Entertainment Archives - Waxman Files

Alan Grayson at the Hungry i

August 31, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

At the Hungry I

“Comedy is a serious business. A serious business with only one purpose-to make you laugh” W.C.Fields

If you’re of a certain age you remember the Hungry i, the legendary San Francisco club where a whole slew of comedians and musicians got their start. Founded in 1950 the club operated through the mid sixties until the political scene, comedy and music started to change. Performers who either got their start or enhanced their careers include (although not limited to) Bill Cosby, Lenny Bruce The Kingston Trio, Mort Sahl, Glenn Yarborough, Tom Lehrer, The Limelighters, Vince Guaraldi, Godfrey Cambridge, Professor Irwin Corey, Dick Cavett, Woody Allen, Orson Bean, Shelley Berman and Barbra Streisand. Many of them recorded live albums there so the name became synonymous with comedy and folk music. John Phillips prior to founding the Mamas and the Papas led the house band. The room itself was just that; bare walls with a performance area.

It was supposed to be an Orange County Democratic Party social event with a hook. If you bought a raffle ticket for $25.00 you could win a dinner with the congressman. The place was a beer and wine bar near upscale Baldwin Park in Orlando. It was supposed to last an hour and a half from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. The back room of the place reminded me of the Hungry i. The place was packed with anticipation. I was there as a participant in the event and I had no intention of writing about it. I’ve written about Alan Grayson many times. It’s not that hard. He’s a newsmaker and he’s never boring; you also never know what to expect from him which makes him very interesting. He’s become Alan Grayson 3.0, the humorist.

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Marian McPartland (A Remembrance)

August 22, 2013 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

I heard the news this morning on the radio (NPR, of course) while driving to one of our field trips and it hit me hard. I couldn’t think about it much during working hours but when I got home I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew it was going to happen but it doesn’t prepare you for when it actually does happen. She was 95 and yet it suddenly doesn’t seem to be that old anymore, because to me Marian McPartland and her contemporaries ( Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Billy Taylor and scores of others) are ageless. She and they have left us a musical and creative legacy beyond compare that will transcend generations. Her abilities as a player, composer and radio host are the stuff of legend.

She made her living in a business that was tough on men and even tougher on women. She did have the benefit to marry Cornetist Jimmy McPartland which opened some but not many doors for her. He was stuck in Dixieland and she was more oriented towards the emerging bebop expressions. Her contemporaries then included Mary Lou Williams and Hazel Scott. She learned her lessons well, started her own trio and for seven years practiced her craft at the Hickory House. Her career spanned seven decades of modern music and she filled every decade with something special. The last time I saw her live was in Fort Lauderdale in concert almost twenty years ago. The first time I saw her was in New York in a small club in 1960. I was eighteen and could drink legally. It was a real treat to drive the ninety miles from Philly to New York and go club hopping in those days and my buddies and I did it frequently.

Prior to the CD and MP3 revolutions, one of the pleasures of driving through rural areas (especially in the South) was not being forced to listen to the commercial stations. There was always NPR. I discovered her program, Piano Jazz, in 1979 on a family vacation to Florida and was hooked ever since. It was bound to happen because my dial was and still is always set to the extreme low end of the FM band which is where all of the real good stuff is. She always had remarkable guests and one of her greatest assets was her ability to not overshadow them and let them shine. She always played the straight man to the guest and the conversations were remarkable. Piano Jazz was the longest running cultural program ever on PBS, now in its thirty fifth year. She actually retired from the program in 2011 but it still goes on, and programs that originally aired in the 80’s don’t seem dated at all.

Her guests spanned the history of modern music and included famous musicians other than piano players as well as singers. Some of her more interesting guests included Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello and Boz Skaggs and those programs were equally entertaining as the ones with famous piano players. Some of her programs stayed with you. I remember Bill Evans giving a piano lesson on air on playing around the melody as though Marian were his student. I also remember Michael Feinstein talking about How Ira Gershwin detested what both Bunny Berrigan and Frank Sinatra did with his lyrics to I Can’t Get Started. Ira was very particular about how his songs were sung, which I found interesting, because his brother George marveled at his music being improvised. One program featuring MJQ co-founder John Lewis featured a duet on Lewis’s composition Afternoon in Paris which has a non-traditional chord change that she screwed up and you can actually hear it. She recovered well and the conversation afterwards featured Lewis explaining the change. It’s embarrassing because it’s the same kind of change that Thelonius Monk used in Round Midnight and Randy Weston used in High Fly. Oh well, that’s the beauty of one take live performance.

RIP Marian McPartland. Thank you for the countless hours of pleasure you gave us over the years. Thank you for your devotion to the arts and for your constant desire to keep the music relevant. Thank you for being (like me) a devotee of Alec Wilder who wrote this beautiful song: While We’re Young

THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED (ONLY WE DIDN’T KNOW IT)

April 20, 2012 by Jerry Waxman 1 Comment

THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED

(ONLY WE DIDN’T KNOW IT)

By Jerry Waxman

Dance programs on radio were nothing new in 1957. They had been around in one form or another since the dance marathons of the Depression years. Swing bands used to do remote national hookups into living rooms across the country and the kids used to dance at their house parties until all hours. This was best illustrated in the movie The Benny Goodman Story where the band is mobbed in California by hordes of teenagers. They had no way of knowing at that time that there was an audience in the west. Frank Sinatra’s time with the Dorsey orchestra was well spent gathering him a multitude of fans that went crazy over him in public. His 1942 dates at the Paramount are legend with bobbysoxers screaming, swooning and dancing in the aisles during the show. Radio dance programs were standard stuff by the late 30’s.

In Philadelphia radio station WPEN had two hosts, Joe Grady and Ed Hurst who used to broadcast from the downtown studio on Walnut Street. There was a dance floor in the studio and they used to invite teen agers from local schools to come and dance during their program. The year was 1946 and they were successful for many years. Of course, the music they played was in transition from swing, through Bebop, into R&B and finally Rock and Roll. It was a slow transition because the popular bands were Artie Shaw, Charlie Barnett, The Dorseys, Goodman, Kay Kyser and Sammy Kaye. The big vocalists were Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole Dinah Shore and two newcomers named Doris Day and Tony Bennett. Things were changing, however and groups like Louis Jordan, Three Cats and a Fiddle and Louis Prima were starting to make names for themselves, with music that wasn’t quite what the public was used to. Still, the kids loved it and loved to dance to it. The big breakthrough came in 1951 when Guitarist Les Paul and his wife, Mary Ford turned the music world upside down with their multi-track overdubbed recording of How High the Moon, a ten year old jazz staple that blew everybody away, and everyone young and old loved it. Les Paul became the high priest of the solid body electric guitar and even in death he still holds the title. The first revolution in pop music was over-the stage was set for the second one.

Grady and Hurst moved to television in 1952 but they didn’t get onto any of the network stations in the area. They were operating out of an independent in Wilmington Delaware, while at the same time WFIL TV, the ABC affiliate was experimenting with some live afternoon programming. Producer Tony Mammarella brought in Bob Horn to host a music program of mainly what today would be music videos. Horn didn’t like the idea and asked Mammarella if he could copy what Grady and Hurst were doing on radio. Mammarella agreed and history was born. Horn hosted the show for four years, and it was an important four years because Bandstand helped WFIL get on its feet and brought in nice revenues. Horn, however was not destined to last. He was involved with a prostitution ring and was brought up on morals charges over those four years. The final straw was when he was arrested for drunk driving. Mammarella hosted the show for a while until he could find a suitable replacement.

During the years between 1950 through 1956 the industry was again changing. Ray Charles was setting the South on fire along with Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. Country artist Patsy Cline was making her mark. In New York the music factories in the Brill Building were starting to crank out hit after hit. Disc Jockey Alan Freed coined the term “Rock and Roll” and started staging singing groups in a series of concerts, playing black music for white kids. Disc Jockeys in major cities on independent stations started playing the records and drew avid audiences. Bill Doggett’s Honky Tonk blew the charts away. The tune was so long that they had to split it into two sides. Part two was the one that got air time. In Philadelphia we had local DJ’s Georgie Woods, Hy Litt, Jocko Henderson and Joe Niagara playing the new music and we had jobbed in the “Hound Dog Man” out of Buffalo, N.Y. Local impresario Bob Marcucci was training Frankie Avalon and Fabian for future stardom. Philly also produced James Darren and Bobby Rydell along with great groups like Danny and the Juniors, the Dovells and in my opinion, one of the two best DooWop groups of all time, Lee Andrews and the Hearts. School officials, politicians, angry parents, the church and civic groups all railed against the new music saying that it would be the downfall of society as we know it (we’ve heard these words before), it was the devil’s music and using racial and ethnic epithets that are too horrible to mention here.

“Then Fate’s a thing without a head. A puzzle never understood, and man proceeds where he is led, unguaranteed of bad or good.”

Enter Dick Clark. It wasn’t as though Mammarella had to go through a nationwide search or anything. Dick Clark was already at WFIL. Clark was a seasoned radio host from upstate New York who had joined WFIL in 1952. He was young (27), boyishly handsome, soft spoken and charming. Just the sort of young man that Jim and Margaret Anderson would want Betty to date. He was the host on an afternoon pop music show that had not yet embraced R&R, although he was the first mainstream jockey on a commercial station to play Ray Charles (Hallelujah I Just Love Her So). The other network stations hadn’t come around yet. If Benny Goodman made big band swing jazz acceptable, then Dick Clark is the man who civilized Rock and Roll. He was the face of the new generation and we were all part of it. Clark had previously guest hosted American Bandstand on those occasions when Horn was unavailable, so he fit right in. The moment that Clark took over viewership increased exponentially and more kids from more schools were going to the studios every day. After a few months Clark was instrumental in convincing ABC to take the program national, and history was made.

Bandstand went national in August, 1957. We entered 10^th grade in September, 1957, and Sputnik was launched in October, 1957. These events are not unconnected. Public education was blamed for the failure of our schools to produce better students. It wasn’t true then just as the conservative attacks on public education is not true now. Many critics pointed to the leisure activities of teenagers as a part of the problem. Dick Clark helped smooth away those contentions, although in doing so he also lowered the artistic bar a few points. Rock and Roll was going to be around for a long time and even some of our parents started singing the novelty stuff like Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Beep and Please, Mr. Custer. When Philadelphian Chubby Checker covered Hank Ballard’s The Twist the adults and the kids went wild. Ballard’s music at the time was considered to be too raw for air play. Looking back on those years the social revolutions of the mid 50’s, Brown v Board of Ed, school desegregation, HUAC witch hunts, all gave rise to the revolution in teen age style, voice, attitudes and music that set the stage for the protest movement of the 60’s. The seeds and maturity of that revolution came into our living rooms every weekday with Dick Clark at the helm.

Clark took it all in stride. He was savvy enough to capitalize on the success of Bandstand yet he never gave the appearance of being egotistical; he always came across as a gentleman and he was genuinely concerned about the people he was with. I outgrew Bandstand after 1960, but I never outgrew Dick Clark. He is a role model for all of us.

Quality Time

March 1, 2012 by Jerry Waxman 2 Comments

By Jerry Waxman

Everybody loved Davy Jones. Rich or poor, old or young, Davy had this ingratiating personality that transcended music lovers of all stripes. We loved The Monkees and we loved him. We sang his songs and we danced to his joyous music. Davey was unique-more than any other entertainer I’ve ever come into contact with. The news today hit me like a ton of bricks because we had a brief association several years ago, got to know each other fairly well and we remained friends.

It was October 2006 and I was winding down the theatre operation that I had started over a decade before. Hurricane Wilma in 1995 had blown the roof off our building and the landlord was not willing to pay to repair the place. We struggled to get through the season by occupying other spaces provided by the City of Hollywood and presenting other programming than our regular season. We managed to get through a successful season of children’s theater, which paid many of the bills and we had grant money that had to be used so we partnered with other companies who needed the funding. I was ready to move to Orlando but had to wait until I had satisfied all of the theater’s obligations. Earlier in 2006 the Rapp Agency out of New York hired me to tour the South Florida Condo circuit with Carol Lawrence, the original Maria in west Side Story, as her production/stage manager. My predecessor, whom she had fired, had confided in me that she was one of the most impossible people he had ever worked with, however, the theater’s coffers needed refilling and it was the chance to work with a living legend. Besides, I had survived five weeks with Melba Moore and her entourage back in 1995 and nothing could have been more impossible than that.

To our mutual delight we hit it off very well and there was never a contentious moment between us. She was very professional and demanding which I admired and I did my best to please her and it worked out great. Now approaching 80 she is still working and still as energetic as ever.

So it was no stretch eight months later to partner with Gold Coast Theatre producer Jude Parry who was touring an adapted British Panto show, Cinderella, written by popular British comedian Mike Winters who with his late brother Bernie starred in the Mike and Bernie Show on ABC TV and in Great Britain. Davy Jones was to be the special guest star along with Anita Booth of the Royal Shakespeare Co. Ms. Parry is an accomplished actress as well as a great mime and she uses these talents to their best advantage. Davy was also no stranger to the stage having played The Artful Dodger in Oliver as a teen ager in London. He also played on stage many other times during his career, so working with this group was going to be more fun than work. It wasn’t work at all. I spent a lot of time rehearsing Davy, and all of us went out afterwards and blew off steam. In those moments you get to know someone pretty well. He genuinely liked being with this cast and crew and he was just one of the gang.

Davy Jones and Mike Winters

When my daughter Nancy found out I was touring with him she called me and asked me to get a signed picture for her old college roommate, Laura, who was a big fan. Laura was ready to deliver her first baby within 10 days and Nancy was visiting her in New Jersey. Davy overheard the conversation and immediately wrested the phone away from me and engaged both Nancy (who was four months pregnant) and Laura for almost half an hour on the birth of his daughters and how he was not only in the delivery room but participated in the actual deliveries. This happened with less than forty five minutes before performance (on New Year’s) and Davy didn’t care; he was delighted to talk with them. His autographed head shot to Laura heads this article. We learned a lot about each other in those couple of weeks and we stayed in touch after the tour was over. We talked about doing it again but my schedule wouldn’t permit me the time. I did get to see him again when he performed here in Orlando a couple of years ago.

I’ll remember those couple of weeks for the rest of my life because to me Davy Jones was special. I weep on his passing yet I rejoice in the absolute joy that he exuded throughout his life and the pleasure that he gave to untold millions of people during his life. R.I.P Davy. Your existence elevated all of us.

No, I’m not Bitter…..Really.

November 6, 2009 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Heeny Majesky…Johnny Gee….Eddie Joost, Johnny Pesky…….Thornton Lee; Danny Gardella…….

Van Lingle Mungo……………….

About the only thing that George Will and I do agree on is our undying, unyielding, unrequited love of Baseball. We’re also both at an age where the names in Dave Frishberg’s hauntingly beautiful oeuvre to the game, Van Lingle Mungo, were instantly recognizable and, in some cases, still playing in the major leagues. These were the years just after WWII and prior to Baseball’s expansion. The Braves were still in Boston and the St. Louis Browns had not yet moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles. The Athletics were languishing in Philadelphia and New York had three major league teams. We Philadelphians hadn’t had much to brag about in Baseball for close to twenty years until 1950. That was the year we surviving Philly natives have indelibly burned into our memories as though it were yesterday.

Phillies owner Bob Carpenter, a member of the DuPont family, had been building the team for several years and by 1950 had a good team in place, with three future Hall of Famers on the roster: Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons and Richie Ashburn. Through the farm system they had a good infield with Granny Hamner at shortstop and Willie “Puddin’ Head” Jones at third base. Veterans included Eddie Waitkus at first base and Dick Sisler (son of Hall of Famer George Sisler) in left field. Waitkus was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Natural, having been shot in the chest by a deranged female fan in Chicago. Home grown power hitter Del Ennis was the right fielder. Ennis had the career stats to get into the Hall but never made it and today he is virtually unknown by the sports writers. Jim Konstanty, their ace relief pitcher, was so good that year he was voted the National League MVP. The Whiz Kids were scrappy and were in first place for a large part of the season, but they started to sag in the last week of the season and blew a seven game lead to two games when they met the Dodgers. If the Dodgers took the last series there would be a tie for first place and there would be a three game playoff between them for the NL title. As good as the Phillies were they were facing guys named Don Newcomb, Carl Erskine, Carl Furillo, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson. These guys could hurt you at any time. In the final game the score was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Cal Abrams represented the winning run for Brooklyn, but Center Fielder Richie Ashburn made the throw of his career and got Abrams out at home plate. In the top of the tenth inning Dick Sisler hit a three run home run and the Whiz Kids clinched the pennant. That meant the New York Yankees. If they thought the Dodgers were tough they were now facing Casey Stengel’s guys: Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Gene Woodling, Hank Bauer, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, Whitey Ford and others who could hurt you worse. To add another obstacle, Curt Simmons was called up into the military for a tour of duty in Korea and was unavailable for the series. Manager Eddie Sawyer had to put Konstanty into the starting rotation.

When you are eight years old and your team is in the World Series you are in heaven. My prized possessions were an autographed team ball and yearbook, as well as an official Phillies cap. I treasured the signatures, even the ones by Putsy Caballero, Milo Candini, Bill (Swish) Nicholson and Mike Goliat-names lost in the archives. The euphoria didn’t last long because the Yankees won in four straight games. That’s tragedy for an eight year old.

Watching Robin Roberts and Jim Bunning (yes, that Jim Bunning) throw ceremonial baseballs the other evening brought a lump to my throat and opened up a flood of memories. It’s not easy to watch your team play so well and just not be able to beat the Yankees; not after 59 years waiting for your revenge. Here’s the tough part. I can’t hate the Yankee players from 1950 or 2009. They do their job and they do it well. You can’t hate Yogi, or Rizzuto or DiMaggio. Actually, I got to spend some time with Joe DiMaggio as he was a frequent visitor to Downtown Hollywood, Florida and we hung out at the same restaurants in his declining years. He visited my theater on occasion and he was an absolute gentleman to the end. I don’t have to like this year’s Yankees but I certainly have to respect them.

Here’s the difference. The 1950 Whiz Kids never again approached the level of play that they had in that season. It would be 14 agonizing years before the Phillies, with Jim Bunning, would come close only to blow a six game lead in the last week of the season because of Gene Mauch’s stupid decision to use Bunning and Chris Short every other start. The Cardinals, with Curt Simmons went to the series that year. This time the Phillies were the series champs last year and they are going to be a great team for a long time. Wait til next year.

Eddie Basinski……….Ernie Lombardi………..Huey Mulcahey……………Van Lingle…………. Van Lingle…………Mungo

A Day at the Opera

April 27, 2009 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

A Day at the Opera

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a Post WWll household that appreciated great music, great art and great literature. Our bookshelves were stocked with Hemingway, Mailer, Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber, Robert Benchley, Ogden Nash, Fitzgerald, Thorne Smith, as well as Dickens, Mark Twain and the best the literary world had to offer. The 78 rpm records were of Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and most of the swing bands and jazzmen pre Monk,Dizzy, Parker et al. There was also a sizeable collection of classical music on RCA Victor Red Label albums and others. I was about six when I first heard Lauritz Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad in Tristan and Isolde and I’ve been hooked on Opera (all of it, Wagner, Italian, French, Russian, etc.etc.) ever since. This year, the Metropolitan Opera Company is retiring it’s Otto Shenk production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the close of the current season. The Met has been producing it since 1986. I taped the 1991 PBS broadcasts and still have the tapes somewhere (I think). I’ve been listening to the Met broadcast season all year as I have been doing (when I can) since 1967. I also just sent my local NPR station a generous pledge to keep its programming coming. Saturday’s broadcast was Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods), depicting the death of the gods and the destruction of Valhalla. It’s been almost twenty years since I have seen those tapes and yet I vividly remember how brilliant the entire production was, from the multi-million dollar set to the fabulous pyrotechnics and great costumes. This production had three outstanding talents, Katarina Dalayman as Brunhilde, Christian Franz as Siegfried and James Tomlinson as theMalevolent Hagen. Close to Melchior and Flagstad but not quite, however, if you’ve never head their recordings you have no standard to judge by. You can go on Youtube and type in their names and you’ll understand. There’s a plethora of selections for you to enjoy.

Unfortunately, the state of opera and indeed, all the performing arts including my first love, theater, throughout the nation is not healthy. Recently, the Orlando Opera announced that it might close if it can’t raise the $500,000.00 necessary to keep operating. It’s easy to blame the economy but that’s not the problem. For at least the last forty years neither our schools nor we as parents have raised our children with any appreciation of the fine arts and our unique cultural heritage. It is American society’s total disinterest in these disciplines that are the main contributors to the problem.

Even back in the Wild West of the 1800’s every established town had an opera house. When great stars like Nellie Melba and Caruso toured here they went all over the country, as well as the theatrical show that played there with Maurice Barrymore and Edwin Booth and other great actors of the day. During the depression the country had no shortage of cultural exposure. Some of the greatest creativity in opera and theater came from the Depression era.

Movies made celebrities of singers like Lily Pons, Grace Moore, Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald, Alan Jones, Deanna Durbin and others whose careers were in either opera or operetta. The Great American Songbook was largely written during that period of time with composers and lyricists such as Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and many others. Broadway theaters were swamped with hits by those same songwriters plus playwrights like Kaufman and Hart, Anderson, Sherwood, Odets, and Ben Hecht. Melchior and Flagstad were at their peaks The nation listened to Walter Damrosch on the radio for his weekly broadcasts. The arts actually flourished during the Depression which economically was worse than anything we’re experiencing now.

In the 40’s the movies made stars of Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell, Jose’ Iturbi and later on Ezio Pinza and Mario Lanza, as well as classically trained dancers like Cyd Charisse. Iturbi was a popular figure in the forties who could play Chopin elegantly and then delve into Boogie-Woogie a la Meade Lux Lewis or Pinetop Smith.

As teenagers, even though we grew up in the 50’s we still sat in amazement as Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in his series of Young Peoples’ Concerts. Of course, growing up in the fifties was also a period of conformity, so we didn’t want to appear to be different and suppressed our tastes in front of our parents and contemporaries. Many plays, such as Tea and Sympathy dealt with that very subject. That conformity, alas, helped do us and our parent’s generation in. Our parents (Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation, which I thoroughly dispute) allowed this deterioration. Just look back to the Hollywood Blacklist, McCarthyism and other anti-communist initiatives (i.e. Other, Non-conformist, Pinko, Different, Weird, Queer) such as the discrediting of Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and Charlie Chaplin and how the (feh) Greatest Generation reacted. They eventually elected Ronald Reagan to the Presidency. To me, George McGovern is not the poster boy for that generation-Ronald Reagan is, and we are all the more diminished for it. And my generation didn’t help.

We need to change things. Our children and grandchildren are missing out on beautiful things that would enrich their lives. It’s up to us. We need to take over city, county, state and school board elected positions and put the arts back into our lives, despite this economy. Actually, the Arts have a positive economic impact on the community. Future columns will deal with how we can do it.

Florida Legislative Update

The Florida House suspended debate on HB 7149 at 1:00 PM and went on to discuss new initiatives on off-shore drilling within three miles of the Florida coast. Friday evening we were advised that the House will suspend actions this session on the bill. At this time it is not known whether the Senate will continue further action on SB 956, statements in a letter sent out late Friday afternoon to Unitarian Church leaders it appears unlikely that it will come to a vote this year. Here’s a copy of the letter:

From: Pardue
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:56:01 -0400
To: IWI<pardue2@comcast.net>; WII<pardue2@comcast.net>; WIII<pardue2@comcast.net>; WIIII<pardue2@comcast.net>; CFW<pardue2@comcast.net>; Sheri McCandless<sheri@bettercopycenter.com>; Meredith Garmon<meredith_garmon@uulmf.org>; Terry Lanning<terry_lanning@uulmf.org>; Gerald & Janet Goen<gjgoen@verizon.net>; Bob Keim<rbkeim@hughes.net>; Bud Murphy<bud_murphy@uulmf.org>
Subject: Bad Elections bill dead

Hasner says elections bill dead

House Majority Leader Adam Hasner says his chamber will not revive the debate over a highly contentious, last-minute elections bill. (background here and her

And he said it seems stuck in the Senate, too.

“From everything I understand, the Senate bill is stuck in committee,” the Delray Beach Republican said. “It’s still possible but they intend to have the same stripped down version that is noncontroversial.”

Hasner said the controversy had nothing to do with the decision to kill the proposal. Rather, he said, time ran out.

“Hindsight being 20/20, I wish we would have had more time to have a very strong debate on that bill throughout the process because I think there were some much needed election reforms in the original bill. … Cracking down on groups like ACORN is something that I think is critical in terms of cleaning up our elections system”

Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, said he would take a “fresh look” at the proposal over the weekend. But he acknowledged the long odds at salvaging something before time runs out. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we’re just not there yet. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll have to wait until next year.”

What this means is that we still have to inundate these people and the governor with calls, letters and faxes ad nauseum until it is a completely dead issue.

Jerry’s Notes.

This is a new format I’m going to try out and see how it works. It will hopefully post to my blog, producerworld, which you can find on WordPress, and it will be submitted to Huffington as well, covering, as you can see, many more subjects than merely politics. In the future there will be columns on everything, including sports, and you can bet that my take on it all will have a political undercurrent running through it.

I also welcome your feedback both positive and negative, and if you want to post remarks there’s plenty of space here.

*The words Hojotoho are what Brunhilda and her sisters sing during the classic Ride of the Walkuries This is probably the most recognized musical passage in all of Grand Opera, due to the many parodies in TV commercials, Elmer Fudd’s “Kill the Wabbit” aria and Robert Duvall’s Napalm in the Morning speech from Apocalypse Now.

Campaign Journal:Can We Go Home Now?

November 11, 2008 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

*Note: This was just Submitted to Huffington Post and is awaiting publication.

By Jerry Waxman

Tues. Nov 4 5:30 AM. The office opens. At least, I think it does. I’m still asleep. It’s not necessary to be there since we won’t start canvassing until 9:30, so there’s no real rush, and I have to get today’s school programs ready to go.

7:00 AM. The song, Ooh My Feet! My Poor, Poor Feet! from Frank Loesser’s brilliant folk opera, The Most Happy Fella, comes to mind as I get out of bed. Of course, I could say the same about my back, neck, knees and lumbars too-it just doesn’t rhyme as well.

9:00 AM. “What’s today’s agenda?” I ask, fully expecting to be driving people to the polls since I have a seven passenger van. I’m told by our organizer that we are again canvassing and this time we are not just dropping off reminders to vote, we are talking to the residents and if they have not voted we’ll arrange to get them to the polls. It takes a little more time, but so far, everything we’ve been doing has been effective.

1:00 PM Finished up my walk pack and returned to the office. There is time enough to walk another pack as long as I don’t eat lunch. This pack has over 100 addresses and at that rate I won’t get back until 6:00. Almost everyone that I talked to had already voted and the others were waiting for their spouses to come home. That’s a good feeling.

5:45 PM The office is now calmer now than at any time since last Friday. Reports are coming in about the long lines at the poles and we are ready to go there with cases of bottled water. I went to four polling places where there were no long lines at all. Then the call came in to get to UCF where the estimated wait in line was about three hours.

7:30 PM The polls here are closed but our work isn’t done. We are now calling New Mexico and other Western states urging those that haven’t voted to get out and do so. Those of us not on the phones are tracking the results on our computers through various websites.

9:00 PM New Mexico polls have closed. Someone has brought in a wide screen TV so we can all track the results together. I stay at my computer. Every time favorable news happens we erupt into cheers. I was on the Florida Dept of State website getting updates frequently. We were ahead from the beginning and it looked like it was going to be a cakewalk, but with memories of 2000 still fresh in our collective memory everyone was hesitant. When Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Mexico were declared we knew the election was in the bag, however, we wanted our work to be validated. They finally called Florida at about 11:00 PM and then abruptly called the election for Obama. In an earlier column I stated that Central Florida was the key to winning the state and that East Orlando was the key to winning Orange County and Central Florida. Our East Orlando offices did the job. The vote difference in Orange County was 80,000, almost half the difference in the state. Last election the Democrats won Orange in a1000 vote squeaker. Because of this we were also able to send two new Democrats to Congress. The only drawback to the whole evening was the passage of Amendment 2, which denies gays the right to marry.

I opted not to go downtown to the victory party. I’ve developed an aversion to the noise and mayhem. I’ll celebrate my own way and in my own time-with my family.

Wed. Nov 5 Lots of work to do cleaning up the office and returning all of the rented and leased equipment. My organizer, Erin, lost her car keys last night, and someone took her laptop computer, which had to be reported to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Security has not been a problem until now-I hope she gets it back.

One of our volunteers, Lyman, is hosting a party for our three field offices tonight. That one I’ll go to. This is a crowd of people as diverse as can be from all walks of life who, for two months, came together for a common purpose. People whom I would have never met otherwise and now have common bonds with. We have all agreed to stay in touch and stay active. Many of us signed up at the party to go to Georgia and work in the runoff election. I even volunteered to go to Minnesota if they wanted me. What we have in place now is a support system for anyone in this area if they choose to run for local political office. That’s a nice feeling to have.

Thur. Nov 6 Reality sucks. All the time I spent on the campaign has taken its toll. The house is a mess. Our supply room is totally disorganized and lacking in things we need for today’s programs. There is a load of mail that has yet to be opened and the lawn hasn’t been touched in five weeks……….ugh!

To answer the title question, perhaps, but not for long. There’s too much work to do. Yes, we can physically enter our houses, but we can’t relax our guard. We need to start getting candidates together for next year’s local elections. We need to start running someone against Charlie Crist in two years as well as those congressional Republicans who held on to their seats. We need to challenge them now in order to keep them from being more obstructionist than they have been. We can go home, but only to get a little sleep.

Campaign Journal: The GOTV Blues

November 11, 2008 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

*Note: This was submitted to The Huffington Post and not published.

Mon. Oct 20 It’s 4:30 PM and we’re finally ready to leave. We drive to the Citrus Bowl to catch the shuttle bus to the Amway Arena. The event starts at 6:00 P.M. I’m thinking that we have plenty of time as we have the blue reserved tickets. On the bus ride I started to wonder why the Obama people chose Amway for the event. Why are the DeVos family and Erik Prince getting any of my hard earned donation money? That’s wrong. The Obama people should know better. We arrive at Amway at 5:45 and are informed that the campaign people opened up the reserved section at 5:00 and we are SOL. Susan is furious at me for putting her through this. My last experience with Bill Clinton taught me to bring either a milk crate or step stool to these events if you want to see anything, especially since our reserved tickets were denied. We finally got to a place where we could see the giant screen if someone’s head didn’t get in the way. I estimate that we were about 100 yards away from the podium.

It was impossible to focus a camera on the screen unless you raised your hand as high up as you could and aimed in the general direction of the screen, so we never got to see either Hillary or Barack Obama live. Many of the pictures we took turned out OK. Just being at this event was satisfying and hearing them speak live calmed Susan down and she began enjoying herself. We left a little early to avoid the rush. Good thing too.

Tue. Oct 21 The rest of this week is spent identifying volunteers and getting the new staging areas established and staffed. I was supposed to head the Union Park location, however, because of my two real (and paying) jobs my schedule didn’t allow for that, so, I’ve been reassigned to supervise the volunteers, whatever that means. The big thing on GOTV is to be ready on Nov. 1 for a final 72 hour push. We’ve continued to refine our voter identities and volunteer recruitment is up.

Sat. Oct 25 Illness strikes. For the next several days I’m sidelined with a strange stomach virus that doesn’t want to go away. I’ll forego the details.

Tue. Oct 28 Erin intimates that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will be here on Wednesday and asks if I want to attend. I asked where and there was no stated venue yet-they were looking for a place. I immediately stated my objection to Amway which she passed on to the campaign. The rally took place in Kissimmee so maybe they got other complaints as well. The rest of the week I was tied up with business and could not put any time in the campaign.

Sat. Nov 1 We spent a lot of time at the early voting stations. The Alafaya branch of the Public Library had a line that stretched a quarter mile by 9:30 AM. I had an interesting conversation with a Florida voting rights attorney named Donna who would not allow me to photograph her. She was trying to be impartial and she was doing a good job of it. The office is now totally concentrating on making sure voters get to the polls.

Sun. Nov 2 Early voting is now over. People can still vote by absentee ballot, and in the worst case scenario, we will collect the ballots and get them to the Supervisor of elections, or they can fill out an absentee ballot and drop them at the voting locations on Tuesday. One of our volunteers, Lorna, has been on the phones for over 8 hours straight.

Mon. Nov 3 Today is wall to wall GOTV canvassing. This is strictly to make sure that people who haven’t yet voted that they must vote tomorrow. I probably have over 300 addresses to canvass, but I have all day. Tomorrow is the killer. We must be in the office at 5:30 AM. We’ve arranged to pick up absentee ballots and we’ve also made arrangements to drive people to the polls.

Barck Obama in Orlando with Hillary Clinton

Thomas Jefferson Proved That Every Vote, Indeed, Does Count.

November 11, 2008 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Special to The Huffington Post

I’ve been blessed over the years to have worked with some incredible talent on stage, whose ability to communicate holds me in awe. J. D. Sutton is a gifted actor who, for two and a half hours, so completely commands your attention, you don’t realize the time has elapsed. Ten years ago my wife saw his original 45 minute performance of Twilight at Monticello at a bookstore which included dinner. She immediately called me and said “this is a play you’ve got to produce.” I called J.D. and we got together and discussed expanding the play to two acts. I booked him to open a week before July 4^th with a special performance on that day. We ran for five weeks and J.D. and I were able to pay a few of our bills (not all) from the profits.

Twilight at Monticello opens on a private dinner at Monticello (where you are his dinner guest) circa 1820, give or take a couple of years. Jefferson died on July 4^th 1826 as did John Adams, 50 years to the day after the popular version of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the American Revolution. During the course of the evening Mr. Jefferson talks about his life, loves, his long career, his close associations, his inventions and what he believes to be his greatest failures as well as his greatest accomplishments. Oddly enough, he didn’t consider his political career to be a worthy accomplishment; he felt that it was a duty and responsibility that all citizens should take part in. The hook in the evening is at the end of the performance when Sutton, still in character, dressed as Mr. Jefferson will take questions from the audience. You will be astounded at the facility and ease with which your questions will be answered. After about twenty minutes J. D. Sutton comes back on stage sans costume and wig and answers the questions you REALLY want answered (you know where I’m going with this). This three hour evening is well worth it.

This morning I received an e-mail from him reminding me that Jefferson only won the 1800 election by one vote, and it was cast in the House of Representatives due to a tie in the Electoral College. I’m offering his letter to me as a morale builder for all of the hard working volunteers who are giving of their time. We need more GOTV volunteers on the street and behind the phones. We need to get everyone to vote. Can you imagine what this country would look like today, or if we would even be here today had John Adams (the Royalist) or Aaron Burr won in 1800? I shudder to think of the consequences. Barack Obama has been right all along; this election is not about him at all-it’s about us and the changes we can effect.

Thomas Jefferson Elected President by One Vote

In the election of 1800 ~ the first between two well-defined parties ~Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams, only to find himself pitted against his own running mate, Aaron Burr, who had received an exactly equal number of votes in the Electoral College. This threw the election into the House of

Representatives, where it took 36 separate ballots before Mr. Jefferson was chosen as our nation’s third president … and then by only one vote! Of course, Mr. Jefferson knew the value of a single vote; his 1784 proposal to prevent the spread of slavery into the new western territories had failed by one vote.

Two weeks from today citizens across the country will head to the polls for one of the most important elections in recent memory. Regardless of which candidate you support, PLEASE DO VOTE! Each vote can make a difference.

In his First Inaugural Address, Mr. Jefferson set forth his understanding of the founding principles of our nation ~ the nation whose founding document, the Declaration of Independence, he had written. As we enter on this critical election, these core beliefs of governance are certainly worth our review

J.D. Sutton as “Thomas Jefferson”

Thomas Jefferson’s Essential Principles of Government

Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

CALLED upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, it is proper that you should understand what I deem to be the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration.

~ Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;

~ Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;

~ The support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies;

~ The preservation of General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and our safety abroad;

~ A jealous care of the right of election by the people – a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;

~ Absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;

~ A well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them;

~ The supremacy of the civil over the military authority;

~ Economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened by taxation;

~ The honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith;

~ Encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;

~ The diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason;

~ Freedom of religion;

~ Freedom of the press;

~ And freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus;

~ And trial by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has lighted our way, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes has been devoted to its attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of our

civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust. And should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain that road which alone leads to peace, and liberty, and safety.

~ First Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1801

TWILIGHT AT MONTICELLO

321-438-6855

www.JeffersonAtMonticello.com

Since the initial presentation in 1998, Twilight at Monticello and J.D. Sutton have travelled extensively up and down the original 13 colonies and throughout the country thrilling audiences along the way. If you or any organization you belong to want to book Twilight at Monticello all the information you need is right here. You can access his website, or you can phone him. Just as the late Henny Youngman did, J.D. answers his own phone and you can deal directly with him. In the future I’ll be talking about other unique Americans who made their impact on our society. People like early womens’ rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton and broadcasting pioneer Gertrude Berg. Now I think it’s time to consider what our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes and their sacred honor for. VOTE, AND GET OUT THEVOTE!

J.D. Sutton as Thomas Jefferson

Campaign Journal: Get Out The Vote

November 11, 2008 by Jerry Waxman Leave a Comment

By Jerry Waxman

Sat. Oct 11. Today is the next phase of Get Out The Vote. We have scheduled a meeting at 9:30 AM of all volunteers to kick off the campaign. Our organizer, Erin, makes the introductory speech on canvassing the neighborhoods and phone banking and then introduces several of us as the team captains. We each give short speeches on why we’re there and what this election means to us. The focus of today’s meeting is to enlist more volunteers as we canvass and call plus we are encouraging both early voting and absentee ballots. At 10:30 we assemble our teams and begin canvassing. We had 97 volunteers show up at the meeting, so we do have decent coverage. Canvassing is virtually the same in every neighborhood. There are some exceptions, as you occasionally encounter a rabid McCain supporter who will slam the door in your face. I had one today; actually, it was funny watching the veins pop out on their necks as they screamed “Get Out!” They act like you’ve just poisoned their cat.

Sun. Oct 12. Today I’m concentrating on assembling my permanent team. It’s tough because no matter how good their intentions are everyone has work hours, and many have kids in school and all the other stuff in their lives. I tell them that I too work for a living. In addition, I’m directing a touring show that opens Nov. 1 and we’re rehearsing four hours each evening and that this election is so important that I’m sacrificing any hint of personal time to get Obama elected and that I don’t understand people that aren’t that dedicated when so much is at stake. My lecture gets to a few of them, but the others have different priorities. At least everyone will contribute some time. Honestly, it’s been pretty easy on me since Susan is still in Baltimore and will not be home until Tuesday evening.

Mon. Oct 13. More of the same. One canvassing shift, and some phone calls and then off to rehearsal. Word has come down that we are opening two satellite offices known as staging centers on the weekend.

Tues. Oct 14. Today I was only able to make calls for two hours. I had to pick up Susan at the airport and off to rehearsal.

Wed. Oct 15. After a shift on the phones we went to a debate watch party at a volunteer’s house. I scheduled a music rehearsal so that I didn’t have to be there. My impression was that Obama’s debating style forced McCain to be his true self. To me this is the beginning of the end for McCain. It will play out like over the next few weeks as an operatic death scene with McCain/Palin writhing, falling, getting up again, falling….spitting venom…..rising again on the attack, and then finally collapsing in a grand aria of hate talk where they both jump on the funeral pyre as in Der Gotterdamerung………….or at least I hope so. McCain is strictly buying time with his attacks as a way of keeping himself in the news since he can’t match money or ads with Obama. Boy, what people won’t do to get attention!

Thurs. Oct 16. Two hours on the phones. I’m tired of these supporters who won’t contribute any time at all. At least they are convinced to vote early in most cases.

Fri. Oct 17. Erin calls me in emergency mode at 6:00 PM. Our new staging center in Union park is without power. No one had bothered to check when we were given the building. There is no way the power company will be out here over the weekend. We need emergency lighting tonight so that the office can be open tomorrow morning. I told her I can’t get there until after rehearsal I arrive at 11:00 PM and by midnight the building has overhead lights working-no, I will not divulge how it was done. That’s my trade secret. Brad, Erin’s new second in command is there to let me in. Brad has just come in from Los Angeles and needs to get the place set up. At least the office will be open tomorrow when we are having our big Veterans for Obama push.

Sat. Oct 18. Today is Veterans for Obama day and we are graced with the presence of Phil Carter, Veterans Director for the campaign. I wore my Veterans T-shirt proudly, and took several buttons for friends and area residents who requested them. Phil and I were having a real discourse on the state of how The Republicans and, more specifically, McCain have been so shabby in their treatment of us. We were joined by John Estrada has recently retired from the Air Force after twenty years. John is now working for a major defense contractor and on weekends he is travelling all over the country to promote Veterans for Obama. All generations of veterans from all branches were there from WWII to recent returnees. Those of us who could walk did so. The others manned the phones. Ron Kohn served in the Air Force during Korea. Vic and I served during the Vietnam era. We all had a common bond.

The prize for the regular volunteers was guaranteed seats at the Obama/Hillary event on Monday. If volunteers complete a walk pack today or if they make 250 calls today they will be given reserved seats. I had 109 knocks on doors. The actual contact rate is around 50 or 60 per cent in my areas. Phone contacts are around 10 to 15 per cent. I asked Erin if we could get my wife, Susan, a ticket. She said “walk another pack for me and I’ll give you another ticket”. She’s pretty rigid. Then she said…oh, by the way, we have a plumbing problem in the new office-could you look into it?” My response was “go walk my pack for me and I’ll look into it after my rehearsal.” We both laughed. After rehearsal I tended to the plumbing problem. Also, landlord at Union Park arranged to have the electricity turned on.

Sun. Oct 19. Okay, so I walked another pack. This time it was 80 Knocks, and boy, was it depressing. This particular neighborhood had sale signs and for rent signs galore. It also had bank forclosure notices on lots of houses. Today was the saddest day I’ve spent during the campaign. So now we have two guaranteed seats for Monday’s event. This was important to me because I wanted her to have some level of involvement in the campaign. The time I’m spending away from home and the time I’m taking blogging are putting a small strain on our daily relationship. I can’t help the fact that I’m driven. That’s who I am. After 39 years she ought to know that.

Mon. Oct 20. Erin calls a 9:00 Breakfast meeting to go over the new staging locations and how we are going to work for the next 15 days. This is also the first day for early voting in Florida. Our push is now going to be getting everyone to the polls. I’m now going to be the GOTV captain at Union Park. He office closes today at 1:00 to get ready for the Obama/Hillary event tonight. As I write this I’m waiting for Susan to return home so that we can leave early to get there.