy side, so you'll want sturdy support. I'm sure the university will have something designed for one of them. If you want to work on the plane ride up there—I know I need to book the flight on PeoplExpress for you—you can use a portable typewriter. I guess the new term for those is 'laptop.'"

"Sure thing, Dad," he said, writing notes on his tried-and-true tablet, which I got him for his birthday several years ago. This is the old-school, reliable tablet, the kind you write on with chalk. They're great for students on the go who need to take notes.

"You'll also want to be ready for your programming classes. You may find the punchcards complex in the beginning, but a bright guy like you will get the hang of it," I explained. "You've got good dexterity, just shuffle them and your 75 percent of the way there."

"I've heard about punchcards—they're still cutting-edge, you think?" Shmoikel said, sounding dubious.

"Oh, definitely," I said.

"And don't forget your slide rule," added the Significant Other, who sent her kid to college several years ago and knows first-hand what's required on these Eastern college campuses.

We left Panera's confident that Shmoikel will be ready for whatever comes his way. He'll be registering to vote for the first time. As a great fan of civic involvement, this thrills me. I'm already prepping him for a repeat of the 1980 election, when a certain floundering Democrat ran against a certain confident Republican, with the Iranians causing problems. I'd like to say he should get on the right side of history like I did, but you know how kids are these days.

Some Empathy for Tom Cruise

Now that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are divorcing, Cruise will eventually be back on the market. I'm the last guy he needs dating advice from, given gorgeous co-stars and the long line of dating interests from the past.

What I can offer him is some empathy. We're both over 50 and he's just slightly taller than me, 5'7", which sounds pretty good given that I'm 5'5 1/2" on a charitable day. Height matters because Cruise is getting some pummeling these days as writers dredge up comments about his height in fleshing out stories about his marriages and even his films. I'll set the religious issues aside for now.

The quote that really made me gulp came from Mrs. Cruise No. 2, Nicole Kidman, the Amazon from Oz, who stuck the knife in when she was divorcing Cruise in 2001 after a decade of marriage. The quote showing up everywhere is this:

When David Letterman asked the Moulin Rouge star how she was handling her divorce from Cruise in 2001, the actress poked fun at her ex-husband's 5'7" stature. "I can wear heels now," she teased.

In good fun or not, the height difference and the comment take me back to my online dating days. Women and their high heels! That combination sank embryonic contacts before we even had a chance to meet. I heard that kind of comment several times -- you're too short, I like to wear heels, I need a taller man. At some point does that thinking become obvious as self-defeating, or does it remain a primal romantic sorting mechanism, in the eternal quest for the bigger, badder bringer of the DNA for the next generation? In your late 40s and 50s, I can't see the rugged DNA angle being much of an issue, but height-as-qualifier retains its allure, as I know from being on the short end of the measuring stick several times.

While Cruise hasn't had any trouble dating and mating women taller than him, the post-divorce comments about his height and other even more intimate issues, courtesy of Mrs. Cruise No. 1, Mimi Rogers, who called Cruise "celibate," have got to sting. Nobody likes to see their physical attributes or bedroom behavior slagged in the press. I imagine this all bounces off of Cruise, and won't deter him from finding the next 20-something Tall Girl to be Mrs. Cruise No. 4. Still, I hope, just talking guy to guy here, neither Holmes nor her eventual replacement pops off about the guy on these issues. If Tom Cruise isn't safe from that kind of talk, none of us are.

The Forbidden Passages: Tales from the Editorial Spike

Journalists call it the “spike”—the decision to not publish a story for reasons of its truthfulness, incompleteness or other political sensitivity. I used the spike on thousands of words I could have included in my dating book. Even after years of polishing and considering materials, I had to decide what to include and what to delete up until the end. The book could have topped 250 pages had I opted to throw in every pearl of wisdom I’ve ever scribbled on dating topics, or topics completely unrelated to dating.

In some cases, I spiked episodes that I ultimately did not feel comfortable seeing the light of day (at least under my own name). They were just too personal, revealing more than necessary about the inner workings of intense relationships. I decided to leave in related but shorter or milder material that made a point without drawing blood. And in some cases, I think I’ll save the material for either a novel or another try at the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column. Something may be too personal for a book, but just right for Modern Love (as I’ve said at times in my life, I’m corruptible).

Still, no harm will come from a peek at what’s not there. So, here, free of most context, are snippets of what I call the Forbidden Passages—Tales from the Spike. Feel free to create your own imagined stories about them.
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She had said I was a pain in the ass for never calling, just doing IM. "That's not true!" I protested. "As soon as Helga gave me her phone number I called her." Ingrid was stunned by this—she never knew I had actually talked to Helga. I had behaved the same with Ingrid—when a woman gives me her phone number, I call.
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A 37 year-old Catholic lawyer of Lebanese background in Latin America, Judy immediately attracted passionate attention from men who loved her glamorous profile and pouting, voluptuous photograph, remarkably similar to Latin TV star Ninel Conde.

In fact, the woman in the picture was Ninel Conde. The profile was a fake, a lark invented by a friend to assemble all the stereotypical themes of a glamour-girl profile. Then the lie became a kind of truth. My friend turned to me, as co-writer, to help figure out what to do with the emotional mess that her sexy monster created.
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For months I chased Sandi even as her yes/no/maybe-so ambivalence made the pursuit as futile and maddening as Captain Ahab’s quest for Moby Dick. I knew this opportunity would end badly, but my back muscles strained and my hands and heart bled as I plunged my emotional oars into the churning, blood-chilling waters of romance with Sandi. . . . Then, Sandi flipped her cruel, mighty tail one final time and smashed my pathetic little whaleboat of love, ending contact between us.
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Vera says: Come to see me
Van says: That's a long haul, a big step. Will you be in the US at any time?
Vera says: No, I prefer you come  ladies first choice
Van says: I see. Too bad about all that water in the middle.
Vera says: Bye
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My favorite venues have been the Essensuality “erotic expression” salons and the monthly Wide Open Wednesday at the Museum of Sex, where performers gather in the Oral Fix Café for a rollicking, unpredictable time. I’ve had to go deep within to find my own performing style and material. From the start, I knew I had to connect to audiences with my words, not my looks; unlike some performers, I’ll never wow anybody by stripping down to my skivvies. What, I thought, could I possibly say compared to talented performers like Bikini Bondage Babe, Little Miss Orgy Organizer, Gay Phone Sex Dude and Brooklyn Transgender Birthday Gang Bang Guy?
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We were in our 40s and used my classic Corvette Stingray to get away from our kids. Better late than never!

Did I say “Corvette Stingray”? I meant my “Hyundai Elantra.” But it thinks it’s a Stingray.

Publication Day

"A Kosher Dating Odyssey" becomes properly available today. I've had friends already email me that Amazon has sent out the paperback version. I'm waiting to hear about the Kindle version. I've had some gratifying congratulatory calls, including from my friend referred to as Chloe the Oracle of Romance in the book. She's soon to get her copy. The references to her could be a great ice-breaker in her online dating activities.

I have no idea what coming days will bring, although at least one article is set to run about the book and I continue to alert editors about it. Who'll find it interesting as fodder for a review or just as a good read is anybody'd guess. The essays I'm doing in support of the book could turn in to excellent material for a revised edition down the road; one essay is evening inspiring me to write a short story for a contest being sponsored by the Texas Observer newspaper.

What comes next creatively? I have some ideas. I always have ideas. Execution remains the issue. To goose up the competitive spirit, I attended a panel presentation by three romance novel writers at the Ridgefield Public Library today. Hearing other writers always inspires me, and now that I have one real, honest-to-goodness book to my credit, I can keep thinking about what comes next. Surely this can't be the peak of my writing career—have keyboard, will travel to distant lands and write about topics that have been bubbling in me for decades.

All I have to do is turn off the Internet and get back to banging out what's already in me, just waiting to burst out—a little later than I expected in life, but the only present I have is right now.