Sea Street

Summer Time

SUMMER TIME

Summer Time and the living is easy

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’

So hush little baby, don’t you cry

Music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.

Yes, it’s summer time and the beaches are blooming with bikinis. 

Time to put “Jive Master Obama” and “Dottering Duplicitour McCain”

On the back burner. 

When you get right down to it, the American people deserve a better choice. 

See you at the beach. 

                                                                 David

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HEADLINES THAT LIE

HEADLINES THAT LIE

A few days ago the Boston Herald ran a headline above a picture of Hillary Clinton that said, "Killer Gaffe;" the word "Gaffe" was in large box letters.  This was in reference to Hillary's remark that "My husband campaigned until the middle of June and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in the middle of June." 

            In hindsight, she should have added "while still campaigning" the media took her remark-which was in plain English-and pulled it and stretched it and twisted it like taffy until it became something else again.  Hillary did not rejoice in the death of Bobby Kennedy-which was inferred.  Hillary Clinton did not suggest that somebody shoot Barack Obama-which was also inferred.

In this part of America, where people have been speaking English for centuries and know the meaning of words, I have a problem overlooking the English of media types who constantly snarl syntax and butcher  lexis.  A lady reporter for the New York Times recently wrote that "so and so" was not to the "manner"* born.  If you don't know what's wrong with that then you're a part of her crowd. 

In any case, turning Hillary's phrase inside out is just so much bullshit.  A talking head on KNBC said, "If Hillary wants to have any credibility with black voters, she should apologize to the black community and Barack Obama."  That's hilarious; Hillary has no credibility with black voters already-black voters have voted in the most racist voting patterns since the Ku Klux Klan-92% for Obama in Mississippi-above 90% in most primaries. 

            As far as apologizing to Barack Obama, Hillary made a simple statement of fact-facts are foreign to Obama.  From Rev. Wright to his pedigree and back again,  Obama is a multifarious liar.  Only yesterday, May 27, he told a crowd that his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz.  The problem here is that the Russian Army liberated Auschwitz and Barack didn't have an uncle in the Russian Army.  This little booboo was not considered funny by the Jewish audience.

Speaking of race....the New York Times recently ran a headline that said "Hillary wins in West Virginia-Race a Factor."  This is more bullshit written by an elitist ethnocentric Editorial Board.   Although I'm from California, I played music in West Virginia for many years.  I played in Wheeling, I played in Parkersburg, I played in Clarksburg, Fairmont and Morgantown, I played in Charleston and in Huntington, I played in a club that I owned called Dynasty 14, which stood on the fourteenth floor of the West Virginia Building; it had a view of three states-West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.  In addition to this, I was Cantor in synagogues in Huntington, Wheeling, Parkersburg and Williamson.  I would say I know West Virginia as well as anyone.  My wife is from West Virginia from a family named "Preston".  Her great-great-great-great-grandfather fought Chief Cornstock at the Battle of Pt. Pleasant.  She is related through this family to the "Jackson's" of West Virginia.  There is a statue of one of these "Jackson's" in Clarksburg with his nickname "Stonewall" etched in its base.  It was the issue of race and racism that caused her ancestors and the rest of West Virginia to secede from Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War.  I doubt if the New York Times Editorial Board even knows this.  Do they know that West Virginia, with the exception of a few men such as General Jackson, fought on the northern side during that same War?  The bottom line is this-the people of West Virginia are no more racially prejudiced than New Yorkers and the New York City Police Department. 

But this cavalcade of slanders has been a factor throughout Hillary Clinton's campaign.   It's breathtaking and it's effected my opinion of many people in the media starting with that bloated leprechaun, Tim Russert, and including Jack Cafferty whose big mouth belongs in an Irish bar.  I used to watch Chris Matthews faithfully; I used to watch Keith Oberman as well.  I will never watch either one of them again.  But most amazing of all I found the most fair and balanced source of coverage with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity-two characters that I have never watched.  In fact, a few years back on my TV show I invented a disease called "the O'Reilly Factor-a condition where the mouth grows bigger than the brain."  I take it all back.

            I will be glad when all of this is over; so many people have discredited themselves and in the end it all comes down to this....The American people deserve a better choice than the ones we're being offered.

            Some things to remember:  Hillary has the most electoral votes and the largest popular vote while Obama has less experience than any president in the last one hundred years.

 *Manor

 Watch the Dan and Dad Show every Saturday night at 9:30 on Channel 17.

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Savior or Demagogue

SAVIOR OR DEMAGOGUE

            On Tuesday, March 18, Senator Obama stood on a stage in Philadelphia across from Constitution Hall with eight large American flags behind him.  He was there to try to deal with remarks made by his Pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright, remarks that are well known to everyone, remarks that include Pastor Wright's blaming the United States Government for AIDS, saying that 911 was a case of the "chickens coming home to roost" and; in addition to this, shouting from the pulpit, "God damn America."

            He said much more of the same over a twenty-year period while Senator Obama was a regular congregant in his church.  Pastor Wright married Obama and his wife, Michelle, and baptized their two children; he was Obama's mentor.  Obama had to deal with this and he gave a speech about race in America that was highly applauded, especially in the liberal community.  Chris Matthews of Hardball gushed like a schoolgirl; Bob Herbert of the New York Times swooned.  Julian Bond said the speech "moved him to tears".  Orlando Patterson, a Harvard professor said he believed the speech would go down as one of the "great, magnificent and moving speeches in the American political tradition."  Many others likened his speech to speeches by John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.

            But unfortunately, his speech lacked the essential ingredient of great speeches-honesty.  In the speech Senator Obama tried to move the subject away from the central issue and, according to many, he succeeded.  But the issue is not race, the issue would be the same if Pastor Wright were white.  The central issue is Obama's honesty, his character, his judgment and his strength. 

            I have asked myself what I would do if I were in Obama's situation.  Imagine that I was Cantor in a Synagogue where the Rabbi gave me lots of liturgical advice, imagine that the same Rabbi Bar Mitzvahed my son, imagine also that he was a racist who made disparaging remarks about black people from the pulpit (beama).  Imagine also that he cursed America.  What would I do?  Would I put self-interest above principle?  Would I have the character and strength to stand up to him?  If the Rabbi did not respond to my concerns would I have the decency to leave the Synagogue and if I didn't have the strength to do what was right and stayed on until I ran for public office, would I say upon the Rabbi's exposure, that in twenty years I never heard him say anything that was caught on videotape.  Would you believe me if I said that?  Jews gossip as much as black people; there's no way in hell I wouldn't have known about it. 

Of course such a Rabbi and such a Synagogue doesn't exist in the Jewish community so I can only judge Barack Obama against what I would have done and I'm not running for President.  What is a President without character?  What is a President without honesty, without judgment, without strength.  Barack Obama's judgment in all of this has been abysmal. 

Obama's campaign has made honesty a by-word; now we know his honesty is fake.   This is a man who knows who the president of Kazakhstan is, who knows the finer points of the gross national product, but who claims ignorance of what was common knowledge to any church member in Pastor Wright's church. 

Why didn't Obama object to Wright's racist comments?  Why didn't he object to Wright's comments about America?  "God damn America," is fighting words to most Americans but found no objection from Senator Obama.  When he did not rebuke Rev. Wright for his anti-Semitic remarks, he rebuked me and my wife and my four children and my five grandchildren. 

            Why didn't it bother Barack that Wright and Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite, visited Libya together.  When Rev. Wright met with Omar Kadafi, did he ever think about his freedom of speech in America.  Imagine him saying, "God damn Libya."

            Many of the talking heads have come to Obama's defense.  The liberal establishment, of which I have always been a member, is so enamored of Barack Obama that they can't think straight.  I saw Jack Cafferty and Jeff Toobin on the CNN Situation Room "poo-pooing" what Rev. Wright said.  Cafferty's own words were, "I have been going to the same church for eighteen years and every once in a while I hear the Priest say something that I disagree with.  "Cafferty, has your Priest ever stood behind the pulpit and said, ‘God damn America!'"  The same thing applies in Toobin's case, "Has your Rabbi ever stood on the beama and said, ‘God damn America!'"      

Sometimes the media bias takes on strange manifestations.  Roland Martin, a black talking head on CNN says that Rev. Wright's outrageous remarks were "taken out of context."  There is failed logic in this claim.  Adolph Hitler's remarks about Jews, which were only in a handful of his speeches, can be explained (according to Roland) by saying they were "taken out of context."

Roland, whose wife is a minister to a black congregation, also posits the idea that Wright's kind of language is commonplace in black churches; that's total bull.

Obama has said in campaign speech after campaign speech, "Words Count," quoting from the words of Governor Deval Patrick. You can't have it both ways.  Rev. Wright's words cannot be dismissed, they count too. 

Sean Hannity on FOX (a network I don't watch) must be applauded for bringing the Rev. Wright matter to public attention.  I never agree with Hannity but this was a brave thing on his part.

A couple of things occur to me as I write this, since Senator Obama said he could not make a break with Rev. Wright, who he described as being like an uncle, I would like to know if Rev. Wright will be invited to the White House if, per chance, Obama becomes president.  I would like to know if Obama will still be influenced by Rev. Wright if he becomes president.  I am sure the Jewish community and the citizens of Israel are anxiously awaiting an answer to those questions. 

Indeed, all of this calls into question our image of Obama.  We all know he is inexperienced.  In fact, he is so inexperienced as a politician that he let this issue come up in the first place. 

What Senator Obama has done is back himself into the Nixon box.  It's a "loose-loose" situation.  Nixon said he didn't know anything about Watergate-at which point arose the question, "Why?"  As president he had the kind of access to intelligence that told him when a robin farted in Russia; but he didn't know what his own people were doing.  Ergo, either he was incompetent and not fit to be president or he was a liar.  Obama has placed himself in the same box.  If he attended Rev. Wright's church for twenty years and didn't know about Wright's outrageous comments, he's too "out of touch" to be president, of course, if he knew, he's a liar.  This is the real issue that Obama should have addressed and didn't address in his speech about race.

Just as I am writing this, I'm watching CNN and listening to Oriana Huffington say, "the cover up is always worse than the crime."  Obama's speech was a masterful attempt at a cover-up; it was a smokescreen and it fooled a lot of supposedly intelligent people; but my feeling about Obama is that his life is an invented life.  He has worked out a very good story and for the first time we've seen a little bit of it unravel.  Everyone who has ever owned a sweater knows-anything that begins to unravel just keeps on unraveling.  He doesn't describe his mother beyond saying she was young and on welfare.  He doesn't tell us she went on to become a renowned anthropologist and was a U.S. Agency for International Development Consultant.  She joined Indonesia's oldest bank to work on what is described as the world's largest substantial micro-finance program.  He lets us feel that he was disadvantaged when, in fact, he attended Punahou Prep School in Hawaii, a most prestigious prep school. 

He talks a lot about Kansas but he was in Kansas for the first time in January.  He referred in his speech to his grandmother's "prejudices" saying she feared black men on the street.  Her fear of black men may have very well been based on experience, not prejudice.  He talked about this as a way to balance out Rev. Wright's remarks.  His grandmother's remarks were private remarks made to a grandson; they were not shouted from a pulpit for all the world to hear and they echo similar remarks by Jesse Jackson.  Still he didn't hesitate to throw his grandmother under the bus.  What a cad! 

Last of all, where is Ophra in all of this; she used to be a member of the church in question.  Why doesn't she STAND BY HER MAN?

But none of this has dampened the ardor of certain liberals.  Larry King has had Obama on his program twice, giving him millions of dollars worth of exposure.

Much has been made of Obama's oratorical skills.  Oratory can be used for good.  Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill saved civilization with the spoken word.  In our own time, Martin Luther King defined the hope of America in four words, "I have a dream."  But oratorical skills are not a virtue in themselves alone.  Stephen A. Douglas, one of the great orators of the nineteenth century was bested in the end by Abraham Lincoln, a man with a thin, high-pitched voice. 

Oratory can be used in many ways.  Great orators can be very persuasive.  The main danger with great oratory is that it can easily become demagogic.  The main tool in a demagogue's inventory is charm and charisma. They start with a little bit of truth, the little bit of truth that everyone hungers for and they turn it and twist it to their own ends.  They promise and wave the flag of hope and change.  Governor Deval Patrick when he was elected the first black governor in Massachusetts history.  He was a great orator, so great that Barack Obama has incorporated parts of his speeches into his own but a year after becoming governor he has been stymied by the legislature.  His early "dazzle," to quote the New York Times, has fizzled out.  Obama will be stymied by Congress.

It's hard to tell from newsreel footage that a powerful twentieth century demagogue was charming and charismatic.  People loved him.  All age groups loved him.  He promised them change, not only for themselves but the entire world.  He promised them salvation and a thousand-year Reich. 

When I look at the crowds around Barack Obama, when I look into their eyes and their expressions I do not see anything that has to do with practical politics.  After all, on the practical level we know what the Cklinton's can do; they have already done it.  We don't know what Obama can do.  There's no practical aspect to his following; rather, they see him as a Messiah and he feeds their hunger, feeds their hunger by calling them the "Obama Generation" on his website (what conceit).  With homiletics learned at Rev. Wright's knee he leads them on.  For example Rev. Wright says to his congregation, "He that endureth to the end," And the congregation responds, "shall be saved."  Rev. Wright: "Let's say that one more time, he that endureth to the end,"  Congregation: "shall be saved."  Obama says, "They say we won't win, but I say,"  Audience: "Yes, we can."  Obama: "Let's hear that again, they say we won't win, but I say,"  Audience: "Yes, we can." 

When the adoring crowds chant, "Yes, we can."  I see love in their eyes and passion but we're not electing a lover, we're electing a president.  If your boyfriend lets you down, it's not the end of the world but if your president lets you down it can be the end of the world.

There is a moral here:  Beware of saviors, put your trust in those who can get the job done.  As for Hillary and her Bosnian adventure, she is ether hallucinating, exaggerating or lying; let's go with lying.  So what, Hillary told a lie about a twenty-minute event and Obama lied about a twenty-year event.  Only a child or a liberal would confuse the two. 

Obama has lied before.  He said the Kennedys were behind his father's education-not true.  He said his father and mother met and fell in love during the March to Selma.  The problem here is that Obama was four years old at the time.   

The Pastor Wright thing is not going away because it's a clue, just like you have in a criminal trial.  It's a clue to Obama, it's the key to what is inside of Obama.  If you open him up will you find a savior or a demagogue.

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The Oprah-Obama Challenge

Barack Obama gave a good speech upon winning the Iowa Caucuses.  You might say it was a great speech, even though it was about a minute too long.  It should have ended after the prolonged applause toward the end.  Barack said all the right things, all the things America needs to hear.  His delivery was cadenced like unto thousands of preachers before him in a style that used to be known as homiletics. 

            Across town Hillary did her very best to contain humiliation but the real show was her husband's face as it broke into a thousand pieces.  Neither Hillary nor Bill knows that their lives are destined for operas and books and legends.

            Edwards tried to make lemonade from the lemons of defeat.  I believe in his message, and out of the darkness came Huckabee also saying the right things, hoping that people will forget his hypocrisy; and at last, Romney-so artificial and mechanical, so full of angst.

            All these things considered, it would seem to be Obama, Obama, Obama.

BUT WAIT

            As I write this I am sitting in my car beside the Cape Cod Canal and I ask myself, "Is this all about star quality, showmanship, emotional appeal?"  Barack wants to be president of the free world-all of it-the fifty states, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, not to mention Japan and large chunks of Africa.  I have left out India, China and Russia because these countries have a mind of their own, especially Russia where Vladimir Putin does not hesitate to dispatch his opponents.  The former KGB officer is undoubtedly looking forward to dealing with Barack.

            And that brings us to the route I took to get to the Canal this morning.  It is necessary to drive down Route 132.  Many multinationals are represented along the way from Coca Cola to Exxon.  The question that arises in my mind is, "Would any of these companies hire Barack to run them?"  I don't think so-because he clearly lacks the specific skills needed.  Have you noticed how his speeches are long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics?  That is, of course, appealing because it doesn't require you to think.  But when you really think about it-do we need a president who couldn't run Coca Cola?  Haven't we had enough of presidential amateurism?  Do we need a Rock Star in the oval office?

            Here and now, I want to challenge Oprah Winfrey to offer Obama a back-up contract to run her company in case of defeat.  He would be paid big bucks and could not be fired for four years.  You're his champion, Oprah, so put up or shut up.

            The pity in all of this is that Obama, when he first got the "bug" didn't have the character to admit that he wasn't up to it.  Yes, he can draw crowds.  Yes, he can promise.  Yes, he can persuade.  But are you ready to put your lives and the lives of your children in his hands?  The really sad part is that if he had not ego-tripped and become a "legend in his own mind" he, upon gaining experience, could become a great president; but if he fails now, the black community and many others, will once again be left holding the bag.

            As I write, I hear a sound coming off the Canal, or maybe from inside my head and it says, "Bloomberg!       Bloomberg!       Bloomberg!

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The Kingdom of Corn

If you drive west on I-70, you will come to Wheeling, West Virginia and the ancient suspension bridge across the Ohio.  This bridge on the "National" road is the oldest suspension bridge in America.  When you cross the bridge you enter into the "Kingdom of Corn".  Of course there are patches of corn up to this point, but once you are in Ohio the corn is endless; it stretches for hundreds of miles in every direction.

Going further west, Indiana is more of the same, Illinois is the corniest place of all; then you reach IOWA.  This former playground of the plain's Indians is a place different from the East Coast-very different.  Iowa is mainly agricultural.  The concerns of Iowans are farm subsidies, ethanol, pork bellies and football.  This is a state full of regular people leading regular lives.  Get the picture?  Well, it's not as bucolic as all that.  There's a meth-amphetamine epidemic and there's lots of sex-albeit well hidden in the honored tradition of American hypocrisy.  Country and Western music is popular out there and if Country and Western is about anything, it's about sex; it's about broken promises and broken hearts.  I mean, in Iowa, what else are you gonna do.

I was born just across the border in Illinois; I know the drill.  You spend Saturday nights driving up and down Main Street in a sort of automotive promenade-from the Dairy Queen on the west end of town to the Courthouse Square on the east end of town-hoping for a chance to peel off into the nearest cornfield and have your reward.

This is the world Messer's Obama, Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, McCain, Edwards and Ms. Hillary entered. 

Rounding up the usual suspects 

Let's consider Mitt Romney first.  People from Massachusetts know that Romney has turned himself inside out to run for President.  The guy who said, "Roe vs. Wade is settled law," has become a "Right to Lifer"; but beyond his chameleon act, his real problem is that he's hiding behind his tailored suits and his tailored haircut.  He looks right out of central casting and talks the same way.  This is not good in Iowa.  Mitt should loosen up and put on some overalls. 

As for Giuliani, he is too smart to waste his money on Iowa.  He knows that Iowa is just as important as the candidates make it.  After all, why should Iowa affect American politics?

Don't tell Obama that; he's brought in Oprah (the Queen of Trite) and spent lots of money in a state that is ambiguous about race.  I'll write more about Obama after I judge the Oprah effect.  So far she's opened up a can of worms by talking about the experience question-by bringing it up in a rally in South Carolina.

Then there's John McCain, a man once respected for his "straight talk" (a fact he constantly refers to).  John has been damaged by his own ambition (what were you doing at Jerry Falwell's University, John?)

Then we've got Fred Thompson (ssshhhhhhh, don't wake him up).

John Edwards, who I personally like, comes across like a used car salesman.  His ideas are good but his delivery is too full of teeth.

And of course Hillary is from Chicago, a place as far away from Iowa as the moon.

But there is a candidate who really clicks in Iowa; the guy I call "Huckleberry".  It's all about religion with him.  He would have a religious test for the presidency-something new in America-something very un-American, indeed.  Unless, of course, you are an "Evangelical" (also known as a Fundamentalist, someone "born again", a member of the Christian right). 

These people smiled as Huckleberry inferred that Romney, being Mormon, wasn't Christian enough.  From my point of view, these people aren't Christian enough either-not compared to Roman Catholics (who outnumber them) not compared to waspy Christians who outclass them nor to Orthodox Christians who have been around a lot longer.  Do you get my drift? 

I'm related to Evangelicals through my maternal grandfather's family.  The real problem is that these people are miss-named; they are, in fact, mostly members of an ethnic group.  They are, essentially, loosers.  They lost Scotland in the Act of Union in 1703.  They lost the Civil War in 1865 and they lost the presidency when Pat Robinson made an ass out of himself as a candidate.  They don't want to win souls to Jesus so much as they want to get even.  They claim to have a direct line to God as Huckleberry said recently-that his rising poll numbers were the result of Divine Intervention. 

Huckleberry better re-read the Third Commandment; I can read it in Hebrew and it says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain."

Or in Hebrew,  "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name."   

That means not to win a football game, not to win a basketball game not to win a political contest.  This crowd (Evangelicals) should back off; they are badly outnumbered in this country and the American people's patience is running out. 

Huckleberry's Christmas TV commercial blatantly sought to use religious leverage.  It openly displayed a cross and contained phrases to reinforce the cross' image.  Huckabee said the cross was an accidental intersection of a white bookcase.  He said this looking straight into the camera lens.  As a T.V. producer, I know that nothing in a commercial at this level is accidental.  Huckabee lied.  Haven't the American people been lied to enough?

If I may quote Pascal;

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

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The Portuguese Bakery

In the early eighties, I was playing at the Provincetown Inn on a show bill with Craig Russell, star of the movie Outrageous and Wayland Flowers, the Madame Puppeteer.  Some mornings I would jog along behind boxing champion, Marvin Hagler, who was training at the Inn.  Other days I would jog to the end of Commercial Street and back.  On one such morning as I came down Commercial Street, a short man turned the corner in front of me and we had a head-on collision.  I nearly knocked him down; it was Norman Mailer.

            "Imagine running into you like this," he said.

I had seen Norman many times on television and had witnessed his irascible  personality so I didn't know what to expect.  But he was quite friendly and we soon discovered we knew lots of people in common.  I had recently arrived on Cape Cod from L.A. where I worked for many years in the film industry.  Our conversation continued at the Portuguese Bakery, one of my favorite locations in Provincetown.  We spent some time eyeing the rows of pastry-Nata, Queijuda, Pasties de Coco and Malassadas; all of these wonderful edibles that later contributed to my diabetes.

Norman did most of the talking, much of what he said referred to concepts of religion and politics and human nature.  He was, I realized, more than anything-a teacher.  I tried to reconcile this with my earliest ideas of who he was.  As a boy I had seen The Naked and the Dead with Tab Hunter; and I had read several of Norman's works, my favorite being Fire on the Moon.  I loved the title but Norman didn't seem to think too much of the book; he said it got a lukewarm reception. 

I realized as I listened to him that he was a man of great enthusiasm.  His talkativeness was not egoism as some had suggested; it was simply enthusiasm.  I am guilty of the same sin and I often put people off because I "talk too much".

Norman and I were alike in this and in other ways too.  He was a Jew from Brooklyn and I was a Jew from a small farming town in southern Illinois.  If he was excited about something, and he was excited about everything, he had to talk about it, to tell you about it, to stroke your excitement also.  "You put people off," my wife often says to me and I could see how Norman could put some people off.  But he didn't put me off and he taught me a lot during the hour we were together.  One of the most important things he said was, "Don't talk about your books until they are finished and I knew what he meant all too well.  My early days in San Francisco were filled with coffeehouse chatter-all the writers, musicians and artists talking about what they were "gonna do" all the time.

This breakfast was the only time I ever spent with Norman, strangely enough.  He lived right down the road from Hyannis in the only brick house in Provincetown.  The house in itself was a testament to his individuality; it must have been a struggle to have it built-as a rule, New Englanders can't lay bricks.  But there it was on the left hand side of Commercial Street as you come into town, sitting impressively between the street and the sea.  There were a couple of times I felt like seeking his counsel relative to publishers and all the other bullshit that goes with being a writer but I never did and now I regret it. 

On a drive to New York I looked up his old neighborhood and found his new condominium near the bridge facing the Manhattan skyline; before its conversion it had been an old printing plant.  He was in residence, according to folks in the neighborhood, but I never got up the nerve to try and contact him.  Part of this is my upbringing.  I was taught to not impose and I'm a procrastinator first class.  I put things off, but thinking about it today as I write this I wonder why I didn't make more of an effort to avail myself of the knowledge and experience that Norman had to offer.

I have always benefited form great writers' advice.  Sitting in the 42^nd Street Automat, Isaac Bashevis Singer said to me in his Yiddish accent, "Remember, when you're the writer, you're the boss.  If you're writing about a bad man, just say, ‘he's a bad man,' don't get into lots of psycho-babble about it.  You're the boss and if you say he's a bad man, he's a bad man."

In my L.A. days, Will Durant and his wife, Ariel, taught me the importance of steady writing.  "There's no such thing as writer's block," Ariel said, "The world is full of things to write about and some of them are bound to relate to your project."

This couple, who spent their lives writing together, knew what they were doing.  Their masterpiece, The Story of Civilization, is the most comprehensive historical text ever written.

And of course there were all those nights in the early 60's spent in the Golden Ass Café, my coffeehouse in San Pedro, California.  Hunter Thompson and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were part of that scene and they had plenty to say. 

The last time I saw Norman was in front of the Portuguese Bakery.  "How have you been?" he said extending his hand as if we had talked recently rather than twenty years before.

Last weekend I went looking for his gravesite at the Provincetown Cemetery.  I was told by a Provincetown cabbie that Norman had been cremated.  He had taken a ride in the cab just days before his death.  "How did he act?" I asked.

"Well, he was just the same old Norman."

A few nights after Norman died I watched Charlie Rose who dedicated his entire program to clips of him interviewing Norman.  One clip from an interview right before the Iraq War Norman warned of the consequences of invading Iraq and laid out the reasons for his warning.  Everything he predicted came true.  I noticed that Charlie listened to him with a bemused expression on his face.  I don't think he knew that he was listening to a prophet.

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WATCHING NINEVA BURN

WATCHING NINEVA BURN

            In September, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur took place.  It is called the Day of Atonement in English.  It is a time of asking for and granting forgiveness.  On the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the Biblical text is the story of Jonah (as in Jonah and the Whale). 

            Why the Book of Jonah?  The Lord tells Jonah to go to the City of Nineveh and warn its people that if they do not stop their evil ways the Lord will destroy the City by fire.  But Jonah does not do what the Lord commands him; instead he goes to the Port of Yenbo and hires himself out as a merchant seaman.  As soon as the vessel puts out to sea, a great storm comes up and the crew is frightened and prays unto the Lord for protection; but Jonah does not join them, he is down in the hold sound asleep on a hammock.  The crew realizes that they are being punished for Jonah's sin and they toss him overboard. 

At this point we have a man in the sea who is guilty of disobedience to God and a lack of responsibility to his fellow men.  Along comes a great shark, probably a basking shark, and it swallows Jonah.  I know, I know, the popular version refers to a whale but in the Hebrew version Jonah is swallowed by dag gadol (a big fish).

            Inside dag gadol, Jonah prays one of the Bible's most beautiful prayers of repentance and he is promptly coughed up on shore.  Having learned his lesson he goes to Nineveh and warns the Ninevites and to his amazement they promptly change their ways.  The King of Nineveh even removes his royal garments and covers himself with sackcloth and ashes whereupon Jonah decamps to the edge of town and rests under a shady vine that the Lord provideth; but he is not happy and he says to the Lord, "I want to die."  When asked "Why?" he replies, " I have been hoping to watch Nineveh burn." Or words to that effect.

            Isn't that so much like human nature?  Even when the evildoers repent we still want to see them punished, we want to see them punished for our own satisfaction.  There is no justice in this.  Many young men in our own community are serving long sentences in prison for selling small quantities of marijuana.  This is not about rehabilitation or education, this is not about helping the community, this is about revenge and the pleasure we take from it. 

I, myself, am guilty of wanting to watch Nineveh burn.  With me, it's the Germans.  How can hatred be more complete than that which I have felt for the Germans, for the war and the suffering they caused and for what they did to my people; in this, I am like Jonah. 

Modern Germans, as a people, have repented and changed their ways-only a few remain from the Nazi era.  And I know from my own conversations with Germans that the burden of guilt they carry is a heavy burden; but still I want to see Nineveh (Germany) burn.  And yet during the last Yom Kippur I realized that, unlike Jonah, I had to let my hatred go.  My hatred wasn't killing Germans, my hatred was killing me. 

The reason for this change of heart is largely due to a handful of German movies I have seen in the last few years. They are: Nowhere in Africa, Schultze Gets the Blues, Gloomy Sunday and last and most importantly Other People's Lives-a brilliant movie of great depth.  These films are free of the self-consciousness of post-war films; they are full of gutenKameradschaft.  They remind me in so many ways of the great German films made prior to Hitler and the exodus of German filmmakers to Hollywood-Billy Wilder, Erich Von Stroheim, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, Thomas Mann and many others.

            You know there was once a place in Germany called Weimar where Goethe and Schiller wrote great works of humanitarian literature; Beethoven was around in those days writing symphonies that embraced us all.  There's a great lesson in this, it is easy to forget the good and dwell on the bad.  It is possible for a great nation with great gifts to mankind to be ruined by an arrogant, deceitful, lying malevolent government.  But as for me and the Germans, I believe it is time for forgiveness and reconciliation; I no longer need to WATCH NINEVEH BURN.

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Coulter by the commode

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ann Coulter is all over the boob tube again, this time for anti-Semitic remarks, or as this report puts it, "Bigot Ann Coulter rips Jews again" - Loudmouthed Republican author/bigot/clown Ann Coulter appeared on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night and attacked Jews saying they needed to 'perfect' themselves. Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they needed to "perfect" themselves into - Christians ..." The Editor & Publisher report is here.  Here's David Rojay's  report on Ms. Coulter, which we ran earlier this year.
Up close & personal with Coulter in my brother's bathroom   

I penned those lyrics after getting a speeding ticket in Manalapan for doing three to five miles an hour above the limit. It was all so ridiculous I thought, it deserved a song. But my half brother, Derrick, was not amused.

"You exceed the speed limit, you get a ticket," he said.

Derrick is a Republican; and being a Republican is what this story is all about. Derrick's dad, my stepfather-one Glenn Reeves, was a Republican in spades. He was so much a Republican that at a reception in Charleston, West Virginia he refused to shake Governor Jay Rockefeller's hand.

He came by all this honestly out of a solidly Republican family and a solidly Republican place-southern Illinois. In his favor, it can be said, he was an extremely hard-working oilman with more than his share of native smarts. He had no patience for slackers, the lazy, the unemployed or for that matter, liberals, poets, writers and musicians. The last four categories describe me. But in his later years we did become friends. I came to realize that his millions did not protect him from envy and jealousy and it was me who he was envious and jealous of. I had a beautiful wife and an audience of loyal fans. Night after night, in his later years, he sat in nightclubs where I sang listening and watching.

Sometimes in after-hour breakfasts he would say to me, "You can get all the cock you want can't you."

In southern Illinois "cock" is a feminine term and it can be translated as another word for "cat".

Ironically, I wasn't looking for girls all the time the way my stepfather did but my mother was a Southern Baptist church lady so Glenn was always on the prowl. Perhaps because he envied me he was very generous, buying me new Cadillacs and on another occasion a Lincoln Town Car. There were checks from a family trust and when he passed away in 2001 he left me a considerable sum. So in spite of our war-like relationship when I was younger, I have no hard feelings for my stepfather now. On the contrary I rather miss him.

It was during a conversation about him in February of 2005 that my brother, Derrick, suggested that I write a book about his life and call it GLENN REEVES, A RED STATE HERO.

Of course Glenn's life was more complex than that. His principal business partner during the many years in which he got very rich, was an art dealer from New York City named Louis Thaler*.  Louis was as blue state as Glenn was red state. A man of many interests, a combat photographer in World War II, an orientalist who imported art from China and Japan, and most of all an astute investor who funnelled money from European mutual funds into the oil business. The relationship of the two men was complex and ambiguous. Glenn Reeves was not above making an anti-Semitic remark while Louis Thaler was in every way a Jew.

And so I set about writing; and the more I wrote, mostly in the late evening after my working day was through, the more I realized the complexity of the subject matter. When I talked to Derrick about this he said, "Forget about Louis, this book should be about dad and it should be about how in the end an honest, hard-working man got screwed by the corporations." Derrick's take on things was simplistic.

When Louis died of cancer in the 1990's, Glenn lost his mentor and his protector in the corporation they had put together; and as a consequence he was ousted in a hostile takeover. I interviewed several people about these events and then I set down my imagined scenario. This was months before I drove from my home on Cape Cod to my brother's home in Boca Raton with a three hundred-page manuscript.

How I ended up peeing all over Ann Coulter's face 

The first thing I did upon arriving at my brother's stucco mansion was to use the guest bathroom near the entranceway. It was there that I noticed a shelf beside the commode and on that shelf a book by Ann Coulter with her horse face staring from the cover. I was in no mood for nutso ravings so I let it lay.

Now I must tell you that I am not a Republican because my natural father was the opposite of Glenn Reeves. He was a man about town in his youth, a natty dresser and a fan of Frank Sinatra who put down Glenn's taste for country music. In his latter years he became a car dealer and managed to squirrel away enough money to retire in Orlando at age fifty-seven where he died thirty-six years later. He was also father to my brother, Jamie, who became a union lawyer and a lobbyist in Washington. To the degree that Derrick was a Hide-Bound Republican my brother was a Democratic crusader. Indeed, the very night that I used the commode with Ann Coulter they had a terrific argument around the dinner table about politics. Living on Cape Cod as I did and seldom getting to Florida I didn't see either brother often and frankly I didn't know them that well so the ferocity of their remarks sort of shocked me. They argued the entire evening, Jamie calling Bush an idiot and Derrick waving the flag and referring to "my president." They even argued about the Bruins hockey strike. Derrick's main point was 'the team let down the fans for a few miserable dollars' while Jamie's pointed out that 'the team members had only a few years to make enough money to live on an entire life.' They couldn't agree upon anything. In the end, it got very personal with Jamie remarking that he had worked hard all his life and put himself through college while Derrick had inherited 'daddy's money and daddy's oil wells.'

"You could have had the same thing," Derrick replied, "if you had been willing to work out in the cold for thirty-six hours at a time."

Of course I knew that Derrick had done precious little work in the cold and never for thirty-six hours. In reality, he was the spoiled son who had earned his fortune the old fashioned way by 'inheriting it' while Jamie had struggled his entire life in order to end up with a pension of $71,000 a year (not Bad). But ironically, Derrick was the more likable of the two-funny and easy-going he had never worried about much while Jamie was combative and bitter. It was to this audience that I read an excerpt from GLENN REEVES, A RED STATE HERO.

"You know, Glenn, when I was a boy back in Dallas my mother used to shop at Nieman Marcus. She said that doing so drew a line, a line that existed between our family and our relatives in Lubbock that were a bunch of down at the heels Texas Dutch. A lot of Germans in Texas; did you know that Glenn? Some of those little towns have Bavarian Festivals and Alpine Festivals that have yodelling contests. There's a lot of accordions and a lot of beer, lots of beer; but as my mother said, we were on the other side of the line. That's what my daddy told me when he took me to my first tennis lesson. You know, Glenn, tennis is a real divider. If you have never been on a tennis court and you don't know how to play you got to realize right away that you're in strange territory. Now I hear that you have taken up golf and that's a move in the right direction but I can know from what I see that you're not gonna be playing tennis, Glenn. And tennis in this case is a metaphor, a metaphor for Allegheny Western because from this desk upwards, Allegheny Western is a game that you don't know how to play and that's got you pissed off."

Cashman waited for Glenn to speak but Glenn said nothing. He sat like a stone. "The sad thing, Glenn, is that you thought you knew how to play. You're one of those flagpole Republicans that believe in Jesus and the American way and mom and apple pie and all of that emotional bullshit that Republicans like me feed to people like you to keep you quiet and docile; but Glenn, I'm a Republican and the Goodwyns are Republicans in the manner of the Vanderbilt's, Carnegies and the Morgan's and the Gould's and yes, the Rockefeller's. Every one of the Rockefellers-except our governor-are Republicans. Those kind of Republicans, Glenn, have a different set of appetites. Sex to them is power and power is sex. They love to fuck just like you do, Glenn, but they love to fuck in a different way, buddy. They love to fuck the way they fucked you. You don't think they get their jollies with women do you. Women are lined up a mile deep for these guys; they get their jollies power fucking. The bigger and stronger, the better because every big strong man they bring down makes them feel stronger and more superior. You get hurt playing with those guys. Their fortunes are built on hurt; but in all fairness it's got to be said that most flagpolers never get far enough up the ladder to run into these guys. They never get far enough up the ladder to get their heads cracked and that's what I mean when I say you don't understand the game. Because the way the game works is-you're supposed to climb up the ladder and crack their heads. That's what every one of them did at some point in their lives. Guys like you think that if you work hard and you're loyal and true and salute the flag there's a reward at the end. If you buy the whole line, hook and sinker you'll actually believe you're gonna go to heaven. Glenn, there's no heaven and there's no hell. There's just head crackin'. That's the way it's always been."

At the end of the reading, Jamie grinned ear to ear but Derrick looked down at the table with a sullen expression, then he pushed his chair back, stood up and walked into the living room. I could see him crossing back and forth in front of the huge fireplace, the one that was never lit. He disappeared out of view and when he came back he was charging into the dining room.

"You can't write that," he shouted, "that's wrong, wrong, wrong."

As he sat again he seemed to calm down and he looked across the table at me and said, "What's this thing with Republicans? The Democrats run companies too. What you've written isn't fair."

"Whoa," I said, "you wanted me to write about what happened to your dad and something just like that happened to your dad."

"But you don't have to drag Republicans into it," Derrick countered.

For a change Jamie had nothing to say. I looked over at him then looked back at Derrick and said, "Derrick, the guys that did you dad in, the very guys that did him in were Republicans to the last man."

After I said that there was a long silence all around and Derrick slowly got up without saying a word and walked to his bedroom.

Lying awake I wondered where all the crazy Republicans had come from. My brother, Jamie, had tried to explain it as we took a walk before bedtime. "They're all Dixiecrats," he said, "they used to be southern Democrats until Nixon worked out his southern strategy. It was a good example of Real Polotik, a' la Henry Kissinger. It's a simple equation-divide the country along racial and ethnic lines and you have more whites than anyone else and of course Reagan took it a step further-started his campaign in Meridian, Mississippi where Cheney and Goodman and Schwerner were murdered. Reagan used his communication skills to disguise what he was really doing.

I interjected to say, "We also have that schmuck, Jimmy Carter, to thank for putting Reagan in the White House."

"I know it," said Jamie," the same thing is true of Clinton who wanted a BJ so bad that he ended up undercutting Al Gore and opening the door to George Bush."

I had mixed feelings about Bill Clinton. I liked him and I rooted for him during the impeachment proceedings but he was a royal asshole-so incredibly selfish that he never thought about his wife or daughter or more importantly, the American people.

"It's all a cultural thing," said Jamie, "these southern Scots-Irish are still fighting a thousand year old war with the Anglo Saxons, the people up north. The Baptists prove it with all their religious war metaphors, constantly using words like 'crusade, victory' and 'onward Christian soldiers' and all the rest of that."

"Yeah," I said, "James Webb, who got elected to the senate from Virginia, wrote a book about them called BORN FIGHTING. The things of Jesus are not what they're about, fighting is what they're about. They can't stop themselves, they can't help it. Rev. Doright, a character on my TV show, had a skit after Communism collapsed. He called out in a mighty voice, 'Dear Lord, we're lost, help us, help us, Lord, send us someone to hate.'"

Jamie laughed and said, "Yeah, hatred is their stock in trade. You never hear that fat glutton Falwell saying anything positive. Every time he opens his mouth his mouth is filled with hatred.'

We walked along in silence after that and finally Jamie said, "Did you see that Ann Coulter book by the commode. Now there's a woman that takes the pulse of American idiots and cashes in." He hastened to add, "She's not an idiot, she just does an excellent imitation of an idiot."

I was remembering all of this as I tried to go to sleep. Easing down into slumber I remembered real Republicans like my grandparents on my mother's side, people whose families had been Republican since the time of Lincoln, people who stood for something, people who spoke in temperate tones, dignified, civilized, cultured tones. What had happened to them, where were they hiding? I could not answer the question before sleep took me.

The next morning I wanted to get underway before harsh words were spoken so I passed on the breakfast from McDonalds that Lauren had laid out; but as I stood in the bathroom taking a long piss, my sister-in-law unexpectedly opened the door and in a reflex motion I turned to the right and caught Ann Coulter right between the eyes. Of course, I wiped the book off and placed Coulter back where she belonged-by the commode.

*Some names have been changed.  Copyright 2007

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ONCE AGAIN

ONCE AGAIN

Summer's nearly over and I haven't done the things I promised myself I would do; this happens every year.  I had promised myself that I would go to the beach every day, get a great tan and work on my writing while I was there.  I even got my old Town Car tuned up and ready for beach duty; but alas, by the twentieth of August I had not gone to the beach once.  Oh, I did park by the beach on occasion, mainly for the scenery, but I drove my Pontiac because the air-conditioning is so much better.  The diet of fruits and collatas never seemed to materialize either. 

On the negative side, I injured my big toe and was unable to jog so my exercise plan was reduced to riding a bike on the canal.  The first day after I bought the bike I managed to fall off; I hadn't ridden a bike in at least twenty-five years.  I finally realized that mankind is divided into two groups-a group of bronzed idlers lying on the sand and my group who never turn off their addiction to work.

 Of the many things that had to be done this summer, the main one was helping my son, Daniel, to relocate to the West Coast where he'll attend film school.  We had to complete the last DAN AND DAD SHOW on Channel 17; this Farewell Special took a big chunk out of July.  Everything seemed perfectly normal about his leaving until he stood on the train platform in Boston, his guitar slung across his back.  For just a moment he became one still frame of American gothic and when he turned and boarded, it became real to us, his mother and I.  Karen's eyes ran with tears while she made a dissonant little laugh.  As for me, all I could feel was a great sucking emptiness in my chest. 

Things will be different for Daniel now.  No one will walk up to him on Main Street and ask for his autograph; he will be alone.  I have been alone in Tokyo and London and New York and L.A. and I know what it will be like for him.

But strangely enough, in the two weeks since he left, the house has been very peaceful.  There will be no more guitar music in the evening and Daniel will not stand in the study moving like a mime with earphones on.  I realized the other day that I had not lived in a house without children for forty-eight years.  My daughter, Rachel, is forty-eight years old.

Now I will have the part of my wife back that she gave so generously to Daniel.  We went to Nantasket Beach in Hull on Sunday, we were alone, we walked and held hands without talking.  Daniel was not in the back seat on the way home expounding on French films and his opinion of the Swedish director, Bergman.  Two weeks previously there had been an article in the editorial section of the New York Times asking if Bergman had deserved his fame.  Daniel talked about this for hours but as we drove back through Plymouth on Sunday there was only silence in the back of the car.  Then the reality set in-who would wash the cars, carry out the garbage and cheer me up when I was down?  Daniel didn't take his cat with him and now this large Persian animal roams the house looking for him, crying out with multifitous "meows". 

Am I going on about this too much?  I have had five children; one of them, Abraham, died at age twenty-six.  That was really hard, but because Daniel is the child of my old age this has been hard too............now I will let go of it. 

There is a future; we lived some of it out last week when we went to the closing sale of the Sandwich Used Book Store, the one next to Dan's Delicatessen.  We bought fifty books, books that I had watched for years on the rare bookshelf and on the shelves that held the Classics.

Toward the end of the month we are going out to Illinois as part of a little jazz tour that I booked last year.  One of our side trips will be in the vicinity of St. Louis; it will be like an oasis in my life. Illinois will be different from the Cape-hot days with no wind, huge skies covering oceans of corn. 

I will spend some time with the Dickeys, my Midwestern cousins.  The patriarch of the clan, David Dickey, is the regional poet.  His first cousin was James Dickey, the author of DELIVERANCE and many other fine novels and works of poetry.  David's sister, Alice, is a poet also and his nephew, Fred Dickey, is a well-known author and poet living in southern California.  The few days we will spend together will be delightful; being around people who still read books and recite poetry.  In anticipation of our time together I have written a little poem.

Lemonade by the lake

A lazy summer's noon

Poetry read aloud

Beside the green lagoon

Alice at the piano

Playing Traumerei

The music is so beautiful

It can almost make you cry

"The ear can kill the human heart

As surely as a spear"

That's what Emily said

And Emily is near------Or so it seems

As the hours pass slowly by

In Midwestern Summer's Dreams

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CARMEN'S BACK IN TOWN!

Carmen's back on the Cape.  When she was here last, she was a little timid and insecure and just a bit threadbare.  But the years have changed Carmen into a splendid, glorious, magnificent creature befitting a queen of the opera.  She brings with her an entourage of singers, the Cape Cod Opera Chorus-once a small ensemble, but now a troupe that recently appeared on the Esplanade in Boston with a full symphony orchestra.  Yes, the Cape Cod Opera Company will once again present Bizet's Carmen, one of the all-time favorites in the repertoire. 

Jodi Karem who previously appeared with Cape Cod Opera singing Santuzza's role in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana to critical praise and standing ovations will inhabit the role of Carmen.  Since its premiere at the Ope¢ra-Comique, de Paris in 1875, the tragedy of Carmen has won great success; but this was not always so.  The working class setting and the violence of the opera offended the traditional opera audiences of the time; but the music of this opera, especially Carmen's singing of the sultry Habanera, overcomes all.  If there is any doubt about the greatness of the score, the Toreador's Song settles it.  The entire experience is mesmerizing.  The question is, "How can the Cape Cod Opera Company, which started out not long ago in a living room in Monomoy, pull a production like this off?" 

Let us go back to the year 1932 and we see Jordan Popkin at the age of five sitting in front of his Aunt Gertrude's radio speaker listening to the legendary soprano, Lily Pons. "It was a little bit compulsory."  He said over lunch at Gold's Delicatessen.

"Yes, like chopped liver on rye," I said as Jordan took another bite, his eyes sparkling.

"You know, I've always been interested in classical music.  There are many fond memories.  In 1957 I stood on line at the Manchester Opera House in Edinburgh, Scotland for two hours to buy a ticket to see Maria Callas only to find out, once I was in the theatre, that she had cancelled."

While Jordan took another bite I asked, "Can you cut to the chase and tell me how the Cape Cod Opera Company came about?"

"Well, it started," said Jordan, "when I was President of Friends of the Monomoy Theater.  One of our members, Sheila Westgate, had been to Sarasota, Florida where-as you know-they have an active opera season.  She spoke of a Tenor and a Baritone who did a wonderful program and said we could have them up for a performance for only twenty-five hundred dollars."

"Only twenty-five hundred?" I said.

Jordan's face registered surprise at this as I asked, "Did you manage to raise the money?"

"Yes, we did especially after Sheila put up six hundred dollars; and you might say ‘the rest is history'.  We began to give opera concerts without much acting or direction-one of which was our first presentation of Carmen-and these evolved into the productions you've seen over the past several years."

In my case, the first production I saw was La Traviata in the Brewster High School auditorium.  As a musician I was especially impressed by the orchestra, a small ensemble of nine strings, a piano, a bassoon and a flute.  When Dr. Thomas Vasil, formerly of the UCONN Music Department began to conduct the overture I was amazed at the fullness of sound-largely due to excellent intonation.  The cast was equally impressive and I left at the end of the evening quite surprised that Cape Cod had such a professional company. 

The following year Madama Butterfly was presented and the year after that my son Daniel and I joined the Opera Company to sing in a production of Die Fledermaus.  This event highlighted the coming of age of many talents the opera company had nurtured including Patrice Tiedemann, Cynthia Plumb, Jena Eison and Martha Evans who came out of the chorus to bring the house down as Prince Orlofsky.

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 Throughout this time of growth the guiding light has been the president of the Cape Cod Opera Company, Ruthann Hellfach, a former music teacher and student of opera.  Ruthann spends her winters in Florida during the Sarasota Opera season.  When the Cape Cod Opera Company is in rehearsal, Ruthann can be found on the front row watching every movement and gesture; analysing every note of music.  She is an astute critic and has been known to stop a rehearsal in its tracks for the sake of corrections. 

Encouraged by her husband, Kurt, the two of them are a force in the Cape's cultural life, supporting not only opera, but theatre and the fine arts. 

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 Once the stage is set and we have our cast of characters, how will they move and gesture and tell the story of Carmen? This is where the genius of David McCarty comes in.  An opera is the most complicated assortment of talents.  It is a combination of visual arts, stage craft, writing, composing, performing vocally and instrumentally.  No other art form is so complex; but David McCarty coordinates it all with the deftness of the dancer that he is.
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 So the table is set, come to the opera and feast upon the magic of Jodi Karem and her supporting cast. 

Friday, August 10, 2007 at 8:00 pm

Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 3:00 pm

www.capecodopera.org for more information

Tilden Arts Center Cape Cod Community College, Route 132, West Barnstable

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