Why Playing Chess With a Teabagger Is Irksome and Futile

Mr. Lincoln sez:

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws. • Abraham Lincoln

What Kind of Music Do You Make?

Dissent is healthy and noble. It challenges assumptions and clarifies ideas. Sometimes synthesis and synergy result from creative dissent.

Dissension is unhealthy and ignoble. Its adherents value conflict and annihilation over resolution and consensus. Opponents become enemies and enemies are to be afforded no respect. Dissension kills associations, movements, and even countries.

It does raise a lot of money and sell a lot of advertising spots, though.

PRESENTATION MATTERS: The Epstein File

“When Brian Met the Beatles”

Then Brian came in one morning and told me he’d seen this poster at the bottom of Mathews Street advertising The Beatles “direct from Hamburg”, and of course Mathews Street is where the Cavern Club was. We’ve been accused of knowing they were from Liverpool. Well, we didn’t. We weren’t interested in pop music. But he said, “I’m intrigued.”

So we decided to go see them during our lunch hour. It was an awful club. There was condensation running down the walls and it smelt. There were these four guys onstage in black leather, wearing what we call bomber jackets today, black trousers, black T-shirts, and they were so loud. There was smoking onstage and they were joking with the girls in the audience and it was just like, “Oh my God, what are we sitting here watching?” I mean we were in suits. And these guys were just so awful. They really were. It was quite appalling, really.

It took about half-an-hour for Brian to decide to manage them. We went for lunch and he asked me my opinion first, and I said I thought they were awful but there was something there. He said, “They are awful but I think they’re fabulous.” And then he suddenly said, “What do you think about me managing them?” And it was as quick as that. That was 9 November 1961.

WIKI

Although Epstein had had no prior experience of artist management, he had a strong influence on their early dress-code and attitude on stage. When Epstein discovered the band, they wore blue jeans and leather jackets, performing at rowdy rock ‘n’ roll shows where they would stop and start songs when they felt like it, or when an audience member requested a certain song.

Epstein encouraged them to wear suits and ties, insisted that they stop swearing, smoking, drinking or eating onstage, and also suggested the famous synchronised bow at the end of their performances. McCartney was the first to agree with Epstein’s ideas, believing it was—in part—due to Epstein’s RADA training. John Lennon was against the idea of wearing suits and ties, but later said, “Yeah, man, all right, I’ll wear a suit. I’ll wear a bloody balloon if somebody’s going to pay me”.

Epstein began seeking publicity by “charming and smarming... the newspaper people”, as John Lennon said in 1972. According to McCartney, “The gigs went up in stature and though the pay went up only a little bit, it did go up”, and that the band was “now playing better places.”

And from Brian Epstein’s alteration of the Beatles’ presentation, the trajectory of the universe was thenceforth permanently altered. Presentation does matter.

A Parable

Recently, a most disagreeable little man of my acquaintance (Let’s call him “Chaz Patricio”) burst into my living room unannounced and without knocking. Unsightly under the best of circumstances, Chaz was disheveled, unshaven, and it appeared that his clothing had been worn continuously for the previous 48 hours. He reeked of what smelled like equal part of body odor, stale urine, and rose water. He stomped his mud-caked boots across my Persian carpet, farted loudly, then abruptly dropped his weight into my antique silk-upholstered armchair. He lit a cigar and then launched into a vociferous denunciation of my wife and how she had been unfaithful to me.

When I told Mr. Patricio that I found his charges difficult to believe he lunged up from his seat, grasped my lapels and not only insisted that he was correct, he then demanded to know what I was going to do about it. At that point, I was angry and disgusted and demanded that Chaz Patricio get out of my home immediately. As I was leading him to the door he called me a “blue dog” and a “bully” and told me that my writing was “pedestrian”. (A commentary, I wondered, on my recent essay on walking the sidewalks of New York.)

Some time after that, I learned that my wife had not been altogether faithful. There were some extenuating circumstances and, it turns out, she had not actually slept with the guy but her inappropriate behavior caused some problems in our marriage that we’re still trying to sort out.

If Chaz had made a less repugnant exposition of his concerns, it may ultimately have made no difference at all. However, now I am angry, hurt, and disgusted at both of them. Presentation does matter a great deal when you’re delivering a message.

How Much Has Really Changed in 100 Years?

NEGRO MUSIC

This notice circulated in and around New Orleans during the mid-60s. White kids listening to "negro records"!? Which artists drove the author around the bend? Motown? Stax/Volt? Aretha? Jackie Wilson? My guess is that it was James Brown.

Of course, they were right. This is the music that changed America forever and for the better. Thank God for them.