“Wait until you see what it does to the waves....”

For the First Time in 360 Years, True and Magnetic North Will Align in the U.K.

Perry Hedison

"Everything you know is wrong."

Most people I know had, somewhere between Kindergarten and the defense of their dissertation, at least one teacher who, in common parlance, "made a difference".  The fortunate ones, such as myself, had more than one, although the total is still not more than a handful.  For me, it was Mrs. Haven in the 5th Grade, Mr. Smith in the 11th, Mrs. Dixon at Sunday School, and two of my college professors, one of whom was Perry Hedison.  The effectiveness of these educators had less to do with their subject matter than it did with their ability to make one want to excel in whatever was the field of endeavor.  

Hedison would have satisfied a cliche in popular fiction: The gruff educator whom students are terrified to have as a teacher/professor who turns out to greatly enable their fledgling progress.  The novel, and later movie, The Paper Chase often comes to mind, especially as I read/saw it the year I became a college student and discovered, much to my surprise and horror, that the model for the cruel, demanding, and precise Professor Kingsfield was standing before me on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.

Actually, when I first saw him, I thought it was Ernest Hemingway.

It was the first class on the first day of my first year of college at 9 a.m.  I had almost not found the classroom in time and, because of near tardiness, had to sit dead center in the front row.  The class was Introduction to Literature: Philosophy and Writing and, unlike intro courses at large state universities that take place in auditoriums and are usually taught by assistants, this room, in the oldest building on campus, held only twenty-five students and was taught by the professor and only the professor.

Perry Hedison was in his early sixties, stocky and bearded, and had been a fixture of both the English and the Philosophy departments of the college since before I was born.  He wore the same tweed jacket to class every day, whether it was 10 degrees or 90.  He looked that morning as if he either had a raging hangover, was modeling for a rather severe version of Mount Rushmore, or simply could not believe that he was, once again, teaching a collection of fresh-out-of-high-school kids things that they could not or would not accept as they were in direct conflict with everything programmed into them by their parents and bad teachers.

All I remember is that, because of my prominent perch right in front of him, Hedison fixed me with a stare, leaned forward from his desk, and said those immortal words captured in the quotation above that became, through my own career as an educator, priest, and theologian, the first words I speak to myself when beginning with a new subject, class, or parish.  As I learned that day, almost everything I thought I did know was, in fact, either wrong or, if not quite wrong, dangerously incomplete.

I took five classes from him during my three-and-one-half years of college.  With him I studied the complete works of Shakespeare, a survey of the philosophic schools of the 19th and 20th centuries, and use of English in the fiction and non-fiction of Winston Churchill.  He required us to read the assignments in a timely manner and be familiar with the material.  As we were subjected to increasingly intense questioning during the fifty minutes of class, those who did not keep pace were subjected to an embarrassment that could occasionally be aided by Hedison's considerable talent for sarcasm.

Although one day, when I had been particularly brilliant [if I do say so myself], I waited for him to once again poke massive holes in my pet theory about one of Shakespeare's sonnets.  Instead, Hedison simply grunted, nodded, and said, "Read the next speech, Clements.  It's from 'Much Ado'. You seem ready finally."  That may be the finest compliment that I've ever received.

He never socialized with students and rarely made reference to his personal life.  There was a photo of two women on the desk in his office that I took to be his wife and adult daughter; about a dozen copies of one of his books on Churchill's use of theater, and nothing else.  I never saw him arrive on campus and never saw him leave.  As one of the sociology professors had taken to surreptitiously living in a classroom and washing himself in the pottery room [he was fired at the end of term], we would joke that Hedison, too, had his own secret chamber somewhere in the liberal arts building, although something on a grander scale than the odd sociologist.

Later I began to wonder if we weren't prescient, as he showed up in the cafeteria very early one Saturday morning; a place in which he had never been seen.  As I had reserve officer's training on weekends, I was one of the very few students who would be there early, too, and rather conspicuous in my green utility uniform.  Seeing that I was the only person whom he recognized he sat with me, mentioned that the only sunrise he cared for was one that came with tequila, finished some bacon and eggs, and left.  No one saw him come in; no one saw him leave.

The last time I saw him was graduation day, when he led us to the ceremony in his role as faculty warden, carrying with him the mace of office.  I didn't return to campus for over 25 years, and then just by chance as I was driving across the country and knew of a nearby hotel.  He was long gone by then, of course, and forgotten, as were the days when the great writers and philosophers, who are now dismissed as "dead, white males", would be taught by other white males.  What replaced that rigorous training was a melange of politically correct porridge that has resulted in the current crop of the higher educated; those who know little outside of a protected bubble and have never had to stand and deliver in a way that respected ability, industry, and a passion for knowing the subject.

I often find myself these days listening to people who have received degrees in the "practical" fields, those of engineering, business, accounting or the like; even clergy, who should know better, who will crow about their former academic work and despair of those of us who "wasted" our time in subjects like philosophy, literature, or art history.  Judging from their output, and the sorry state of the contemporary church, I'm unclear as to the source of their boasting.  I recall mentioning in the company of ordained colleagues how much I appreciated studying literature as so much of our professional life involves writing everything from fund-raising letters to sermons and homilies to, well, obtuse blog posts.

"Well, I majored in Accounting and I can write, too", replied a mildly hostile fellow cleric, somewhat defensively.

"Yes", I replied, "You write like an accountant."  Hmm, perhaps I learned sarcasm from Hedison, too.

As for me, I owe much to Hedison, not just for the compliment once received but because, more than anyone else, he taught me how to think in a way that was unclouded by sentiment or indolence. Whether I have served as a reporter, a infantryman, a teacher, a business owner, or a parish priest, those lessons have fed my existence.  I know I would never have been as effective a preacher if I did not try to look at each scripture passage anew, in the same way he had us look at Shakespeare or Kierkegaard, and see things that I have never seen before; to surrender worn perspective and find new images and new life to inform my faith.

One day, during my service as the assistant headmaster of a boarding school, I overheard the following exchange from some students in the hallway outside of my office.

"Who'd you get for philosophy?"
"Clements.  I hear he's hard."
"He is."
"And scary."
"Yeah, but you'll learn something from him."

Thanks, Perry.  Somewhere along the line, every good teacher wishes to be recognized as effective, even if effectiveness means that you're regarded as difficult and scary.  As those who have taught understand, those tools serve as a greater stimulus for learning than any other.  The result is students who are able to take even a remote niche of study and apply it broadly across their life's experience for their improvement and, one hopes, for the general improvement of their world.

Thursday's Place: Christian's Hut

In chaos, there is opportunity.

A movie company once rented a parish hall of mine.  It was in the middle of nowhere but, as they were filming a horror movie, and we were adjacent to an ancient cemetery and a creepy Victorian house they had rented for filming, it was perfect for their needs.  They were new and naive; I seemed to meet with a different producer every day and they were always in their early '20's and would come to meetings without anything to write with and nothing to write on.  Really, they were like those kids who would come to my classes without pen or paper.

Anyway, when they finished filming, and just like the kids they were, they didn't clean up after themselves.  Their "property manager" left behind plywood, 2x4's, a ton of drywall, and sundry other construction mungo that was of a very high quality.  That quality surprised me a bit, since they were just building temporary sets that would last only a few days, but I was assured by parishioners [including the star of a then-popular crime show and another who was on a comedy] that this was a normal procedure in movie and TV productions.

I didn't mind at all, of course.  Since the production company, without permission and against our stated instructions, filmed a scene in the middle of the night in our sanctuary, I felt justified when I loaded the mungo they discarded in the parish hall and churchyard into my pickup truck and used it to renovate the kitchen in my home.  Thanks, Hollywood geniuses.

The paradigm of spending gobs of money unnecessarily for temporary structures may have been established during the filming of Mutiny on the Bounty in the 1930's.  Apparently, in that golden age of Hollywood, no expense was spared for one of the early blockbusters.

Even though some of the filming was done in the South Seas, most of it took place on Catalina Island off the coast of California.  While hardly a remote location, in order to appease the cast and crew during the four months of filming, in addition to the construction of a fake Tahitian village and replica of the HMS Bounty, the producers built a glorified "hut" to serve as an after-hours watering hole.  In fact, the movie's star, Clark Gable, was given an apartment above the bar so that he might have time to "study lines" with the young Tahitian women imported to serve as extras.  For sure, he and others used the downstairs of the hut to get riotously drunk in the evenings.

When the production left Catalina, they, like many before and since, left the detritus of the village and the hut where they were.  Here is where a common story of Hollywood self-regard becomes the uncommon story of Yankee ingenuity in service of a business plan.

Joseph LaShelle, who would eventually become an Academy Award-winning cinematographer, was a fledgling cameraman on set and happened to mention to his brother, Art, how much fun they were having at the hut and, as Art lived in nearby Los Angeles, he hopped the ferry over to the island and hung out with the crew.  Since he shared some avocational interests with Clark Gable, mainly those of drinking and carousing, the two became good friends and, upon the conclusion of the filming, Art LaShelle convinced Gable to buy the hut and permit him to turn it into an actual bar and restaurant.

However, Art was not some frat boy exercising the dream of owning a bar in which he could sit around and drink every night and day.  Recognizing the burgeoning popularity of things with a South Seas cache, and knowing that Mutiny on the Bounty would be a hit in the theaters, LaShelle transformed the abandoned hut into one of the first tiki bars and Chinese restaurants in the United States.  He was aided considerably by the work of the bartender, Ray Buhen, from Don the Beachcomber's, who had originally been hired, in another example of Hollywood excess, to serve the Bounty's personnel, and who decided to stay and develop a drinks menu that fit the theme.  Needless to say, the restaurant, now named "Christian's Hut", after the character of "Mr. Christian" portrayed in the film by Gable, was a hit.  Especially so, since Gable was listed as the Hut's owner.

LaShelle, one of Gable's script assistants, and the bartender, Ray Buhen

The idea caught on and, after a short time, there were Christian's Huts popping up all over Southern California.  By the late 1930's, the original Christian's Hut was moved to the more-populous Balboa isthmus in Newport Beach, adorned by an enormous tiki head on its roof.  The head was nicknamed, no one is sure exactly why, The Goof.

Nightlife under The Goof was particularly appreciated by the Hollywood crowd on the weekends.  One could hang out with everyone from Johnny Weismuller to Red Skelton to John Wayne to even a pre-madness Howard Hughes and enjoy the "Chinese-style" food on the menu.  Actually, according to critics of that era, the food was apparently pretty good.

In fact, one of the most sought-after "lost recipes" in gastronomia is that of Christian's Hut's crispy filet mignon.  No one has ever quite gotten the combination of rare steak with seared exterior right ever since.

The popularity of Tahitian themes eventually subsided and was replaced by whatever the next craze would be.  I think it was restaurants shaped like derby hats or something.  All of the Christian's Hut locations eventually would close, save for the one in Newport Beach.  A fire [ahem] would eventually destroy the restaurant in 1963 and, with that, three decades of "America Go Crazy" would surrender.  It would be replaced by condominiums.  Art LaShelle would continue to serve the community of Newport Beach for the remainder of his life through a variety of other hotels, restaurants, and civic organizations.  He would succumb to mortality in 1985 at his home at the Balboa Bay Club; his remains would be buried off the coast.

However, for those interested in off-beat American history, there is one spectacular remnant of Christian's Hut still to be found.  The Goof was saved from the fire and is now found on the roof of a great example of googie archetecture in San Diego, the Bali Hai.

More Tales of the Post-Christian Age

Greta Thunberg’s yacht, the Malizia II, has delivered her to the UN climate conference in New York – two weeks after she first set sail from Europe. The transatlantic trip was a masterstroke in PR, with every major media outlet broadcasting updates on the journey and detailing the hardships Thunberg has endured – no toilet, no shower and sea sickness.

The accusations of hypocrisy have also rolled in thick and fast, criticizing everything from the plastic water bottles used by the crew, to the long-haul flights taken by the sailors responsible for returning the yacht to Europe.

Thunberg has discovered the perils of pursuing such an ideologically pure cause: if you preach an uncompromising message, your audience will judge you on similarly uncompromising terms, even as you attempt to live out your ideals. Those with religious leanings have known this for centuries: if you don’t practice what you preach then your message quickly falters. Indeed, sometimes I wonder whether the appeal of climate change activism comes from its ability to fill the ideological void left by the decline of religion in the post-Christian West. Greta’s moral authority about the future of civilization and how we should and shouldn’t behave as individuals carries all the personal challenge and sense of fire and brimstone as the message of the puritans.

Authors on Deadline Sometimes Take Shortcuts

10 Writers Who Stole Their Greatest Works From Other Authors

White Nationalist = Anyone Who Disagrees with an Ideologue

It’s beginning to appear that “white nationalist” is replacing “fascist” as the slur du jour.

For most of its length, Marissa Brostoff’s Washington Post op-ed on the alleged links between the pro-life movement and white nationalism is merely propagandistic. At the end it becomes a despicable smear of conservative author J. D. Vance

Vance is a friend of The Coracle and, as a Yalie, is as much of a white nationalist as was Detroit Red. That accusation may come as a surprise to his wife, too.

I Wish the Network News and TimesPost Were Interested in This

But, a lot of their revenue comes from Chinese businesses, which is to say the Chinese government (you know, that whole Communism deal...).

During all the Russia hacking hype, China is rising in influence

Man of the People Update

His political party has been telling me that coastal islands will all be underwater in twelve ten years due to global cooling warming climate change disruption, so I'm guessing the new, temporary party platform is "Nah".

Obamas placed an offer on 'mega-expensive' estate in Martha's Vineyard: report

So Die, Poor People. You Know, for the Good of the Environment.

More poor people are eating meat around the world. That means they will live longer, healthier lives, but it is bad news for the environmenthttps://t.co/CFpeTTFjC5 pic.twitter.com/W3NGBDxjPd

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 20, 2019

Are there any adults at The Economist?  I had 10th grade philosophy students who would write junk like this.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that this "bad for the environment" hogwash is just a scam by the "haves" to get rid of the "have nots".  Is it possible that the people who claim to be concerned about the environment, who tend to be from the affluent class, are using that argument to limit access to affluence by those who are ascendant?

The Complete List of Friday Biographies

The Friday biographies including those of whom you've heard, those of whom you've never heard, and those who have been known only to The Coracle.

Series One:
Howlin' Wolf, blues musician and rock and roll influence
Bob Manry, small boat sailor and adventurer
Yukio Mishima, Japanese novelist, playwright, short story and film writer, and military adventurist
Jacques Cousteau
Duke Kahanamoku, the father of surfing 
William Augustus Muelenberg, unlikely innovator of the 19th century Episcopal Church
Jane Scott, rock and roll's grandmother
Paul Bigsby, guitar innovator and motorcycle mechanic
Max Perkins, mandarin of the 20th century American novel
James Harold Flye, the quintessential Episcopal priest
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bible translator
Alan Watts, Episcopal priest and Buddhist educator
Charlie Parker, jazz innovator
Thomas Merton, monk, hermit, and writer
Rell Sunn, The queen Of Makaha 
Raimundo Panikkar, priest, philosopher, and chemist 
Lou Kallie, jazz drummer and saloon keeper
Barbara Crafton, Episcopal priest and homilest
Jim Steranko, comic book artist and innovator
Art Pepper, jazz survivor
Bruce McLaren, racing car driver and builder
Cliff Young, farmer and ultra-marathoner
Sun Ra, space case
Matti Moosa, scholar, translator, deacon, and mentor
Debbie Harry, New Wave chanteuse 
The Hippie Who Sat Next to Me at Tony Mart's
James Magner, poet and mentor
Swein MacDonald, Highland seer
Waldo Peirce, artist and inspiration
John Fitch, racer and innovator
Malcolm Lowery, poet and miserable human being
Max Hardberger, modern-day pirate
Richard Race, landscaper
Hiram Bingham, historian, explorer, discoverer
John Watanabe, failed kamikaze pilot and bishop
Kathleen Kenyon, archaeologist
Captain Sir Richard Burton, fencer, explorer, translator, soldier, diplomat, and madman
James Agee, screenwriter and novelist
Madeleine L'Engle, writer and dinner guest 
Robert Crisp and Tommy MacPherson, unlikely war heroes  
Peter Scott, cat burglar
Wilfred Thesiger, the last of the explorers
Peter Marshall, preacher and chaplain to the U.S. Senate
Dingo, Mexican entrepreneur
Bruce Brown, documentarian and surfer
Joshua Slocum, solo circumnavigator
Mr. A, soul surfer
Thomas Edward Lawrence, archaeologist and adventurer
"Cool Breeze" and the Lyrical Gangster, an islander and his boat 

Series Two:
The Waterman, just some guy
Harvey Pekar, unlikely folk hero
Bernard Moitessier, Zen sailor
"Holy" Grail, old school D.I.
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, industrial artist
Gerry Lopez, surf pioneer
Ted, Ricardo, and Curtis, three men I knew
Carol Kaye, ubiquitous bassist of pop
Ernie Anderson, Ghoulardi
Patti Smith, she does the rock, herself
Jacques Piccard, explorer of two atmospheres
B. Traven, international man of mystery
Carroll Shelby, Texas cobra
Lucien Aigner, he captured the world
Frank Miller, re-newer of myth
Kiyoshi Aki, he knew how to fall
Bob Simmons, hydrodynamisist
Igumen The Iconographer 
Anita O'Day, jazz singer
Alfred Pierce Reck, the proto-editor
D.A. Levy and the Cleveland Beats, poets
The Voices on the Radio: Freed, Franklin, and Dee
 Eugenie Clark, the shark lady
Dick Dale, king of the surf guitar
Dorothy Fields, Broadway and Hollywood's favorite lyricist
Hart Crane, the voice of new poetics
Rocky Colavito, baseball idol of nine-year-old boys
Bruce Meyers, fiberglass artist and professional dust-eater
Doc Pomus, blues mouth

Perry Hedison, everything he knew was right

Francis Chichester, flying sailor or sailing flier

Fred Rogers, the world's best neighbor
Grace Hopper, who made the modern world

Raymond Loewy, designer of...well, everything

Laird Hamilton, big waver

Charles Curtis, jockey, politician, and wild Indian boy

Lee Konitz, father of the father of beat literature

Graeme Obree, the flying washing machine Scotsman

Bob Weir, old man of rock

The Voices on the Radio, Part II: Bass, Billera, and Me
Denise McCluggage, auto racing pioneer and Spellcheck thwarter
John Updike, author and spiritual pilgrim
Michael McCurdy, artist, writer, and really good party guest
Sylvanus Morely, archaeologist, spy, and restorer of lost cities
Patrick Leigh Fermor, commando, world traveler, author, perpetual mooch.
Jimmy Van Heusen, composer, test pilot, and Olympian partier
J.P. Donleavy, author and infuriator
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, rock musician and anti-terrorist contractor

Series Three:
Eric Hoffer, longshoreman and uncommon philosopher
Tom Blake, innovator and archetype
Dickey Chappelle, an actual feminist icon
Laura Boulton, quester for tones
Kurtis Walker, turntable artist
Tristan Jones, improbable sailor
Christian Lambertsen, re-breather
Wende Wagner, mermaid
Mickey Marcus, maccabee
Henri Nouwen, wounded healer
Archibald McIndoe, restorer of noses and senses of humor 
Gertrude Bell, "Florence" of Arabia and scaler of peaks
James Herriot, friend to animals great and small
Mary Printz, better than voice mail
Jack O'Neill, he made a place of endless summer
Terry Tracy and Kathy Kohner, they made it fun
John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook, they rowed not gently
Harry Crosby, the man who was in love with death
Richard Farina, Dylan's idol
Jack Good, sentinel of the British Invasion
Orangey and Frank Inn, a cat and his pet human
Chester Himes, he brought both humor and more darkness to noir
Zora Arkus-Duntov, of pure, rolling beauty
Eddie Aikau, he would go
Clarice Lispector, with much effort, she created simplicity
Carmine Infantino, rescuer of superheroes
John Wilson Murray, the only law in 400,000 square miles
Verity Lambert, friend of malevolent robots
Heinrich Harrer, the buddy of a god-king
Dawn Fraser, larrikin
Ross MacDonald, he made fiction into literature
Tatiana Proskouriakoff, she spoke for the dead
Rudy Van Gelder, he enabled the soundtrack of the century
Bruce Metzger, the translator of our faith
Maria Tallchief, tribal dancer and a defector's choice
Alfred Bester, Terry Southern, and George Clayton Johnson, they transcended common boundaries
William Francis Gibbs and Sylvia Beach, American originals
Richard Halliburton, he created an industry out of peripatetic-ism
Frederick Law Olmsted, who reversed government power
Vernon Johns, the tocsin of civil change
Harry "Sweets" Edison, "Just let him play, man."
Charles Brush, Philip Hubert Frohman, and Norman Borlaug, three who defined our modern world
Donald E. Westlake, mass producer of compelling fiction

Series Four:

Ruth Weiss

Romain Gary

Peter Fleming

Alain LeRoy Locke

Laurens Hammond

Kenneth Strickfaden

Freya Stark

Harry Price

Abhishiktananda

Doc Pomus

"I didn't want to be "The Crippled Songwriter" or "The Crippled Singer".  I wanted to be the singer or the songwriter who was crippled.  I wanted to be larger than life...."

He was the only white guy in the place.  He was a short, chubby Jew who walked with crutches due to a childhood bout with polio.  In a music genre that was filled with people with the colorful sobriquets of T-Bone and Tampa Red, he was simply known as Jerry.  When he hauled himself to the microphone to sing, a number of people were prepared to wince at a delusional eighteen-year-old who was about to butcher the blues.

Then he started singing.



And so, requiring a performance name that fit his new world, Jerry became "Doc Pomus" [even he wasn't sure where that name came from] and set about creating not only some memorable performances in those small, hot, smoky clubs, but composed some of the most infectious tunes in the early days of rock and roll.

Born in Brooklyn in 1925, Jerry Felder was afflicted with polio in boyhood and wiled away the dull hours of restricted movement by listening to records, in particular those of Big Joe Turner.  With little else to do, he who would be Pomus imitated the intonations and styles of the performers to the extent that he could mimic almost all of the big singers of the day.  As time went by, with the burgeoning confidence of adolescence, he began to develop his own style.  Being, by his own admission, a complete and total ham, it was only natural that he would begin to compete in the many amateur performance venues that were common in the 1940's.

There was something else about him, other than his ability to sing the blues.  The fact that a diminutive Jew, by his own admission a "cripple", wearing a garish outfit could move with confidence to a stage in an all-black venue and completely own the room granted him a remarkable respect from the audience.  As is often the case with marginalized people, they recognized one another's struggle.  Eventually, established artists were hiring him to be their opening act.

Pomus wanted to be so much more, though, within and for the music that had granted him such an unexpected purpose and role.  In addition to performing in more and more mainstream venues, Pomus also began to write for the nascent music magazines of the era and, importantly, compose small pieces for some of the more famous performers.  While on his honeymoon, a vacation he could ill-afford, he chanced to hear a stray song of his, one that he had turned over to Leiber and Stoller [the two premier composers of the 1950's], playing on a jukebox.  Upon his return, his agent called to let him know that he had a royalty check for $1500 [$14,500 if adjusted for current inflation] waiting for him.  Suddenly, not only were money problems laid to rest for awhile, but Pomus found a much more lucrative line of work.

Using some of his profits, Pomus rented a rehearsal room at the famous Brill Building [if you've never heard of if, 1.) get out of the house more and 2.) follow the supplied link], found a pianist with whom to collaborate, and set about composing some of the most memorable 45 rpm records of the mid-century.

Here's just a partial list:

"Suspicion" [made famous by Elvis Presley]
"A Teenager in Love"
"This Magic Moment"
"Save the Last Dance for Me"
"Marie's the Name, Of his Latest Flame" [again, Elvis]
"Viva Las Vegas" [ditto]
"Lonely Avenue" [a big 1950's hit for Ray Charles]
"Hushabye" [a particular favorite of mine that I sing to my granddaughter] and many, many others, including twenty-five for Elvis, alone.  [Interestingly, Pomus and Presley never met].

With the British Invasion in the mid-sixties, heralded by the arrival of The Beatles in the United States, the doo-wop-descended music, typified in the Pomus compositions, was replaced in popularity.  However, as a true artist, Pomus was not to be daunted, and shifted his compositions to a more mature regard and found a rich host of performers willing to record them.  Folk guitarist Marianne Faithfull, country music legend Charlie Rich, blues god B.B. King, and Cajun madman Dr. John were just a few of those who brought the later Pomus songs to life.

As if often the case with those in the performing world, Doc Pomus had his addictions and his demons. These caused him to run through friends and wives and, eventually, placed him in the NYU Medical Center where he died of lung cancer in 1991.

As is also often the case, his death occasioned a whole host of delayed recognition for him.  He was posthumously elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, received the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's Pioneer Award [the first non-black performer/composer so recognized], and was always credited in concert by Lou Reed for introducing the downtown indie rocker to the business.

It's in those stray, backstage moments that his real influence is made known, in those quiet conversations between gigs or performances, when even current rockers, rappers, and bluesmen mention Pomus' name and style.  One fellow from New Jersey with whom I stood behind a curtain in a now-closed music club in the East Village once said to me, "I can always tell if a blues singer is going to be good, even before they sing a lick, if they have a fat mouth.  You know, like Doc Pomus? It takes a fat mouth to sing the blues."

Thursday's Place: The Souks of Marrakesh

 

I was with Aziz when three men wearing djellaba and carrying traditional native instruments approached us, twisting their heads to twirl the tassels on top of their fez hats.

"Do not mind them," said Aziz.  "They will go away for 20 dirham."

As I fetched for the appropriate baksheesh in my pocket, I stumbled on a loose cobblestone and came close to another merchant's live, and rather perturbed, cobra.

"Do not mind him.  For 50 dirham, you can step on his cobra."

I realize that on Thursdays I tend to write of beaches, bars, and Cleveland.  Well, as used to be said in the heyday of this medium, it's my weblog.  Perhaps it's time for something more exotic.  As summer now begins its inevitable surrender, it may be time for a travelogue.

My wife and I, having attended one of those mandated conferences a few years ago that usually carry with them all of the interest one would expect of an experience that needs to be mandated, heard a truism that altered our thinking; or at least made more urgent our planning.

The conference was about retirement [the fourth or fifth retirement conference that I've attended during my career; the first being just two weeks after I was ordained]. The speaker said, "Remember, you will not always be able-bodied."

I realized that we were putting off some things until some future date, travels that really did depend on our being able bodied.  As we had both experienced some minor orthopedic surgery that year, and since there I had an outstanding invitation to lecture in Sydney, we began the first phase of what was to become a three-stage circumnavigation.  The only rule was to spend as little of the journey in air travel as possible, so that we might see and feel the vastness of the world and richness of its cultures.

So, in the first stage, we traveled from Seattle to Sydney by ship with stops in Oahu, Maui, Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.  In stage two, we traveled from Florida to Spain by ship, with stops in the Canary Islands and Gibraltar.  After spending a few days in Barcelona, where I delivered a lecture, we weren't ready for the trip to end, especially since we were literally in sight of Africa when we passed from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, so we traveled by train and ferry through Portugal and into Morocco, ending with a week in Marrakesh.

You know those things you've always wanted to do, but maybe thought you wouldn't quite experience?  For us, one was to tour [and maybe shop in] the vast marketplace in the Medina, or old city, of Marrakesh.  Since the Medina is a rabbit warren of narrow, twisting alleyways filled with shops that sell, well, everything, and since the Fodor's guidebook, some Cockney on a travel show, and the hotel's concierge all suggested strongly that we would get lost in the souks, we hired Mr. Aziz, a bi-lingual scholar, bon vivant, and former resident of Oklahoma City, to be our guide.  He was perfect.

[For those wondering, a guide charges 100 dirham an hour; about 10 bucks.  Aziz was originally hired for 4 hours but enjoyed our company so much, and was so thankful we weren't French, that he spent 8 hours with us, offering the second 4 hours for free.  Naturally, that did not stand and I paid him for his time and with a generous tip.  So much so, that Allah was thanked many times upon our parting.]

So, here was our day, rendered in photos:

The one and only...Mr. Aziz

The plaza of an ancient sultan's palace

Examples, here and below, of the magnificent Islamic tile work

And now, on to the marketplace in the Medina

Aziz on scooter patrol; they really whiz by at considerable speed and expect pedestrians to get out of their way

A common sight is a door knocker representative of the Hand of Fatima, a good fortune portent

The souks

Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger slept here

The plaza was just setting up when we were there. They were a little slower than usual as it was 108 degrees at noon and it was Ramadan

Aziz leading us into the depths of the souks; the sign that is center right is for Le Maison de Souks, perhaps the only place to get real Moroccan jewelry and rugs.  Yeah, I bought a couple of rugs.

After my near mishap with the cobra, Aziz took care to point out hazards to me

Such colors in this country

Between the heat, closeness, pedestrian traffic, and fumes from the scooters and the leatherworkers' skinned animal flesh and glue, I think I was in a dispossessed state for most of the day.  That may explain the rugs I bought.

Anyway, that's our travelogue for this week.  It's a fine country where the old-fashioned Muslim values of hospitality and serenity are found in abundance.  

The Contemporary and Hip New Religion of Miserabilism

The Buzzfeed title for the piece is typical for the site: “15 Surreal Portraits Of A Slowly Fading American Dream.”

First of all, they’re not surreal. There are no clocks marching around on giant chopsticks while an elephant melts on a barren tree branch. Second, they have to get that shot at “the American Dream” in there and make sure everyone knows it’s Fading, because the creed of Miserabilism demands that you remind everyone at every possible opportunity that no one can get a house with a picket fence and have two kids and a yard anymore. and also you shouldn’t get a house and have more than one kid and definitely not a yard because there are all bad for the planet, not that it matters, because climate change is real and unstoppable, and species will collapse and everything will be over.

But also be nostalgic for malls because we went there when we were kids. But also hate them.

Oh it’s so confusing, when you think about it. 

Best not to think too much, then. Enough to be against the Bad Thing and in favor of the Good Thing and regard the past like a book you can pick up and put down when you wish. I mean, cool story and all that, but what does it have to do with me?

Meanwhile, in the Rest of the World...

It's much simpler and easier to base the front page of a newspaper or the lead stories on the network news on some variation of the Trump, Trump, Trump theme.  Heck, I can't go to dinner parties without the conversation devolving into that morass.  It requires neither imagination nor intelligence to do so, and reporters journalists are lacking in both in our age.

However, things are heating up considerably in the Pacific Rim and it may be time to get a little concerned as what happens on the other side of the world has ramifications for us, too.  Red China has backed itself into a corner with the Hong Kong protests and, since they are a collection of puzzlewitted thugs, can't find a way out of it.  A Tiananmen Square-type massacre, which was committed back when the government controlled all information, is out of the question in an era where everyone has a video camera, with international broadcast capability, in their pocket.  So, now they're trying something like this, and it isn't working, either.  They will get desperate and, like the simpletons they are, lash out in ways dangerous.

Crew Describe Climate of Fear at Cathay After Hong Kong Sackings

I'm not an expert on Australian politics, but having spent a little bit of time living and working there, I do notice that things like flu variants and Asian Pacific political squabbles start there but spread to the USA rather quickly, so note the following, too.

Anti-Hong Kong democracy protest in Sydney marred by ugly confrontations

This reminds me of something....

Another Sign of the Apocalypse

Autumn is coming, so of course Pumpkin Spice Spam is, too

My Day Thus Far

Nick Nolte in "Who'll Stop the Rain?"  If you haven't seen it, which isn't a surprise, it's worth it.

The Duke and Duchess of Woke and Their Courtier

Sooner or later, even royalty has to deal with reality. 

Poor Elton John. He’s ‘deeply distressed’. What’s happened to the filthy-rich national treasure? Well, some people were mean about his posh, rich mates using his private jet to fly to his swanky pad in the South of France. Can you believe the indignities celebrities have to endure? Us plebs with our once-a-year jaunts on Ryanair could never understand the awfulness of being mocked for swanning about on an airplane swilling with champagne. 

This is the news that Elton John, the Queen Mum of pop, has been made upset by the little people’s criticisms of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for using a private jet to get to France. Elton, being made of money, paid for the jet. They’re staying in his house in the South of France, and you can imagine what that’s like. People have called Harry and Meghan massive, ridiculous hypocrites because just a couple of weeks ago they were lecturing the masses from the pulpit of Vogue magazine about the need to cut carbon and save the planet and yet now they’re farting out more CO2 than most of us do in a year by jetting back and forth across the south of Europe. Elton, like an obsequious courtier protecting his princes from the barbs of the dumb masses, says these criticisms are ‘distorted’, ‘malicious’, ‘relentless’ and ‘untrue’...

Perhaps the most telling part of Elton’s obtuse, self-awareness-free intervention into the Harry and Meghan discussion was his insistence that their private-jet journeys aren’t in fact eco-unfriendly because Elton himself offset the carbon spouted by the flights by ‘making the appropriate contribution to Carbon Footprint’. Which is presumably some tree-planting outfit that absolves the rich of their guilt by throwing a few seeds in the ground every time they fly, much like the wealthy used to buy Indulgences from the Catholic Church to wash away their sins.

Heck, read the whole thing and relish the term "eco-snob".

History, as Ever, Repeats Itself

Consider it a "needlehooks" moment.

Children's Crusades

One clever little specialty of adult humans works like this: You very carefully (and, if you’re smart, very subtly) instruct children in the moral stances you’d like them to hold. Then, when they start to repeat what you’ve taught them, you cry “Out of the mouths of babes! And a little child shall lead them!” And you very delicately maneuver the children to the front of your procession, so that they appear to be leading it — but of course you make sure all along that you’re steering them in the way that they should go. It’s a social strategy with a very long history.

Moral Causes are the New Status Symbol Among the Gucci Class

One of the weirdest characteristics of our global politicians and moral censors is their preference to voice cosmic justice rather than to address less abstract sin within their own purview or authority. These progressive virtue mongers see themselves as citizens of the world rather than of the United States and thus can impotently theorize about problems elsewhere when they cannot solve those in their own midst.

and

If we sometimes wonder why for years saintly Apple, Facebook, and Google have thrived in a sea of homelessness, amid pot-holed streets lined with strapped employees living in their cars, a good indication might be that the cosmic social justice so often voiced as penance by their woke multi-billionaire bosses exempts them from worrying about the disasters in their midst.

Needlehooks

Did Mark Zuckerberg Lie Under Oath About Facebook Eavesdropping Through Your Phone?

The short answer is probably "yes".  

As Long as Their Summer Economy Doesn't Depend on Beachgoers and Surfers, No Problem

Cape Cod’s New Normal: Sharks Are Everywhere

Sounds Accurate to Me

Facial recognition software mistook 1 in 5 California lawmakers for criminals, says ACLU

Bruce Meyers

Orginally published on April 24, 2015

 "I'm not smart, but I'm talented. I can draw, I have a good sense of proportions, I know a lot about fibreglass...I've raced at Bonneville, shaped surfboards, and I've never had a business plan."

I have been a habitue of car shows, swap meets, and auto races since I was about twelve.  I have owned an Austin-Healey Sprite, a Ford Torino GT, a BMW R45, a Porsche 944, a CJ5 and a large Ford Bronco [with a broken marque so that is was just a "Bro"] and a few other, less interesting, vehicles.

And, of course, my long-time companion that has earned the nickname "Surfmobile" from my nieces and nephew: The 2001 Ford Ranger

I have rebuilt five carburetors, changed countless spark plugs, refilled oil pans, and upgraded everything from radios to headlights to air intakes.  One of my proudest achievements was wiring an 8-track player into a car's glove compartment in order to keep the dashboard clean and prevent it from being stolen.  Yeah, that didn't really work.  It still got stolen.

Through all of this, I've met many people who really, really love their vehicles.  However, the greatest love I have ever witnessed was at a traffic light in Cleveland, Ohio one very cold January morning.  A driver was sitting in his vehicle next to ours wearing what looked like two winter coats, a ski mask topped by another knit hat, some very large industrial gloves, and ski goggles.  Despite all that, he still looked miserably cold.

This was because he was sitting in a vehicle better suited to the beaches of southern California: A Meyers Manx, the original and consummate dune buggy.  Given the mad love that I've seen manifest between Manx owners and their vehicles, this really didn't come as a major surprise.  In fact, it made me want to own one myself.

The Manx was invented by a quintessential Southern California crackpot by the name of Bruce Meyers, one of those figures common in American history who was a complete failure at every conventional occupation and endeavor, until one day, to quote from "Kid Charlemagne" by Steely Dan, "...[he] crossed the diamond with the pearl." 

Born in 1927, Meyers grew up a gearhead, not a surprise since his father had competed in the Indianapolis 500 from 1906 to 1908.  A decorated Navy veteran of World War II, and flush with post-war money made from working in fiberglass sailboat design and construction, Meyers desired to create a vehicle to compete in the beach dune racing that was all the rage in the early 1960's.  Most of the vehicles involved in that unlicensed and often illegal activity were ill-suited to the sport, as they were all street cars that had been modified, to greater or lesser extent, by their owners, so the stage was set for innovation.

After molding whole boats from one piece of fiberglass, Meyers wanted to try the same with an auto body.  In his Newport Beach garage he created something that looked like a cartoon character's ride, a four-wheeler named "The Manx", after the bobbed-tail cat.  The vehicle was...austere...in its features, but of an undeniable style.  While initially a sales failure, over time it became associated with the Southern California "lifestyle".

That really didn't matter, though, as Meyers had created the car...er, vehicle...well, buggy to prove a point of pride.  In those days, bikers [and I mean those who ride Harley-Davidson's, not Schwinn's] would bomb down the deserted Baja peninsula in Mexico for about 1000 miles attempting to beat one another's travel times.  While also unofficial and almost illegal [it was Mexico, after all], anyone who wanted to crush his kidneys, coccyx, rims, wheels, and skull would open the throttle wide and let their shade-tree modified hogs loose in the last grand Western experience of unlicensed freedom.

So well did the Manx behave on sand dunes, and so sturdy was the one-piece fiberglass bolted onto the chassis of a Volkswagen Beetle [the original, not the modern silly ones that satisfy government regulation and nothing else] and powered by that bulletproof, air-cooled VW engine, Meyers was convinced that not only could it make it all the way down the Baja, but a Manx could do so faster than a motorcycle.  When he was ridiculed for that statement by members of a local biker...um...organization, Meyers set his cap to prove his point.

Beginning from the traditional starting point of Tijuana and busting down the Sonoran desert to La Paz, Meyers and his partner-in-madness Ted Mangels [both are pictured above; Meyers on the left and Mangels on the right] pored over maps, found the route least likely to leave them permanently impaired, and loaded their Manx with gasoline, filling not just the fuel tank, but also a few empty oxygen bottles and a couple of empty milk cartons [about 65 gallons of potential, hellish immolation] that they then strapped to the exterior or held with their legs.  Yes, that's right.

By the time they reached La Paz, Meyers had proved his point.  The dune buggy had made the trek in 34 hours and 45 minutes, a full five hours faster than had been done by any motorcycle.  Because Meyers' wife was a publicist for a car magazine, the entire gearhead world knew of his feat within six weeks.

Little did he realize it, but along with creating the most iconic of wheeled surf culture artifacts, Meyers also created the sport of off-road racing.  Not only does every state in the union offer some form of this sport for amateurs and professionals alike, his trail through the Sonora has since become the prestigious, and wildly profitable, annual race known as the Baja 1000.  Meyers himself has been a competitor in the race, the final time at the age of 78.

 

The Manx is still made and sold, in updated form and styling, and dune buggy clubs are so popular worldwide that a few years back there was parade of them held in Le Mans, France during the weekend of the famous 24 hour race.  Over 1100 buggies and drivers followed Meyers in his original Manx around the track to the wild applause of the members of the gearhead universe.

Bruce Meyers is still alive and active as he nears his 89th birthday.  He still grants interviews and makes speeches before those who understand that a silly bit of brightly colored fiberglass is more than just a beach bum's bauble, but a benchmark in the glorious expression of the American creative soul when it is un-regulated, un-bounded, and un-daunted.