5/16/23
Newsletter #338
The Crack of Dawn
An Asian man and a Jewish man sit at a bar drinking. Suddenly, the Jew walks over and punches the Asian man in the face and says, “That’s for Pearl Harbor.” The Asian man says, “I’m Chinese. The Japanese did that.” The Jewish man says, “Japanese, Chinese, what’s the difference?” and sits back down. After another drink, the Asian man walks over, punches the Jew in the mouth, and says, “That’s for the Titanic.” The Jew says, “I didn’t do that, it was an iceberg.” The Asian man says, “Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference?”
This is a Steven Wright joke, so it only makes half-sense, but delivered in a deadpan it’s still funny. “The sign in the restaurant said, ‘Breakfast any time,’ so I ordered French toast from the Renaissance.”
Even though he seemed like an old curmudgeon in the early 1970s, Stanley Kauffmann was a very bright, well-respected movie and drama critic for the conservative magazine, The New Republic, for 55 years. I vividly recall his review of The Hindenburg (1975), an expensive Hollywood epic with George C. Scott. Kauffmann’s review began with him reminiscing about growing up in the Bronx in the 1930s. He remembered a spring day in 1937 when he was about 20. Everybody in the neighborhood heard a strange noise, looked up into the sky and saw the huge zeppelin, The Hindenburg, come flying slowly overhead very low, with its Nazi swastikas gleaming on its tail. “What the hell was it doing in the Bronx?” he thought. As it turned out, the zeppelin was supposed to dock in Lakehurst, New Jersey, but the weather was bad, so it was killing time by circling Manhattan. The young, hot-headed, Jewish, Stanley Kauffmann wrote that the sight of the swastikas made him so mad that he thought, “You know what, I really hope that goddamn balloon blows up.” A couple of hours later it got to Lakehurst and blew up. Stanley Kauffmann said that he always felt slightly responsible. Regarding the movie, The Hindenburg, he said that the most interesting thing about the film, by far, was that it reminded him of that story about his youth, and otherwise you could skip it.
Mr. Kauffmann was absolutely correct, the film was awful, and directed by the great Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music) near the end of his career. But it seems to me that it was the last, or one of the last, films to use the approach (and it was printed on the poster), “At a cost of over $16,000,000!” which was a lot in 1975. Now you can add on a zero, making it a $160,000,000., and that’s not really expensive.
I suppose this story is ultimately “virtue signaling,” but it’s really a tale of my sad inability. I love music, and I’ve never been able to play an instrument, although I have tried many times. When I was 14 I bought an acoustic guitar for $10, with a case, at Zeidman’s pawn shop in downtown Detroit, then signed up for a class. I didn’t practice, I hated the class, and it made my fingers hurt. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the guitar case, which was standing against my bedroom wall, springing open, seemingly of its own accord. In fact, it was caused by the force created by the neck of the guitar snapping off due to the pressure of the strings. I took this as a sign from the universe that I should give up on the guitar, at least at that time.
I guess it was about 10 years ago I decided to give the guitar another try. I bought a fake red Stratocaster (with a whammy bar) for $25, and a cute little amp. I then got two of my friends who can play the guitar to try and show me how. One of them, Jerry, who lived directly behind me, played both the drums and the guitar pretty well, and had stayed up with the drums and had two drum kits. Jerry was a drunk with no teeth, who couldn’t be nicer, and was almost always in a good mood. Jerry made me a little chart of four chords, entitled, “With these 4 chords you can play 500 songs.” Really? My fingers didn’t want to do any of them. However, one of my favorite pastimes back then when I used to drink (I quit three years and a half years ago), was to have a few drinks, burn one, strap on my red Strat, and pretend to play along with the music, mostly with Canned Heat (fuck am I old).
Unable or unwilling to learn any of the four chords, I came to the obvious conclusion that it was the fault of the guitar. I went back to the pawn shop. After much scrutiny, I bought a real (Mexican) Stratocaster for $250.
Anyway, Jerry, who had no money and no job to start with, managed to get even poorer, selling not only both of his drum kits, but his acoustic guitar, too. He didn’t seem to give a shit, either.
With the great help of alcohol, I came to the conclusion that if I was only going to fake it and never learn how to play, the fake red Strat was every bit as good as the real one — and had a springier whammy bar. So, I called Jerry right behind me, and said, “Jerry, how would you like a real Stratocaster and an amp?” Of course, he did. He kept saying, “It’s too much to give away. I’m only borrowing it.” I finally said, “Jerry, when I can actually play a song on the red Strat, you can give me back that one.” I handed him the guitar and amp over the fence.
Jerry moved away a couple of years ago. He got a free apartment over his brother’s garage in Delaware. He said that the area is gorgeous.
Maybe a year ago, Jerry called me, completely drunk, and said, “Dude, I can play the whole guitar solo from Stairway to Heaven,” then proceeded to do so. That real, Mexican, Stratocaster sounded pretty good.
Yes, it’s just pre-Crack of Dawn.
A jolly good morning to you.