I have always admired Paul Newman. Through my childhood his movies made an impression on me. When I did my stint in acting school and went to my auditions I thought often about those movies like The Sting, that my young mind and heart remembered. But it was my later impressions and experiences that made me admire him even more. During those 'creative years' in New York City one activity I got engaged with was to volunteer with the kids of Hell's Kitchen at the 52nd Street Project. The 52nd Street Project "...matches the kids (9 to 18) of Hell's Kitchen in New York City with professional theater artists to create original theater." Kids write plays and act them out with and without adults and some amazing moments happen through the process (and not just on the stage).
There are well know actors (unlike me) who participate in helping the kids write the plays, act the plays, direct and generally help pull the productions together. I was fortunate to work on playwriting, backstage and as an actor in some of the plays. The kids were incredible every time and it was one of the most rewarding things I did while living in New York (certainly better than some of those auditions!).
So, why all this about the 52nd Street Project? Because Paul Newman and his Newman's Own Foundation support the work of the 52nd Street Project, like so many other important contributions that they make. That's where the impression on me comes from. Paul Newman's generousity is legendary and something I grew to admire more and more over time, in particular because of my direct connection with the 52nd Street Project during that period. Even better, Mr. Newman would sometimes come to the shows with Joanne Woodward to watch the kids (and those of us that felt like kids in his presence). He seemed to really enjoy every show and feeling a part of the production. On one occasion he came backstage and started visiting with all of us for quite a while and Joanne had to come back and get him. I remember him winking at me and saying "hold on, hold on, I want to just hang out back here with these boys for awhile." She finally came back in and took him back up to the seats. I watched him watch the show as he laughed as hard or harder than anyone in the crowd along with Joanne. I will never forget those moments.
I mourn his passing in my own special way and only want to add to the feeling of loss that many may feel. Paul Newman was a great actor, but he was far more than that. He gave of himself on screen and in so many other ways. His giving changed so many lives for the better, including those kids of the 52nd Street Project. He will be missed.
27 September 2008
12 September 2008
Just Sharing: You'll Never Be Vice President: A Letter to My Daughter, the Community Organizer
Something worth reading, especially if you have daughters and/or you work on behalf of communities, like so many...
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You'll Never Be Vice President:
A Letter to My Daughter, the Community Organizer
Why didn't I nip all this in the bud and buy you a well-oiled Remington 12-gauge?
By Marc Cooper
published: September 11, 2008
Daughter Dearest,
It is with great pain and a certain measure of shame that I write you this note. Having grown up in the ’60s and watched, sometimes at glaringly close range, the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, I had always harbored great dreams and aspirations for you.
But as I listened to Governor Sarah Palin address the nation the other night, I had to confess that — as your father — I have clearly failed. Honey, you will never be able to achieve the greatness of being nominated for vice president of the United States. Forget about it.
And for this sad reality, I accept all blame. ’Twas I who steered you wrong.
Here you are, almost 25, with what your mother and I believed was a solid education behind you, and yet you are nothing but a common community organizer. Yes, the labor union you work for represents nearly 2 million service workers — about three times the population of Alaska. But, alas, as Governor Palin pointed out, you have no real responsibilities. By helping janitors, security guards, nursing aides and orderlies gain a living wage,p aid health care insurance and a retirement fund, you have only robbed them of the personal initiative to go out there and make something better of themselves. You have rendered them feebly dependent on Big Labor and tax-and-spend Big Government — and all in their own crass self-interest in survival.
I’m not sure when I helped nudge you on to such a mistaken road. Probably sometime while you were attending that government-run high school in which we enrolled you. You could have joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as Ms. Palin did. Instead, I pushed you to become a columnist on the school paper. You could have spent your afternoons becoming the local barracuda on the courts. But, nope, your mom and I indulged your trivial passions for staging and directing the plays of Shakespeare. You could have competed to be Miss Woodland Hills or even Miss Congenial California, but — no — there were your mom and dad encouraging you to finish writing your first play. Sorry.
From there, the mistakes only multiplied. Instead of letting you wait until the responsible age of 44 before letting you secure a passport, we strained our family budget and squandered who knows how many thousands by putting you on countless Flights to Nowhere: New York, Washington, New Orleans, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Santiago, Mexico City. And to what end? So you could return home — as the huggable Mayor Giuliani so neatly put it — some sort of “cosmopolitan”? Exposure to so many foreign ideas (like the notion of spending an idle afternoon reading a book in a café instead of learning to field-dress a moose) only contaminated you, rendering you insensitive and contemptuous to the day-to-day needs of bowling league members in Michigan’s Macomb County. Worse, you returned from those European jaunts a brainwashed follower of the elite, angry, left media. By the 12th grade, all the warning signs were there. I’d walk into your room at 1 in the morning and catch you with a flashlight under the covers, reading the book pages of The Atlantic.Why didn’t I nip this all in the bud and buy you a well-oiled Remington 12-gauge so you could plink the coyotes south of Ventura Boulevard?
The real disaster came, of course, in college. Four straight years wasted at UCLA, when you could have been following the course of the governor, sampling five different schools in six years. You were reading Orwell. By then she was practicing doublespeak. You were studying public policy, by then she was figuring out how to win the 909 votes she needed to become mayor of Wasilla. You were inclined to donate $100 to the ACLU. She was way ahead of you, sweetie, as she calculated how to avoid the ACLU when she made her inquiries into pruning the local library of un-American and anti-Christian propaganda. She was on her way up and you, dear child, were dead-ended in the silly task of trying to organize seven hospitals back to back.
It’s not healthy to dwell on so many regrets, I know. And as I said, this is mostly the fault of your parents. While you are the victim of these reckless choices, your mom and I, nevertheless, pay a heavy price. If we had only been sage enough to bar you from sex-ed class and contraceptives and instead had let you rely on abstinence and prayer, there was an even chance you could have been pregnant by age 17. You’d have a joyous 7-year-old child right now to help you get through your 10-hour workday. The father might have married you. And we’d have a lovely grandchild who a mere decade from now could produce us a great-grandchild and we would all still be young enough to go snowmobiling together — the next time it snows in WoodlandHills.
Ah, but better not to dwell on the negative. Make the best of the little we have given you, and grant us your understanding and forgiveness. And don’t despair too much. Remember, when McCain-Palin come to power, real change is gonna come, and we’ll all be better off.
Love, Dad
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You'll Never Be Vice President:
A Letter to My Daughter, the Community Organizer
Why didn't I nip all this in the bud and buy you a well-oiled Remington 12-gauge?
By Marc Cooper
published: September 11, 2008
Daughter Dearest,
It is with great pain and a certain measure of shame that I write you this note. Having grown up in the ’60s and watched, sometimes at glaringly close range, the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, I had always harbored great dreams and aspirations for you.
But as I listened to Governor Sarah Palin address the nation the other night, I had to confess that — as your father — I have clearly failed. Honey, you will never be able to achieve the greatness of being nominated for vice president of the United States. Forget about it.
And for this sad reality, I accept all blame. ’Twas I who steered you wrong.
Here you are, almost 25, with what your mother and I believed was a solid education behind you, and yet you are nothing but a common community organizer. Yes, the labor union you work for represents nearly 2 million service workers — about three times the population of Alaska. But, alas, as Governor Palin pointed out, you have no real responsibilities. By helping janitors, security guards, nursing aides and orderlies gain a living wage,p aid health care insurance and a retirement fund, you have only robbed them of the personal initiative to go out there and make something better of themselves. You have rendered them feebly dependent on Big Labor and tax-and-spend Big Government — and all in their own crass self-interest in survival.
I’m not sure when I helped nudge you on to such a mistaken road. Probably sometime while you were attending that government-run high school in which we enrolled you. You could have joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, as Ms. Palin did. Instead, I pushed you to become a columnist on the school paper. You could have spent your afternoons becoming the local barracuda on the courts. But, nope, your mom and I indulged your trivial passions for staging and directing the plays of Shakespeare. You could have competed to be Miss Woodland Hills or even Miss Congenial California, but — no — there were your mom and dad encouraging you to finish writing your first play. Sorry.
From there, the mistakes only multiplied. Instead of letting you wait until the responsible age of 44 before letting you secure a passport, we strained our family budget and squandered who knows how many thousands by putting you on countless Flights to Nowhere: New York, Washington, New Orleans, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Santiago, Mexico City. And to what end? So you could return home — as the huggable Mayor Giuliani so neatly put it — some sort of “cosmopolitan”? Exposure to so many foreign ideas (like the notion of spending an idle afternoon reading a book in a café instead of learning to field-dress a moose) only contaminated you, rendering you insensitive and contemptuous to the day-to-day needs of bowling league members in Michigan’s Macomb County. Worse, you returned from those European jaunts a brainwashed follower of the elite, angry, left media. By the 12th grade, all the warning signs were there. I’d walk into your room at 1 in the morning and catch you with a flashlight under the covers, reading the book pages of The Atlantic.Why didn’t I nip this all in the bud and buy you a well-oiled Remington 12-gauge so you could plink the coyotes south of Ventura Boulevard?
The real disaster came, of course, in college. Four straight years wasted at UCLA, when you could have been following the course of the governor, sampling five different schools in six years. You were reading Orwell. By then she was practicing doublespeak. You were studying public policy, by then she was figuring out how to win the 909 votes she needed to become mayor of Wasilla. You were inclined to donate $100 to the ACLU. She was way ahead of you, sweetie, as she calculated how to avoid the ACLU when she made her inquiries into pruning the local library of un-American and anti-Christian propaganda. She was on her way up and you, dear child, were dead-ended in the silly task of trying to organize seven hospitals back to back.
It’s not healthy to dwell on so many regrets, I know. And as I said, this is mostly the fault of your parents. While you are the victim of these reckless choices, your mom and I, nevertheless, pay a heavy price. If we had only been sage enough to bar you from sex-ed class and contraceptives and instead had let you rely on abstinence and prayer, there was an even chance you could have been pregnant by age 17. You’d have a joyous 7-year-old child right now to help you get through your 10-hour workday. The father might have married you. And we’d have a lovely grandchild who a mere decade from now could produce us a great-grandchild and we would all still be young enough to go snowmobiling together — the next time it snows in WoodlandHills.
Ah, but better not to dwell on the negative. Make the best of the little we have given you, and grant us your understanding and forgiveness. And don’t despair too much. Remember, when McCain-Palin come to power, real change is gonna come, and we’ll all be better off.
Love, Dad
09 September 2008
Kitty? No Rowan, THAT is a BIG mountain lion
I was driving home tonight from work and had just turned on to our little road south of Custer, near Pringle, not really paying attention. The house was just ahead and my two year old son, Rowan, was entertaining me as I glanced now and then at my Blackberry. I saw the deer cross the road out of the corner of my eye on the left and put on the brakes so I would not hit him/her. But it was not a deer, much to my surprise. It was a big (male?) mountain lion just trotting across the road where I would have run him over, with no apparent urgency.
I finally snapped out of my daze and yelled to my son that it was a mountain lion, while I threw down my phone and fumbled for my digital camera in my attache case. I was very slow on the draw and I watched him continue through the creek bottom and up the other side of the road on the hill. I thought to myself that he was just huge, but with his pace and the distance, he just looked like a big kitten. Which is sort of what Rowan started yelling at that point: "Kitty, kitty, roarrr, lion" and by then I found my camera and ran out to try and get a picture, since it had a tracking collar and was such a big fella. Well, I was too slow and by then the deer, the horses and everything else within half a mile, including my own dog and horse down the road were all riled up. I tried to spot it in the grass or treeline and looked for tracks but no sign was found.
So, keep your eyes open down Carroll Creek Road around Red Star Drive or, who knows, if he is a male, he may be just passing through or on the way home. We will certainly be watching the dusk and dawn times with the kids....
I finally snapped out of my daze and yelled to my son that it was a mountain lion, while I threw down my phone and fumbled for my digital camera in my attache case. I was very slow on the draw and I watched him continue through the creek bottom and up the other side of the road on the hill. I thought to myself that he was just huge, but with his pace and the distance, he just looked like a big kitten. Which is sort of what Rowan started yelling at that point: "Kitty, kitty, roarrr, lion" and by then I found my camera and ran out to try and get a picture, since it had a tracking collar and was such a big fella. Well, I was too slow and by then the deer, the horses and everything else within half a mile, including my own dog and horse down the road were all riled up. I tried to spot it in the grass or treeline and looked for tracks but no sign was found.
So, keep your eyes open down Carroll Creek Road around Red Star Drive or, who knows, if he is a male, he may be just passing through or on the way home. We will certainly be watching the dusk and dawn times with the kids....
07 September 2008
Community Organize THIS!
My friend and colleague (yes, we are both tainted community organizers), Greg Morishige, wrote this short introduction to a YouTube piece on community organizing, with a link to the video:
"The complete disrespect of Obama's history as a community organizer is offensive, not just to Obama, but to the history of America and those who have fought to defend human rights. This YouTube clip does an exceptional job of saying just that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IMTDLS0k8k"
I also posted this comment about the video to Facebook, which I would like to share further on this blog and beyond:
"As one of those community development folks who were wasting our time not working on Wall Street, but instead helping our communities grow and prosper, I was not only personally mystified by the disrespect shown, but it also further convinced me of the ignorance of John McCan't, Sarah Playin', and the "speech righters" of the Bush/Rove agenda. I guess they forgot that voter registration (of all parties), small business development, soccer (and hockey) moms, the Minutemen (of old and new), PTA, business chambers of commerce, etc., etc. all come about through community organizing and development. Let's organize them out of this election..."
Please forward at will...
"The complete disrespect of Obama's history as a community organizer is offensive, not just to Obama, but to the history of America and those who have fought to defend human rights. This YouTube clip does an exceptional job of saying just that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IMTDLS0k8k"
I also posted this comment about the video to Facebook, which I would like to share further on this blog and beyond:
"As one of those community development folks who were wasting our time not working on Wall Street, but instead helping our communities grow and prosper, I was not only personally mystified by the disrespect shown, but it also further convinced me of the ignorance of John McCan't, Sarah Playin', and the "speech righters" of the Bush/Rove agenda. I guess they forgot that voter registration (of all parties), small business development, soccer (and hockey) moms, the Minutemen (of old and new), PTA, business chambers of commerce, etc., etc. all come about through community organizing and development. Let's organize them out of this election..."
Please forward at will...
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