Bigotry obvious in Roseanne Barr debacle; less so, the value of professional PR

    My first job out of college was writing publicity in Los Angeles. I sat in a bare office—desk, chair, window facing a parking lot—in Century City, grinding out capsule biographies of 12-year-old BMX bicycle racers, stiff-arming the creeping conviction that, at 22, my life was now officially over.
     The sun-kissed little hellions could not be expected to pause from their moto whips and 540 barspins to write their own profiles, of course. Such things were not done. Writing your own publicity was the realm of the amateur, of mimeographed church newsletters and bulletin board rummage sale announcements. A professional operation like the BMXL—the Bicycle Motocross League—was expected to hire a slick firm staffed with fresh Northwestern graduates such as myself, who would drape them in properly-spelled glory.
     A sensible dynamic which came pouring back to me this week as I sat gaping, open-mouthed, along with the rest of the country, watching Roseanne Barr's reborn career implode, along with ABC's top-rated program, after the comedian sent out a tweet late Monday suggesting that former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett is the progeny of an ape.
     Since many Americans seem clueless as to why this particular insult is different than any random cruelty, a bit of history:
     The United States was founded a slave-owning nation. Our Constitution was an elaborate tap-dance lauding liberty while enabling slavery. But you need more than disingenuous laws to own slaves. You need the slave-owner's mindset. Convincing yourself that some human beings are your personal property based entirely on the color of their skin is a complex self-deception that requires you to believe they are inferior to you. Deciding they are non-human helps, and Roseanne said what every daughter of Dixie felt in 1850, a time when Americans eagerly hardened their hearts, perverted their religious faith and deformed their ethical standards to tell themselves this. After all, money was involved.

To continue reading, click here.

'He really has a deft way with him'—Tony Fitzpatrick on Rick Telander

Swallowtail

     I'd hate to have to decide who is cooler, Rick Telander or Tony Fitzpatrick. 
     Rick is a revered sports columnist who became a star at Sports Illustrated before jumping to the Sun-Times. Tony is a respected artist who performs one-man shows at Steppenwolf and whose visual creations are collected in museums around the world. 
      Rick was the kid for 15 years in "The Sportswriters" on TV. Tony plays mysterious security guard Jack Birdbath in the "Patriot" TV series on Amazon Video.
      Rick played one-on-one with Michael Jordan. Tony hosted the Uptown Poetry Slam when it first began at the Green Mill. 
     See? It's impossible.
     And though I know both men and flatter myself that I am friends with both, I had no idea they knew each other—Rick met Tony 30 years, writing about the Slam. Nor that Rick is an artist. Nor, until a few weeks ago, that he was having a show at Tony's gallery. 
       My first thought was that I should write something, about the wonder, this sports-writer-turned-artist. Then I dithered: maybe I shouldn't—bias, both are pals—then that I should. I ran it past my editor, and he said fine, 
    Then Robert Chiarito beat me to the punch with this sprightly interview with Rick for Chicago magazine.
      Which left me ready to drop the idea. But I had already talked to Tony about the show, and figured his remarks would make for something of a bookend to Rick's observations. Anyway, the show opens Friday, June 1, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Adventureland, 1513 N. Western Avenue. Rick will be there. Tony will be there. There will be beer and wine. And, for what it's worth, I will be there too.

Songbirds

     "He's actually been making this stuff since he was a kid, he just doesn't talk about it. About six years ago, he started coming around, showing me his work, the stuff he made as a result of his trips to the UP. He's kind of a nature kid, and he liked what I did."
     Were you an inspiration? Because I see a connection.
     "He maybe looked at some of the things in my studio. It opened a couple doors to him. But he's got his own thing. He responds to nature in a way that touches me. He really has a deft way with him, making figures and making images. He's obviously a guy who has thought a lot about it. At the age of 69, this man has a second act. That's not the usual way it goes in America. I've encouraged it over the last half a dozen years. Watched him evolve and have something to write about besides the vanities of athletes, the constant push me and pull you between the millionaires and the billionaires. 
     "I think this is in large part his respite from that. It was always there."
     You guys have known each other a long time.
     We first met 35 years ago. He wrote the first press about me I ever had. He said, 'I've been making drawings since I was a kid, I don't really show them to anybody.' Back then, 28 years old, I said 'Why wouldn't you?' I think he came from the culture of being a former jock, went to Northwestern on a  football scholarship, wrote for Sports Illustrated all those years. Perhaps maybe one part of his psyche was he really didn't feel like sharing this with anybody.
     "I didn't really show anybody my art until my junior or senior in high school. I wanted to have ownership in my own life. I suspect, in a very different way, that might resonate for Rick. Don't ask about the mechanics of how thinks. He makes art in part about storytelling. He's always saying, 'It has to be beautiful.' I'm like, 'No Rick it doesn't.' Beauty is sometimes a side product.
    "One thing I really liked is  his fearlessness with art-making. He's not afraid to get in there with watercolors and pens and ink and collage elements. He draws very well, it's been kind of a remarkable symbiosis. I learn a lot from him.
     "Last year, my son brought a few of Rick's pieces in here and said, 'Let's do a show. He's not getting any younger.'  At first I thought I would have to talk him into it, but he's all in. He's ready to show people, ready for people to meet Rick Telander, the other guy. We think we know people from their bylines and what they observe. Part of the thing about making visual art, much say you look outward have to look deeply inward, Rick maybe surprised himself. And me; I'm thrilled we are able to do this." 

"I think the story is more important than the truth"

"The Nose" by Alberto Giacometti 

  
     Lies have a long afterlife for a reason. They scratch an itch, tell a satisfying story. Donald Trump's constant untruths boost his fragile ego, his false claims about the press are a cynical attempt to blunt valid criticism now and undercut damaging revelations certain to come in the future.
    Besides, accepting something at face value as true, because somebody says it's true, or there are news clippings assuming it's true, is easy. Much harder to ask, "Did this really happen?" and start to dig. That takes time, and energy.
    Which can be in short supply with a breaking news story. But are in abundance when writing an advance obituary. So I was disappointed to see a New York Times obituary of Dick Tuck by Robert D. McFadden repeat tales I knew to be untrue, stories that Tuck had admitted were untrue.
    Yes, it was a long time ago, while researching my first book, "If At All Possible Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks." But the book was published by St. Martin's Press, featured on the cover of Rolling Stone and on Good Morning America. It wasn't a best-seller, but it wasn't a secret either. McFadden, a Pulitzer Prize winner, couldn't have wondered whether these marvelous events in fact occurred. It isn't as if the University of California at Santa Barbara isn't still there. 
    Maybe it's best just to reprint the Tuck section from my book:

     Of all the pranksters in this book, perhaps the most vexing case is Dick Tuck. Famous for his determined hounding of Richard Nixon, Tuck has attached his name to some delightful pranks—the time he arranged for an old lady to embrace Nixon the day after his 1960 TV-debate drubbing and say, "Kennedy got the best of it last night, but don't worry dear, you'll do better next time." The time he signaled for Nixon's campaign train to pull out of the station while the candidate was delivering a speech from a platform at the back. The time he tricked Nixon, during a visit to San Francisco's Chinatown, to have his picture taken under a huge sign which said, in Chinese WHAT ABOUT THE HUGHES LOAN? alluding to a scandal dogging Nixon at the time.
    So well-known was Tuck for his deeds that when the Watergate scandal first broke, Nixon's henchmen initially blustered that it was merely a Tuckish prank.
     It would be wonderful to say that Tuck is an exception to the Hugh Troy Syndrome—legendary pranksters whose feats melt away when examined closely. Sadly, that is not the case.
     The reason Dick Tuck falls within the book's scope of interest at all is that he traces his Nixon-baiting career to Nixon's run for California's Senate seat in 1950, when the Trickster waged a brutal campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas.
     A junior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Tuck was a campaign worker for Douglas. He was also in the history class of professor Harry Girvetz, who was contacted by Nixon's campaign headquarters—Tuck says—looking for an advance man to coordinate a campus appearance by Nixon.
     Girvetz, Tuck says, asked him if he would take the responsibility. Tuck accepted.
     "I picked the largest auditorium I could find," Tuck told a newspaper in 1973. "There was nobody on campus at the time and this place must have seated 2,700."
     Tuck also chose a time of 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. Since most classes were held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the campus was largely deserted. "We went to the beach Tuesdays and Thursdays," said Tuck.
     "Of course, only about forty people showed up. Then I held it up so latecomers could arrive. Well, Nixon and everybody there began getting impatient."
     While waiting for the latecomers to arrive, approximately half the people who had shown up left. Nixon impatiently insisted that they get going.
     "Finally, the meeting started and I got up to introduce him. During the introduction I proposed one hundred and three questions for Nixon to answer during his talk."
     "And then I turned to him with a flourish and said: 'And now here's Richard Nixon, who will speak to us on the World Monetary Fund."
    The appearance was a humiliating failure, and as Nixon was leaving, he called Tuck over and asked him his name. Tuck told him.
     "Well, Dick Tuck," Nixon said, "you've just made your last advance."
     A nice tag line to a great prank. The problem is, the entire thing is a lie; worse, one that Tuck has been repeating as true for the past 40 years.
     After examining 30 years of credulous newspaper articles, happily detailing Tuck's various exploits, I tracked down Tuck in New York, and he repeated his stories for me.
     They sounded true enough—filled with detail and largely consistent. Then there were all those clippings. And I certainly wanted to believe him.
     But the rally story started to unravel owing to Tuck's use of Professor Girvetz. No doubt mentioning a professor by name struck Tuck as the sort of small detail that adds veracity to a tale.
     But he overlooked the fact that Girvetz was famous as a liberal Democrat—a building at U of C-Santa Barbara is named after him. The notion of Nixon's campaign staff, no matter how harried, contacting a famous Democrat to set up a campaign visit struck me as highly odd. The archivist at U of C was interested in my quest, and combed the student newspaper for news of the rally. Nothing.
     I called Tuck back to see if he could provide me with more information—perhaps the date of the rally, or the name of a friend who attended. Suddenly, he was no longer the ebullient man I had spoken with before.
     "Your desire for truth troubles me a little bit," he said. "I think the story is more important than the truth."
     To give Tuck credit, under pressure, he finally admitted that not only was the disastrous University of California rally a fiction of his, but so was the train story and other pranks he is credited with.
     In his defense, Tuck claimed that the truthfulness of a story is secondary to its effect—look at Santa Claus, he said.
     But what he fails to see is that the lack of truth completely undermines the value of anything presented as fact. It taints the moral of the story. The reason people embrace Tuck's pranks is not because they are wonderful, timeless tales. People love the punch line—tricky old anal-retentive Nixon, the wily puppet-master, reduced to a laughingstock, red-faced in the empty hall, failing to finish his speech as the train pulls away.
     Tuck's pranks appeared to play upon Nixon's defensiveness, egotism, and lack of humor. To see the importance of it being Nixon, imagine playing a prank on Jimmy Carter, somewhere in Africa, pressing a rag soaked in sugar water against the lips of a starving infant. Not quite the same image. 
     Remember, what brought Nixon down was not the Watergate break-in, per se. Rather, it was his lying to cover it up, shameless and on television, gazing into the camera and distorting the truth for his own benefit.
    Kinda like Dick Tuck.

     I contacted both the New York Times and McFadden and informed them of the problematic sections of the obituary. Neither responded. Which is also disappointing. I'm open to the idea that, as people tend to do when they possess a bit of personal knowledge on a subject, I'm exaggerating the significance of this lapse. But it seemed at least worth mentioning. Truth is either important, or it's not.

Local kid steals spotlight in boffo Beckett ‘Boy’ star turn

Zachary Fewkes (center) with Aaron Monaghan (Estragon, left)
and Rory Nolan (Pozzo)  Photo by J Lauryn Photography.

     Zachary Scott Fewkes is only 12. But he has been skipping school in Lake Zurich recently to hang out on the Chicago waterfront with a pair of Irish bums.
     And his parents approve.
     Then again, these are no ordinary Hibernian hobos, but two of the most famous homeless men in literature: Vladimir and Estragon, the talkative tramps in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” currently on stage at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
     As frustrating as their task is — miserably killing time on a barren heath, with its one bare tree, waiting for someone who never arrives — the roles, played by Marty Rea (Vladimir) and Aaron Monaghan (Estragon) are diva turns compared to Fewkes’ character, “Boy,” who shows up at the end of the first act to deliver a message: “Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won’t come this evening but surely tomorrow.”
     An easy role to overlook. The reviews in the Sun-Times and Trib name four of the five actors — Chris Jones refers to “a quartet of masterful performances,” cutting Fewkes out of the ensemble entirely, even though his character has not only an under-appreciated importance in the meaning of the play, but a unique acting challenge.
     The four adults are seasoned actors from Galway’s renowned Druid Theatre, with a long list of roles and awards between them.

To continue reading, click here.

'People gather to forget about life's realities'

      I actually didn't need to write a column for Monday. A vacation day, in theory. But my column on the Ivan Albright show came together quickly and I realized I could write another and say something about the flag and the protest without cutting into my holiday weekend.
    I'm glad I did. Lots of reaction to my Memorial Day column, from people who loved it, to those who cancelled their subscription.  So much reaction that I began to categorize it. Three types: praise, insult and argument. Of the three, the argument is the smallest group—takes effort—and the most interesting, because a few readers people made various points I hadn't thought of or had under-appreciated. The email I found most persuasive are those who said, in essence: We watch sports to relax. We don't want our societal problems shoved under our noses. We want a beer instead.
     That was summed up best by this, from a Chicago firefighter. I've added paragraph breaks for readability. 

     I enjoyed your article.  This entire situation is controversial and divisive.  One thing I’ve asked and never gotten a satisfactory answer on is regarding the timing of the protests.  I’m a firefighter in Englewood so I’ve seen my share of society’s problems and injustices up close.   
     What if, while in uniform, I decided that instead of doing what my job required I would take a knee in protest.  What would happen?  Would I be considered a person exercising their 1st amendment rights or a person not adhering to requirements of my employment?  
     I don’t have to be a firefighter.  If I don’t like the rules the fire department imposes while I’m in uniform, or out of uniform for that matter, I can resign and pursue a different employment.  
     As for my question above, my opinion is that while I’m in uniform, being paid for my performance in that uniform I am required to adhere to the rules and regulations set forth by the fire department.  If I want to advance any agenda or set of beliefs on my days off, or my own time I am afforded that opportunity and it should not be infringed on.  I believe the same is true in the NFL.  I applaud the players wanting to use there social status as a means to improve society as a whole.  Just do it on their own time.  Not when 55,000 people paid to see them perform in that uniform.  
     It’s no different to me than a music artist preaching during their performance.  I don’t want to hear it, I paid to hear you sing, dance, act.   People go to sporting events, concerts, etc. to escape life’s difficulties if just for a few hours not to be reminded of how bad things really are!  If I wanted that, I’d watch the news.  So I ask again, does the timing of these protests really help social injustice or is it just self centered performers with a look at me complex?  I don’t think we’ll ever truly know.  I do know one thing however.  If I went through with my scenario above about not doing my job and protesting instead I would be disciplined.  Severely.  And rightly so.  When you put on a uniform to go to work whether you’re a UPS driver, police officer, flight attendant, or even a football player you are agreeing to act in a manner that is decided upon by your employer.  Perhaps the most important uniform is that of Military members.  
     On this Memorial Day, as we honor those that gave their life for our freedoms, people who wore that uniform until the end, maybe we should re-examine whether one day a year is enough for their sacrifice.   Maybe, we as a society need to reminded before sporting events and other venues where people gather to forget about life’s realities for a while about the sacrifices that were made to allow us to live as we do.  Maybe standing in a respectful manner for a two minute patriotic song is exactly what this country needs.  Being told to rise, kindly remove all caps, and pay attention as we honor America with the singing of our National Anthem is not forced patriotism, it’s respect that has been bought and paid for by every single person who has worked to make this country the place it is today.   The fact that so many don’t see that is the real problem.  

     I could poke a few holes in this—sports events are to have fun and forget life's harsh realities, when it comes to protest, but also a time to honor the courageous fallen. Which is it? My understanding is that these patriotic displays originated during wartime, as an attempt by professional franchises to deflect the question, "Why aren't these strapping young men fighting?" Seems the public bought the hype all too well, as it often does.
    But I don't want to re-argue the point. I suppose I would add that going to a knee during the national anthem is a very quiet and under-stated kind of protest, and it seems the protesters are being blamed for the over-reaction of the people doing the blaming, for the way their protest was seized and twisted and made into a political football by the president and his ilk. But we can have this discussion another day, and no doubt will. Thanks everybody for writing in. Well, almost everybody...

Do we salute a flag that represents forced displays of what you don't believe?

     I love the flag.
     Mine is frayed and faded from use. I'll put it out on Memorial Day, to honor the fallen, place my flat palm over my heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
     Nobody forces me.
     Like all loves, there was the initial infatuation period. Making construction paper pilgrims in elementary school, becoming fascinated with American history. Reading Samuel Eliot Morison's epic "The Oxford History of the American People" at summer camp in my mid-teens.
     We were the good guys. The Americans kicked Hitler out of Europe. The Rangers up the ropes and into the teeth of the German machine guns at Pointe du Hoc and the raid on the ball-bearing plant at Schweinfurt. When my boys were old enough, I gave them a copy of "Air War Against Hitler's Germany" thinking they'd love it like I did.
     They didn't. Times change. The parts of history that were hardly a distant murmur when I was growing up took their places in the narrative, like silent witnesses slipping into the back of a courtroom. One by one, called to the stand to testify.
     The more you learn about our country, the more conflicted the story becomes. I like to think it's still a basically good story about good people, with continuous lapses. But I understand those who think otherwise. The only actual U.S. Army Ranger I know went into the service a gung-ho patriot and came out a radical anti-imperialist, someone for whom the American tale is one long atrocity, sodden with horror.
     Am I supposed to contradict him? I think he's right, factually. But I'm a basically cheery fellow, and want to believe I live in a good place, with exceptions.
     This mutual respect, despite disagreement — I think he respects me, we drive up together to the same pal's place on Lake Superior every summer — is what makes America a great nation, and not one of those fractured nest of warring wasps that ruins so many others. America: I love it, you condemn it. I think you're wrong, you think I'm wrong, and we have a conversation, driving to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

To continue reading, click here.

'Every military casualty of every war has contributed to our freedom'

  
  

    Patriotic Americans honor the sacrifice of our nation's military without glorifying war. Not always as easy or as clear a distinction to make as it sounds. It can be a short leap from commemorating soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to valorizing every conflict. And not one we should automatically make, because it softens us up for the next war. Which is always waiting around the corner, and easier to start if we feel it's necessary, by definition, because they're always necessary, even laudable. 

MEMORIAL DAY 2008

     We arrived early at the parade this year, setting up our blue canvas folding chairs along Cherry Street, staking out a good spot.
     We needn't have bothered -- when the parade began, a half-hour later, there was still plenty of open curb space. The neighborhood certainly wasn't jamming the route.
     We're a nation at war, I thought, as the well-scrubbed fire trucks strobed by. Yet we don't act that way.
     Maybe that's a function of living in a leafy suburban paradise like Northbrook. Not exactly a military town. We enjoy the benefits, but the price is being paid by someone else.
     After the fire trucks, the vets, carrying the banner of the George W. Benjamin American Legion Post 791. As they approached, those lining both sides of the street stood up and applauded.
     Two marching bands — from the junior high school and the high school — a troop of Boy Scouts and of Brownies and then it was over. Eight minutes, start to finish.
     Afterward, my wife and I went to the park at the center of town, to hear the speeches and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."
     As the speakers spoke of honor and sacrifice, I held my notebook. But I only jotted down one sentence.
     "Every military casualty of every war has contributed to our freedom," said Maj. Gen. Clifton Capp (Retired).
     I rolled that sentence over in my mind all the lovely Monday afternoon, sitting on my front porch, watching the flag undulate in the spring sunshine, trying to pick apart what it means.
     It's the safe view, of course. Every soldier a hero, every skirmish important, every war unavoidable.
     And as long as it is relegated to the past, you can't argue it — nobody wants to question the value of sacrifice.
     But buried in there is a troubling implication — the suggestion that every time the military is sent somewhere to fight, our freedom is on the line. That's certainly what supporters of the war in Iraq seem to believe. But is it true, or is it circular logic? Are we fighting in Iraq because our freedom is on the line? Or do we feel our freedom is on the line in Iraq because we're fighting there?

              —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 28, 2008