Unchained Melody

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Martin Luther King, “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”

Exactly fifty years ago, Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor obtained an injunction prohibiting demonstrations in that Alabama citadel of segregation.  This led to Martin Luther King’s arrest and the formation of a Children’s Crusade to continue peaceful protests against segregation.  Connor responded by authorizing the use of police dogs and high-pressure water from fire hoses against marchers.  One victim of these brutal tactics was blind singer Al Hibbler, best known for the 1955 hit “Unchained Melody.”  When major labels informally blacklisted Hibbler for his civil rights activism, Frank Sinatra signed him to his label, Reprise Records.  The Platters, Les Baxter, Righteous Brothers, and Leann Rimes have also recorded “Unchained Melody.”  Originally written for an obscure movie called “Unchained,” the word appears nowhere in the song.  The lyrics are a lament by someone (perhaps in jail) separated from his lover.

The two-hour season premier of “Mad Men,” titled “The Doorway” and taking place at year’s end 1967, finds Don Draper on Waikiki beach reading these lines from Dante’s “Inferno”: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road, and woke up to find myself in a dark wood.”  Despite having a trophy wife, who looks fabulous in a bikini or arising naked from bed, Draper equates love with passion, believes such thrills incompatible with long-term relationships, and ushers in 1968 by satisfying his sexual compulsion with the wife of a friend.  The camera shows a glimpse of a New York Times headline, “World Bids Adieu to a Violent Year.”  Of course, the worst was yet to come.

Providing comic relief, senior partner Roger Sterling laments to a shrink that life has no meaning; he is coldly unemotional upon hearing of his mother’s death but sobs when learning that Gorgio the shoe shiner has died and left him the kit holding his tools of trade.  Another humorous subplot: the fickleness of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s clients, rejecting ad slogans such as “Lend me your ears” because of a “Tonight” show reference to soldiers making necklaces out of Vietcong enemy’s ears.  On the other hand, Don thought using “Love is in the air” for a Dow Chemical product (not napalm, which literally sucks the air out of victim’s lungs) tacky and debasing, like calling a detergent revolutionary.  Royal Hawaiian executives reject Don’s pitch showing shredded business clothes on the sand, fearing it suggests suicide.  In an aside Roger says, “We sold actual death for 25 years with Lucky Strike.”

Sixties references abound.  In Honolulu Don meets a soldier on R and R from Vietnam and agrees to be his best man the following morning.  Don’s ex-wife Betty tries to prevent Sandy, a 15 year-old houseguest, from becoming a hippie runaway.  When told: “The kids are just living.  It’s beautiful.  People are naturally democratic if you give them a chance,” Betty replies, “Are you on dope?”  Pot smoking, in fact, has entered the Draper bedroom and the ad agency’s office.  Betty dyes her hair raven black, which her straight-laced hubby thinks makes her resemble Liz Taylor.   As the credits ran, I half expected to hear The Doors’ “Break On through from the Other Side.”  Instead, the most memorable song from this episode was Elvis Presley’s “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.” 

Paul Kern reported: “We started watching ‘Downton Abbey’ tonight on DVD. I hadn't started watching sooner because I had been a big ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ fan back in the Seventies and ‘Downton Abbey’ sounded like more of the same. After watching one episode, the main difference I notice is that all the ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ characters were likeable, decent people.  ‘Downton Abbey’ features scheming, lying backstabbers. Forty years on, our view of the human race seems much more pessimistic.”

Ron Cohen dropped in to pick up a manuscript Vickie ran off for him.  He is traveling to Oklahoma for the dedication of a Woody Guthrie museum and then will be in New York City for a concert as part of an exhibit on folk music at the Museum of the City of New York, which is to open in a year. Pete Seeger is the honorary chair of the concert while Steve Earle is the honorary co-chair, and he hopes both will attend and perform.

Tuesday at Soup ‘n’ Substance Geology Club members discussed a “Thirst Project” to bring safe drinking water to more people in the world.  Scott Fulk thanked me for my support and plans to continue the practice in the fall.  I gave him a thumbs up.  Meanwhile, down the hall in Moraine, for Islam Awareness Week students were offering to write people’s names in Arabic and served delicious spinach-filled samosas and oval-shaped, meat-filled croquettes.  I chatted with Attila Tuncay, who is retiring in June and worries about the Chemistry Department remaining viable given the recent attrition.

Country singer Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J released a duet of sorts entitled “Accidental Racist” that is stirring up controversy.  Sample lyrics from Brad: “I’m just a white man coming from the Southland trying to understand what’s it’s like not to be.  I’m proud of where I’m from but not everything we’ve done.”  Cool J replies: “Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood what the world is really like when you’re living in the hood.  Just because my pants are saggin’ doesn’t mean I’m up to no good.”  Critics have called it naïve pablum – one labeled it one of the ten worst songs ever.  It may be somewhat sappy (what country song isn’t?), but I think it’s well-intentioned and commendable.

I finished thirty-fourth out of 59 in the NCAA basketball pool; Phil came in fifth.  I asked him to pick up Cracker tickets for a May 12 concert in Grand Rapids.  We’ll go for the weekend, stay at the downtown Holiday Inn, visit the outdoor market with Alissa and Josh, and watch Anthony play baseball before returning home.

In the memoir “Elsewhere” Richard Russo admits to having had a gambling problem while a struggling young married student, sometimes selling his blood to obtain money for the slots or greyhound races.  He licked the addiction, unlike his old man, but worried he was susceptible to other compulsions, such as women or alcohol.  Then he realized that his compulsion was writing and that he’d never be satisfied without that outlet and even before he “found his voice” sent off banal article to popular magazines.

Frederic Cousseau asked about Gary area rock bands.  I told him about Blues Cruise and The Crawpuppies.  He mentioned that Johnny Travant recorded a song that appeared to be about Gary.  Travant’s website describes his latest CD, “The Cosmonaut Manifesto,” as “acoustic punk and anti-folk freak out indie folk.”  It contains such ditties as “White Suburban Life” and “Vampire Neighbors.”

Traces editor Ray Boomhower is still interested in my article about Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz.  I added this concluding paragraph: “Appearing on Gary radio station WLTH on February 7, 2013, to discuss “The Price of Inequality,” Stiglitz extolled the excellent education he had received at Horace Mann and its “fabulous” teachers.  In 1960 when Stiglitz graduated from Gary’s premier educational facility, its students were, in the main, the offspring of white professionals.  During the subsequent rapid racial transformation, one after another of Stiglitz’s teachers, such as Debate adviser Robert Scholes and Dramatics instructor Mary Gorrell, retired or relocated.  Standards suffered, and the school finally closed in 2004 after a 76-year run.  Still, Stiglitz argued that education offered a path out of the ghetto and that scholarships were available for truly outstanding students with the gumption to beat the odds and overcome their harsh environment.”

Horace Mann today

For the first time ever I saw a black man changing a baby’s diaper in the Conference Center Men’s Room.  On the floor by an elevator were 30 M and Ms, mostly orange or yellow with a few browns.  One thing I’ve noticed, if the two library elevators open at the same time and other people are waiting, they almost always get on the one I don’t.  I’ve done the same thing.

I found a library book called “Shy Girl” by Elizabeth Stark, thinking she was the author of “The Burgess Boys” (actually Elizabeth Strout).  It’s about Alta, a butch lesbian who works in a San Francisco body piercings and tattoo parlor.  Wonder if Anne Balay ordered it.  San Fran stirs in Alta a “hunger for things she’d only imagined and things she’d never imagined at all.”   That’s where Sandy in “Mad Men” was heading after finding Greenwich Village too cold and foreboding.  Alas, by the winter of 1967-68 the “Summer of Love” had ended. Stark captures the lesbian bar scene circa 1998, “the collective murk and mirth, the multiple eyes, the other butches circling the pool table, the glance of the long hair against leather, the anonymous press of bodies in a crowd.”  No danger at least, unlike 30 years before, of a police bust.

Ann Fritz hosted the First Annual Performing Arts Students “Talent Showcase.”  Mark Baer with baby daughter in tow introduced pianists, actors, singers, and guitarist Peter Anglinskas, a visiting professor who performed Mason Williams’s “Classical gas” and a Jackson Five number.  Sitting beside me was Tanice Foltz, who over the weekend received the prestigious Sylvia E. Bowman Award for excellence in teaching.  Anna Rominger played “Unchained Melody,” reminding me of the great Al Hibbler.  Helena Campbell, Mario Dongu, and Amanda Tomczak each did two contrasting one-minute monologues like often required of actors rehearsals.  John Edwards and Taylor Carter brought the house down singing “Your Daddy’s Son,” a duet from “Ragtime.”  Merrillville H.S. grad Taylor, who played Fantine in “Les Miserables,” also performed “O Mio Babbino Caro” and “Summertime,” hitting impossibly high notes.  Afterwards I told her Becca and James were in the cast of “Les Miz,” and she remembered them and said there’s going to be another summer production of the musical at the Star Plaza. 

above, Peter Anglinskas; below, Lee Botts

In the Conference Center the IU Alumni Association hosted a trailer screening of the documentary “The Shifting Sands of Northwest Indiana” that included a presentation by environmentalist Lee Botts, a former Edgewater neighbor.  Introducing her, Paulette Johnson mentioned Lee’s many accomplishments as a conservationist and her two honorary doctorates.  The work-in-progress dealt with economic changes and preservationist efforts along the lakefront over the past half-century, including creation of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Grand Calumet River Task Force.  A retired Valpo U. professor had intended to interview me for the film but cancelled and never got back to me, but Lee said that they’d be contacting me.  Botts hoped the proposed hour-long documentary could cover both past struggles and current partnership efforts with corporations that in the past have been among the worst polluters.  Good luck.  Citing improvement in the area’s air and water quality, she is optimistic about those programs while I am more skeptical.

On hand to hear Botts were geologists Mark Reshkin and Ken Schoon (no surprise).  I told Mark “Nice shirt” since his blue dress shirt was nearly identical to mine.   Ken quipped that he didn’t realize they were de rigeur.  I sat next to Fred and Diane Chary, who will be in Paris in June where Fred will be speaking about Bulgaria.  He has been reading A.B Guthrie novels and recommended “The Way West” and “The Big Sky.”

Frank Shufran, apparently recovered from cataract surgery and sporting a beard, attended the Engineers final match of the season.  Back home James and Becca were spending the night.  Toni read from a “Goosebumps” book before they went to bed.  She left off at a point where it appeared that a truck had run over a cat but its body had vanished.  Could it be dead, I wondered, not being familiar with author R.L. Stine’s horror fiction novels for children.