Yesterday, I was driving along, listening to the news headlines on the hour. The first story was that the official Saudi word on the cause of Jamal Khashoggi's death was a fight that got out of control -- and the second story was that the Saudi's had arrest 18 men who were involved. Involuntarily, I burst out laughing.
It's not often that one starts laughing at a news story about a brutal murder and dismemberment. Seriously, that's almost like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Here's a middle-aged, overweight man who went to the Saudi embassy in Turkey to get wedding documents and we're expected to believe that he supposedly got into a fight with a team of 18 trained government interrogators that escalated to the point where it took them all just to try to subdue the ninja journalist but he was such an amazing fighter that they were unable to and in final desperation had to kill him...and then they had to dismember him and whose remnants were made to disappear. . And what was Trump's official response to when asked if he found the Saudi "credible"? His answer was -- "Yes, I do." That's the kind of story a 4-year-old tells when his hands and face are covered with chocolate pudding and his parents asks what happened to the now-empty bowl of chocolate pudding, and then they ask him if he expects them to believe that. And he replies, "Yes, I do." Then again, this is the man with the crack perception and "insight" who initially said the killers of Jamal Khashoggi might be "rogue thugs." That he now says that the Saudi explanation of an 18-against-1 fight followed by dismemberment is "credible" all fits in perfectly with his explanation of hacking the presidential election being done by a 400-pound man living in his parents' basement. And whose initial reaction was that he didn't want to screw up business dealings with Saudi Arabia over the mere murder and dismemberment of one man. Who wasn't even an American. (Never mind that he was a U.S. permanent resident who has children who are U.S. citizens.) Now, toss in his wide-eyed, oh-so-innocent "Who me?" denial of any personal and Trump Organization business connections with Saudi Arabia, despite a long record of business dealings with Saudi Arabia. There are two possibilities here: either Trump is the most naive, foolishly-trusting, utterly incompetent observer of human nature of all world leaders today, and possibly in the history of mankind. Or he's a complicit pathological liar. Okay, there's a third possibility -- all the above. How impressive that Trump has not yet named an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. What could possibly go wrong with that? Now, throw in that Jared Kushner is the America's only point man in Saudi Arabia -- and who considers Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (suspected to be the person behind this gruesome assassination) as something akin to his surfing buddy -- what could possibly go wrong with this all?? For the past six months or so I've been writing that all this isn't about Trump, it's about the Republican Party officials who enable him. Well...this is about Trump. This is all on him. How the GOP reacts is a secondary issue. I don't put it past some of them to try to give Trump cover on this, they've sunk so low into the darkness that they are unable to read the map out of hell. But for the moment, there are many who've spoken out critically about the Saudi government murdering and dismembering a journalist -- let alone one who is U.S. permanent resident with children who are U.S. citizens -- and called for sanctions and an investigation to find out all the details. But for right now, this is about Trump. Okay, and Saudi Arabia. And maybe Jared Kushner.
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I've been running around and not focused fully on the news. But one thing that seems to be cropping up is how Republicans appear to be trying to tell voters that they're really, actually all for keeping pre-existing conditions in the health care bill -- despite voting 60 times for the past six years (or however many years...) to wipe out all of the Affordable Care Act AND despite 19 Republican state Attorney Generals bringing a lawsuit to make it all go away. And despite Mitch McConnell saying that depending on how the mid-term elections go, Republicans might want to revisit eliminating the Affordable Care Act yet again.
But yes, sure, they're all for it. Trump is all for it. All Republicans are all for it. Right. The reality is that you can convince people of something they don't want to believe otherwise. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker's quip paraphrasing the old adage, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it think. If people actually, really want to believe that the Republican Party is actually, really for keeping pre-existing conditions despite having voted against them 60 times and filing a lawsuit against them and despite Mitch McConnell saying he wants to cut it out if Republicans keep full control, then you simply won't be able to make them understand reality. But if Republicans somehow do keep control of both houses of Congress and vote to eliminate pre-existing conditions, no whining is allowed or cries like a stuck pig that you didn't see this coming. Reality has a way of making itself known. Certain songs enter the public lexicon and after a while people forget where it is that they actually came from. One of those that pops into mind is "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)". It's sort of the taken its place along side of the other city anthem "Chicago" (That Toddlin' Town) and to many people they may even be from the same era. In fact, "My Kind of Town," rather than being written during the Roaring 20s or a bit later was written in 1964 and comes from a move, Robin and the 7 Hoods, which was a sort of Rat Pack musical with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and also Bing Crosby, among others In fact, "My Kind of Town" was nominated for Best Original Song, though it lost out to "Chim Chim Cheree" from Mary Poppins. It was written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen. I love Sammy Cahn's work, and he had an absolutely wonderful one-man (in a way...) show called Words & Music that he toured the country with, and I think it even played on Broadway. (The "in a way" part is that he had three singers to help out on certain numbers throughout the evening.) The one quibble I had with it is that whenever he came to another city, he would change the words from "Chicago" to wherever he was -- and tweak the words to fit that "town." I'd been waiting the whole show to hear "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" and it was such a letdown to hear it about Los Angeles. Ack. No, it's about Chicago. That's like changing, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" to "I Left My Heart in in Tallahassee" just because he playing there and trying to suck up to the audience. This not only is about Chicago, it has a context. And that context is that the gangster Robbo who's turned benevolent has just been found not guilty of trumped-up charges, left the courthouse and been greeted by an overjoyed crowd. Which is when he sings this. (This video quality isn't great -- but the song is.) Well, I made it in. The train actually arrived impressively close on time -- in fact, five minutes early, getting into Union Station in Chicago after almost 40 hours on the rails. (This is hardly the best photo of the Southwest Chief, but it did its job well, as I deboarded and headed out into the station.) The elves taking care of the homestead said they had an even better time than I did because it was like I was incommunicado for two days, and they had everything to themselves. (In fact, I did have full phone access, and although it turned out that the sleeping cars did have Wi-Fi, the network was dicey and very slow. There was 4G broadband, as well, and better, though not ideal. But it let me stay in touch somewhat reasonably.) Most of the yesterday was spent going through the desert, mainly New Mexico and then later in the day and through the night across Colorado. It's not the most colorful part of the journey, but the rocks and foothills are wonderful to watch as you pass by. I didn't spend as much time in the observation car as I did on my previous trip, but that's largely because I had a coach seat the time before, and this time the windows in my roomette sufficed quite nicely. They also changed the configuration of the observation car. My recollection from before is that it had comfortable high-back chairs that swung around. Now, they had tables in one half, and smaller chairs in the other half. I didn't find it as interesting as the previous design, although what makes the observation so nice is the wide expanse of all the windows when you look around, and the sense of the sky above. I was also looking forward to it at night, which most people don't think of with the observation car. But the last time I recall entering the totally dark car that was largely empty, and you barely can see the desert around you -- but because you're nowhere near any towns, the sky is overwhelmed with stars that almost seemed to brighten the area. Unfortunately, this time they had some dim lights on throughout the car which mucked up the effect. Perhaps if I went later (this was around 8:30) the car would have been darkened and it would have been as wonderful. By the way, after getting into downtown Chicago this afternoon, my train traveling wasn't over yet. I walked north along the Chicago River about eight minutes to the Ogilvie Transportation Center. That's the old, significantly re-built Chicago & Northwestern train station which serves most of the local trains in the area (though the Union Station does handle some, while more a center for Amtrak nationally). From there I caught the Union Pacific North to Evanston. Much shorter. That trip was about 25 minutes. I may toss in a few other Tales of the Train later, but at the moment I'm still getting settled and we'll leave it there for now. And what the heck, I might as well round things out and include that finishing train trip. I've always loved these suburban commuter trains because they're double-deck. They've been that way since I was a kid, and most of the time I love to sit above and get a better view of the ride. They felt very magical back then when they introduced them, and they still do all those years later. And with that, we'll leave the trains for the time being. Okay, this should be the last of the pre-scheduled articles that I wrote before leaving on my train trip from Los Angeles to Chicago. That's because we're scheduled to arrive at Union Station around 3 PM this afternoon. And I thought it would be most-especially appropriate to post the famous, final sequence from the aforementioned movie, Silver Streak. As I noted, this is the same train that the movie is based on. In reality it's called the Southwest Chief. (At the time of the movie, the route was for the Super Chief.) What's happening here in the movie is that the brakes have been cut on the train, and Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor and Pullman porter Scatman Crothers are still on board as it hurtles towards the station. Here's hoping that my arrival is smoother. And that it doesn't give any ideas to the elves taking care of the homestead how they should treat the place. While it's pretty clear that most of that's not actually Union Station in Chicago, since destroying the elegant, classic architecture wouldn't have been considered good form, the demolished stand-in is intercut with some moments of the real thing. (Though we do see more of it in earlier sequences of the film, setting up this finale.) However, it's been used in countless movies, perhaps best known for the "Potemkin Odessa Steps" homage in The Untouchables, when they have the shoot-out to pick-up Al Capone's bookkeeper. And also in The Sting. (Oddly, if memory serves, it's the scene when Redford and Newman's characters watch Doyle Lonnegan getting on board in New York, before they themselves get on to start their scam of him.) But here's what the real Union Station looks like from a couple of photos I've taken in the past. And here are those steps, which should probably look familiar. Oh, what the heck. Here's that scene from The Untouchables. I wrote and schedule this long before I took off on my train journey to Chicago, so I have no idea where I am at the moment. Somewhere in the mid-Prairie, I'd think. With no certainly of Wi-Fi, we does our best. And rely on the elves back at the homestead, always a wary proposition. And okay, given that this is a train journey and Chicago is at the core of it, how on earth can I not play Steve Goodman's great song, "The City of New Orleans"??! Yes, I know "New Orleans" is in the title, but that train departs (or arrives, depending on your direction) from Chicago. (In the song, it departs from Chicago, going "southbound." It was on the Illinois Central line, and as one of the lines says, "The train pulled out at Kankakee," which is a town about an hour or so southwest of Chicago. I have a couple of versions here. The first, of course, is from Steve Goodman, recorded in 1972. Arlo Guthrie has a terrific version, and made the song famous, which Steve Goodman also credited. Willie Nelson won a Grammy for it. But this is how the song is done -- This second video is not from Arlo Guthrie or Willie Nelson. Nor the wonderful version by The Highwaymen -- Nelson, Wayland Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. (Little known fact: John Cash was the first person offered the song, but he turned it down. And spent the next several decades saying it was one of he great regrets. But on a TV special he invited Steve Goodman on to sing the song. By the way, he didn't turn it down because he didn't like it -- he thought it was wonderful. But he'd recorded SO many train songs, he didn't want to keep being identified with them alone.) Instead, this is performed by Jimmy Buffet, and is fairly similar to Goodman's original. Which isn't surprising since he and Steve Goodman were very close, and even collaborated on songs. In fact, when Steve Goodman passed away shortly before his beloved Chicago Cubs finally made the post-season in 1984 for the first time in 39 years, he had been scheduled to sing the National Anthem before the first game of the playoffs at Wrigley Field...and Jimmy Buffet sang it his place. Which makes this performance all the more touching. This version takes place in the right field bleachers of Wrigley Field, when Jimmy Buffet was the first person ever to give a concert there, in 2005. It's a nicely-edited video...and this is how he ended the concert -- |
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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