Television – Page 10 – Don't Gel Too Soon

THE PLACE TO BE: ROGER MUDD’S NEW BOOK AND SO MANY MEMORIES

In 1968, when I was working in the McCarthy Campaign against the Vietnam War, one of the producers traveling with the campaign asked me to come work with her at the CBS News Washington Bureau when the campaign ended. I was thrilled. I had, however, no idea how thrilled I really should be. Imagine a 21-year-old, just out of college and the trauma of the riots in Chicago and McCarthy’s loss of the Democratic nomination (yes, we knew it would happen, but not in our hearts), walking through the door of 2020 M St. NW – the august CBS News Washington Bureau — (Walter Cronkite‘s Washington Bureau!) because I had a job there.

Working there when I showed up: Bruce Morton, Bob Schieffer, George Herman, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb and his brother Bernie... and my mentor and friend Roger Mudd. They were, really, giants (yes, I know they were all men. Marya McLaughlin died a long time ago; Leslie Stahl arrived a couple of years later). CBS News ruled the Hill and the White House and everywhere else inside the beltway. And we did it with enormous scruples; I was trained to be a journalist by these guys, as well as Bureau Chief Bill Small and Face the Nation Producer Sylvia Westerman. And have been grateful the rest of my life for the privilege.

Roger wrote a book about those years — it’s called The Place to Be because, really, that’s what the bureau was in those days. And last night, on publication day, there was a party. It was better than a class reunion. Everyone from the teen-aged desk assistant (now I think in his 40s) to the Washington director to the octogenarian make-up lady, to those guys we’ve all heard of, were there. All having a blast remembering those remarkable years.

I’ve been out of the daily news business for some time, and in a way the party reminded me why. The classy, funny, unpretentious, smart, great people who taught me how to listen and pay attention, ask questions and check my sources, feed the crew first and never leave a person without getting their phone number… I hate to sound like an old fogey but there really aren’t so many like that any more. For me, Roger is the dean of all of them, not only because I know him best but also because of his deep sense of honor and love of history, humor, curiosity and devotion to his family, and his unfailing kindness and generosity to me. It was wonderful to hear everyone so happy and proud for him, glad he’d finally written down some of the historic understanding and institutional memory we all treasure.

I suppose it’s the same when anyone we love finds special success – a promotion, a graduation, a painting or a no-hitter, for that matter. But because of what’s become of the news business, because it’s now so much more business than news, because of the great joy and pride we felt and how hard we worked to earn the right to feel it, I felt a special warmth and longing last night: grateful for the opportunity I had to share what is universally regarded as a golden moment in journalism – those years in the Washington Bureau — and so very sorry that it’s so hard to find that gold – any gold — anymore.

FIVE YEARS IN IRAQ – A BIRTHDAY – AND MEMORIES OF VIETNAM

The amazing Queen of Spain, Erin Kotckei Vest, wrote yesterday about her son’s 5th birthday and the war in Iraq, realizing that our country has been at war for his entire life. It’s a moving and troubling meditation on the length and malignancy of this war. Take a look.

It was strange to read — someplace between echo and deja vu. My older son was born the night Cambodia fell; I went back to work at CBS News the night Saigon fell (foreign desk – overnight) and his younger brother was born 2 days after the Iran hostages were taken. We always knew how many days old he was because Walter Cronkite ended every newscast with "that’s the way it is, the xyz day American hostages have been held in Iran."

I remember nursing Josh during the horrible last days of the Vietnam war, when they were trying to get orphans out of the country. One evening at the very beginning of the effort, 78 kids died when their plane crashed. To this day I remember sitting in a chair, feeding this weeks-old child, watching the broken bodies of some else’s children flung around the crash site, and just dissolving.

I don’t know if it helps or hurts that this is not the first time; although in so many ways it is the worst. As horrible as the country was during Vietnam, we had our collective rage. As this picture shows, we also had the innocence that placed carnations
in the barrels of National Guard guns as they kept us at bay. And we had each other; the opposition to the war, while fractious and divided, essentially understood its unity and its shared issues. Because we’d had teach-ins and gone home and argued with our parents and had to face down counter-demonstrators at marches we had become somewhat tribal – which was bad in some ways but held us together.

The current administration, in my mind, has made it so much more painful to try to bring change; the worst part being that they should have learned enough from Vietnam not to do it this way!!! Not original but as I read Erin’s heartfelt post, about her son and about all those in her family serving or having served in Iraq I got angry all over again. Last time it was arrogance on the part of people like Robert McNamara, but they did not have a Vietnam to look back on and strive to avoid. They had the model of World War II, the post-war failures that led to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe for so long, the Marshall Plan and all the other "good wars" and American generosity that informed the very bad decisions they made. These guys today have had all Vietnam to instruct them and still did this to us.

That’s why this election is so important. If we had had decent leadership five years ago we might be funding decent learning disabilities programs and well-baby clinics and alternative energy research and, if necessary, wars we DO need to fight instead of burdened by a debt that could very well still be with us when Erin’s birthday boy is in college.

IS JOHN STEWART A POLITICAL KING (QUEEN) MAKER? DOES COMEDY RULE? SHOULD IT?

I used to run a television newscast for teenagers. It was tough to get them to pay much attention to the news, so one of the features I experimented with was "If you don’t know the news, you can’t get the jokes." Dennis Miller was doing Saturday Night Update then, and sadly, wouldn’t talk to us, so the idea failed. It wasn’t that original anyway; humor has always been part of American politics. But I wanted the kids to care more about it – and I thought that connecting news and cool comedy would help. I’m pretty sure I was right; political comedy is certainly a factor this year’s campaign. If you’re my age, you’re probably sitting there thinking "Hasn’t this woman ever heard of Mort Sahl? Yup. He’s just turned 80 and his political humor is as sharp as ever. But he didn’t have a daily "Daily Show" as a podium. Look at this:

I started thinking about this because this headline just appeared in the Media Bistro LA edition – which linked to this piece in the Washington Post. Comedy, at least this year, is an important factor in the campaign. Of course, Bill Clinton rebounded from one of his many backslides in 1992 with a saxophone-playing appearance on standup comedian and talk show host Arsenio Hall’s show. This clip, in fact, appeared on Channel One, the show I used to run!

That was the second time Clinton used nightly talk as a life preserver. After this disastrous keynote convention speech in 1988

Clinton went on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and did the same thing. Not quite comedy but definitely popular culture. Carson had a unique impact, too. A wise Republican political consultant told me he could tell the mood of the country by listening to which jokes audiences responded to on The Tonight Show. So this year, despite all the fuss about Comedy Central, is not the first time that the worlds of entertainment and comedy have had more than a small role in choosing our leaders. And those are just in the past few elections. (OH, and don’t forget JibJab. )

We aren’t alone, of course. The 18th Century British cartoonist William Hogarth, is still taught in political propaganda classes. This one, The Times, is an example.

The difference today may be the ubiquitousness of any information that emerges; it’s not just in some elitist newspaper, it’s all over the place. It may also be the diminished influence of what used to be our respected news media. Young people (and others) turn to comedy not just because it’s arch, and fun, but because it’s less pretentious and heavy-handed, and treats audience members as co-conspirators rather than as a single passive body.

I worry that the deflation of our leaders that comes from the Comedy Central syndrome is as scary as it is useful. Americans like to believe; that’s part of the appeal of both Obama and McCain, I think. And it’s possible to believe without mindless acceptance. But if all, or most of one’s information emerges from the acerbic minds of comedy writers, does it undermine any capacity to follow a leader in what are truly perilous times?

Franklin Roosevelt, through his Fireside Chats and other communications with Americans, was able to bring the country along as war drew closer. Doris Kearns Goodwin, in NO ORDINARY TIME*, one of my favorite books, tells the story of one chat in particular. FDR asked Americans, in advance, to get a
map of the world and follow along as he described the current state of the war. Maps sold
out. And the Americans who had bought them sat there by the radio and followed as Roosevelt spoke. You don’t need comedy to inspire confidence when you have that kind of respect for your audience. I guess you could say that FDR was a kind of rock star who had built such a relationship with Americans during the Depression that he was in a different situation, but still, it’s a provocative example to place against 5 minute guest spots with Stewart or Colbert.

This has been long and a bit rambling because I’m trying to think it all out here – and I still don’t have an answer. I do think it’s going to be interesting to see how long this trend lasts — at least in this incarnation.

*go to the link and search inside under Fireside Chat and map and you will find the story (pg. 319)

PETE SEEGER, JOE HILL, MUSIC, VALUES , PAST AND FUTURE

I once had the opportunity to interview BB King. In preparation, I brought his latest album home and played it for my sons. The older, then around 5, asked me "Why is this man named King mommy. Pete Seeger is the king of music, right?*" Well, how do you answer that? Our boys grew up on the Weavers, the Almanac Singers, Pete and Arlo at Carnegie Hall… all rich with wonderful songs (with pretty wonderful values) for children. I asked my husband, no folkie, why he didn’t complain about the "noise" – and in fact joined us every Thanksgiving at Carnegie Hall to hear Pete and later Pete and Arlo. He said (I’m paraphrasing here) "It’s offering them something whole to believe in. Even if they don’t always believe it – they’ll understand the feeling of believing – and always seek it." As far as I can tell, that worked.

Rerack a few years though — to the Vietnam war, when songs like this informed some of my earliest political ideas.

In fact, Pete has been a hero of mine for more than 40 years (How is that possible?) As I sit watching the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary on his life, I can’t stop thinking about all the hope, idealism and dreams tied up in his music – at least in my life — and, for a time, the lives of my sons. Seeger always has believed that music has infinite power; his own music made us believe that we could bring about the world we dreamed of. I’m embarassed by how much I long for those feelings; it’s probably one reason Barack Obama and his young supporters interest me so much – they remind me of…. ME. Pretty feeble, isn’t it? To still be whining about long-lost days and dreams. Most of all, to feel such rage and sadness at what we weren’t able to do for our children; we leave them a world, in many ways, so much tougher than the one we inherited.

Pete, though, would hate such talk. I once met him, around the time that there were civil rights battles raging in the old Chicago Back of the Yards neighborhoods that Saul Alinsky helped to organize. I asked him if it didn’t bother him that the residents there revealed attitudes so contrary to what had been fought for — for them — just a generation ago. His response "No. When people are empowered they have the right to want what they want. If we believe in empowerment we have to accept that too." NOT a usual man, Mr. Seeger.

The music was more than a transmission of values though — from "A Hole in My Bucket" to Union Maid. It was our family soundtrack. One of my kids was watching WOODSTOCK while he was in college, and was astonished to hear Joan Baez singing Joe Hill – and to recognize it from when he was little (this is a bad YOUTUBE version; the proportions are off, but just listen..

In our house, that old labor song had been a lullaby. I’d learned it from Pete’s concerts. Recently, so many years from those lullabies, another family favorite presented us with a great, rolicking tribute to this remarkable man. I wanted to end with a more of this (way too) sentimental tribute to Pete, but the joy of watching another generation up out of their seats in song is probably a better way to end. Right?

*He went on to become an enormous BB King (and Albert, for that matter) fan, for the record.

BITCH IS THE NEW BLACK – WHAT DO WE THINK?

This is old now and all over the interweb PLUS all the feminist listservs that reach my mailbox. What’s the verdict? Funny? Post-Feminist? JUST funny? Too true to BE funny? Too funny to be true? Other? Check one (or more…)

HOW WE LOOK TO THE ARAB WORLD: CONTROL ROOM AND AL JAZEERA

OK so I’m three years late. Thursday morning I watched CONTROL ROOM, the 2004 documentary about the Al Jazeera news network. Only it’s not really about Al Jazeera, it’s about perceptions of the United States. About the early days of the Iraq war and how they looked through the eyes of the most watched network in the Arab world. And it’s pretty disturbing. As the New York Times said "Whatever your opinions about the war, the conduct of the journalists
who covered it and the role of Al Jazeera in that coverage, you are
likely to emerge from ”Control Room” touched, exhilarated and a
little off-balance, with your certainties scrambled and your
assumptions shaken."

Precisely. Many Al Jazeera staffers speak English. They’re articulate and thoughtful — and angry. Think about it this way: remember how it felt to see American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu or to follow the captivity of Jessica Lynch and her fellow war prisoners? Listening to interviews with reporters and translators from Al Jazeera is like listening to American journalists who had to film that horrible day; they are deeply in pain, angry and scornful of the declared mission.

Dominant within the film are likeable American spokespeople who just don’t have the words or perceptions to get past that rage. Nobody really looks like a villain – just naive. One in particular:
Lt. Josh Rushing, a young Texas Marine serving as a liaison officer. He became a "star" in reviews of the film, was then forbidden by the service to speak about the war, and left the Marine Corps to work for — Al Jazeera English. You can see the relationships growing, and the struggle of this basically decent young man to represent his country and be truthful and honorable.

The toughest part of the film for me, after all my years as a journalist, was the death of one of the Al Jazeera journalists hit by an American rocket. The tears in the eyes of the staff and crew brought back memories of lost reporters during Vietnam, and a camera crew lost in a helicopter crash when I worked at CBS. We’d met the dead journalist earlier, joking about how hard it would be to work in a flak jacket and helmet. There was sadness for him, and an awareness that events like this would only raise the level of hostility within much of the network’s staff.

As I watched, charmed and provoked by the comments of what essentially felt like my peers and colleagues, yet with a perspective I did not share, I was as unsettled as that Times review promised. These people speak to the entire Arab world and there are some real haters there and yes they run the statements of Bin Laden and more, but there are issues past that. In addition to their power and reach, many share great portions of our values and ideas. One wants to come to the US and move his kids from "the Arab nightmare" to "the American Dream." Another rages at the looting in the streets of Baghdad – predicting that zealots will push all moderates out – that "people like me" will have no place in the Arab world.

In other words, beyond the basic fact that Al Jazeera broadcasts much that is contrary to the best interests of our country and probably to my well-being as Jewish person, there lies another set of facts. All that we feel and shout to one another in newsrooms and control rooms here in the US, our assumptions and common ground – there’s another huge universe out there that we need to understand – who don’t automatically share our values – at least not all of them. And if we don’t learn how to deal with them, their assumptions and anger and dreams, we face a journey that will make our days in Iraq seem simple indeed. Here’s a preview:

REMEMBERING JFK: 44 YEARS AND 2 DAYS AFTER THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION**

Thanksgiving Day was the 44th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy. I didn’t want that to be my holiday post, though, so I’m writing about it today.** I was a senior in high school when our vice-principal, Mr. Hall, a huge scary guy (and football coach) came onto the intercom and announced, his voice breaking, that President Kennedy had been shot, and had died. I remember standing up and just walking out of my creative writing class. No one stopped me – or any of the rest of us. We wandered the halls in tears, then went home, riding the school bus in tears. I remember the next morning, taking the car out and just driving around — running in to my friend Jack Cronin on his drugstore delivery route – and standing on McClellan Drive in his arms as we both wept. I remember, Jewish girl that I was, going to Mass at St. Elizabeth’s Church that Sunday just to be with the people of his faith. I cried for four days.

Years later, working on the TODAY SHOW 20th Anniversary of the funeral, I remember all of it rushing back as we cut tape and realized as adults what a gift Jacqueline Kennedy had given the nation through the dignity and completeness of the funeral. I know that many younger people find the Kennedys a little bit of a joke, thanks partly to the Simpsons, but it’s not possible to describe the grief and trauma of those days. Or the gratitude we all felt for his presence — and the profound nature of the loss.

As a 13-year-old, I had the great good fortune to attend the Kennedy Inauguration, traveling all night on the train with my mom to sit in the stands near the Treasure Building and watch the parade go by. We stood outside the White House at the end of the parade, in the last of the blizzard, and watched him walk into the White House for the first time as president. I’d seen the culmination of all the volunteer hours my 13-year-old self could eke out to go "down town" and stuff envelopes — to respond to the the call to help change the world.

It seems so pathetic now; the loss not only of JFK but of his brother, so beloved by my husband that he’s never been the same since 1968, the loss of Dr. King and Malcolm X, the trauma of Vietnam and all that followed, later of the shooting of John Lennon, even. It seemed that all we’d dreamed about and hoped for – worked for – was gone. How could we have been so romantic – so sure that we could bring change? Believed it again in 1967 and 68 as we worked and marched against the war, for Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy, for civil rights and for peace, for better education and environmental policies, for rights for women, gay Americans and so much more. Most of us haven’t stopped but the American media obsession with America’s loss of innocence emerges from the pain of those weeks.

Now, to me, even the idea of innocence seems a bit — well — innocent. In our case, innocence came largely from a combination of lack of experience and of knowledge. We didn’t know that we stood for the take over of Central American countries and the support of Franco and Salazar as well as the Marshall Plan and remarkable courage and commitment of World War II. We were too close to the WWII generation to have the historic separation that’s possible today. So was much of the rest of the world: in Europe, South America, Africa — all over the world — the Kennedys had won hearts and minds. It’s almost impossible to imagine in light of our standing in the world today. And that’s part of the grief too. Even though much of the anger at the US outside Iraq is based on a warped version of political correctness, we know the experience of riding from the glory of having "liberated" Europe through the Marshall Plan and the glory of the Kennedy outreach to the rest of the world. Personally and publicly, John Kennedy validated all that we wanted to see in ourselves – all that we wanted ourselves, and our country, to be. And today, despite all the revelations of the years since, 44 years and two days later, that’s still true.

**IN ORDER TO OBSERVE SHABBAT, THIS POST WAS COMPOSED ON NOVEMBER 22ND AND POSTED AUTOMATICALLY ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 DAY SEVEN

We had four hours of class this morning and two of Hebrew this afternoon so I’m making this short. Just know that the Pardes classes were once again remarkable. It’s hard to explain spending two hours over a Torah concept but today our great teacher, Rabbi Reuben Grodner, brought us a eulogy that a revered rabbi and teacher Joseph B. Soloveitchik gave for the wife of the Talne Rabbi, another major force in his community. The purpose for reading it, Rabbi Grodner said, was to demonstrate this pioneering rabbi’s understanding of the value of the moral and intellectual leadership of women, as well as men. He also founded Maimonides School, the first school where girls and boys could learn Talmud together – and for women, learn it at all.

Anyway it was very exciting as was the rest of the day. I took the photo you see here on a tony Jerusalem street called Emek Rafaim -a combination of Soho and Columbus Avenue. These young soldiers were doing security patrols and stopped for lunch – so their ever-present semi-automatics were in their laps (look just below the table edge.)

What I’m trying to demonstrate with these daily security photos is NOT that Israel is dangerous because it really isn’t, unless you go to disputed areas, but that this is what life is like here – that people make their way and raise their kids and go to the movies and jog along the Old City walls, and these folks protect them as they do. When I think about what we complain about at home — well — ever since 911 people have complained that the president never asked us to make sacrifices and we subsequently don’t have the same investment in the outcome. If you want to see the kinds of quiet courage that emerge from shared responsibility, this is one place to look.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH AND OUR FUTURE

OK. So I’m way behind a lot of people – including the Oscars voters, in finally seeing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a horrifying presentation, scary and fascinating. As a video producer I’m knocked out by the craft that makes such a dry topic so interesting. As some one who’s always been politically involved, I’m mortified that this film still needs to exist and bewildered that I haven’t been more drawn into this issue. It sounds crazy, but I’ve always been so obsessed with human rights and civil rights, education and integration, war peace and poverty, that I kind of left all this to someone else.

You can’t watch this film, though, and remain untouched. A friend says that the research is too new, that other "natural" phenomena come in cycles and that we haven’t had time to be certain that this is not just part of the next one. I respect this woman enormously but I watched this film, thinking of her, and of the power of modern technology compared to the "natural" impact that generated previous cycles and I can’t make myself believe that this isn’t an emergency.

I read a lot of science fiction, and much of it is dark and apocalyptic. Resource wars, water wars, data wars — it is the future that causes the pain. But it’s also the future that’s made by us – and if even half of this film is true, we are permitting what appears to be a horrific future to emerge, despite our ability to prevent it. I’ve followed Al Gore a long time. I remember his honorable environmental advocacy all the way back to his days in the House. He’s for real, using his position in the world to turn this huge air craft carrier of an issue around. In his film, he uses the history of the smoking issue (More Doctors Smoke Camels ads that ran just after the first Surgeon General’s Report) ont he dangers of snoking, to prove that we can change minds.

He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment and impact. Some say the Nobel committee is just poliical and that this is a lefty-gesture. But I say hats off. Where else do we have political leaders consistently leading on an issue that has no personal reward, where the only "up side" is that we might stop cooking our planet? I haven’t seen any latery.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST – TOM JONES AND SO MUCH MORE

Not to be too obscure here but think about this: Marcel Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST was inspired by the scent of one cookie (a fancy one called a Madeline.) Sense memory is a powerful thing.

I saw Tom Jones 44 years ago, with my high school “film club.” The club was just 6 seniors and our creative writing teacher. Our mill town high school wasn’t a culture haven but this young teacher was. He handwrote Irwin Shaw short stories onto “ditto sheets” because there was no budget for the books, started a literary magazine (I was the editor, naturally) took us to Shakespeare performances and — started the film club. At first we rented films (screened on a projector in his classroom) and then moved on to evening journeys “downtown” to local art houses. We saw LA STRADA and THE SEVENTH SEAL, SUNDAYS AND CYBELE and SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER — and TOM JONES. The films were so intelligent, so clearly different from the “movies” we saw on our own; the theaters served espresso and everyone was smoking. How sophisticated we felt!

This morning as I watched this nearly half-century old film – still funny and charming even though the playful sexual innuendo recalls a more tender time, that 18-year-old girl I’d been came back – all of her. I didn’t know whether to be sad — miss all that I was then – all that’s changed — lost — or just plain passed – or to be grateful for the remarkable kaleidoscope of experiences that my life has been. From the adventure of a 36 year old marriage to the joy of raising two of the most spectacular young men on the planet to presences at royal weddings and presidential inaugurations, travel all over the world and great music experiences to a gentle childhood with talents acknowledged and appreciated to memorable private moments at weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations and other celebrations with family and friends, a lot has contributed to the wiser woman I am today. I know there’s no way to live the life I’ve lived – or any other – without losing some of the shiny stuff of youth but even so it’s a shock when awareness of those losses lands on you in the middle of an unambiguously optimistic movie 44 years old.

Here’s what I think: there isn’t a person on the planet (despite Edith Piaf) who has no regrets. Recalling days that seem idyllic is a privilege – many haven’t got many to recall. Sadness about the joys of the past emerges only from an accumulated reservoir of happiness that is a blessing in itself. As Auntie Mame used to say “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death.” My sisters and I swore we would live by that.

I’ve tried – and I’m still trying. That’s why this blog is called Don’t Gel Too Soon. Wherever that 18 year old film fiend has gone, parts of her are still part of me – informing and enlivening the person I’ve become. The real challenge in this portion of my life is to hang onto the enthusiasm and curiosity of those years – never freezing in place. The last line in Tom Jones, one of my favorite anywhere, was written by John Dryden – way before movies or even radio. It still works though, and I offer its wisdom for us all. “Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.”