Yesterday, I posted a tweet from the CBS This Morning show that included a segment they did about the song "Strange Fruit," which focused on the writer, Abel Meerapol. I mentioned that it was full of interesting surprises throughout -- and then it turns out that CBS This Morning deleted the video from their own show that they themselves had posted! So, my mention of "surprises" in the story was totally meaningless -- and probably a bit annoying.
I can't remember all the "surprises," but I do recall a few of the more notable ones, so I can at least fill in those gaps. A lot of the stories came from two men being interviewed in the piece, who were the sons of Abel Meerapol, and they talked about some of the famous people who'd often be in their house. Most were what would be called radicals of the time, some of them perhaps Communists or sympathizers, as was their father. I wish I could remember who, but alas. Sorry But I do remember the biggest twist to the story, a little over halfway through. And it's that the two sons were both adopted. Their birth parents were...Julius and Ethel Rosenberg! And it's when they were executed for having been convicted of passing information on the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union that Meerapol and his wife adopted the two boys. The other surprising story that I recall came at the end, and I did allude to it. And it's that Abel Meerapol also wrote the fairly famous song, "The House I Live In." I'll have more on that later.
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This is not a level of kindness that we've seen from the White House over the past four years. It's most certainly refreshing. Then again, simply not calling your opponents names would be refreshing. But this stands out.
I don't know if "Fox News" will have Tucker Carlson apologize for his anti-mask rant the other day. I doubt it, though they've had him do so in the past for things that were far-too creepily over-the-top for even them. However, if they do see advertisers start to flee (though there aren't too many left on Carlson's show at this point who would be upset with him about...well, anything) and they do have him say something -- and if it's another of his standard "one sentence 'oopsie' things followed by several minutes slamming The Left," save it. That's not actually an apology, but an excuse to play the victim. Instead, he should use the time on his show for something more meaningful, like showing another of the hot panda sex videos he's been known to run.
If you don't know about his rant, basically he said that if anyone saw a child outside wearing a mask, people should treat that like child abuse and call the police about it. "Hello, police? There's a white supremacist fascist on my TV who's a public health menace and is encouraging people to harass the general public for their lawful conduct." More to the point, if the police get overwhelmed by people calling them to harass children with face masks (or anyone with face masks), they should know these calls were directed to them by Tucker Carlson. And any angry police responses about a waste of their time and an abuse of public safety should be sent directly to Carlson or at least to "Fox News" who will be able to take a message for him. We're beyond the point of calling anything that Tucker Carlson does is despicable or reprehensible. Given things like his semi-coded defense of white supremacy a couple weeks ago that wasn't a dog whistle but a fog horn, descriptive words are pretty meaningless now. And "now" is a pretty flexible term, since Tucker Carlson's white supremacy and fascism go back pretty far, even to his bow tie days. I recall during the 2016 presidential race I was flipping through TV channels, and Carlson had someone liberal on, which shocked me, and I watched for a minute -- largely because the guest went into full takedown mode and was blasting some Republican actions as fascist (yes, even before that election). And poor little Tucker just had a meltdown. It was like a cartoon when the character turns all beet-red, his head begins to shake back-and-forth like a tuning fork, and then steam shoots high out of the top of his head and a steam whistle goes off. Carlson came pretty close to that in real life, and began sputtering, "How can you say that????!! How can you say that???!!!!" The words falling over one another, almost to incomprehensibility. He made no attempt to argue back or tell the guest off, but clearly was taking this as a very personal attack, even though the comment was not directed to him. What stands out more about Carlson's anti-mask, call the police on children fascist rant was that there was no outrage from anyone of authority in the Republican Party or on “Fox News,” which speaks loudly how low that party (and channel) have plummeted. It’s now full-on fascist with no attempt to disguise the fact, unless you call them that and they then get all pissy, turn beet-red and have steam blow high out of the top of their heads. Here's the thing -- I have no idea if Tucker Carlson even believe this about calling the police on children wearing masks. I'm certain he does believe the white supremacy fascist stuff, but idiot pablum like this to feed to his far-right conspiracy lunatic viewers? Who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if he actually believes much of it, because it fits into his mindset that he's displayed openly for years, but I wouldn't also be surprised if he just wants to rile up his audience and also wants to get the national attention because he's such an empty, egregious panderer. (Not to be confused with pandas, and his hot panda sex videos.) Either way, though, the words that regularly come out of his mouth are dangerous to the well-being of the country. But for all that, this is not about Tucker Carlson. We know who he is. This is about the Republican Party, the far-right media, and wing-nut acolyte followers are are full-blown fascist, white supremacist, delusional insurrectionists and are all complicit. And yes, that's a generalization. But it's pretty close to accurate unless shown otherwise. To be clear, I'm not talking about conservatives. Or every member of the Republican Party. But about the leadership and direction of the GOP which pushes its elected agenda, and about the "far-right" and all those that that encompasses. The lunatic fringe wing of the party and the philosophy. A wing which has become pretty close to taking over the full body. Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, Kamala Harris at a bakery, no more meat allowed, Kamala Harris' children book, on and on and on it goes. Nothing. Yammering. Not just lying, idiotic lying. Nothing. In the middle of a pandemic, economic collapse, racial unrest, insurrection. Nothing. They have nothing. This is what they offer. Nothing, And so, you tell people to call the police when you see a child wearing a face mask to stay safe because there are no vaccines approved yet for children. Despicable, reprehensible, nothing -- none of it even begins to do today's Republican Party justice. Tucker Carlson isn't the problem. He's the symptom. Just one of the faces -- crying out to get to wear his bow tie again. Or his white hood. We going to follow up our posting yesterday with Sarah Lee Guthrie and her father Arlo with a wonderful companion piece. Albeit a bit of an oddish one. This features Arlo Guthrie, though comes from a concert he did with Pete Seeger. But not just them, but also Pete's son Tao Rodriguez. Also, there are three young women singing back-up, and as I looked closer, I thought that one of them might be Arlo's daughter Sarah Lee. Though I couldn't quite tell for 100% certain which she was. So, I wanted to see if there were credits at the end of the video. And there weren't. However, when I watched the video again, it turned out that there were credits at the beginning, but in small letters. So, I paused the video...and it turned out that, yes, Sarah Lee Guthrie was one of the three background singers. It also turned out that there was a good reason I wasn't completely sure which of the three she was -- since the other two were her sisters! Cathy Guthrie and Anne Guthrie. (I should note that I was lucky enough once to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie in concert together, and it was wonderful. Though it was just those two -- not a full clan of six...) Fun as this collection of Guthries and Seegers is, what leaps out is that Arlo Guthrie goes into top-notch Arlo Guthrie Mode and tells a long and wonderfully funny story about having performed years before with Pete Seeger and singing (to Seeger's shock) an Elvis Presley song. And though Seeger obviously knew the story, it's clear he takes great pleasure in hearing Arlo Guthrie tell it on stage. (And I should add though Arlo's storytelling here is in the manner of his classic "Alice's Restaurant," it is nowhere near as 18-minute long -- just long for most concerts where maybe you get a 30-second or minute introduction and told with the same sensibility of Alice whimsy.) And then they all sing Elvis. As Arlo interrupts the song throughout with his continued storytelling. (Fun, too, is at one point watching the three Guthrie sisters just sort of ignoring their dad and talking together at the microphone.) So, then, here are Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Pete Seeger's son (in blue, between them) and three Guthrie sisters at Wolftrap on August 8, 1993 -- with an absolutely charming version of "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You." And I'm pretty sure that Sarah Lee Guthrie is the sister on the left in blue.
This is a very interesting, enjoyable report from Michelle Miller on CBS This Morning. It covers both entertainment and politics, and looks at the history of the controversial song about lynching, "Strange Fruit," that became a signature song for Billie Holiday. Though at the heart of the new Hulu movie, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, the politics of the time -- and its overlap with today -- weaves through the story.
But there are also a lot of surprises that pop in throughout, as the two sons of the songwriter give their insight into the song and its history. And the biggest twist comes about five minutes in. Not to overemphasize the idea of "surprises" and "twists," these aren't oh-my-God! things that take the story in completely different directions, but rather parts of the story that are unexpected and fun to learn, notably about people who are part of the tale. There's also an interesting, small surprise at the end. However, the reporter makes a mistake about it. But being a surprise (of sorts), I don't want to give it away here. But I'll explain below the video that I've embedded below.
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Since you've gotten this far, I can now explain the minor mistake that Ms. Miller makes at the end of an otherwise very good, interesting report. Actually, it's more a case of one minor mistake, and one small lapse of full information. The other song referenced at the end that Abel Meerapol also wrote was titled, "The House I Live In." What Ms. Miller says is he title -- "What is America to Me" -- is only just a line from the song. And also, although Frank Sinatra did record the song and sang it throughout his career, the impression given here is that he introduced the song, but in fact it was written for a musical Let Freedom Sing in 1942. Sinatra did popularize it, however. And the great Paul Robeson had a famous recording, as well. But more on all that tomorrow. The other week, after posting a bunch of songs by Phil Ochs, I posted a wonderful cover of one of his songs, "When I'm Gone," here by Sarah Lee Guthrie, daughter of Arlo and granddaughter of Woody. When finding that, I also came across another recording of hers performing Steve Goodman's great song, "The City of New Orleans." And my immediate reaction when I saw it was great pleasure of her singing a Steve Goodman song. It was only after the audience started applauding when she started it, which initially surprised me -- other than, how nice, they're applauding a Steve Goodman song -- that it finally kicked in that they were applauding because it was a song her father made famous! Okay, I'm sometimes slow on the uptake, but that's due here to my great love of Steve Goodman songs. I like her version very much, though it's more sweet than I prefer with the song, that I think has a driving quality to it, like the rhythm of a train. But given that one of the original lines in the song is "Riding their father's magic carpet made of steam / the rhythm of the train is all they dream," having a sweet, wistful interpretation is certainly appropriate. (By the way, Arlo Guthrie changed that line -- I believe with Steve Goodman's approval, though Goodman always sang it his original way -- -""Riding their father's magic carpet made of steel / the rhythm of the train is all they feel.") So, backed up by Jeremy Irion, here from 2015 is Sarah Lee Guthrie with "The City of New Orleans." As a bonus, here is Arlo Guthrie in 2019 singing lead in with his memorable rendition of "The City of New Orleans," along with his daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie singing backup. Because of the gentleness of her voice, and the fact that she is, after all, singing backup, his lead vocal predominates. But it's a wonderful performance to have a record of. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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