Almost There

“Never, never say, ‘It's not so bad.’ Say ‘You are almost there!’ And say it a lot.”  Madonna Ciccone

When I taught a course on the 1980s, I assigned J. Randy Taraborrelli’s “Madonna: An Intimate Biography” (2001).  Student Kim Hunt expressed disappointment because she had a young daughter who identified with the iconic pop superstar’s provocative clothes and behavior.  I believed Madonna’s story revealed insights about what some have labeled the “Me Decade.” The book details the Material Girl’s many affairs with the likes of John F. Kennedy, Jr., Warren Beatty, Dennis Rodman, and Alex Rodriguez. More vulnerable than her public persona would suggest, Madonna had the strength to overcome public ridicule and condemnation from religious hypocrites.

Randy Newman wrote “Almost There” for the Disney feature “The Frog and the Princess” (2009), loosely based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.  Tiana, a New Orleans waitress, dreams of owning her own restaurant and kisses a prince whom a sorcerer has turned into a frog and becomes one herself.  Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) sings:

There's been trials and tribulations
You know I've had my share
But I've climbed the mountain, I've crossed the river
And I'm almost there

Art in Focus at Munster Center for the Arts featured Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickerden’s documentary “Almost There” (2015) about outsider artist Peter Anton.  I met Rybicky at Anne Balay’s place in Miller, and there’s an unmistakable shot of it – painted a garish shade of purple – in the background of “Almost There,” as Rybicky, her next-door neighbor, retrieves a letter from Anton in his mailbox.  The filmmakers first met Anton at Pierogi Fest in Whiting, where he was doing portraits of kids. Anton lived in the basement of an Indiana Harbor hovel where he grew up.  It contained so much mold that Rybicky and Wickerden had to wear masks when they visited. The upper floors were uninhabitable, and all utilities had long since been cut off.  Anton showed them a 12-volume autobiography of photos, sketches, sayings, lists, and miscellaneous items entitled “Almost There” that he considered his legacy to posterity.  Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: “In 2008, Rybicky and Wickerden became Anton’s co-conspirators in relaying his story to the general public.  We also gradually start to see parallels between the lives of the filmmakers and Anton.” Rybicky, for instance, has a gay, mentally ill brother who lives at home and is an artist.  Ebert’s review of “Almost There” concluded:

      Anton’s tour of his decades of artwork inspires the documentarians to look into exhibiting several pieces at the Intuit Center. Intuit specializes in “outsider art," a sub-genre that focuses on art done by those outside the cultural mainstream. “Most of the people whose art we exhibit are dead,” says Cleo Wilson, Intuit’s executive director. So, she’s excited to present a living artist like Peter Anton, who’s still around to speak for his work. The exhibit will serve as the next chapter in the life of a man who once ran a talent group whose young entertainers put on over 1,000 shows over a 20-year period. We meet several of these children in “Almost There," some of whom are in the paintings Intuit exhibits.

      The show is a success. We see Anton playfully interacting with visitors and reuniting with some of his old neighbors. The film is half-over, and uplift is already in the air. Then “Almost There” lowers the boom on us.  One of Intuit’s visitors is Olga Briseno, the editor of the Times of Northwest Indiana. Fascinated by the rapport Anton has with the people who knew him, she figures he’s a local celebrity. So, she digs into her archives to find stories on Peter Anton. What she finds is so unpleasant it stuns the filmmakers.  [Thirty years before, Anton was arrested for taking nude photographs of young girls who had performed in his talent shows and served 28 days in jail – most likely why Anton withdrew from the spotlight and became somewhat of a recluse for years]

      In its most effective segment, “Almost There” explores the ramifications of this discovery and how better due diligence could have led to this information much earlier. There’s a power to this section that makes the viewer vibrate with rage and uncertainty. Rybicky and Wickenden ask the right questions of their interviewees, their subject and of themselves. And then, almost as suddenly as it was raised, the issue nonchalantly falls by the wayside as “Almost There” works its way to its warm, fuzzy finale.

While Anton made a colossal error in judgment in photographing minors in the nude, it doesn’t appear that he was a sexual predator; there was no evidence that he touched or groped his subjects.  Having directed them in theatrical presentations, the artist in him believed their bodies to be aesthetically beautiful.  Times editor Olga Briseno did not pursue the story.  Despite his idiosyncrasies and irascibility, Anton had a certain charm; appreciative friends stuck by him.  Forced against his will to move into senior housing after his house was condemned, he adjusted well after rescuing his beloved cat and began teaching others to paint.  Warm and fuzzy indeed!

 Peter Anton

outsider artist Henry Darger

Program director Jillian Van Volkenburgh announced, half-jokingly, that she wasn’t in the best of moods because she had recently turned 40 and had a colonoscopy.  Being an artist helped her, like others, cope with periodic depression.  She asked whether one should separate an artist’s life from his art, or if that were even possible.  In Anton’s case, certainly not, but I believe filmmakers Rybicky and Wickerden dealt with the incident of Anton’s taking nude photos of prepubescent girls with both candor and compassion. Jillian could understand a mother’s outrage upon discovering what Anton subjected her daughter to but noted that most outsider artists suffer from mental problems and impaired judgment as to society’s norms. Anton’s mother was so mortified upon learning that Peter was drawing nudes in art school that she ordered him to paint clothes on them and drop out of school. Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger, who some believe to have been a serial predator, was raised in an all-male asylum and painted naked young girls with penises.

At Phil-B’s in Valpo, Saturday Evening Club speaker Hugh McGuigan, formerly Director of VUs International Studies, warned of the alarming decline of the bee population.  The chief culprit: pesticides developed by huge agribusiness giants such as Monsanto.  Not only do these unscrupulous corporations make gigantic profits from marketing pesticides, they also sell genetically altered seeds able to withstand their brand of weed killer.  Monsanto lawyers have even sued farmers on adjacent lands where their seeds have spread.  When McGuigan urged all of us to sign a Friends of the Earth petition demanding that certain pesticides, such as neonicotinoids, be banned, one cynic piped up that if anyone does that, Friends of the Earth will be pestering you virtually every day.  I, for one wouldn’t mind receiving emails and Facebook messages from that organization.  I told Hugh McGuigan afterwards that granddaughter Alissa worked with Grand Valley State’s overseas program, and he said he mentored many valuable people in her position. 

Toastmaster Steve Brenley asked a biologist for his expert opinion, and the guy replied, “Actually, the only entomologist I know is a woman, and I was not able to invite her as a guest.” Touché!  My feelings exactly.  Historian Steve Tallackson compared the bee situation to when DDT was banned following the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” (1962), which warned that it was lethal to the bald eagle population, threatening their survival by softening eagle egg shells.  Steve added that Americans probably don’t have the same warm fuzzy feeling for bees as bald eagles but they are vital to the world’s food supply.   

I defended the need for effective regulatory commissions such as the Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that they were not only necessary to protect the public interest but compatible with long-range interests of innovative corporations.  As Karl Marx stated, unbridled capitalism will destroy itself.  I lamented that Trump’s appointees, such as EPA director Scott Pruit, too often do not believe in their agency’s mission and claimed that the Trump administration’s head-in-the-sand approach to global warming has made America a laughing stick abroad.  A member named Abe added that we were virtually the only country to repudiate the Paris Agreement; even Syria recently signed on.

I sat next to J. Michael Baird, a retired banker and Valparaiso Council member presently active in the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana.  Mike spoke highly of Gary’s “Mayor Karen,” as he referred to Karen Freeman-Wilson, and offered to escort me on a tour of the refurbished Tolleston club facility.  He invited me to an upcoming mortgage burning party at the former Tolleston school. I reminisced with Richard Whitman, Chief of the Environmental Health and Restoration Branch of the Great Lakes Science Center, who taught for 10 years at IUN and recalled parties where we got out the air guitars. 

 Dianna and Richard Whitman

Eugene Shipman

Whitman’s wife Dianna wrote an article for my World War II course about her dad, Eugene Shipman, that I published in Steel Shavings (volume 5, 1979).  Here is an excerpt:

  For Eugene W. Shipman, born in Gary on March 27, 1923, the war meant finding a talent that was dormant and bringing it back to life.  As a child, he was always working with his hands and getting into one thing or another. Once Eugene and his brother set up a pulley on a rope that was attached to two trees and slid down a 25-foot embankment. They pretended they were flying and loved every minute of it.  Not once did they think of the danger involved if they had fallen.  Eugene was always trying to conquer the sky, and he knew that someday he would fly.

  Eugene was never interested in the various high school sports or popularity drives that most young people engage in.  At the age of 16 he quit school and worked as a mechanic. Later, he joined his father at American Bridge Works.  In January of 1943, at the age of 20 he was drafted.

  Eugene was sent to Amarillo, Texas, for Basic Training.  Luckily, an airplane mechanics school was located there.  At the time, there was a great need for airplane mechanics – and Eugene fit the bill.  Although only trained in the mechanics of the big planes, deep down inside he wanted to fly. In 1944 Eugene finished his training and was sent to Iceland. Now he had his big chance.  He was right where planes landed for fueling, repair, and storage.  After so many miles of flight time, the plane’s engine had to be taken apart and checked to keep the plane in tip-top shape.  Eugene made deals with pilot friends of his; he’d take extra good care of their machines if they would teach him how to fly. Eugene’s dream came true -  he could fly as well as repair airplanes.  Eugene was discharged from the Fourteenth Air Service Squadron on December 3, 1945.

  Eugene subsequently married Iona Tresenriter and settled down to work in his hometown. He became a certified pilot and active in the Civil Air Patrol.  He also was engaged in experimental design of new aircraft.  He was one of the first to build and fly the Midget Mustang. He also was contracted to build a Piper Cub.

        

Grandson James is studying about labor turmoil in the late nineteenth century, in particular the 1894 Pullman Strike.  I told him that railway workers first formed brotherhoods based on various skills and duties, but under Eugene Debs all joined the American Railway Union (ARU).  He knew about the dire situation for residents of George M. Pullman’s company town that precipitated the ARU’s actions on their behalf.  After President Grover Cleveland sent army troop to crush what a reactionary judge termed an illegal boycott, Debs was jailed and emerged a socialist, having lost faith in private ownership of giant corporations and the probability of labor organizations as a countervailing force, given the corporate control of the existing political system.

Over the weekend I watched an impressive, four-hour HBO documentary about Rolling Stone magazine’s first 50 years. While there was plenty of good music, commencing with Jimi Hendrix and climaxing with Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” in a section on Trump, the focus was on muckraking articles on such subjects as rock star groupies, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the assassination of John Lennon, as well as cutting-edge “Gonzo” reporting by Hunter S. Thompson and Matt Taibbi, both of whom teamed with copacetic illustrators Ralph Steadman and Victor Juhasz. A segment about the downfall of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart showed his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley jamming on pianos.  What showmanship that ran in the family!  Swaggart’s liaisons with prostitutes were so open, it was almost as if he wanted to be exposed as a sinner.

illustration by Victor Juhasz 

Tyanna Buie exhibit

Savannah Gallery is exhibiting work by Tyanna Buie, a drug addict’s daughter, who grew up in Chicago among foster parents and relatives. Tyanna has no childhood photographs but attempts to reclaim family memories in her art, which purposely blurs the features of people and places.  At the opening James Wallace told me that his Uncle Perry Wallace attended Vanderbilt and was the first black basketball player in the Southeastern Conference.  In a couple weeks James will attend a ceremony honoring Perry Wallace, now a law professor at American University in Washington, DC., on the fiftieth anniversary of that milestone. In 2014 Andrew Maraniss wrote about Wallace’s lonely collegiate experiences in “Strong Inside.”  At Mississippi State, when Perry was viciously elbowed on the court, the crowd roared upon spotting blood.  Three generations of racists spat on him leaving the locker room. He endured insults from racist professors, efforts to prohibit him from attending University Church of Christ, and slights from teammates who excluded him from their social circle. In 2003, he was elected to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame; the following year, Vanderbilt retired Wallace’s jersey. 

 Darius Garland with parents Felicia and Winston Garland

Darius Garland, whose father Winston starred for Gary Roosevelt in the early 1980s, has committed to play for Vanderbilt, coached by Bryce Drew, whose 1998 “miracle shot” made underdog Valparaiso a winner against Old Miss.  The Drew and Garland families go back a long way.  As a kid, Winston attended Homer Drew’s basketball camp, and the two bonded.  Winston played on the 1982 state-finalist Roosevelt squad that lost to Plymouth in the championship when Scott Skiles scored 39 points.  Garland’s senior year, Lew Wallace, led by Jerome Harmon, won the Gary Sectional (I was at the game) before bowing to Anderson in the Lafayette Semi-State.  Like many budding Gary athletes, Darius Garland attended an out-of-state prep school, Brentwood Academy, near Memphis, Tennessee, where Vanderbilt is located.

 astronomer Eleanor Frances Helin

At Gino’s bar prior to a book club meeting, I ordered a Voodoo Ranger Pale Ale, which Lee Christakis added to his tab, and got a free dish of ravioli topped with delicious mushroom and sausage gravy.  A product of Gary’s Emerson district, Christakis once got into a fist fight with Alex Karras.  “I was young and stupid,” he admitted, acknowledging that he got the worst of it.   Presenter Donna Catalano showed a clip of “Rocket Girls” author Nathalia Holt describing how she got the inspiration for the book while pregnant and searching for a girl’s name.  After her husband suggested Eleanor Frances, she discovered Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer Eleanor Francis Helin, who tracked asteroids whose orbits brought them close to Earth. Donna’s presentation covered most of the book’s relevant points.  When I noted how birth control pills, panty hose, pants suits gave working women more freedom in the 1960s, Michael Bosch said that he, too, found that insight fascinating.

Going into Monday night football, I needed just 8 points from QB Cam Newton for a Fantasy victory over Garrett Okomski’s 48 Eagles.  Cam got me 35, most of any player in the league.  Next opponent: Kira Lane, with an 8-2 record and armed with Pittsburgh running back Le’Veon Bell.  The Cougar is favored over Jimbo Jammers by 6 points.

Bridge director Alan Yngve’s lesson pertained to what to bid after two passes and holding less than 13 points.  He suggested opening with 11 or more points and a decent suit.  I told partner Dee Van Bebber I’d been too cautious the previous week, and she told me to forget about it.  We finished in first place in part because I was more aggressive.  I followed Yngve’s advice and got high board on several partial contracts.  In one, Joel Charpentier held the Ace, King, spot of Diamonds, and dummy showed four Diamonds to the Queen, Jack.  Joel decided to lead both Ace and King; I trumped the King, which set up two Diamond winners on the board.