Shed a tear until the ducts are empty

Shed a tear until the ducts are empty, an immortal named Stan Brooks has passed from our midst after a half a century…. fifty years “this is Stan Brooks of WINS radio 24 hour news radio…”

                                                                             II

What manner of a Clark Kent persona is this Superman of the Bronx and the U.S. Army. His sweetheart wife and  mother to his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and a hero to ordinary mortals justifying their existence, in the worst of times and the best of Cyber Space, leaving avarice greed and denegation in  the dust, “this is Stan Brooks, senior correspondent of WINS radio, all news radio” signing off (two three weeks before the holidays 2014

Richard Starus’s “In Twilight” ,( at age 84) Jessie Norman’s octaves smashing the metronome.

“This is Stan Brooks of Wins, all news radio” beleaguered by the Angels, escorting his soulful voice to the far country.

                                                                              III

Could Ed Murrow broadcasting from the roofs of London,during Hitler’s blitzkrieg, have inspired “this is Stan Brooks” growing up, have inspired Stan.  Or Winston Churchill’s own voice, his mother born and raised in Brooklyn Heights.

“I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth” said Lou Gherigas he cherished his career with the New York Yankees,broadcasting  his affirmation…a gift from Heaven….as he physically could no longer play first base and bat clean up behind Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak of 54 games comes to mind as “this is Stan Brooks of WINS radio”  perpetuated the airwaves thru Thanksgiving and those divine moments of the forthcoming holidays.

                                                                       IV

How could we have known growing up that the Lone Ranger and his “kimosabi” Tonto…the Green Hornet and Kato….the Shadow (“Lamont Cranston (Victor Jory) and Margo” were the tinsel wrapping on our imaginations, transporting  listenersthroughout our minor planet and into  the incorrigible corridors of outer space, the shuttle, and space walks.

Could “This is Stan Brooks of WINS radio, all new radio” have done more ? Graduating from Syracuse University…toiling for Newsday on Long Island for a decade, then into WINS all music radio, when the station manager called him into the office.”Arethe ratings falling?” asked Stan, his neurons begging the question. “Let’s change the format to all news 24 hours seven”.

                                                                         V

Searching for twenty voices through the nation, Stan entrainedSanta Fe from Grand Central to Chicago, his ear to the radio..The Union Pacific to Los Angeles listening . And thenfrom Terminal Annex back to Chicago, changing trains for the City that never sleeps.

Fifty years ago, the all news 24 hours a day was born,  Stan morphing thru the Attica Prison riots, Woodstock,  the blackout of the ‘70, Shea Stadium darkening, the ensuing riots  ……9/11.

And the current global horrors…..

To think prohibition was a blight on the nation’s ambitions of the Founding Fathers, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Segal of Brooklyn’s Brownsville, entertained the mob…betting, numbers, murders. The worst in human callousness and consciousness.

”This is Stan Brooks of WINS, 24 hour news radio…”

                                                                           VI

Mayor “Bloomy” in one of his lasting moments of his twelve years Mayoralty, gave tribute to Brooksie”, recognizing “this is Stan Brooks….”City Hall’s Gracie Mansion becoming “Thisa is Stan Brooks” new room.

“An honorable man,” said Mayor Bloomberg, naming the newsroom for the Wins radio Senior Correspondent and in a larger sense a public servant, giving solace and paying tribute to another, who followed  him for a scoop  during Bloomy’s 12 year tenure and Brooksy’s 50. … the Wins 24 hour news radioSenior Commentator for over half a century  till a few weeks before the 2013-14 holidays.

                                                                                  VII

Given their individual karma, who’s to say “this is Stan Brooks of Wins 24 hour radio” that our Bronx born  “Superman”   on being greeted by the High Llama at his retiring 125 years at Shangri-la. “We’ve been waiting for you Stan.”                    

“This is Stan Brooks, senior correspondent of WINS radio 24 hours a day.”

December 28, 2013  The City that never sleeps.

t                  

On hearing earlier from our alter egos

On hearing earlier from our alter egos in the cyberspace loop that Ronald Reagan matriculated at Eureka College in Illinois, our neurons were shaken up and in disarray. How many of the neurons could envisage a smiling sports commentator, evolving into the role of the President of the United States of America.

                                                                                 II

Our imagination and memory hoisted a flag over Santa Catalina Island (1939) when our mother disembarking from a visualbottom like craft, docking at the pier. Phil Wrigley, the chewing gum entrepreneur, had his Chicago Cubs in spring training…..bunting fungos in the cage, smarting their batting eyes, their palpitating hearts beating the four corners like Joe E Brown in “Alibi Ike”

A henchman in the role of metamorphosing the team(not having a pennant flying over Wrigley Field for a bookmaker ‘s odd of a hundred years (a “c note” on the Las Vegas strip).

                                                                                 III

Not knowing “Win one for the Gipper” was playing out in hisfuturo, Dutch’s teeth lit up the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree like his charm could transcend the ice skaters on the rink next door.

That Eureka circuitry and college education left an indelibleyearning for the Screen Actors Guild and its high office on the mainland. Accepting the challenge, he dated and wooed Jane Wyman, an actress on the Warner lot in Burbank.

                                                                                IV

No nunca  websites of rhapsody when the J.W.  identified withher role.

”Did you ever seen a blind actress who didn’t smile”? The Academy recognizing her silver screen presence, submerging her ego trip , for  “Johnny Belinda”

But when “Dutch” was introduced to the masses as Mister Wyman, his own persona was shell shocked. A sensitive man in search of his own heroics, heard the intro as sarcastic and diminishing.

“Hey Eureka! Where do we go from here?”

                                                                                  V

To the rescue, a Notre Dame football coach’s legacy (Pat O’Brien playing out Knute Rockne) “Dutch” traipsing across the lot, grasping a video of who else but himself for the Rockne producer.

“Win one for the Gipper” was a locker room chant that began as a reversal of roles (“Mister Wyman”)  Abounded in maritalstardom, Dutch began wooing another actress, Nancy Davis, the daughter of a surgeon, practicing out of Chicago.              

                                                                                VI

Always playing himself, the Dutchman manifested his stance *“Is that all that’s left of me” in the dialogue for “Kings Row”*A crippling surgery of both legs.

Notwithstanding Paul Muni, Edward G Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains Jack L. Warner playing himself, the Dutchman never getting out of himself.

Indeed, pioneering his GE profile on television, playing himself… into the role of California’s Governor.

Hence thus therefore President of the United States of America.

Eureka indeed!

December 21, 2013 The City that never sleeps.

             

                         

The saga of Shirley Fish

The saga of Shirley Fish: a commute  transcending  any DNAdefense mechanisms  and Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn“Take the A train”

                                                                            II

How could the burly Falstaff of a Fifth Avenue express bus driver know that his two passengers boarding at East 57th Street, up from Mr. Paley’s CBS radio tvee museum , were carrying middle aging identities into their continental marriage (California-the City that never sleeps).

“Gimme a break,” he said, swiveling in his glass contained pilot, taking the hand out, a five spot tendered by the newly wedded husband.“ Express into Brooklyn, people. Scrounge for seats, above the   engine. It’s rush hour on  Friday,” snapping the doors on the hurly burly East Siders, swarming at his express door, his foot on the gas, screeching toward the FDR Drive, across the Bridge, into Brooklyn.

                                                                              III

Although the baggage gutters were above the seats, Major Fenton slipped into his mind’s eye, his memorable image of Julie Christie walking at a brisk pace, on a Muscovite Street athigh noon.” Doctor Zhivago” alias Omar Sharif (“Lawrence of Arabia”, Peter O’Toole’s costar) ,  aroused by the vision of his former nurse  as they ministered to the wounded and dying,during the Revolution’s aftermath in those Siberian death defying  insanities…..

Meanwhile his bride new to the packed can of sardines, found a space,  only a woman, separating her from the window seat and the sprawling East River. The lady’s consciousness cognizant of the Californian’s gaze.

“First time on the Express? Where you hail from?”

“Big mucho ESP. How’d you suspect?”

“Something about your countenance. The air you breathe,” she said. “But you’re not a tourist. You know anyone in the Big Apple?” 

“Only one.”

“And who thou? May we ask?”

                                                                                 IV

In his own space, Major Fenton became” Doctor Zhivago”,  banging on the  streetcar window, screaming his nurse’s name,“Julie Christie” …  she oblivious to the  mayhem, swept up by the ocean of humanity during Moscow’s rush hour.

Her modus operandi ‘”Don’t sweat the small stuff” ala a Peter O’Toole “ Lawrence of Arabia” command post, a role Alec Guinness was born for. (“My name escapes me”, Hastings on Hudson, Good Yarns book store)  

                                                                           V

The bus crossing the East River, past the Navy Yard, down DeKalb Avenue, past Long Island University onto Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza ,the Public Library, Prospect Park,through the Park, the Parade Grounds, where Sandy Koufaxplayed his semi pro ball before joining the Dodgers and becoming a Lefty  pitching  immortal.

“So you were saying,” said the female quiz master, asking Major Fenton’s frau about her staying power in the City that never sleeps. “Shirley Fish was the only one you knew?.”

“We met at the Maimonides   Auxiliary. Shirley was the secretary. A lovable compassionate human being. We took to each other like we were long lost relatives.”

”It’s a small world, may be a cliché but in this instance a higherkarma is playing out. Shirley is a twin. I was engaged to her brother for 19 years,” said the lady, morphing into her premarital pedigree, the non stop bus reeling into Flatbush. “When Herbert wanted to say “Yes”, his daughters disagreed “Not now,Daddy” And when I wanted to sign the dead, McNeil, my kids said “What’s the hurry, Mommy?”.

                                                                           VI

The Fifth Ave Bus rumbling toward its “Last stop. All out,”pulling up at Kings Highway and Ocean Avenue, the unholy triodisembarking from their space above the rear engine.

Mister and Missus Fenton, and the beleaguered fiancé, onceengaged for almost two decades to Herbert, the twin brother of Shirley Fish, Mrs. Fenton’s one and only friend i n the City that never sleeps. A role as secretary to Maimonides ‘s Auxiliary.

The three treading  the sidewalk , their  cadence toward the subway….Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn “Take the A train”

December 16, 2013. The City that never sleeps

Nelson Mandela, a renaissance man, has gone to the far country….

Nelson Mandela, a renaissance man, has gone to the far country…. playing out his divine presence, “Madiba” capturesthat uncommunicable part of ourselves… the pasture of God.                                                                            

                                                                                                                  II

A moral giant, his odyssey prompted Tom Kean to divest New Jersey investments (1985) , Mandela’s Holy Grail morphing acause célèbre  made then Governor of New Jersey, a guru,recognizing “Madiba’s” Walpurgis night, to the tune of 2 billion dollars .

He took on a great hall of reflection where Humanity staggers,thereby putting Plato’s use of banishment for Pretoria’s enemy, condemning evil as apartheid and Tom Kean’s   Emancipation Proclamation coming to grips with the inhumanity.

                                                                                                                   III

The brain’s convolutions wherever. Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Trenton New Jersey, Bedford- Stuyvesant, (Brooklyn).However the diminishing returns: disappointment, retribution,violence, revenge. A determinism, that the Emancipator devoid his soul of any bitterness and violence.

An open minded catechism which harpers back to Gandhi and original sin.. Finding a blending in disparate skin pigments.Humans naturally suspicious of anyone who didn’t look likethemselves.. ( B eau Geste and the French Foreign Legion. TheLives of the Bengal Lancers C Aubrey Smith, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant (Archie Leach)

                                                                                                                    IV

Cyber space and their fiber optics into digital apps, their key padthought to web sites dot.com. But to know is no less to feel.(Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.)         The imprisonment onRobbins Island,  Tom Brokaw’s capturing the small cell’s reality: the mat, the prison  guard who risked his role, presenting“Mandela” with  his grand baby. The friend he bonded with during those years….Brokaw out of NBNC Burbank has compassion and empathy , deserving of that  moment.  Robbins Island caught the breath out of my yesterdays, passing Alcatraz on our Air Force Duty in Northern California, outside San Francisco..

For “Madiba, that cell on Robbins Island (Alcatraz), sleeping on that mat, sledge hammering the rock pile in the sun earlier, washis  renaissance. His rebirth.”

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true”, Joseph Faraday, Chemistry Building , UCLA.

                                                                                                                   V

But who knew that the Franklin Avenue Shuttle on the BMT line would be the missing link to Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Boys and Girls High on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. The Chancellor honoring the school/s metamorphosis  yesterday, Nelson Mandela High School The first class of 500  students  matriculating in the Nelson Mandela School of Social Justice.

A far cry from the old Boys High on Marcy : Louis Nizer, IrwinZucker, Sy Kaufman, Pearl Washington, Frank Mickens security guard become Principal, Danny Rubin, English teacher prime, Marty  Grossman, Social Studies “teach” , and the musicalwunderkid, Aaron Copeland (“Of mice and men” 1939)

                                                                                                                    VI

A force of nature gives his name to the school he helpedcreate…..Nelson Mandela School of Social Justice. 

”The world is a progressively realized community of interpretation.” Josiah Royce, Royce Hall, UCLA

December 7, 2013. The City that never sleeps