Why do legends die... so quickly

Talking to my daughter tonight. Commented how quickly people move out of the conversation, go from being household names to afterthoughts-- in the blink of an eye.

Think of Jay Leno? Remember him? Just barely right. He was The Tonight Show host. Had the best job a comedian can get. Then his tenure ended. He's forgotten. Or so it seems.

David Letterman? A comedy genius. The man who introduced irony. And that's the key to comedy performance-- a total revolution. Well, he ended a few months ago and is not completely forgotten. But almost.

Jon Stewart. You loved him. But you'll probably forget him. Can't see him every night. He doesn't exist.

Maybe if you were just the right age to savor Jon Stewart he will continue to resonate and hold a magic place in your heart and your memory bank. I didn't fall into that demographic. So Jon takes a minor role in the repertoire of characters filling the back rows of my consciousness.

Frank Gifford passed away, a football star and Monday Night Football broadcaster. The cool thing is he was immortalized in the literary annals by Frederick Exley in his incomparable A Fan's Notes-- must be read to be believed. Oxley is like Holden Caulfield, all grown up and still fucked-up as hell. A brilliant and wonderful book and with a strong Frank Gifford motif.

But I like Gifford. I was a 10 year old kid in NYC when he was a young gazelle for the NY Football Giants as they were called back then. Not to be confused by the baseball team NY Giants from up in the Polo Grounds.

And then for a kid who loved media... what could be better than The Hick, The Prick and Gif... the "irreverent county-boy" Dandy Don Meredith, "the contentious" Howard Cossell, and Frank Gifford "with his low-key persona"... calling the Monday Night football games at the behest  of Roone Arledge. Gifford was the rational one, keeping track of the ball and the flow of the game. But they're all gone now and soon to be forgotten. (Quotes are from the NY Times obituary of Frank Gifford on August 10, 2015.)

That's the nature of this beast, this thing called mortality. You have to reach a certain age to realize just how cruel it is, and how beautiful... we all dance to the tune of the Grim Reaper.... the kings, the peasants, the butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and football announcers too.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio,
A nation turns its eyes to you (woo, woo, woo)

(Simon and Garfukel, Mrs. Robinson lyrics)

Breaking Up with Nature...

How can we stay connected to nature? Probably a lost cause. We have broken up with Nature, and ending a relationship can be painful and fraught with confusion and denial. Breaking up is hard to do... (Breaking' Up Is Hard to Do, Neil Sedaka, 1962)

Nature is gone now, surrounded by man and his technology. The world is encompassed by satellites. Marshall McLuhan called the satellite--surround a the proscenium arch... turning the world into a stage and all of us into actors. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. (As You Like It, Act II, scene VII, William Shakespeare, 1599) McLuhan said Nature becomes an art form under such conditions. Earth photographed from space looked like a blue marble. The image indicated the whole world was in our hands.

Politicians have become actors fighting for the spotlight. Twitter and facebook postings provide us an identity... a global audience. And back on earth... well, Nature has become an art form.

Why did the death of Cecil cause us such pain? Many lions have been hunted down. The numbers dwindled down to such a point that every lion is now a Van Gogh, a Picasso, something treasured. Cecil's death signals our complete separation from Nature. We long for Nature, feel a nostalgia.

Why the proliferation of pets? Veterinarian shows are all over cable TV. We long for the natural world.

Why all the references to feces in movie comedy in recent years-- our obsession with shit is yet another expression of a disconnect from nature. Our bodily functions still involve the natural world.

A friend of mine states that our dreams remain our only connection to nature. Dreams cannot be controlled. The run free like lions across the savannah.

Baltimore-- The Revolution Will be Televised

Remember Gil Scott-Heron's famous song-- The Revoultion Will Not Be Televised? He produced the song in 1970, and maybe started Rap music with that poem spoken to congas and bongo drums. A brilliant song, no doubt. But I think Scott-Heron guessed incorrectly on one point-- the revolution actually will  be televised.

Marshall McLuhan, the brilliant media philosopher, felt print media, books, newspapers, etc. had not been especially kind to the situation of African-Americans. The electronic formats-- radio, television, computers, cellphones, Twitter, etc.-- make things more immediate and personal than the traditional forms of written communication. Digital communication has changed all of us in profound ways, as McLuhan correctly surmised.

The Civil Rights movement really got started in the Sixties with the rise of television. Now we have an array of communication formats- and individuals participate on their own through Twitter and Facebook.

CNN covers the race riots in Baltimore and Ferguson and amazingly nobody, or very few, get killed. Everything is up close and personal and moves in an instant-- the news creates news. The digital world of instant communication brings us all closer. Changes happen faster. The digital universe seems a add an element of compassion for fellow human beings that was lacking in the pre-digital days. If television ended the Vietnam War, maybe the social network and electronic vortex ends racial discord-- or at least turns the corner on racial divisions.

We see a cellphone recording of Eric Garner being  killed on the streets of Staten Island. Demonstrations happen. Some police officers are ambushed and murdered, seemingly in retaliation for Eric Garner's death. The demonstrations subside. The information comes to us in a steady stream. Each event becomes a media event and another event rises from it. Ferguson, Missouri follows a similar pattern but the demonstrations turn violent.

The next development is a recording that shows Freddie Gray being arrested on the streets of Baltimore. He screams for help. His legs seem immobilized and he mysteriously dies while in police custody. The immediacy of the horror brings people to the streets almost instantly. Young kids communicate via cellphone and organize a plunder of the local mall. But, the riots end in a single day. Everything moves quickly. The peaceful leaders of the African-American community move into the streets. College kids come to Baltimore and immediately start sweeping the streets clean of debris. The Bloods and Crips put their hatred aside and work together! We meet an impressive "Mom of the Year" popping her son in the head and successfully getting him out of the riot. We admire her courage. We learn about each other quickly and suddenly community leaders take control of the streets.

Baltimore does not get burned to the ground-- like the neighborhoods that went up in flames following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. The violence never reaches the epic  proportions of the riots in Los Angeles in 1994, following the Rodney King beating.

The revolution actually is being televised-- along with a million other forms of coverage by the citizens-- but it still is a revolution, a revolution of compassion. Mr. McLuhan got it right! But he said there would be all kinds of disharmony and a cacophony of voices and opinions rising in the new environment-- just like any other village.

Sports Heroes-- How to Get the Monkey off the Back?

Sportswriter do not like the psychological aspect behind athletic achievement. They much prefer statistics. Sportswriters and most fans misinterpret athletic performance as if players were as predictable as machines. Joe Blow has 50 home runs and so he is an important player to have in the batter's box at the key moment in the bottom of the ninth inning. Players are not machines. They are subject to psychological hang-ups, some of which derail their careers. Great athletes sometimes get overwhelmed and I'll give you a few examples of players who have struggled:

1) Peyton Manning-- cannot perform in NFL playoff games. Brother Eli does much better.
2) Alex Rodriguez-- powerful performer in regular season games, big bust in the playoffs.
3) Tony Romo-- wonderful athlete and good guy, but hates the playoffs. Lost this year to Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay and Aaron was playing on one leg.
4) Prince Fielder-- great hitter but hates the playoff environment.


And it can happen to coaches as well:
1) Rick Barnes-- coached University of Texas basketball for 17 seasons and made one Final Four.
2) Roy Williams-- got the North Carolina job for college basketball but now falters in the NCAA tournament.

You can bet against these guys in big games and make a fortune. I prefer not to bet on sporting events, but have watched them fail with clockwork regularity.

I have seen a couple of players overcome this Monkey on the Back of fear. The Monkey keeps you from achieving success at the very pinnacle of success. Do these players have a fear of success-- are they afraid to become absolute superstars? It goes deep and they could all benefit from psychological counseling. Every guy mentioned above is a fantastic athlete.

Two who overcame their fears:
1) Dirk Nowitski-- brought the Dallas Mavericks to a NBA Championship after faltering for years in the big moment.
2) Lebron James-- despite his other-worldly talents, Lebron took off after he beat the demon back and won an NBA championship. Much well-deserved success followed this accomplishment.

And, Tiger Woods, is an athlete with two careers-- pre-sex scandal and post sex-scandal
Tiger obviously played with the awesome consistency of a golfing robot till the scandal hit. He must have felt so guilty about the tawdry cheating stories that he never has recovered. He never made a thorough confession to his misdeeds. He should have gone on Oprah and spilled the whole truth. He could have continued his career as the best golfer ever. Instead, he grew a Monkey on the Back.

SXSW-- has it ruined Austin?

I drove around town yesterday, a Saturday afternoon, with a few classic Austinites as my passengers. Classic Austinites? Those are high IQ people, laidback to the point of self-indulgent, often underemployed and sometimes fully unemployed, and living here for at least two decades. We got stuck in traffic a few times-- on Lamar Boulevard through downtown-- and got stuck in gridlock on our return going north on Mopac. One guy, a philosophical sort with a razor edge, made a comment: "South By Southwest ruined Austin."

The same friend added, voice dripping with disgust, "Broken Spoke with big condo projects on both sides captures the new Austin."

My friend takes a taciturn view of life. I had to wonder if he was right. Even the Austin American-Statesman wondered the same thing. Their headline last week asked if crossing the 2 million population mark was a good thing? What the heck... friends of mine started leaving in 1993 because of increased Austin traffic, high rise development and the disappearance of the slow lane lifestyle.

I got here in 1973 and in a few seconds and detect three key elements making Austin wonderfully weird in the first place:

1) Creativity
2) Freedom
3) Friendliness

The singer Michelle Shocked once referred to Texas "as a loose-limbed kind of place." I thought that really explained the charm of living in Austin.

Willie Nelson, godfather to the peace and love thing bubbling beneath this place, got the whole thing kicked off by melding hippies and redneck culture. Talk about a calming effect. The phrase "Live Music Capital of the World" helped Austin forge an identity. And the playful "Keep Austin Weird," reflected the view from outside Austin as much as anything else. "Keep Round Rock Mildly Unusual"-- hints at the viewpoint of most other places.

But SXSW, beginning as a music festival in 1987, packaged the Austin magic. The festival embodied Austin neater than a GSDM advertising campaign. Those SXSW folks knew Austin, but also sensed a future for Austin-- a bigger, better, more full-throated Austin. Their vision held more power than any previous attempt to capitalize on Austin.

SXSW and its marketing genius made "the Austin thing" more understandable to the masses and eventually a global audience. Now rich girls from Long Island fly their whole bachelorette party to Austin for a weekend of revelry!

You decide.. is SXSW a symptom or a cause of the new, more frenetic, higher-priced Austin? And has SXSW worked to Austin's benefit or detriment?

Rosedale... croissants to cardiac surgery

If memory serves me well.... a 1970s Life magazine photo essay derided America’s eyesore highways and included a photo of Burnet Rd, crisscrossed with power lines and blanketed with billboards and fast food restaurant signs. Much has changed with the rise of the area I like to call LoBu—Lower Burnet—to a happening hotspot in Austin, complete with gourmet sandwich shops, Middle Eastern delis, coffee shops and trendy restaurants, Dollar Tree, Top Notch hamburgers, pizza joints with in-house breweries, hipster bars, fitness centers, second hand stores, bookstores, bakeries, condos and a Bingo parlor.

I planned a meeting with an architect friend--Jim—to figure out how this change occurred. We wanted to look most directly at the Rosedale neighborhood where Jim R has been a resident since 1994. We me at Monkey Nest Coffee and ordered a couple of skim milk--decaf lattes but who’s counting calories? The conversation quickly assumed caffeinated levels of intensity. What makes Rosedale such a thriving amazing neighborhood?  How do you explain the explosive growth of American cities?

Jim, though way too modest to be uppity about it, took me to school with a rapid 10-minute summation of American city planning. Rosedale offers a powerful alternative to living in the ‘burbs. Turns out the seismic shift, a boomerang effect to the original white flight to the suburbs that began in the 1950s, has theoretical underpinnings.

Jim defined the two schools of development. Rosedale, with its walkable streets and grid layout follows #1) the “new urbanism” or urban planning model. And #2)  the “subdivision-cul de sac” model, the suburban development plan, features main road entry to a subdivision leading to a series of cul-de-sac streets lined with homes.

Jim smiled at me. Maybe he knew my brain was racing to recall Massapequa, New York – a Long Island suburban town—and the layout of my neighborhood where everybody entered via Merrick Road. “The subdivision model puts 5 miles between residents and the grocery store,” said Jim. Oh my God, that’s exactly right and I bet 90% of the Long Island residents, now pushing 8 million, have to drive 5 miles to the grocery store!

Jim contrasted the 5-mile grocery drive to his situation in Rosedale where Central Market “one of the best grocery stores in the world is a 15 minute walk.” Of course, not every town has a Central Market, or anything close to that, but we are talking Rosedale—a neighborhood Jim characterizes as “one of the great neighborhoods of America.”

Hey we need a new Statue of Liberty and this one goes just a few hundred yards downstream from Stevie Ray Vaughn—but in the middle of the Colorado River. We construct an iron and copper statue of Janis Joplin, holding a microphone aloft and put it on a little island beneath the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge. A plaque at the base goes something like this... Give me your young, your digital, your bearded hipsters yearning to breath... er. Uh?... ACL air.... And maybe have an LED display of the Austin population, a flickering number constantly on the uptick.

Rosedale has several of the other key qualifications according to the new urbanist outline for an ideal living environment—definable boundaries and friendly public spaces.  Jim said the geographical boundaries of Rosedale are clear— 38^th St for the southern line; 45^th St. is northern boundary; Lamar Blvd makes the east side line; and Shoal Creek Blvd defines a western boundary. Comprised within these boundaries—you get Seton Hospital and Upper Crust bakery, two amenities accessible by foot and valued greatly by Jim, for reasons you will soon learn.

Years ago, Jim noted Rosedale had some rundown properties and a couple of those memorable Austin shady characters of yesteryear... barely paying their rent. That sounds like me. Jim admitted financial struggles forced him to leave Austin in the mid-1980s, taking his architect’s toolbag to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Nowadays, architects probably just need one toolbag—a 3-D, CAD software on their computer. But Jim says he still likes to sketch when designing schools and hospitals. He certainly sketched the Rosedale picture for me beautifully.

Ramsey Park is the important public space at the center of Rosedale—an open space to relax and exhale, spend time with children, a place to walk the dog, swim, play tennis, basketball, softball or just hangout.

Jim explained the subdivision model does provide advantages for human interaction. The main road to the neighborhood means fewer entry points and protection from unwanted visitors. The cul-de-sac streets encourage drivers to proceed more slowly. Residents get to know each other more readily on the smaller streets. You might know every neighbor within the bounds of a single street and the quieter, less trafficked streets provide more safety for children out playing.

Jim recalled the early days when the Draught Horse and Common Interest on Medical Parkway stood almost alone as a beer drinking, socializing options for Rosedale residents.  Burnet Road was “mainly scruffy car lots and places like the Poodle Dog Lounge.” Now there are a multitude of options, including Flying Saucer at the Triangle, Woodrow’s, Hopfields, further afield on Guadalupe, Black Star Coop, on Airport Blvd, and Billy’s on Burnet. There is a downside, of course. Rosedale has become so darn attractive, and expensive, nobody can afford a house there anymore... except the lucky few.

The constant flow of trucks hauling lumber into Rosedale for remodel projects are testament to the many people living there, and the massive gentrification of the area. McMansions once ruled the day, until laws were modified to respect the original scale of the neighborhood.  Homes are now limited to cover a specified percentage of the lot space, usually limiting them to about 2,800 square feet. Jim said the new law has deterred people were building 6 or 7 bedroom mini-dorms designed for rental to college kids.

Even with Rosedale’s stabilization the air of mystery never completely abandons any place fit for human habitation. Jim marvels at the human entropy. “Sometimes I’ll see a person every week for two years or so, and then they’ll disappear from sight, seem to be completely gone. Then 7 years later I’ll bump into them again, like this guy I saw the other day at the Ramsey tennis courts.”

Rosedale has been desirable for many years, even before Austin’s boom took on juggernaut proportions, and the perfect storm of great services and community spirit, serve as a role model. Austin, and other cities across the country, can learn much from the magic of Rosedale.

Oh, and the part about Seton Hospital and Upper Crust bakery... Jim said you “can walk to anything you want, from croissants to cardiac surgery.” And he means it. He goes easily from his house to Upper Crust for the yummy pastries or a cup of strong coffee and actually did walk to Seton Hospital one morning in 2005 for treatment of a heart arrhythmia, all in a day’s work, or walk, within the Rosedale grid.

But the strangest coincidence was the day back in the late ‘90s when a runner in the Capital 10,000 keeled over with heart attack and had the very same first and last name as Jim. The runner even came from Ohio, just like Jim. He got calls for days from people checking to make sure he was not the same Jim who died tragically in the middle of the race.

“One day, a week later, I was walking on 43^rd and Lamar and a car screeches to a halt. David, the wildhaired unofficial mayor of Rosedale, jumps out of the car and screams, “You’re alive!”

Jim notes “notice of my demise, like Mark Twain’s, had been greatly exaggerated. David just hadn’t gotten the word yet.” You may be wondering... how did David get unofficial mayor status? He helped lead the group that fought valiantly to keep the Triangle from becoming just another strip mall, home to a supermarket, asphalt parking spaces and nondescript apartments. They knew their neighborhood deserved better and refused to give ground to the real estate moguls.

People like Jim and David help make Austin the great place it is, a magnet for the Young and the Digital from the world over. I thanked Jim for his time and perspective and we moved on down Burnet Road.

Hunter Thompson, Bob Dylan and the Jingle Jangle Morning (1967)

Walking around my Austin neighborhood... and I came across a "Free Books" box standing tall in a neighbor's yard. There were 5-7 books in there and some were not bad. I saw a John LeCarre novel but I cannot keep track of plot twists. Then I spied Fear and Loathing in America (volume II), a collection of Hunter Thompson's letters from 1968-1976. I took it home. The very first letter got to me-- and it starts... "1967 was the year of the hippy."

That was the year I graduated high school-- what kind of chance did  I have? It's okay, Ma, I'm only bleeding... Just kidding, but that was a hell of a time to be 18 years old and trying to make sense of the world.

Hunter said "the word 'hipppy' coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen-- who also came up with 'beatnik.' " 

Damn, talk about a man with a talent for branding!

Thompson mentioned that "Bob Dylan was the original hippy" and "Mr. Tambourine Man is both an epitaph and a swan-song for the lifestyle and the instincts that led, eventually, to the hugely-advertised 'hippy phenomenon.' "

Hard to recall a time where things changed so dramatically, based upon things like rock music and a new ideology-- the hippie lifestyle and culture. Where would we be without that revolution...? Still dressing like Mad Men and sipping martinis?

So glad that Hunter mentioned Surrealistic Pillow! I listened to the LP up in my Long Island bedroom on the night before I headed off for college-- wondering what awaited me. That was a powerful album and, as Hunter Thompson said "The Jefferson Airplane is another key sound from that era..." and he goes on to praise the talent of Grace Slick, their lead singer.

Remember this refrain from Mr. Tambourine Man? 
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

That comes from a proto--hipster named Lord Buckley... Don't believe me, Google it--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Buckley

Lord Buckley died in 1960, just before the big hippie change had a chance to get rolling. He even predated the Beats. And I quote the wiki piece on Lord Buckley: 
"Bob Dylan in his book Chronicles, said 'Buckley was the hipster bebop preacher who defied all labels.' " 

And here's a footnote from the end of the Wikipedia piece on Lord Buckley:
"The jingle-jangle morning" in "Mr. Tambourine Man" is a phrase Bob Dylan claims to have taken from Lord Buckley.^[18] It appears in Buckley's performance of Scrooge.^[19]