Evil's Second Coming

Note: This reaction-to-9/11 piece that I penned was originally published by STYLE Weekly on May 15, 2002. At that time, 20 years ago, most periodical publishers in Virginia (and elsewhere) were not much interested in running opinion pieces that questioned the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies and tactics in any way. Which, of course, helped pave the road into Iraq.

 

So, looking back on it, I have to thank Rozanne Epps, an editor at STYLE Weekly, for deciding to run this one on the Back Page. As far as I know, it was her call.

Evil's Second Coming
by F.T. Rea

Washing in on what poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) might have called a “blood-dimmed tide,” the specter of evil suddenly emerged from the periphery of modern life eight months ago. In the blue skies of the time before 9/11’s sucker punch, the notion of pure evil had an Old World air about it. Absolutes, such as good and evil, had no seat at the table of postmodern thinking.

After 9/11, a generation of Americans suddenly learned a bitter lesson: Evil never went away. Living in a land of plenty, it had gotten to be a pleasant habit to avert our eyes from evil-doings in lands of want. Evil had gone out of style, as a concept, only because times were so easy.

The last American president to get much mileage out of the word "evil" was probably Ronald Reagan, with his “evil empire” characterization of the USSR and its sphere of influence. Now, 20 years later, we have a president who sees “an axis of evil” — an alleged phenomenon that puzzles most of the world’s leaders, or so they say.

George W. Bush apparently has little use for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s stalwart advice to a nation in need of a boost in confidence — “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Rather than urge his people to rise above it, Bush chooses to color-code fear. The propagandists of the Bush administration have been successful in cultivating the public’s anxiety since September. Whether that’s been done for our own good remains to be seen. Perhaps it has, but this much is clear now — all the official danger alerts about nuclear power plants, bridges and crop-dusters have been effective in keeping most of the natural questioning of the administration’s moves at bay.

To hear Attorney General John Ashcroft tell it, the architects of 9/11 are the personification of the most virulent form of evil ever known. Although much of the evidence that would establish his absolute guilt in connection with 9/11 remains a state secret, Osama bin Laden is said to have shot to the top of the chart.

Forget about Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. They were amateurs.Then again, evil, like beauty, has always been in the eye of the beholder.

Wasn’t it evil to deliberately dump tons of potent pesticide into the James River during the ’70s to make a greedy buck? Once it was in Virginia’s water, Kepone wasn’t so different from a bio-terror agent in the same water.

With the news seeping out of the cloisters about child-molesting priests and the Catholic Church’s systematic cover-ups, whose betrayal was more evil, the molester or the higher-ups who hid and facilitated his crimes?

Whether evil exists in some pure form, off in another dimension, is not my department. What’s known here is that in the real world evil is contagious. Lurking in well-appointed rooms or hiding in caves, evil remains as it ever was — ready to spread.

None of this is to suggest that al Qaida shouldn’t be put out of business. It isn’t to say that knocking the Taliban off was a bad idea. There’s no question here about whether the United States should protect itself from the networks of organized terror that are hell-bent on destroying the modern world.

Still, today’s evil is the same evil our forefathers faced in their wars. Evil hasn’t changed; technology has. With modern weapons in their hands, the fanatics of the world have the potential to wreak havoc like never before.

What has changed is the extent to which the hate festering in the souls of the world’s would-be poobahs and their psychopathic followers can be weaponized. It’s worth noting that the weapons of mass destruction that are scaring us the most were developed during the arms-race days of the Cold War by the game’s principal players.

So another question arises, who is more dangerous to civilization, the guys who spent their treasure to weaponize germs, or the guys who want to steal the stuff and use it on somebody?

Decades ago this was a concern expressed by some in the disarmament movement. Its scary what-if scenarios always included the likelihood that the Super Powers would eventually lose track of some of their exotic weapons. Looking back on it now, it seems obvious there was no way any government could keep all that material locked away from the greed and hate of determined free-lancers.

A man with a briefcase-style nuclear device may be no more evil than a man armed with a knife. Either danger could kill you just as dead. Those of us who feel connected to others, those who care about humanity's future, understand which killer we ought to fear the most. The “rough beast” of dreadful evil “slouching towards” us is traveling on the back of technology of our own making.

While we watch out for terrorist invader cells in the short run, with a handy color code to guide us, it’s time to think more seriously about how to get rid of a lot of very dangerous weapons in the long run.

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Arthur Getz

• So far, Arthur Getz (1913-96) has been the most prolific New Yorker cover artist -- in all, 213 covers from 1938 to 1988. Three of them are below.

• The one to the left ran on July 20, 1957.

• The one on the right appeared on the September 1, 1962, cover. 
  

• The cover art below was published on May 1, 1948.

• It seems Getz was one of those 20th century artists who was sometimes put down for being "too commercial" by snooty folks viewing it from within the fine art world. But I wonder if Getz was really too commercial, whatever that meant. Or were some of those critics maybe just a little envious of Getz's confident eye for design and his striking ability to deftly portray a mood.  

Remembering Bill Blue (1946-2022)

This obituary for Bill Blue was written by Ralph DePalma. It was published on July 20, 2022, by the Key West Citizen. 

* 

Once in a while, a special person comes along and has an impact on your life, music and everything special. Bill Blue impacted everything and everyone he touched.

On July 14, Key West lost this extraordinarily talented and well-loved blues musician to cancer. William Andrews Blue was born in Aberdeen, North Carolina, on July 23, 1946. The family moved to Yorktown, Virginia, when Bill was very young. His life was changed forever on Sept. 9, 1956, when Elvis Presley appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The following Monday morning, Gibson guitars had their best-ever sales day.

 

Like millions of young men, Bill was amazed by Elvis and started playing the guitar. One night in Richmond, a very scared young Bill Blue got on stage for the first time at the Crossroads Coffee House and played a few of his own songs. He was very young and very good. He went on to make a living playing guitar all of his adult life — he even later got to meet Elvis.

 

Bill’s life changed again when he met Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup who wrote, “That’s All Right, Mama”, the first song Elvis recorded. Crudup was living in a shack in a migrant worker camp (aka “truck farm”). Bill and Big Boy put together a band and started performing locally. Around the same time, Bonnie Raitt’s new manager, Dick Waterman, was gathering old blues musicians to tour. Crudup got a call and was asked if he could put together a band and join their tour. The following week, Bill Blue was playing with Crudup while touring with Raitt — pure serendipity.

 

Crudup, who passed away in 1974, never received any royalties for his work. Blue wrote a song about Big Boy called “On the Road for Big Boy,” and played it at almost every gig. Bill began touring on his own, sharing the stage with B.B. King, ZZ Top, the Allman Brothers and countless others.

 

His first musical gig in Key West was at Sloppy Joe’s on July 4, 1979. Bill was going through some tough personal times, and touring had taken its toll. Key West became a safe harbor, a port in a storm that lasted for more than 35 years.

 

When Bill arrived in town, he hooked up with a group of musicians and formed a band called “Bill Blue & the Nervous Guys.” Regular gigs at Sloppy Joe’s put the group on the music map in Key West. In the mid-1980s, Bill had a houseguest for six weeks — St. Petey Twig, known today as Barry Cuda. The two had met while touring Northern Europe. On his way to New Orleans, Cuda stopped in Key West to see Bill and play a few gigs. He began rolling a 350-pound upright piano to and from gigs around Key West and never made it to New Orleans.

 

One night, in 1994, while performing at Sloppy Joe’s, Bill’s high school sweetheart walked through the front door. Bill and Beverly immediately made eye contact. On a break, they spoke, reconnected and began to fall back in love. Coffee Butler performed at their wedding — Bill’s fourth. They lived in a small houseboat. Beverly sang backup at Bill’s gigs. She dove for lobsters behind Garrison Bight. It was an amazing 25-year love story.

 

The Green Parrot was hallowed ground for Bill. He was the first to play music, in 1983, at this most famous venue. He probably performed on the Green Parrot stage hundreds of times, to tens of thousands of adoring fans. It’s a cathedral of Bill Blue music.

 

Early one morning in 2013, Bill and I walked into an eerily still and empty Green Parrot to shoot photos for his “Mojolation” album cover. As Bill casually strolled passed the stage, you could feel a ghostly chill from his thousands of fans in this special place. We had searched all over Key West for a cover shot. As we walked past the stage, full of instruments ready for the next gig, we both instantly knew we would get the photograph we needed.

 

Bill loved the Green Parrot stage and especially his sound check fans. Caffeine Carl would often perform with him, and they would both rip up the stage. Carl performed Bill’s song, “Hunker Down,” at the recent Key West Blues Festival, and someone posted a video of the performance on Facebook. Bill saw it and sent Carl a message, “Thanks for doing my song … made me feel better … love you buddy.” Nothing could have made Carl feel better.

 

Bill’s life was an extended blues music set at an amazing gig. He could equally entertain a small group in a club or a huge crowd of thousands. Bill could master a solo acoustic ballad or rip up the stage with slide guitar magic. Over the years, Bill Blue was always ready to help a friend in need. I’ve joked that he’s raised enough money to buy Miami — probably not too far off. Bill had a sense of self that was confident but not overbearing. Bill Blue’s life is a series of legendary and sometimes outlandish stories, that will be told and retold forever.

Note: Bill Blue was a member of the Board of Directors of the Bahama Village Music Program. He helped raise thousands for the music program. His family has suggested in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to BVMP, https://bvmpkw.org/donations.

*   *   *

The Mad Don Zone

During the late-1980s and early-‘90s, some of the most power-hungry Republican pundits and politicians started going to school on the way ascending phrase-makers, such as radio personality Rush Limbaugh and Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga), used rhetoric to cleverly frame issues and repetition to paint opponents as villains. 

Essentially, the word management strategy called for saying simple things about complex problems. Saying stuff their anti-intellectual audience enjoyed repeating to sound in-the-know. So, no highbrow wordsmithery. 

And, if the message runs on a continuous loop and is amplified by broadcast media, a low-information, right-wing audience might buy almost anything you're selling. Moreover, if the manipulative messages ride on the backs of long existing resentments and hatreds, that tailored message can gather a substantial following ... especially if all of the players stick to the script.

Well, it worked. Like a charm.

And, for a long time most of the Democrats acted stunned. It was like they had been sucker-punched by a focus group strategy. It was a strategy that really had little to do with solving real problems. It had everything to do with promulgating propaganda to put college professors, unions, minorities, artists of all stripes, governments, etc., in bad light.

For example, instead of saying religious intolerance and racism were lingering problems that each generation of Americans needed to step up and help ameliorate, the swaggering Limbaugh/Gingrich conservative pundits and politicians repeatedly told the fools propping them up that liberal Democrats were hellbent on crushing their “freedom.” Now we can see that brainwashing process was equivalent to pouring gasoline on what were small white nationalism fires. 

Then, in 2000, George W. Bush’s advisors thought they could use the hordes of haters on the right. And the haters on the right thought they could use the traditional Republicans like Bush. Well, it turned out both sides of that unholy alliance were sort of right. 

Meanwhile, self-styled populist/mobster Donald Trump was listening and watching. Then came the Tea Party -- a hate-driven reaction to the election of Barack Obama in 2008.  And, after they accepted Sarah Palin as a legitimate VEEP nominee, Trump knew the Republican Party had become totally shameless.  

Subsequently, Trump saw his path to the White House open up. With the "birther" issue greasing the wheels of the Mad Don's gold-plated bandwagon, Democrats couldn't harness the will, or find the way, to stop a rather silly slogan -- Make America Great Again. 

Like it, or not, Trump surely knows how to strike a pose and sling red meat phrases at his adoring mob of cultists. Hey, they still love wearing those damn red MAGA baseball caps. 

*

To cut to the chase: With the January 6 Committee’s hearings, the Democrats (with the help of the two remaining traditional Republicans in the House of Representatives) have seized the moment. For the first time in over 20 years savvy Democrats are winning an important  propaganda war. The staging of the seven hearings, so far, has been a marvel.

Republicans are flabbergasted. The Committee's Episode 8 is airing in prime time (8 p.m. ET) on a list of networks and web sites on Thursday night.

2022's truth be told, for the sake of the USA's future as a democracy, this is not a word war Democrats can allow Trump to win. Stay tuned...

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The Perpetual Threat

Like a lot of people who follow politics, I think Trump will eventually be running for president, AGAIN. You know how he must hate the publicity the January 6 Committee is generating, all of it at his expense. So, I say, if it's coming, anyway -- then the sooner the better. 

After all, if Trump starts fundraising next month for his 2024 presidential campaign, which we all know he's eager to do -- in spite of his advisers who say, "better to wait" -- it will drain off a lot of dough that would be helping the 2022 campaigns of Republican candidates, in races up and down the ballots, coast-to-coast. Plus, as a ranting, headline-making candidate, he will immediately become the all overshadowing issue in most of those races. 

Moreover, I expect that factor will damage more Republican candidates than it helps.

So with Trump's festering jealousy over the media attention other politicians are currently enjoying, together with his likely belief that being an active candidate might discourage some prosecutors from indicting him, and his insatiable need for more adulation and money, my guess is Trump will indeed announce his candidacy sooner than later. 

Does Mar-a-Lago have an escalator?

Remember, if things don't go well for him on the campaign trail, none of this means impulsive Trump will feel obligated to stay in the race. So what has he got to lose by announcing early? Thus, if his poll numbers fall off of a cliff and his rallies stop drawing big, adoring crowds, that could make him throw his lunch at a wall and call it quits.

Or, for the matter, there's no telling what such bitter disappointments would do to America's first Mobster-in-Chief. 

Nonetheless, candidate or not, 76-year-old Donald Trump will likely remain a perpetual threat to steal the political spotlight, any damn way he can, for as long as he possibly can. Win, lose, or draw, that much we can count on from Trump.  

-- Art and words by F.T. Rea

Fan District Softball League Hall of Fame

The FDSL Hall of Fame plaque

The Fan District Softball League, which first began playing a regular schedule of games under the FDSL banner in 1975, established its Hall of Fame in 1986. The first class inducted was selected by the 12-team outfit’s designated team representatives/captains. 

To be eligible for the Hall that initial year one had to have retired from play and be considered to be among the league's founders. Ten names were selected as the first class of Hall-of-Famers.

The same rule held true in 1987, when six new names were put on the original plaque in a second column. However, by 1988, a few of those who had been inducted into the Hall had un-retired. So, in 1988, eligibility to the Hall was opened up to anyone who seemed deserving; in a third column nine names were added to the original plate, filling out the space on that large plate.

Those already in the Hall got to vote, as well as the usual captains. The meetings to select new inductees were always quite lively, as were most FDSL meetings. That's enough said on that topic. However, after discussion, the voting process and its result were probably no more twisted than any hall of fame’s way of choosing worthy names.

For 1989 six additional names were added on a small plate under the original. The class of ‘90 included seven names. In 1991 no vote was held. In ‘92 the last five names were tacked on to the list. No one remembers if there were any more Hall of Fame meetings.

In all, 41 players and two umpires were tapped. That finished list, as it stands, leans heavily toward guys who made significant contributions to the league in its early years. Thus, a few guys who came along in the last six or seven six years, who maybe ought to have been considered, probably weren't given their due. So it goes... 

The 43 men who were inducted into the FDSL’s Hall are as follows: 

Ricardo Adams, Herbie Atkinson, Howard Awad, Boogie Bailey, Yogi Bair, Jay Barrows, Otto Brauer, Ernie Brooks, Hank Brown, Bobby Cassell, Jack Colan, Willie Collins, Dickie deTreville, Jack deTreville, Henry Ford, Danny Gammon, Donald Greshham, James Jackson, Dennis Johnson, Mike Kittle, Leo Koury, Jim Letizia, Junie Loving, Tony Martin, Kenny Meyer, Cliff Mowells, Buddy Noble, Randy Noble, Henry Pollard, Artie Probst, Terry Rea, John Richardson, Jerry Robinson, Larry Rohr, Billy Snead, Jim Story, Hook Shepherd, Pudy Stallard, Durwood Usry, Jumpy White, Barry Winn, Chuck Wrenn.

The Fan District Softball League folded after the 1994 season. It had lasted 20 years, which was a wonder in itself. There are plenty of true stories from those years at Chandler Ballfield that are almost unbelievable.

 --30 -- 

Life in a Single Frame

An abstract cartoon?

As a kid I had a few recurring dreams that routinely woke me up in a panic. Some were violent.  

In my mid-30s, I started trying to make art based on a couple of those haunting dreams. The image above is the result of one of those attempts in 1983. There was a sense of swirling inward or converging to the dream that I tried to capture and depict. At the time, I was happy with the finished product. I remember thinking then that it was sort of an abstract cartoon.

Anyway, the recurring dreams of my childhood weren't all scary. I liked the ones in which I could fly. Waking up was always a disappointment. One of those other un-scary recurring dreams left a mysterious image tattooed on my memory, but I didn't know what it meant. Rather than a storyboard of a scene, it was just a single frame. In the frame was the shadow of a man that was being cast upon the leaf-covered ground. It looked like a black-and-white photo that had been tinted subtly with earthy colors. 

There was no clue as to who the man was; no sense of what he was doing. The image did move, ever so slightly, then the picture faded to black. Or maybe it just disappeared.

As an adult, my recurring dreams gradually stopped. Occasionally, something would remind me of one of the scary ones, but the spooky feeling those dreams used to leave as an aftermath was gone. And, by then I didn't even think about the shadow man image any more. 

Many years later, one afternoon in the fall, I was walking along a Frisbee-golf course fairway as it skirted the woods. Suddenly I stopped in my tracks, looking down at the mysterious man from my childhood on the ground. 

The shadow moved ever so slightly, as I stood watching, knowing at that moment that the shadow man dream of my childhood had been a preview of me with the body and stance of a man in his 50s. 

A connection was made and the circle was complete.That was my own "La Jetée" (1962) moment. So far, the only one. 

 

*

 

Note: To read brief film notes about Chris Marker's "La Jetée" and/or to watch it (28 minutes), please click here. It is in French with English subtitles (hit the CC).

 

-- Art and words by F.T. Rea

In the Crowd

My age group, commonly referred to as, "the baby boomers," has been a crowd-loving generation. For many of us, some of our favorite memorable moments took place when we were in a crowd at an event. 

We grew up with our thinking being shaped by the same media -- LIFE Magazine and MAD Magazine and from watching the same cartoons on television. In our teens and twenties my generation poured into live music festivals in crazy large numbers. We baby boomers went to boot camp in crowds and we protested war in marching crowds. It was a thrill watching "Jaws" (1975) as part of a sell-out crowd. 

Now, as geezers, the remaining baby boomers are learning to avoid crowds. After going to nearly every VCU men's basketball game ever staged at the Siegel Center, the last Rams basketball game I attended was in March of 2020. 

Hey, everybody can see that people of all ages are getting shot in crowds. Especially young people who tend to be out and about. And those same young people, at least the smart ones, can see that crowds are an epidemic's best friend. Thus, in reaction to how dangerous being in a crowd seems to have recently become, isn't our society bound to change its ways, to adjust? To cope? 

After all, it's just math: The bigger the crowd, the more risk is presented. Some shooters are looking for big crowds. Germs prefer big crowds, too.

OK, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying anyone ought to avoid crowds. That's your business. However, I am saying that in 2022 the entertainment industry has not only taken a hit in the last couple of years, it is going to have to change with the times. For the foreseeable future, for some people, being jammed shoulder-to-shoulder for a couple of hours, with a lot of attendees you don't know, has somewhat less allure than it once did. 

Which has to mean this probably isn't the best time to borrow a bunch of money to build a new large sports arena. Or to build any sort of entertainment venue designed to accommodate big crowds. And, look on the bright side, some niche forms of entertainment actually work better in small rooms, anyway. 

Bottom line: If presenting over-produced rock n' roll shows in big-ass stadiums goes out of style, well, that won't necessarily be a bad thing.

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