Since the Kennedy Center Honors were just presented the other day, I thought that would be a good time to go back for the show honoring one of my favorite Broadway composers Jule Styne. He wrote the music to such musicals as Gypsy, Funny Girl, Bells are Ringing, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, songs from Peter Pan and many more, as well as having 10 Best Song Oscar nominations, winning for Three Coins in the Fountain, along with pop hits, like "Time After Time" and "Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" Not to mention my fave (as readers of these pages know), Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, the first -- and I think still the best -- animated TV musical. Not surprisingly, the 1990 presentation has an excellent entertainment section with great songs overlapping one another -- but also the film bio is filled with his songs. Jerome Robbins hosts the segment, having been involved with Styne on six shows as director or choreographer, including Peter Pan.
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Following up on my article yesterday -- it now turns out that "Jared from Oregon" Schmeck is "praying" about running for office and meeting Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
But yeah, his comment to President Biden, that he says he knew had a "vulgar" meaning (his word), during a national livestream for children about Santa Claus was just a joke and he didn't mean anything by it, but, oh, he's the victim and is being cancelled. Senator Rob Standridge (R-OK) introduced what is basically a fascist book-burning bill into the State Senate. It lets even just one parent complain in writing about a book that (to generalize a bit) has sex in it, and if a school library doesn't remove the book, due to that single complaint, within 30 days, the individual can receive a minimum of $10,000 a day – for each day the book is not removed. Also, any school employee who doesn’t remove the book within that time period “shall be dismissed or not reemployed.” No, really. And in case you think this is from The Onion, or I'm pushing up April Fools Day early this year -- When Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote, "You're doing fine, Oklahoma," I don't think they meant that fine to be $10,000 a day. The bill bans all books "that make as their primary subject the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity or books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it." Fascist book-burning aside (which admittedly is a ton to put aside), I can imagine parents going through their school library catalogue and putting together a long list of books that would qualify -- and passing the list to as many other parents as they can – in hopes of each parent individually making so much money they could retire. I'm not saying they'd cash out in all those cases, or even most of them, but I absolutely can see a mass of parents seeing this as a Money from Heaven treasure hunt. And timing their letters to arrive on the weekend or during school holidays to give them the best chance of sitting untouched as long as possible, pilling up those $10,000 per day penalties. (It’s not certain if each complaining parent would be eligible for the $10,000 per day Book Bounty, or if multiple parents complain about a book they’d have to split the trove. But even if it’s the latter, that still wouldn’t affect as many parents as possible combing through the entirety of a school’s library books in hopes of cashing in.) To be clear, if any school thinks a request is unreasonable (like, oh, most of them) and refuse to pull a book, the penalty won’t have to be paid until the matter is adjudicated in court in the parents’ favor. Which means the parents would have to go to the trouble of suing. And while I suspect most won’t, for the risk of losing, they’ll also know that there’s a bit of a safety net for them built into Standridge’s bill, because they can will be able to recover “reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.” On the sane, non-fascist other side of the coin, State Representative Jacob Rosentcrants, not shockingly a Democrat, told the McAlester News-Capital warned that the bill could ban any book that merely contained the word "sex." And added that “They say on the other side that they’re trying to stop indoctrination. “This looks to me like it is indoctrination. When you’re trying to say what somebody should or shouldn’t do or somebody should or shouldn’t read, isn’t that the epitome of that?” Ordinally, I’d say that I don’t see this bill passing the Oklahoma Senate, or getting out of the legislature, or being signed by the governor. But with today’s fascist Republican Party fine with caging children, passing voter suppression laws, ignoring science and helping spread a deadly pandemic, and crying that the election was stolen despite a total lack of admissible evidence, I don’t put almost anything past them. But pushing the fascist book-burning even more to side, which gets to be quite a burden, there’s also an “unintended consequences” aspect to all this, of course. Public schools are funded by the town they’re in. So, any penalty paid would come out of their budget. And if school doesn’t have enough to cover the costs, it will either have to drastically cut back schooling, or get more money from the community, or close the school. It would be a cheap shot and unfair to say that having to fire teachers, losing school hours, and closing schools would risk making Oklahoma students more ignorant than they already are. But if enough Oklahoma state representatives pass this bill, and the governor signed it, it doesn’t speak well for the adults who voted them in. You can read more about it here. Yesterday, my pal Mark Evanier wrote about one of his favorite musicals, Merrily We Roll Along. I like it too, though have had debates with friends about it who find it terminally flawed because of its structure. I don’t agree – hence why I like it. Mark posted a scene from the show, which follows three friends – a songwriting team and a script writer – backwards, from when their work relationships are breaking up to the enthusiasm when they were young, meeting and starting out. You can see his post and the scene here. There is another scene in the show when the two songwriters are starting out, and audition their songs for a producer. He likes their work, but won’t produce it because he says that the songs are too difficult and need to be “hummable” (something Sondheim railed against his entire career.) This is that scene and song, “Opening Doors,” which they re-created for a good documentary on Sondheim’s work, Six By Sondheim. The performers are Darren Criss, Jeremy Jordan, America Ferrera and Laura Osnes. Oh. One other thing. The person in the scene performing the role of the producer is – Stephen Sondheim! (Note: the scene is interrupted by a cut away to Sondheim as himself, talking to the actors – as themselves -- about the scene he wrote for the show. That’s not what I’m referring to about him playing the producer. After he finishes discussing what he was writing for Merrily We Roll Along and why, the film cuts back to the scene.) This video has been making its way around social media, helped by it being tweeted out by Alan Alda. But it has a weird sort of "laugh track" added, and I thought it best to show the absolutely endearing video as is. So, Jared Schmeck ("Jared from Oregon") is now claiming that he’s the real victim for using the crass insult “Let’s go, Brandon” – which is GOP code for “F*ck Joe Biden”) when talking to President Biden on a national hook-up being live-streamed for children wanting to talk about Santa Claus.
He says that "I mean no disrespect to" President Biden for his comment. Yet he goes on to add, “I understand there is a vulgar meaning to ‘Lets go, Brandon.'" So, swell, what did mean by the "vulgar" comment, then?? It’s a shame the reporter didn’t ask what would seem to be the natural follow-up question. Whatever he claims to have meant by an expression with vulgar meaning about the president when talking directly to the president during an event about children and Santa Claus, he nonetheless wants people to know that “I’m not that simple-minded, no matter how I feel about him." To be clear, no one is suggesting he was simple-minded for what he did. Just that he was rude, obnoxious and crude. I think most people probably assume that he knew exactly what he was doing and precisely why he said it. Fun fact: Though Mr. Schmeck says he didn’t know the conversation would be livestreamed for children to hear across the country, he did know that he was calling from his own children’s bedroom and held up the phone for both young boys to hear. So…y’know, cool. What seems to most chap Mr. Schmeck, a former police officer who resigned in 2018, is that “And now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech,” Again, to be clear, Jared Schmeck is not being attacked for utilizing his freedom of speech. He is being criticized for how he utilized his freedom of speech, for what he said with his freedom of speech. No one is saying he should be arrested and jailed for saying what he did – which is what “freedom of speech” is about, that the government shall make no law abridging a person’s right to speak. Just that it’s generally considered crude saying something you acknowledge knowing has a “vulgar meaning” about someone, anyone when talking directly to that person. Whoever that person is. When the people around you listening are children asking about Santa Claus. But also, given Mr. Schmeck’s great concern over freedom of speech, surely he supports others using their freedom of speech to say they’re critical of him. Right? Though seemingly that’s not the case. By the way, I almost find it adorable that Republicans who love saying “Let’s Go, Brandon” think they’re being so cute and sneaky and clever. The reality is, though, that it’s pretty infantile, sort of like making “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?” prank calls and quickly hanging up. Or putting a bag of dog poop on someone’s doorstep, setting it on fire, ringing to door bell and then running away. Rather, they’re unwilling to actually “stand 100% behind” their beliefs. When Democrats wanted people to know what they felt about Trump, they had no trouble at all expressing it, and relentlessly. Apparently, dealing with actual white supremacist fascism has that effect on people. Jared Schmeck says that he “stood 100% behind what I did and what I said.” Except that he doesn’t. After all, given that the Republican Party likes to insist (despite massive evidence to the contrary) that it’s the “Party of Personal Responsibility,” it leaps out that Jared Schmeck is fine with stating that he knows the expression he used has a “vulgar meaning” about President Biden, yet insists he meant no disrespect to President Biden by it. If Jared Schmeck actually, truly stands 100% behind what he said, and is part of the Party of Personal Responsibility (sic), at the very least he should be proud to acknowledge that, yes, he knew what he was saying, it had a vulgar meaning, and he meant that. He’d still have been rude and obnoxious, but at least he wouldn’t be a liar and hypocrite. (Party of Personal Responsibility Bonus: Hours after writing this came the story about lawyer Lin Wood who has been filing many of the 60 losing “Stop the Steal” lawsuits and now blames the “Deep State” on why his children aren’t talking to him. No, really. ) Jared Schmeck had every right to say what he did. But if he doesn’t think he will get criticized harshly for calling the President of the United States something he knows has a vulgar meaning while in his own children’s bedroom on a live, national hook-up for children about Santa Claus…it turns out that he may well be as simple-minded as he has tried to convince himself he isn’t. |
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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