“MERCY MERCY….JEROME KERSEY”

“MERCY MERCY….JEROME KERSEY” was gone at age 52

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He collapsed in the Portland Trailblazer parking lot Wednesday…. To drive home, complaining he wasn’t feeling well. Knee surgery  a week earlier.

A blood clot in his left leg broke off and migrated  to his lungs.Pulmonary thrombosis.

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No grandeur of stats could forecast the inevitability of an overachiever: a human dynamo and complete player, from a class two college where he dominated the basketball acrobatics.

The grief counselors were speechless. His wife and children were stunned. His teammates Terry Porter “we grew up together”, Clyde Drexler, Gus Williams, Kevin Duckworth awakened to their own “ how fragile mortality is.”.

The unselfish overachiever and teammate, playing for a ‘w’ , an allegory for poetry in motion. A musical over drive, translated by the Harlem Globetrotters into an acrobatic “trapeze” in agymnasium, awed spectators in the bleachers… later hooplacameras, ESPN, referees to maintain  the clean  cut rules of a competition, originating in schoolyards and academia, to the pros, the moneyed halls of status  and the Hall of Fame, once their stepping stones of  legendary flesh, had come complete circle…

George Mikan, Julius(“Doctor J”) Irving, Earl the Pearl Monroe,7 footer Bob Kurland,

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What could a Nobel Prize conquistador Ralph Bunche, himself a basketball “honky” from Los Angeles City College and UCLAsay…. his Howard University Professorship(History) but a leg up on these grand- children of sharecroppers, finding theirRoyalty in Abe Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, a hundred years later.

Skin pigment breaking the color line at in UCLA’s BrooklynDodgers Jackie Robinson, the Wilbur Johns John Wooden God’s Way, opening it up for “Wilt”, Bill Russell, Brooklyn bornMichael ”Air” Jordan, Wesley Unseld.

“Mercy mercy Jerome Kersey”        

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24 years of age, a late comer from a Division 2 school,(“March Madness”) to the slam dunk contest, prior to the NBA all star game, he stayed with Michael Jordan, doing the double clutch, hanging time, slight of hands, while suspended in motion  50 points said the judges,..49 and into the final round these twoacrobats, playing out their vision an dream,  testing their passionand collective intelligence,  translated into  the judges had to mathematically diagnosed on  a scale:  the chords of the space ‘s NASA and the planet of nets, hoops, schoolyards, gyms, sweats, scrambling for loose balls, weaves, man to man, zone defenses,cuts, screens, picks, time clocks to bring the ball down and shootclock…. set shots from downtown,(3 points against a per diem2) with one hand (“Hank” Luisetti of Stanford) from the antiquated and ancient two handed set of a Wally Kaplan(Midwood High’s p.e. Chairman Julie Raskin) or *Dolly Kin gat Madison Square Garden..

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“Mercy mercy, Jerome Kersey”……

”Doing the dirty work. Diving for loose balls, leading the fast break.” Rivaling the Lakers I n the playoffs: Koby,” Shaq”, Derek Fisher, the Phil Jackson, and his back up coach on thebench…the triangle offense of Tex Winter of USC, Kansas Statementor… his pioneer system evolving..

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Mighty “soul”  magicians..left hand right hand…dribbling…looking for the open man, a deceptive trajectory that encompasses leadership: intuition, lack of egotism, the ultimate- recognition and the putting themselves I n their right spot of their brother hood and NBA family…..Doc Ramsey, RedAuerbach, Red Holzman, LIU’s* Clair Bee, all  fathersurrogates…. breaking down the bias of skin pigment..

“Mercy Mercy Jerome Kersey.”

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Two credits away from his degree, he returned to his alma mater: a small college campus in Virginia, for his culmination and degree, returning to Portland, his family … wife andchildren and his role in the community..

                                                                                           

Cry the flood of tears until the ducts are empty. A larger than life human  came into our ocean of humanity thru the tube…. theweekly pro  games and our own school yard dreams of seven and a half decades ago, in the quest for heroes and dignity….”a w”

“MERFCY MERCY JEROME KERSEY”    

February 22, 2015. The City that never sleeps  

                                                                                         

The Magic Mountain of Thomas Mann

“The Magic Mountain of Thomas Mann coalescing with Claude Debussy’s “ Clair de Lune” on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2015, a loss of life in Copenhagen , in the name of religion, freedom of expression on the guillotine block, passions stone deaf to “Claire de Lune’s…. Magic Mountain counterpoint.

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How did these two creative giants do it? Discover the cumulative impact? Was Lou Gehrig’s “I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth”..his crippling disease foreshadowing his  demise 7 and a half decades ago…..blood  flowing from hisMona Lisa wounds that are  immune to the consciousness of  our planet’s inhabitants and their souls of moral ambiguity.

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Could any human being like a Lou Gehrig say what he said seven and half decades ago? “I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth”

Baking mickies on the sidewalk curbs, skinny dipping in the Tilden High School summer pool, hide and go seek during the afternoon tags, “get yer cokes, pepsis, sasparllella, root beer, cram, orange …Ice cold. A nickel a pickle.”

But FDR’s New Deal, pulling ourselves out of those depression laden yesterdays seven and a half decades ago, our Brooklyn East Flatrbush accent, hustling the WPA brick layers, plasterers, painters into the hustle, buying ice cooled sodas, wheeled in a baby carriage, Bugsy Segal, walking alongside as a security guard aide camp incognito, on lend lease from Brownsville’s Murder Inc. ….the tycoon being Meyer Lansky, atop his bottled soda warehouse in Brownsville.

An Al “Bummy” Davis, a Golden Gloves contender, whose role when he wasn’t in the ring, was escorting short hand stenos,coming from their Big Apple roles….off the New Lots subwayin Brownsville.

Jimmy Cagney’s vaudeville turn at Klaw and Erlanger “I’m a Yankee doodle Dandy, I’m a Yankee doddle kid”, the Red Hook born “Yiddisha” speaking ”Angel with a dirty face”  bargaininghis 7 year contract with Jack L of the Warner Brothers studio, years later when he became a star on the Burbank, California’ssilver screen…. 

Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Ann Sheridan, “Bogy”, IdaLupino, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, Dennis Morgan Allan Jenkins, Frank McHugh, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet,Mary Astor, John Garfield.(Julie Garfinkel) screen writer William Faulkner, reader Mark Myerson…”Life with father’s” son in law). Rin tin tin.

Clint Eastwood “Bonanza” one for the ages…Bll Orr, Jack L’s son in law, playing mah chon). Pat O’Brian, “win one for theGipper” Ronald “Dutch” Reagan (our 40th President)

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So where in such an oasis , could a fledgling B’ tennis player from Midwood High School on Bedford Avenue, in Brooklyn’s Flatbush, playing doubles against Jack L and his partner SollyBiano, the studio’s casting director, find a Walter Lippman, MaxLerner (“Learned Man”) essayist to put it all together.

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Meanwhile over at Paramount on Melrose in L.A., Cecil B. DeMille off his “Ten Commandments” screened “Shane”, as Alan  Ladd,  director George Stevens, playing out a metaphor of good versus evil, Shane ‘s struggle with Jack Palance.. the Brandon de Wilde ‘ s “  eleven year old rancho de mirage” dash to the ranch’s gate .”SHANE SHANE”

His hero (Alan Ladd, formerly of North Hollywood High School) fades away, slapping his saddle. “Getty up pony. Getty up.” 

February 15, 20915. The City that never sleeps.

“Godzilla”

“Godzilla” transcends Boris Karloff’s “Frankenstein”, Vincent Price’s “The fly” Bela Lagusi’s “Dracula” Even the replica of the monster in  Tokyo, the  stature not unlike its San Diego marketing icon,, comes close to  our exploratory  digs at the LaBrea tar pits seven decades ago.

“Just  because I sign my name min your book Herr Einstein,doesn’t mean you’re obliged to read it.”  scoredd William Faulkner.. in a  tongue in cheek relativity.

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In our wildest dreams , how could the  saber tooth tiger, and Denny the Dinosaur, no less Alley Oop, his rambunctious feel on his powered club, his grip tightening as was his want, on waging war…doing battle in the ferocity of a hypnotic frenzy gone “viral” in our prehistoric cave man existence.

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Which brings to mind, the very verve  hip up tempo composerAlexander Desplat .  If not for his scoring ”The King’s Speech”,a dynamic into the Buckingham Palace “dialectic”, the Paris based cosmopolitan assimilated the monarch’s stuttering,aligning it with musical measures and canon, until  the therapy  worked its  charm.. the bloc vanishing into the  King’sSpeech…. His unconscious.                                                                                 IV

“The Imitation Game” seems to be a much more malevolent curse on the human condition and the proponent genius breaking the Nazi machine; its coded anti British cues for destroying Prime Minister  Churchill’s resistance to Hitler’s” conquest of “London Bridges falling down falling down” the witch doctor’s neurons pulverized: the protagonist’s decoding ,along with his  band of fellows..        

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The stuttering verve   of the “King’s Speech” is a leg up on the “The Imitation Game”. The theme of the “The game” demonstrates the degradation  in the human condition, doesn’t it? Yet the very synthesis of the  demons and its musical motif, redeems the protagonist’s  physical and moral decay.

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“A non stop fortissimo” in the parlance  of monsieur Desplat. Japanese guitars, electric violins, a constancy of the “Harry Potter” construction, its  calculus foreshadowing “The Budapest Hotel”. A seething  Stefan Zweig’s commentary  in  Bella Bartok’s Hungary… folk songs   prevailing , the Dragon reduced to  measles and American theme parks.

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“Discovery of your inner hero” seven decades after “Frankenstein” outweighs the technological and

cyber space “mutations” in our  society..U Tube’s millions and millions of hits in director Wes Anderson’s “Budapest Hotel”,casting Ralph Fiermes as a  witty Marx Brothers (Groucho’sMiriam Marx demanding  sacra religious obeisance from a  busboy, seven decades ago)

A snide swipe at upper crust European this time around,transcending stereotypes, juggling the Grand Hotel’s “ menu”.

A hundred and eighty degrees from Vicki Baum’s “Grand Hotel”ages ago. The musical soundtrack of  keyboard instruments, ancient organs, music boxes,  harpsichords and plucked strings… a florescent transcendence to the Swiss yodel folk group.. 

“Visual environment to follow emotional issues” is how some critics characterized the Budapest Hotel’s “emoderrato’s 32 tracks. Deplat orchestrating Russian Folk Songs, flamingo guitars, church organs in the last will and testament circa a haunted house..a concordance with Elvis Presley’s “The Devil in Disguise”

The literary genre of Stefan Zweig, Roman clef  pallet of satire, adding to Wes Anderson’s and Alexander Desplat’s   nonstop fortissimo…….”Who ate the Hungarian Goulash? Who’s the “gonnif”?

 12 days before the  “Oscars”. February 10, 2015 The City that never sleeps.                                                                              I