What is playing out?

“What is playing out?”asked the driver,his wheels stuck in traffic, in the middle of the George Washington Bridge, two way bullying bumper to bum per..stalled for hours, Highway Patrol, the State Troopers, unable to unsnarl the snarl  both ways between Fort Lee (the New Jersey Palisades) and the Big Apple.
                                      II
What seemed like a 21st century crisis of an  the  “They drive byNight”, the concurrent high stakes battle between the Democrats and the Republicans adds a priceless ingredient to the mix, for the lack of a better term…an undue advantage..high jinks bullying, wouldn’t you say?
                                III
For what was once a natural beauty as seen from the West Side Highjway, “the Palisades with its  natural beauty, bordering the Hudson River, reaps of a vision gone sour.
                               IV’
Could the traffic jam translate into the machinations of Machiavelli “Politics”? UCLA’s Professor Chares Titus, Royce Hall, first floor..
Say it ain’t so?  A replica of the Watergate break in? 
Four plus decades ago. UCLA’s Erlichman and Halderman?(“Politics”, Gold Key honors)
That small minded “plumbers” of yore, plotting a embarrassment at the Fort Lee entry vand exit on  the Palisades side, be used as a Huey Long debacle for a dchess move on the board of Governor Christie’s Port Authority poiticalappointments, conducive to undue influence.
Three of the alleged appointees going South, resigning their titled seats yesterday, in what has become a federal investigation by the U.S attorneys in what has become the George Washington fiasco, “the public be damned”.         
                                        V
“What hath opportunism become in thiscradle to the grave Verdi libretto…an opera wherein the rattle snakes in the animal world seek a political one-upmanship by throwing a monkey wrench into the flow of traffic on their “Waterloo”  and S.P. Eagle’s”Bridge over the River Kwai”, starring Alec Guinness as the General, rebuilding the ancient (1943) bridge in his persona as the architect…. the toot toot theme of the River Kwai, the memorial tune repetitiveness  sounding out with withe jack hammers and steam shovels …..at S.P’s penthouse, in his pretentious retirement as the producer.
                                    VI
What was once seen as a Huey Long, Richard Nixon dastardly underhanded Machiavellian
blunder for an immediate political advantage at the expense of “the public be damned” seems out of wack in the context of the ebb and flow of the “Alibi Ike’s” metamorphosis, engulfing the whole planet, no less the denizens who cross the George Washington Bridge in their awakening hours and return in their dreamy nightmare…..”we want bread, daddy”
                                    VII
But for corporate America. An air line top brass to use their personas to gain favor one way or the other, adds a dimension to the cynic ism which roles they lay out… the electorate versus those who use their personas to gain an advantage on crossing a bridge to go to work!  in this stage of Darwinian electronics.
”Say it ain’t so, Ike”.
                                    VIII
Come the Revolution in cyber space, the apps cell phones tablets, the rattle snakes caught between the La Brea tar pits and the  George Washington Bridge “public servants” witchcraft…. placed on the rack of wrath.
“The Public be damned!”
September 11, 2015…The City that never sleeps, the Anniversary of 9/11… heroism, sacrifice and humility..o way bullying bumper to bum per..stalled for hours, Highway Patrol, the State Troopers, unable to unsnarl the snarl  both ways between Fort Lee (the New Jersey Palisades) and the Big Apple.
                                      II
What seemed like a 21st century crisis of an  the  “They drive byNight”, the concurrent high stakes battle between the Democrats and the Republicans adds a priceless ingredient to the mix, for the lack of a better term…an undue advantage..high jinks bullying, wouldn’t you say?
                                III
For what was once a natural beauty as seen from the West Side Highjway, “the Palisades with its  natural beauty, bordering the Hudson River, reaps of a vision gone sour.
                               IV’
Could the traffic jam translate into the machinations of Machiavelli “Politics”? UCLA’s Professor Chares Titus, Royce Hall, first floor..
Say it ain’t so?  A replica of the Watergate break in? 
Four plus decades ago. UCLA’s Erlichman and Halderman?(“Politics”, Gold Key honors)
That small minded “plumbers” of yore, plotting a embarrassment at the Fort Lee entry vand exit on  the Palisades side, be used as a Huey Long debacle for a dchess move on the board of Governor Christie’s Port Authority poiticalappointments, conducive to undue influence.
Three of the alleged appointees going South, resigning their titled seats yesterday, in what has become a federal investigation by the U.S attorneys in what has become the George Washington fiasco, “the public be damned”.         
                                        V
“What hath opportunism become in thiscradle to the grave Verdi libretto…an opera wherein the rattle snakes in the animal world seek a political one-upmanship by throwing a monkey wrench into the flow of traffic on their “Waterloo”  and S.P. Eagle’s”Bridge over the River Kwai”, starring Alec Guinness as the General, rebuilding the ancient (1943) bridge in his persona as the architect…. the toot toot theme of the River Kwai, the memorial tune repetitiveness  sounding out with withe jack hammers and steam shovels …..at S.P’s penthouse, in his pretentious retirement as the producer.
                                    VI
What was once seen as a Huey Long, Richard Nixon dastardly underhanded Machiavellian
blunder for an immediate political advantage at the expense of “the public be damned” seems out of wack in the context of the ebb and flow of the “Alibi Ike’s” metamorphosis, engulfing the whole planet, no less the denizens who cross the George Washington Bridge in their awakening hours and return in their dreamy nightmare…..”we want bread, daddy”
                                    VII
But for corporate America. An air line top brass to use their personas to gain favor one way or the other, adds a dimension to the cynic ism which roles they lay out… the electorate versus those who use their personas to gain an advantage on crossing a bridge to go to work!  in this stage of Darwinian electronics.
”Say it ain’t so, Ike”.
                                    VIII
Come the Revolution in cyber space, the apps cell phones tablets, the rattle snakes caught between the La Brea tar pits and the  George Washington Bridge “public servants” witchcraft…. placed on the rack of wrath.
“The Public be damned!”
September 11, 2015…The City that never sleeps, the Anniversary of 9/11… heroism, sacrifice and humility..

HOLD BACK THE DAWN at the U.S. Open

HOLD BACK THE DAWN at the U.S. Open, the Labor Day tennis forays on Arthur Asche stadium, a shift in power,  change in the winds in the torrid zone of coach and father figure UncleToni and his nephew Rafael (Rafi), from the Island of Majorca, outside Spain..
                                   II
Their hereditary metamorphosis digs deep into the Mount Everest of biological relationships gone sour, their modus operandi dynamics being winning, racquets held high, flavored words tumbling from their lips, trophies held high… 14 grand slams… discipline and character, per dictum scrubs..
(shades of Tony Viola and his Parkville’s six cflay courts 7 decades ago on Ocean Parkway, off akin the grand slam of Washington Cemetery, off Bay Parkway, Brooklyn N.Y.)
The Hingis mother, daughter Martina in tour thru adolescence into brash triumphs , putting their marital march together,through the testing grand slams earlier..
Conquering all the Billie Jean Kings Chris Everts…only Steffi Graf to emerge unscarred by the professional handling ofd the prodigy byh the elder statesman mentor coach father figure calling the shots, throwing the die.
                                        III
“Uncle Tony role as coach has run its rout. “Rafe must go his own way. He’s no longer “Aunt Polly’s Tom Sawyer….
Martha Hingis’s mother, dictating the cumulative: overhead killing smash. Budge Patty going his own way into being his or her own person, free of the Julius Caesar libido bond , Brutuscutting out, liberating his psyche, vanquishing his father figure, freeing himself.
                                          IV
Didn’t Budge Patty go his own way, submerging his creeping metamorphosis , identifying with Don Budge until that moment when  he  got his grip, to become himself, abandoning the auraof Budge’s text,  becoming a champion under his own testing metamorphosis.   
                                        V                                 
“Answer and a lovelier gentleman
Framed in the prodigality of Nature
Young valiant wise and no doubt right
This spacious world cannot afford again ill.”
Richard III, Act I, scene 2,
September 6, 2015… 24 hours before Labor Day. The City that never sleeps.

“In the fifties,” she said “we went to Coney Island with our radios

“In the fifties,” she said “we went to Coney Island with our radios, and listened to the opera…
                                        II
“We interrupt this program to bring you the tragic news. The Jackie Robinson of “The Phantom of the Opera” 21 year oldKyle Jean- Baptiste of Fort Greene, died last night, falling off his fire escape in Brooklyn.
“ He was the first Afro American to make the revolutionarysinging role of Jean Val Jean, his own….”          
“ Lights dimmed on Broadway. The audience’s tearful applause.
Madame La Farge put aside her knitting, the “Parle vousFrancais revolutionaries ,carrying their banners around barricades, marching to the battle cries, the baritone deep tonesof Jean Val Jean, blazing the trail for voices like Battle’s…(Katherine Battle) to break the color line. …..”
                                      III
Not unlike the grandson of share croppers, Jackie Robinson had extraordinary extra sensory perception. His hand and eye coordination were so lightning fierce, his UCLA coaches vied for his God given heroics in football, baseball, track and field, basketball. 
His intrinsic “not to be ignored,” in ping pong and tennis served him well, also..
                                         IV                            
Answering the phone at basketballer Don Barksdale’s music store in the City of Angels, South Western Avenue…
“Jackie Robinson here!”
                                      V
Two hundred plus auditions whittled down to twenty six. Could Andrew Lloyd Webber, no less the author Victor Hugo, anticipate such a tragedy.
Words cannot diminish Kyle Jean’s dream. 
His loss diminishes all of us.

August 31, 2015  The City that never sleeps.