Hearing all the “hoopla” about Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers,

Hearing all the “hoopla” about Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, quoted on electronic tape as saying to his girl friend “Don’t bring any Blacks to the game” (his wife in a divorce fast break), the NBA taking it all in, the Clippers thwarted by the Warriors last night, Donald’s players throwing their uniform warm ups unto the court, prior to the game,wearing their shirts backwards in a swirll of disapproval. “fromdowntown”

                       III

If and a big “if”, the Donald did make those “shots” to his current girl friend “Don’t  bring any Blacks to the game”, doesn’t it raise the issue of his state of mind.

His first general manager who could take the heat was Elgin Baylor, who openly kept a low profile, never saying anything,going about his role in his swirling double dribble that the NBA is about.

Why would the Donald or his demons shoot himself at  the free throw line, when his franchise competes with LA’s Lakers.Baylor’s vintage Jerry West, Wilt, Goodrich, the “Magic”,KobyBryant,”Shaq”.

Black? White? Technicolor?  Doesn’t their finesse transcend their skin pigment? Even if those absurd

lapses are found to be true, if not realistic, by the Donald.                  

The Donald tainted by his player’s pigment, one would think he himself is color blind, morphing as a “black”

Gimme a break as this “whirlwind”

plays itself out.

                          IV

In the meantime, a legend passes away at 89 of cancer. Jack “Doc” Ramsey came to our attention, when he and Ucla’s Bill Walton, led the Portland Trailblazers to their very first championship rings. We later met up with his quiet mind and voice, when he analyzed playoff games for ESPN.

He had a wonderful quiet demeanor, interviewing players. He seemed to stay above the full court fracas, unlike the Donald in what was once tinsel town, becoming a laver of ho said what and when.

                      V

For the moment, let’s trust that the self destructive “swishes”don’t get the better of Commissioner Stern’s successor…. That better judgment will prevail, and the legacy of Jack “Doc” Ramsey continues to enlighten the contentious NBA stage.

April 29, 2014. The city tht never sleeps

      

Innocence betrayed

Innocence betrayed. Bullyyin

g by the “Dead End Kids”

The horrors of these educational Connecticut mass murders isthat their reality checks occur in the space of spelling bees, chalked blackboards, books and searches.

Teachers and mentors who identify with these victin’s lifecallings: where open mindedness and innocence is nurtured for the long pull of making a life into post graduate society.

An alleged miracle to come true. 

                                  II

Mark Twain aka Samuel Cements may have invented Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn from his Hartford digs, holding them accountable for their mischief  with Aunt Polly, a surrogatemother.

                            III

These bullying frenzied invasions on these innocents, invading their habitats and dreams is a moral deprivation for all of us.

The living and dead as Lincoln prescribed. He paid the price for his own pursuit of racial equality and how to interpret it for our nation’s moral growth.

The nutmeg state has a moral obligation to recognize thesebullies and “Dead End Kids” before they go on their blood curdling rampage, into those spaces where we all grew up.

April 26, 2014, the city that never sleeps.                            

A grandson of a sharecropper, #42, Jackie Robinson

A grandson of a sharecropper, #42, Jackie Robinson, a UCLA 4 star athlete who broke the color line in major league baseball. Being color blind, skin pigment being what it is, the PasadenaCity College emigre, transferred to Ucla .  His two years breaking the ground for  a spectacle junior and senior yearsacross the turf, to the decade old University on 400 odd acres in Westwood, off Sunset Boulevard and                                                                       Hilgard (Sorority row), the cross country track (Al Kapp, Craig Dixon, John Patee) to the west and GayleyAvenuue’s fraternity row.

                                                                               II                                                                            

His athletic dexterity was recognized by Caucasian students while waiting their turn  to play against him in ping pong, the sweating competitors  surveying the scene, in the men’s gym basement.

Robinson’s coordination between his eyes and hands, are awesome,” said a Daily Bruin sports writer, whose alias would go as “Bobby Lupo from Gardena”. He being the first to challenge 42’s force of nature  and alter ego of sports editor AlFranken (namesake of the Senator from Minnesota)

                                                                               III

Once the word spread  across the campus and fraternity row:Janss steps, Royce Hall, Chuck Young’s research library, Yale law school alum Aarvo Van Alstyne’s Law School  (Constitutional Law kibitzers),  the reading rooms up and acrossthe quad, past the mail boxes and the bus stops for the routes outside Dr. Franklin Murphy’s guest house, the faculty club, the medical school, the emergency room the brain institute, Julie Stein’s ophthalmology eye emporium, toward WestwoodBoulevard and Le Conte….

Westwood Village…. Tom Crumpler malts, hamburger hamlet,Sonja Henie’s indoor ice skating rink toward Wilshire Boulevard.

The Uclan movie theater, opposite Crumplers  and the “Spellbound” movie house, across the street.

                                                                              I V

Staley Gleis’s law office and his numero uno client the Los Angeles Rams…the NFL and Pete Rozelle.. The JackieRobinson force of nature at ping pong , spread to Lawrence Clark Powell’s 16th century architectural main library and reading room, the space  to become the  harbor from the Hollywood fantasies and the cream cheese bandit’s ego trips into Hollywood Boulevard .

Using his Mulholland Drive digs for pillaging upper and downers to those lost souls searching for a grip on the film studio’s merry go round.

                                                                                V

Meanwhile the waiting line spread…. deportments political science, philosophy English, languages (French, Italian), Economics, Astronomy, Political Geography, Subject A, Theater arts, Education, Psychology , Sociology, Music (Lukas Foss, Roy Travis, Jan Popper’s opera workshop,( the 12 toneShoenberg library),  Dorothy Kirsten… the brain institute honcho’s frau.

The line spread from the men’s gym basement, #42 holding reign as the word spread…P.E. the graduate manager’s office and Bill Ackerman’s penthouse. …his tennis trophies and photos…Daily Bruin editors Frank Mankiewicz, BobbyKennedy’s secretary, and CBS radio commentator Bill Stout.  

The  larger than life lettermen: Woody Strode, Kenny Washington,  morphing    cop  Mayor Tom Bradley, Don Barksdale, Bob Waterfield ,  Dave Minor, Ray Alba, ChuckClustka, Bill Putnam, athletic director Wilbur Johns and his successor, immortal basketball coach John Wooden. 

“ Smitty” of Gold Key , the men’s honorary…fraternity row’s presence on the waiting line.

                                                                             VI

The Nobel Laureate at the Chemistry   Building , ProfessorBanos of Atomic Physics,  the Physics Building. Tom Bradley in and out of his Mayor duds, morphing into a campus centerpiece.

Behind the guest house-hotel, the Anderson School of Business,  spaying gardens,…. theater arts. Samuel Selden capping the James Dean trophy to the Indiana basketball player turnedthespian.

The McGowan theater where  “Mozart and Mushroom Barley” was debuted.. MGM furnishing the critical tip sheets….

Saul Ritenberg  furnishing the  evaluations, little knowing Clint Eastwood off  his tv cowboy role at Warners , pr Italian spaghettis, drove  to LA State(Delmar Oviatt George LorbeerEducation profs) campus for an insight..(prior to moving to Northridge)

                                                                                VII

Danny (screenwriter “Storm Warning”) and frau, Susan Fucks leading the critique, his brother Henry, …..the Chairman of the English Department, back in #42’s Flatbush, Brooklyn’sMidwood High School..

#42, the grandson  of a sharecropper was invincible. The Physical Education department ….  Bill Spaulding, Dcky Drake the trainer, Harry Trotter, the track and field coach, BurtLaBrucherie ,the football mentor, Colonel Bing of AF ROTC,“Skip”Rowland, Joe E. Brown ,his adopted son MikeFrankovich , Binnie Barnes, his wife of 53 years..

And then Carol Burnet on hearing about the feat, left her lecturing pad in Royce, to stroll down those Janss steps , for anfirst hand  view of #42’s force of nature.

                                                                                   VII

And the politicos of the Political Science department: Ralph Bunche, the Nobel Laureate whence the assassination of Count Bernadette, and a former basketball player at LACC, Charles Titus of Machiavelli’s’s Politics. Dr Grant of Business and Government, (later Dean of Letters and Science) Jenkins of Political Philosophy.  Professors Piatt, Abe Kaplan in pragmatic Philosophy.

From the “Sociological Foundations of Education” came Frederic Woelnler hoping to see this 7th wonder of the world.Harry Morris, director of publications, sharing the wonder..

Albert Lewis at Temple Isaiah. Alvin Malinow from his Venice Boulevard mortuary office and San Fernando cemetery. In that vein, Doctor Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago recommended “From here to eternity” to the Philosophy department at U/Conn: Hartford, Waterbury branches off the Storrs campus. 

Number 42. Indeed!.        . 

                                                                                     IX

Sony Tufts staggering in the line. Agent Milo Frank and his frau,Sally Forrest. Burt Lancaster, Ed Pauley, a Ucla Regent without his basketball portfolio, Dorothy Chandler and shot putterjavelin son, Otis, “Gimme a rain check”, Provost Dykstra without his disturbed grandson, Lenny.

Elliot Nugent of “ The Male Animal” without his Ohio Statehumoristclassmate James Thurber.

Ronald Coleman, Sam Jaffe the High Llama, (“We’ve been waiting for you, Mister Conway”) Sam Jaffe, the agent, Margo, Tony Quinn from East L.A,” the Dragnet Sgt Joe Friday”, JackWebb.

Alan Young George Burns, Jack Benny, Artie Herskowitz (FredAllen’s brother in law)  Henry Herzbrun, Mace Neufeld, Max Arno at Columba, Ray Stark, General Paul McGuire, Ernest Pascal, Shelly Winters, Evelyn Keyes, Nat Perrin, Sidney Buchman, Kirk Douglas, Robert  Blumofe of the Bard’s “All the King’s men”, and the Motion Picture Academy. 

Eddie Belkind (Betty, Allen, Evelyn) and Allan  and Dorothy Weinberger. …from New Haven Ruth Ginsberg,  Yale book store, Anna Freud, Howard Dinnerstein of College Book Storeon Chapel Street, student Eric Sherman from Sherman Oaks,Dean Lou Pollock of Yale Law School, Aaarvo Van Alstyne’sroommate, when they were hitting those legal tomes  at Yale.                                                  

                                                                                       X

Will Barbra Streisand make an on line appearance, driving infrom Malibu? Her long time manager, Marty Erlichman(Halderman and Erlichman, President Nixon’s Watergate) is a basketball junky of over 50 years, hailing from  the indoor hoopsat Coney Island Avenue and Aveue I back in Brooklyn’s Flatbush, a pigeon’s flight from #42’s breaking the color line atEbbets Field..General Manage Branch Rickey, touting #42’s immortal soul.

Groucho and his brothers. His son, Arthur. The Ritz brothers,Moe Howard and his Stooges. Son Paul, dripping wet,… fromhis water polo prancing at the pool next door ..

Talent coordinator Solly Biano, his “ chief” Jack L. Warner.“You’re cool, Sollyy.  Real cool… I’m taking you off locationfor Jackie Robinson. Number 42, is a force of nature. Don’t say I never did you in for anything.” 

Good Friday, April 18, 2014. The City that never sleeps.

                                 

Shedding a tear until our ducts are empty…

Shedding a tear until our ducts are empty….For the life of me,the longer we live, the more we lose those actors with theiraccompanying adrenaline rushes, who we grew up admiring….

Their potash in the face of folksy adversity.

                                                                                II

Such a fated utopian was Mickey Rooney whose happy go luckycountenance, departed our “mortal coil” as the Spring equinox was arriving.

93 years of 20th and 21st century cyber space, he was true to his combative nature and  physique (five foot two)The sprite to his Oberon in Warner’s “the Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the Bard approving of his screen test.

Identifying with  Oberon’s jester. 

Applying the love juice to the sleeping couples in the forest was the Mick’s jaunt into Jimmy Cagney and Olivia De Haviland’s(age 99, living in London) charisma and the “chief’s” approvalof “takes”, no less Oberon’s, the Sprite’s monarch.

                                                                                  III

Growing up in the depression laden thirties and the New Deal forties, the Mick cast his luck with those vaudeville turns of his Glasgow, Scotland born father and the birth pangs of his KansasCity mother.

On the circuit in Brooklyn, the Yule’s abandoned those wide eyes as his mother lost her grip on the arrival, he falling into the orchestra pit, getting the worst of Mae West and Archie Leachon  stilts,  in their own consummate routines, the audience undeterred  by the cries of t18 month foundling, their own hoots and laughter drowning out the Andy Hardy guffaws, in futuro.

.                                                                                      IV

Evolving into those Andy Hardy juvenile roles of the silence sound, the m other ,not unlike Judy Garland’s or Shirley Temple’s, settled in the City of Angels boot, , searching for abreak in tinsel town , stone dead to “Blues in the night”.(my momma done tole me, my momma done tole me so)

Know thyself was darkened  by the Hollywood Wilshire Boulevard kliegs, fantasy overwhelming the biology of down to earth growth and development. Wylie addressing the problem in “Generation of Vipers….status, social climbing, top billing, a phoniness in the caste system as Holden Caulfield grasped inSalinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”. 

Not a doctor in the house!  The ego trip myopia, blinded  by their own narcissus, the sound and fury drowning out relaxed pretense, yielding to up tight money grubbing.

Puck’s “What fools these mortals be”.

                                                                                    V  

But it wasn’t until Louis B Mayer and his inner circle at Culver city, emulating “Our gang”,  cast

a family… Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone, hi s wife Fay Holden,Andy’s girl friend Ann Rutherford, Rooney as Andy,  the Puckthat grew up. Judy Garland,( having a Gump mother) later cast in the series..

But for us , the adolescent yearnings and dreams were cast with his pinnacle role in Saroyan’s “The Human Comedy” as the Western Union messenger, delivering those fated WW2 telegrams to the Gold Star mothers, pedaling his bicycle, eyeingtheir ‘stars’ in the windows..

The die was cast and the impressionistic Andy Hardy morphed as an actor, rather than an entertainer, losing himself to find himself.

                                                                                          VI

The surrogate father in the Western Union office was James Craig, a father figure, who may have been the Joe Yule of Scotland, who in entertaining the Brooklyn  in crowd, brought the Yule, Jr  into vaudeville. The divorce and the subsequent adaptation to the silent silver screen and the talkies may have been the cover, for the Andy Hardy parody (Hollywood High, Ava Gardner) and the marital merry go round he rode, in his continued Darwin Andy Hardy evolution. The Galapagos Islands his starry bound exploration at MGM in Culver City.

Living is not to grow old, but to grow up

                                     .                                                    VII

What does 93 years of Mickey Rooney’s metamorphosing all add up to? His imitating and imaging on the stage of the planet’s own evolving galaxy. The indisputable birth pangs of a very young America, the sound and fury since those patriots boarded the English ships, inspiring the Revolution, casting the tea bags into the Boston harbor.

Whence Mickey Rooney aka JoeYule, Jr, buried his Andy Hardyincarnation into the Hollywood Hills for grown up parts.

We will never forget how he used  those sound stages to become himself…..a struggle that never diminished his search to find himself.

April 11, 2014 The City that never sleeps

How does a six feet one inch basketball player

How does a six feet one inch basketball player, hitting the scales at 171, connect with coach Rick Patino, the Louisville Kentucky, Cardinals. Where is the priceless ingredient of two humans through a grueling 4 year struggle, pursuing “w”’s in thegym and the Cardinal  classrooms.

                                                                                II

To calibrate the chemistry of a father surrogate and his “son”over those seasons, the player nicknamed “Russdiculous”(a horse owned by the coach).  A journey from  Archbishop MulloyCatholic High, Queens N.Y.. Russ Smith, initiated into his crib like squawking by his surrogate father, coach #Jack Curran.

A rebirth or whatever one wants to call it. A DNA genetic to come alive twice, a second umbilical cord life enrichingenchantment.

A  Oracle of Delphi testing to the  Gods, the hands of time ticking down: the shot clock winding down: ten nine eight seven six…beyond the three point line, the Wildcats down by two to the Badgers from Madison, Wisconsin, a Kentucky twin brotherplayer,” from downtown” , the March Madness field of eight,last night in Dallas, U/Conn waiting in the wings Monday night,  for the Championship dual...

                                                                             III

A second chance at a rebirth may not be a slam dunk. But in the reality of obstetrics, the game comes alive for have not sonsborn into the states of hunger, deprivation and “con” , the chances of metamorphosing into a continuum where ignorance is not blessed and omnipresent cannibalism appears in denial.

On hearing his high school coach #Jack Curran passed away, Russ Smith made a prayer “For the rest of my life, I will remember Coach Curran.”

                                                                                IV

Isn’t it one thing to transcend the nylon chords at Louisville, and to matriculate for the fourth year and graduate with a degree inhand. But when one considers pursuing the measure of a complete human, isn’t the degree a stepping stone into “It’s a wonderful life, throwing the dice, Coach”.

Is it an accident that coaches like Jack Curran mentor young men, motivating them to become complete humans. That the search to find themselves lies is a dream like discovery that is hidden from the ordinary 20- 20 eyes,  and noisy money grubbers, haunting our cyber spaced  21st century.

                                                                                   V

“For the rest of my life, I will remember Coach Curran”

April 6, 2014. The City that never sleeps.

A dynasty of 64 years has come and gone into cyber space

A dynasty of 64 years has come and gone into cyber space. Dorothy Salwen Rabinoff perpetuated her legacy, through a aHigh School named Midwood: born and bred in 1940 on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, across the Avenue from Brooklyn College.

With her paraprofessional role in Special Education, she and her husband Sam, discovered their destiny. A fated love affair with the ‘Hornet’s Nest’, a blessed account of the High School’s inoculation of the school’s larger than life maestros teachers staff and lacrosse football baseball volleyball basketballwrestling track and field , cricket, tennis jocks at Midwood Field , originally Wingate.

A grandee simpatico and a dynamic leadership, headed up by Dr. Tubby Ross. Dr Schwartz, Julie Raskin, Chairman of the P.E. Department, Henry Fuchs, Senior English teacher , facultyadvisor to the school’s paper, the Argus…Mister Shapiro in “Trig”   The Regent exams.…..midterms …finals..Proms..

( 5 decades later, seniors studying in Steve  Zwisohn’s (Chairman)  English office..a Hemingway mural on the wall,“secretaries” answering the phones. Across the hall from the 4thfloor library and the computers below the windows, student librarians checking books in and out, Mister Jim Kelly, the computer pro “teching” it all in @ Yahoo.com) 

Al Padow, Physics and Chemistry pro….co-owner of a drug store on Avenue J, between East 13th and 14th Street, opposite theMidwood movie theater, two blocks from the local BMT Avenue J subway.

                                                                              II

Whence a young but not frail student, who lived around the block as they say, Dorothy  literally got out of bed and crawled into her classes and the acclaimed inscription in the school’stiled lobby.

’All who enter here and depart…To their love of country, theirfellow man, and God’. (Harvard Yard, William James)

                                                                            III

A dynasty? Indeed!.

‘The Hornet’s Nest’, her signature essay about the faculty and her cronies... Her glowing accounts of the musical heritage she identified with. Auditorium Spring Sings. 

Chairman Ben Chncy and his alter egos. The strutting students,their voices: the choruses and the glories they were motivated to“Stout hearted men..” . Miss Friedman, a substitute, charging up these “Pennies from Heaven” Sopranos, altos: theirs puppy lovevoices changing with their hormones and braces on their teeth.

A citadel of musings.. “Take notice of our passing lives in the midst of bullying on the planet.(Hitler, 9/11) The Westinghouseprized scenarios.. But she and Sam, a Junior High Principal, persisted, perpetuating the ’Hornet’s Nest’……”the fire in their bellies”.

Could Golda Meir have done as well, in her un- freckleddomain…  Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?

                             

                                                                             IV

“To rise from the ashes “seems cliché like . 64 years of yearningambitions and scaled back aspirations along the way, in a grownup universe, the halls filled with arm to arm “aspirations” and energy, the elevator operator, reading his in print newspaper..

The walls outside the cubby time clock space. Dorothy and her inner circle, including Seymour Konigsberg aka Woody Allan.Student Matilda Cuomo, Gladys Bernstein, girl’s vice principal..Leonard Harrison, playing out his Holy Grail role as Principal..before  Alzheimer’s’ struck his neurons and state of mind.

Whence her recording of memorial marriages ,birthdays,  awards, raising a family, dreaded deaths, reunions,  growingpangs of a teen aging colossal  . Adolescent yearnings to grasp aHuckleberry Finn , Tom Sawyer ego trip playing out, onMidwood’s  merry go round campus, a bridge across Bedford Avenue to the  digital  21st century library...

A hundred and eighty five years of a mantra.”. MurrayEisenstadt (Civics, Althea Gibson into a tennis clinic) Social Studies, tennis coach) at 95, his  “Kappie” 90. A gala celebrationunder the four bridges..

Likewise a celebration of Dorothy and Sam Rabinoff’s 64 year old dynasty…May ‘the Hornet’s Nest’ live forever in her soul,Dorothy crafting her poems and crossword puzzles, while waiting at the Pearly Gates….

” Heaven is on the way to it”

March 27, 2014 The City that never sleeps.