Have You Seen Charles?

Charles Street in the West Village is one of the few streets in Manhattan that you can walk from end to end and one of the many that justify it. Beginning at Greenwich Avenue (not Greenwich Street), walk one block west until you come to a very familiar-looking corner. It’s familiar because the otherwise ordinary building at the corner of Charles and Seventh Avenue is where, every Thursday night for ten years, the cast of “Friends” lived. Directly across Charles Street is Harry Chong’s Barber Shop. Well, not exactly. It was Harry Chong’s laundry for sixty years. Now, it’s a barber shop and the current owners have kept the name because they like the way it’s written on the windows. They also have a taste for taxidermy: inside, a miniature deer head is mounted on one wall and a murder (the correct term) of crows is perched above a mirror. The kind of place where Alfred Hitchcock would go to get his head polished.

The block from Seventh Avenue to West Fourth Street is a short one lined with brownstones on one side and townhouses on the other. A distinction, apart from visual, that only the privileged occupants could explain.

Across West Fourth Street, we come to the Congregation Direch Amuno, a synagogue that’s almost one hundred years old. Though made of stone, it’s very narrow and looks like a strong cantor could blow it down with one good prayer. Further up on that side of the street is a building where the poet, Hart Crane lived. The brass plaque says he was an advertising copywriter before he became a famous author, a career path that society should do everything to encourage. (Throwing yourself off a ship into the Gulf of Mexico, however, should be discouraged.)

The next street that crosses Charles is Bleecker. While the strip of Bleecker near NYU is still a honky-tonk, student ghetto, it gets nicer as you go further west. By the time it reaches Charles, the dives are gone and it's one fashionable and expensive boutique after another, all tucked preciously into one quaint building after another. This stretch of Bleecker is as close as Manhattan gets to Job Lane in Easthampton – or should.

The next block of Charles is a good antidote for the cloying wealth of Bleecker. That’s where you’ll find the headquarters of the NYPD Bomb Squad. In case you have any doubts, it’s spelled out in large, unmistakable letters on a wide, metal garage door, “BOMB SQUAD.” Beneath it is their insignia: a bad guy in a black mask riding an aerial bomb downward over a clock showing the time, “six minutes to midnight.” During the Cold War, that was called “The Doomsday Clock” and was a popular way of signaling impending nuclear disaster. I wouldn’t linger in front of that door, especially if you’re wearing a bulky vest.

Once you cross Hudson, the buildings start playing scale games. At the corner of Greenwich Street (not Greenwich Avenue) is a whitewashed, wooden home, one story high, on a plot of land surrounded by a fence. Suburban in style, it would be considered tiny anywhere except in Manhattan. In this location, only a billionaire could afford it – and wouldn’t. Mayor Bloomberg, for instance, has already turned down Gracie Mansion because his own home is nicer.

Across Greenwich is a vastly larger red brick warehouse that’s been converted into apartments. Next to that is a two and one half story house built in 1834. I say two and one half because the attic has dormer windows. This house also appears to have two front doors, but look closer. The address on the main one is 131, on the much smaller one, down and to the left, 131 ½. Look through the window on that door and you see a narrow passage into a rear courtyard. It’s not a driveway and it’s too low to ride through on a horse, you would have to dismount and walk your horse through it. (Horseway? Trotsky?) Across from that house is a cozy, little coffee house called Mojo. Combining classical-style, cast iron columns and wide, horizontal, wood panels, it seems to straddle the border between SoHo and Big Sur. Next to Mojo is an extremely wide (four windows) brick house and next to that a yellow house with a large, black, metal doorknocker in the shape of lion’s head. The kind that turns into the face of Jacob Marley in “A Christmas Carol.”

The last block of Charles Street before the Hudson River, between Washington and West Streets, is a study in contrasts. On the right is a long, low, motel-style group of attached homes with a running balcony along the second floor. Given the dark, vine-covered and generally distressed nature of the structure, that would be the Bates Motel. At the end of Charles Street, facing the river, is a tall, glittering, glass tower designed by the eminent architect, Richard Meier. One of three such buildings with enviable locations and, no doubt, incredible views, apartments in them have been snapped up by celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein.

But wait, there’s more. A new pier, designed for recreation, extends into the river from the end of Charles Street. It is also home to contrasts: real trees and fake grass; affluent residents and homeless people. The first is intentional, the second probably not, but both groups seem to be coexisting happily – or, at least, quietly. Across the river is New Jersey.

Ashes To Ashes, Fairy Dust To Fairy Dust.

“Peter Pan” is a work that has always fascinated me and a book that promises new insights into it would, naturally, get my attention. Fortunately. Janet Maslin warns us away from the new biography of J.M. Barrie by Piers Dudgeon with her review in today’s (10/26/09) New York Times. She doesn’t quite go into high dudgeon criticizing it, but judging from her description, it falls somewhere between a tissue of lies and being made of whole cloth. I’m not put off by the “. . . scandal-seeking heavy breathing” that she attributes to the biographer. (James Barrie and Lewis Carroll, for instance, have a lot in uncommon.) Nor is it that Mr. Dudgeon finds a dark side to “Peter Pan.” It's always been there - very close to the surface, too. What’s shocking is that he found an entire book in it. If you, like many people, believe that “Peter Pan” is merely light-hearted, children’s fare, let me disabuse you.

We’ll begin with the notion (over one hundred years old) that “Peter Pan” is meant primarily, if not exclusively, for children. Sure, there are pirates, Indians and mermaids, but those are just distractions. It’s really about fear, loneliness, aging and death.

Take growing up. Peter is opposed. Not because he enjoys childhood so much, but because he fears adulthood. Peter is one year old, being pushed in his pram, when he overhears his parents making plans for his future. This doesn’t square with him, so he bolts. The fairies in Kensington Garden tell him how to get to Neverland and off he flies.

That he would make a life-altering decision at such a tender age shows an impulsiveness more common in tragic heroes. What’s more, like those heroes, Peter must face the consequences of his acts. Because of a decision made when he was in his baby carriage, he spends the rest of his life as a virtual orphan. Yes, Neverland has the aforementioned distractions, but he misses his mother. That’s why he visits Wendy. He’s not exactly self-sufficient, either. Peter cries when he loses his shadow and needs Wendy to sew it back on.

However much Peter wants or needs her, Wendy goes home at the end of the play. She does, however, agree to see him again next year at “Spring Cleaning” time. This hasty solution bears within it the seed of another dilemma. What happens when Wendy grows up? Both the play and the novel versions of Peter Pan acknowledge that Wendy must get older with each succeeding visit. The play hints at it. The later novel is much more explicit. It ends with Wendy, a married woman, sending her young daughter, Jane, off to visit Neverland with Peter. Thus, beginning a tradition that is passed down through the generations.

This serial Wendyism may solve one problem, but, again, it creates another. How can Peter ignore the effects of aging upon the original Wendy? Immune to the passage of time himself, he must watch it consume her in year-long gulps. See her change in front of his eyes. Getting bigger - and then smaller. “Whom the Gods love die young” for this very reason. They are never diminished nor witness the gradual dimming of those they love. Something of which Barrie’s contemporary, A.E. Houseman, was exquisitely aware. Look at his poem, “To An Athlete Dying Young,” wherein he writes, “Smart lad, to slip betimes away/From fields where glory does not stay” and “Eyes the shady night has shut/Cannot see the record cut.” If there is a brief for not growing up, this poem is it. Houseman’s solution, however, is a little drastic. It follows, “The road all runners come/shoulder–high we bring you home.”

Peter Pan can’t die, though, because he’s already dead. Look at the evidence. He enjoys the only permanent, unchanging condition known to man. He lives in a paradise where no one ages. An undiscovered country from whose born a traveler never, never returneth. The play, itself, begins and ends in a bedroom. If you think that sleep is a rather unsubtle metaphor for death, you definitely won’t like the clock. Captain Hook is chased throughout the play by the man-eating crocodile that’s already taken his hand. How does he know this normally furtive reptile is near? The beast has also swallowed a clock. The approach of death is heralded by a ticking clock. The only thing missing is Tinker Bell saying, “Walk toward the light, walk toward the light.”

Now would be a good time to step back from the brink, if only to better appreciate the joy in Peter Pan. Thinking lovely thoughts, for instance. What could be nicer? And flying – what could be more fun? Then there’s Wendy, her mother and Nana, all of whom are unambiguously good. Not that a character has to be bland or sweet to be positive. Tinker Bell, for instance, is appealingly tart. Especially in the Disney version, where she gives off as much heat as light.

Yet, what do people remember about Peter Pan? Those charming moments in the nursery? Playing house in Neverland? Among writers (a brooding group, I’ll grant you) it tends to be the darker aspects. Peter’s literary influence, unlike his entrance, comes with shadows attached. Take F. Scott Fitzgerald. Only a generation later, he writes about a lonely dreamer stuck on this side of paradise. The following passage, the ending of The Great Gatsby, could just as easily be describing Peter as he hovers outside Wendy’s window, casting one last backwards glance before returning to Neverland. “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on into the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, in the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Again, a mere generation later, Peter returns, practically in the flesh, as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Tom’s futile attempt to save his fragile, younger sister from the brutality of life with a dominating parent parallels the story of Peter, Wendy and her Captain Hook-like father. The directions to Neverland are, “First star to the right and straight on until morning.” The last part is significant because, as Tom Wingfield says, “I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further – for the time is the greatest distance between two places.” One reason why Peter is constantly fighting pirates and Indians may be that, like Tom, he is, “Attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.” Neither, of course, succeeds. Their days may be filled with violent activity, but they don’t build upon each other. They have no cumulative value. As Williams’s hero puts it, “They swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.” Why does Peter return to Wendy every year at “Spring Cleaning” time? Tom Wingfield, again, may have the answer as he confesses, “I tried to leave you behind, but I am more faithful then I intended to be!” Tom feels enormous guilt over not being able to save his sister. As for Peter, who knows? Maybe he never expected Wendy to stay with him in Neverland. It is, after all, a candle-lit world and, as the last line of The Glass Menagerie reminds us, “Nowadays the world is lit by lightning!”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Peter Pan isn’t for children. It’s exciting and fast-paced enough to thrill even the most video-besotted tot. It just shouldn’t be thought of as exclusively for children, something lost on most productions. Worse even than the simple-minded approach of these affairs is that they usually happen around the Holiday Season, when there is already enough saccharine in the culture to sweeten an ocean without adding calories. So, by all means, see Peter Pan with a child. They can hold your hand through the scary parts.

Giuliani Pal Gets Jail-iani.

Bernard Kerik, a man so unwholesome that his name was taken off a jail, is finally in one. Free to walk, talk and taint jury pools since 11/07, when he was indicted on federal, corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud charges (further tax fraud charges followed in 12/08) it's the last activity that put him on ice. With his jury selection scheduled for this monday (10/26/09), Kerik tried to generate public sympathy and influence potential jurors by leaking confidential information about his upcoming trial to The Washington Times. In revoking his bail, Judge Stephen C. Robinson of Federal District court in White Plains, New York said, according to an article by Benjamin Weiser and Stacey Stowe in today's (10/22/09) New York Times, that Mr. Kerik acted as if he was above the law and "thinks he is different" from other people. That the man now known as prisoner 210717 at Westchester County Jail (which accepts certain federal prisoners) has "a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance" and feels "that rulings of this court are an inconvenience to be ignored or forgotten, or an obstacle to be circumvented."

Mr. Kerik himself is only a small stain on the fabric of society. The man who left it there, Rudolph Giuliani, is a little, but only a little, more consequential. When Giuliani was mayor of New York City, he made Bernard Kerik his Commissioner of Corrections and then his Police Commissioner. Two years after leaving office, Kerik was nominated to head The Department of Homeland Security, largely due to the strong, personal recommendation of Giuliani. Kerik would soon take his name out of consideration for the post. Rudolph Giuliani, however, would make unsuccessful attempts to run for Senator from New York and President.

What makes all of this more than tabloid fodder or a small, sleazy footnote to history are the rumors that Rudolph Giuliani wants to run for Governor of New York. Granting him a full measure of the delusions common to politicians and the laughably low standards for being Emperor of the Empire State, this would be a hard campaign to take seriously. Wherever he goes and whatever he does from now on, Rudolph Giuliani will carry the albatross (apologies to the bird world) of Bernard Kerik around his neck - with all the faulty judgement, bordering on negligence, and disrespect for citizens, bordering on contempt, that that implies. The man Giuliani trusted to protect our country from terrorism is now, not only incarcerated, but separated from the prison population and a danger only to himself. Any further political ambitions on the part of "America's Mayor" would, likewise, only be a danger to himself.

Sounds like "Gold In Sacks."

I don't want to start a torchlight parade, that's the farthest thing from my mind, but . . .

what enormously successful financial institution with deep and lasting ties to the federal government is - amid torrents of negative publicity (deserved and un) - building a glamorous, new headquarters tower in Lower Manhattan. Parking a giant, inflatable rat - of the kind that unions use - in front of the nearly completed building is the absolute last thing that I want to happen, (No Michael Moore I) but . . . if you were to look for this angular, 43-story glass edifice, I wouldn't look in the Wall Street area. Instead, I'd go north into one of the most family-centered neighborhoods in Manhattan. Near one of the city's best public high schools, a more-than-comfortable example of senior housing and a relatively new, waterfront park named after one of New York's most illustrious families. That's all I'm saying. You'll get no more facts from me. If protestors build a tent city on the athletic fields immediately adjacent to the site, it won't be because of me. No, sir.

Thanks Rhymes With Banks.

The front page of today's (10/20/09) New York Times (upper left corner, above the fold -

for the three people to whom that still matters) has an article by David D. Kirkpatrick that

begins: " The Wall Street giants that received a financial lifeline from Washington may have no

compunction about paying big bonuses to their dealers and traders. But their willingness to

deliver "thank you" gifts to President Obama and the Democrats is another question entirely."

File this story under:

1) Shocking, but not surprising.

2) Okay, what part of this is news?

3) Boy, I want to read a whole story about that, especially while I'm eating breakfast.

4) How is this different from being held by the Taliban?

5) Is there an election coming up? Really? So soon?

6) Hey, those guys were really Republicans, after all.

7) You shouldn't begin a sentence with "But," especially if the previous sentence (or fragment) has the word "may" in it. But I could be wrong.

8) If the banks thank Obama for anything, it should be for giving them money without imposing regulations.

9) Aren't there, like, a thousand laws about corporations thanking government officials? No?!

10) What does "K Street" have to do with anything?

11) Shouldn't the banks be thanking the American people instead? What form would that take? Is there a toaster big enough?

12) The idea of banks thanking anyone is an "urban legend" like a alligators in the sewers or the baby in the microwave.

In The Land of the Hawkeyes, the Blind Man is King.

I don't usually read official pronouncements by Chet Culver, the Governor of Iowa, but a friend tipped me off to one that was very interesting. He's bragging about bringing 1300 jobs to Dubuque. How did he do it? Because he's so darn persuasive? Because, gee whiz, Dubuque is such a wonderful place to live and work? Because IBM wanted to be nice to a bunch of unemployed Hawkeyes? No, Iowa paid for these jobs - and they weren't cheap.

It cost $22 million dollars in incentives to bring 1300 jobs to Dubuque. (The state's own figures.) That's almost $20,000 per job - and that's only what's been negotiated. You know a lot of concessions are coming, too. I doubt very much whether IBM will be paying any local and state taxes there, don't you? It's what IBM calls, "A strong positive public-private partnership."

What kind of jobs are these, anyway? It sounds like a building full of servers and all they need are people to oil and fan them when necessary. (Okay, you don't oil computers and they have electric fans. Whatever. It may just be people watching outlets, so no one trips over the cord, unplugging everything.)

The ultimate irony is that IBM will be using their Dubuque facility for outsourcing. They admit it. The 1300 people that they employ in Iowa will be actively stealing jobs from the rest of the country. So, Governor Culver is bragging about giving away the store to attract customers. Hiring people to export jobs and who, net, will be making the local economy worse. It's the kind of thing that gives colonialism a bad name.

My Dim Butterfly.

The response to my post, “His Girl, Tosca” (10/7/09) has been virtually deafening. (Virtual as opposed to real.) The applause has been deafening. (I still can’t hear it.) So, for my encore, I offer this synopsis of another great Puccini opera. That magnificent, multi-culti melodrama about a legendary, lady Lepidoptera, “Madame Butterfly.”

ACT I

American sailors carouse through the streets of a Japanese city in 1904. They sing the lusty, Tokyo, Tokyo, Una Citta Como Inferno (“Tokyo, Tokyo, It’s A Helluva Town.”) Their leader is the young and handsome Lieutenant Pinkerton. He explains why he loves Japan in Cosi Fan Tutti (“I Dig Chicks With Fans.”) He’s about to make a pacific overture to a three hundred pound bar girl when a beautiful, young woman enters the saloon asking for directions. He immediately approaches her and sings Que Una Bella Ragazza (“Hello, Gorgeous.”) She hides behind her fan, giggles and responds with the enchanting Che La Luna (“I’d Love To Kiss You, But I Just Washed My Happi Coat.”) Pinkerton realizes he’ll get nowhere without marrying her, so he proposes on the spot. Marry Mio Domani, Okay-o? She says yes. That night, Butterfly is too excited to sleep. Instead, she sings the joyous Allegro Mon Non Topo Gigio (“I Couldn’t Be Happier If I Was An Italian Mouse.”)

ACT II

The wedding day arrives and both the townspeople and the sailors celebrate with the spirited Libiamo (“Who Cares As Long As The Drinks Are Free.”) On the first day of their honeymoon, Pinkerton declares that he must return to the U.S. to join his father’s detective agency. Butterfly begs him to stay in the famous aria, Un Bel Di Dramamine (“I’d Go With You, But I Get Seasick.”) He responds with the equally well-known, Volare (“I Can’t Wait For You To Invent The Airplane.”) He leaves.

ACT III

Butterfly waits for him to return. And keeps waiting. So its not a total loss, she waits in the bar where they first met. As months drag into years, Butterfly sings the touching lament, Uno For My Bambino And Uno For The Autostrada. Finally, Pinkerton returns, but he is accompanied by an American wife. Butterfly is so heartbroken, she threatens to kill herself. The lieutenant waxes philosophical in Que Sera Sera. That night, Madame takes her life by eating poisonous blowfish sashimi. Before she dies, she gives forth with a last, tragic aria – the thrilling, “Fugu? I hardly know you.”

Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally.

Should Quentin Tarantino ever stop making movies (not that he should) his unique talents would be well used in the hot sauce business. Where else - besides the Defense Department and professional wrestling – are violence and creativity so closely entwined. Not in the making or selling of the product – an innocent condiment – but in the naming.

Take “Ass Reaper.” Sounds very hot, but not very appetizing. Conjures up a lot of images, too, but none of them include fried eggs. How about “Possible Side Effects.” What could they be besides heartburn and, well, ass reaping? Unless, as years of pharmaceutical advertising have drummed into us, possible side effects include vivid and disturbing dreams, suicidal thoughts and a sense of confusion, which, in rare cases, means you’re going to die in two weeks. Death, by the way is a popular theme in the naming of hot sauces. My favorite is “Jersey Death.” Like the New Jersey Turnpike, it suggests a lot of exits, all of them different. There’s the Jimmy Hoffa kind, being eaten by pigs or having Giants Stadium built on your nose. There’s the kind that Tony Soprano doled out or – kicking the bucket old school – the way Sonny Corleone gets his ticket punched at a Garden State toll booth. There’s death by pollution, gang war in Newark and the slowest and most agonizing form, watching TV commercials for the New Jersey Governor’s race.

Some names go too far, however. Spontaneous Combustion Powder, for instance. If it causes you to burst into flames, then, by definition, it’s not spontaneous. I’m skeptical, too, of Doctor Phardtpounder’s Colon Cleaner. I doubt whether it packs much of a G.I. jolt.

Finally, there’s “Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally.” It doesn’t matter how hot it is, I’d buy it just so I could go into a store and ask for it. It doesn’t seem to be sold outside of Texas, though. Besides, who would sell it? Hole Foods?

Bush On A Hot Tin Roof/ The Marshall Falcon.

A brisk, October morning. George and Laura Bush sit on the covered terrace of their house in the exclusive Preston Hollow neighborhood of North Dallas. Laura wears a dressing gown over tailored silk pajamas and drinks tea out of a silver service. George wears a t-shirt down to his knees that says, “Hook ’em, Horns!” For breakfast, he’s having an RC and a moon pie.

GEORGE

Damn. That guy gets everything.

LAURA

Who, George?

GEORGE

Obama. He just got the Nobel Peace Prize.

LAURA

Are you sure?

GEORGE

They just announced it.

LAURA

But he hasn’t done anything.

GEORGE

Exactly. I’m President for eight years and what do I get?

LAURA

Did you want the Nobel Prize?

GEORGE

No, but a little recognition would be nice.

LAURA

We came here so we wouldn’t be recognized - by the wrong people.

GEORGE

You make it sound like we’re hiding.

LAURA

Relaxing.

GEORGE

It’s hard to relax when you’re humiliated on a worldwide scale.

LAURA

Don’t take it so personally.

GEORGE

It has to be personal. First, Gore gets it. Then, the very next one goes to Obama. They don’t even wait eight years. They want to make it very clear that George W. isn’t getting one.

LAURA

If you wanted a Nobel Prize, you should have started a long time ago.

GEORGE

I’m not making claims, but a little thanks – is that so bad? A thank you for being President.

LAURA

I keep telling you, George, don’t expect to be thanked. Just be wonderfully surprised when it happens.

GEORGE I’ll be surprised all right.

LAURA Try to relax, dear – and don’t do anything foolish.

GEORGE

You mean go off the wagon?

LAURA

Yes.

GEORGE

It’s tempting.

LAURA

Don’t give in.

GEORGE

Sometimes I really miss drinking.

LAURA

Giving up drinking is the best thing you’ve ever done.

GEORGE

Huh?

LAURA

In a personal way. That and giving up drugs.

GEORGE

I always miss them. Just as well, though. Being President would have killed me if I was snorting. Three days would have done it.

LAURA And I would regret that.

GEORGE

Really?

LAURA

Deeply and forever.

GEORGE

Sometimes I don’t think so.

LAURA

What on earth could you mean?

GEORGE

You’ve been very critical since I left office. Not always directly, but in subtle ways.

LAURA

I’ve been honest with you, George. You should appreciate that. I can finally say what I think without worrying about protecting your image.

GEORGE

A little protection is okay. I could stand you protecting me.

LAURA

I protect my memory of you – and that isn’t easy.

GEORGE

I know I’m going to regret this (He steadies himself by grabbing the table) Why not?

LAURA

I remember when you were young, hot and a little dangerous.

GEORGE

(Breathes deeply and squares his shoulders) And now?

LAURA

I shouldn’t say.

GEORGE

You can’t stop now. The horse has left the station.

LAURA

Now, you’re old, cold and only dangerous when you use power tools.

GEORGE

Thanks a goddamned bunch, Laura. That really makes my morning. Thanks a whole lot. That really puts a cherry on it.

(George gets up to leave)

LAURA

Where are you going?

GEORGE

To clear some brush.

LAURA

We’re in Dallas, we don’t have brush.

GEORGE

Then I’m going to Crawford.

LAURA

George!

GEORGE

Don’t go? You take it all back and want me to stay?

LAURA

No, don’t use power tools.

(George shakes his head and mutters as he leaves.)

GEORGE

Of all the goddamned mornings.

___________________________________________________________

A brisk, October morning. Anthony Marshall, 85, and his wife, Charlene, 64, stand facing each other in the parlour of their seventeen-room Park Avenue duplex. Flames lick and rollover in the fireplace, but the temperature of the room remains arctic because Marshall has just been convicted on fourteen counts of Grand Larceny and Conspiracy to Defraud. He plundered the estate of his mother, 105-year-old heiress and philanthropist, Brooke Astor, while she was helpless from Alzheimer’s disease. Marshall is free on bail, but faces a sentence of up to twenty years. With his drooping eyes and sagging jowls, he looks like a bloodhound in a bespoke suit. Charlene looks like Liz Smith from Hell.

CHARLENE

If you get a good break, you’ll be out of Tehachapi in a couple years.

ANTHONY

Where?

CHARLENE

Tehachapi.

ANTHONY

Is that near Kykuit?

CHARLENE

I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.

ANTHONY

This wasn’t a capital crime. The only hanging I’ll be doing is around.

CHARLENE

The chances are you’ll get twenty years. If you’re a good boy, you’ll get out in five. I can’t wait that long.

ANTHONY

Don’t, Charlene. Don’t say that even in fun. I was frightened for a minute. I really thought . . . You do such wild and unpredictable things.

CHARLENE

You’re taking the fall - and I’m taking a vacation. Liposuction here, botox there and Charlene’s got her groove back.

ANTHONY

You’ve been playing with me . . . You didn’t care at all. You don’t love me.

CHARLENE

I won’t play the sap for you.

ANTHONY

You know in your heart, In spite of everything I’ve done, I love you.

CHARLENE

I don’t care who loves who. I won’t play the sap. I won’t follow in Morrisey’s and I don’t know how many others’ footsteps.

ANTHONY Morrisey was our lawyer. He followed in our footsteps.

CHARLENE

You robbed your mother and you’re going over for it.

ANTHONY

It was your idea!

CHARLENE

This won’t do any good. You’ll never understand me, but I’ll try once and then give up. I was already old when I met you. Now, I’m over the hill. My chances of finding another husband are slim to none. I can’t waste any of them waiting for you.

ANTHONY

But I won’t last in prison. You know that. You won’t be waiting long.

CHARLENE

Your mother lived to be one hundred and five under worse conditions.

ANTHONY

The conditions were your idea.

CHARLENE

The only reason I should wait is maybe you love me and maybe I love you.

ANTHONY

You know whether you love me or not.

CHARLENE

Maybe I do. I’ll have some rotten nights after they send you up the river, but that’ll pass.

ANTHONY

If my mother had died when she should have, twenty-five years ago, would you still feel this way?

CHARLENE

A lot more money would have been one more thing on your side of the scales.

(Anthony takes a poker and plants it in Charlene’s forehead. Then pours himself five fingers of 100-year old cognac, drinks and calls his lawyer.)

His Girl, Tosca.

New York hasn’t seen such a cultural brannigan since the Astor Place Opera House Riot of 1849. Imagine Opening Night at The Metropolitan Opera ending not with cheers and applause, but outraged patrons shaking their bedizened fists and filling the massive auditorium with loud boos and catcalls. (What exactly is a catcall? Do you go, “meow?” Do you say, “Here, kitty?”) That’s what happened two weeks ago (9/21) and the shock waves are still being felt. It begins with the Met opening their 2009-2010 season with a new production of the classic Puccini opera, “Tosca.” Not the traditional, lavish production created by Franco Zeffirelli twenty-five years ago, but a starkly modern one directed by Luc Bondy. I wasn’t there (Opening Night? Me? How many characters in “La Boheme” can afford to see “La Boheme?”) but every day brings a fresh description of the event in The New York Times. Pro or con, artist or audience, they all describe a performance dramatically at odds with what I know about the opera. I saw “Tosca” once, a long time ago (I either saw “Tosca,” “Turandot” or “La Traviata.” Definitely, one of the three. No, wait. It could have been “Il Trovatore,” but I’m pretty sure it was “Tosca.”) I don’t remember where or who sang, but I remember the plot perfectly. For everyone who doesn’t, I’ve written the following synopsis.

ACT ONE

ANGOLOTTI, an escaped political prisoner, breaks into the office of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, and hides in a roll-top desk. CAVARADOSSI, the editor, enters and discovers him. Angolotti pleads his innocence, saying he was framed by the evil Scarpia, chief of police. There’s a knock at the door and the prisoner goes back into hiding. A COPY BOY enters and hands the editor a piece of paper and a photograph. It’s an interview with a beautiful starlet. Cavaradossi says she looks like his ex-wife, Tosca, the best reporter the newspaper ever had. The copy boy asks why they got divorced and Cavaradossi sings the first great aria of the evening, the famous, “Recondita Armonia” (“I Bet The Rent Money On A Horse Named, Concealed Harmony.”) The copy boy exits and Tosca enters.

She tells Cavaradossi that she’s quitting journalism forever to marry Ralpho Bellamio, a quiet, respectable insurance salesman, who lives with his mother in Sienna. He pleads with her to reconsider, but her mind is made up. He says he misses her so much that he keeps her picture near his heart and shows her the photograph. Tosca says he’s lying, that woman has larger breasts. Cavaradossi replies with the aria, “Que Bella Mammone” (“Who’s got better ones than you?”) She isn’t moved, so he tempts her with the story of the century – the capture of an escaped political prisoner, who happens to be innocent. Her professional interest is aroused, so Cavaradossi tells the prisoner to come out of hiding. Angolotti pleads his innocence, once again, and Tosca is so moved that she sings her first aria, the touching, “La Vita Mi Costasse, Vi Salvero” (“Saving Your Life Is My Cup Of Tea.”) Act One ends with the sounds of the police getting closer.

ACT TWO

A lot of crazy things happen – even the Battle of Marengo. None of them make any sense, so do yourself a favor: go out for a couple of drinks and return for Act Three. You’ll thank me.

ACT THREE

Angolotti is recaptured, but his life is saved at the last minute by the Pope. Ralpho Bellamio, however, is about to be hanged (It’s a long story.) CAVARADOSSI, who arranged it, is happy. TOSCA is distraught. SCARPIA is just glad that someone is being hanged, but offers to save Bellamio’s life if Tosca will sleep with him. She has to decide whom she loves more: her ex-husband or her fiancée. Cavaradossi pleads his case with his best aria of the evening, the emotional, “E Lucevan Le Stelle” (“You Are My Shining Star/I Saw You From Afar.”) Tosca looks out the window at Bellamio standing on the scaffold, then turns to Scarpia and, agreeing to his demands, sings the opera’s greatest aria, “Bei Mir Vissi D’arte.” Please let me explain. “Bei Mir Vissi D’arte ” means, “I Think That You Are Grand.” Saddened by Tosca’s decision and angered by Scarpia’s actions, Cavaradossi tells the police chief, “Ha Piu La Conquista Violenta” (“I spit on your violent conquest.”) Scarpia replies, “La Forza Del Destino” (“I fart in your general direction.”) Tosca and Scarpia leave together.

Cavaradossi cries until they return – about a minute later. TOSCA is shocked to discover that SCARPIA still intends to go through with Bellamio’s execution. She steals Scarpia’s knife, presses it to his throat, drags him over to the window and tells his officers that she will kill him unless they release Bellamio. No one cares, so she climbs to the top of the newspaper building and threatens to jump unless Bellamio is spared. Still, no one cares. She’s serious, she says, and is giving them ten seconds. Tosca counts down to ten and when she reaches zero, jumps to her death. The chorus shouts, “Buon Anno” (“Happy New Year”) and sings “Auld Lang Syne” in Italian, “Should Antico Aquainticos Be Forgotto.” Cavaradossi mourns,again for a minute. Then goes off in search of the actress in the photograph, the one with large breasts.

Now, compare this summary with a description, there are many, of the performance directed by Luc Bondy. If there’s any similarity, if they bear even the slight resemblance, I’d be very much surprised. Imagine, again, that you spent over a thousand dollars to see the Opening Night performance of “Tosca” at the Met. Wouldn’t you be angry, too?

Hello From George W. Bush.

More than the three wars (Iraq, Afghanistan and Terror) we’re currently fighting and their attendant damage to life and liberty or anything that John Roberts has done as Chief Justice of The Supreme Court (the jury is still out on him, so to speak) the real, substantial legacy of George W. Bush as President is his gutting of the regulatory agencies. Specifically, but not limited to, the FDA, the EPA and the SEC.

Who cares what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does? No one except lobbyists and, perhaps, Stephanie Smith, the twenty-two year-old children’s dance instructor who appears on the front page of Saturday’s (10/3/09) New York Times. She ate hamburger meat that was tainted in processing by E Coli, a bacterium usually found in feces. According to the article by Michael Moss, “…her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.” The FDA’s job, like most regulatory agencies is fundamentally simple - to keep the industries they oversee from harming people. What’s more, The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906, so the FDA has a lot of experience and a lot of systems in place, should they want to take their job seriously.

We have a slightly more heightened awareness of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) because we live in the environment and experience pollution every day. At least, the familiar kinds like smog. What about coal ash? On Sunday’s (10/4/09) Sixty Minutes, Lesley Stahl reports about how this waste product is disposed of and re-used. Coal isn’t used much for heating or cooking anymore, but half of the electricity in this country is produced by coal-fired plants and they produce 130 billion tons of waste, most of which is coal ash. Disposing of it is an issue because it is contaminated with mercury, lead and arsenic, three of the most toxic substances known to man. Naturally, you don’t want this kind of stuff to enter the water supply, but that’s what happens when you dispose of it in ponds near power plants as the Tennessee Valley Authority does or use it - without precautions - as the landfill beneath a golf course in Chesapeake, Virginia as Dominion, the state power company, has done or, most dramatically, when a holding pool in Kingston, Tennessee collapses under its own weight, sending a billion gallons of toxic sludge directly into the Emory River. Among the dozens of ways in which coal ash is re-used are carpeting, kitchen counters and agricultural products. None of which are certified to be safe because, as Lisa Jacobs, newly appointed head of the EPA, tells Lesley Stahl, coal ash is not a regulated material. Think of that the next time your children are playing on the carpet as you prepare their vegetables on the kitchen counter.

Finally, there is the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), guardian of our financial markets – unless you’re Bernard Madoff. There were two articles about him in Friday’s (10/2/09) New York Times. One about his two sons, younger brother and his brother’s daughter being charged with involvement in the Ponzi scheme organized by Mr. Madoff. The other a complex tale of suits and counter-suits involving Stanley Chais, the retired money manager alleged to have made over one billion dollars directing clients from the Los Angeles area to Madoff’s phony investment scheme. The consequences, if not the actual details, of Madoff’s criminal enterprise are widely known. Hospitals, universities and charitable institutions as well as wealthy individuals around the world have been swindled out of an estimated $65 billion by Bernard Madoff and his associates. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the affair being that it continued for twenty years without detection. It wasn’t a novel scheme (Charles Ponzi operated in the Twenties) or an especially intricate one (he sent out false profit statements) so a government agency that has seen lots of profane American ingenuity in its time (its first chairman was Joseph P. Kennedy!) should not have been fooled. Yet, by its own admission, it missed every warning sign and failed to investigate every suggestion that something was amiss. Even if you only consider the last eight years while Bush was in office, stopping the geometric progression of the scheme’s growth could have saved billions.

Did George W. Bush intentionally hobble (something Texans know about) the regulatory agencies while he was President? It’s hard to say because very little that he did was intentional. He called it “going with his gut” but a more accurate description might be “A higher negligence.” If the finger is going to be pointed, it should be at his Vice President, Dick Cheney. (You remember, Cheney, the Republican sex doll: two working holes, no heart and an inflated image of himself.) There’s no question that everything he did was intentional or what his intentions were. He’d be insulted if you suggested otherwise. Cheney’s “Pro business/ public be damned” philosophy is as fresh as the day it was minted by Cornelius Vanderbilt. But how do you apply that to a regulatory agency - a large organization with a single, clearly stated, socially beneficial mission? How does you make sure that it achieves nothing without firing everyone or idling them? You can play budget games, but it’s more effective to replace a few key people. If those at the top keep looking away, those in the middle will look out for themselves. It becomes a self-fulfilling bureaucracy, one that looks busy, but is only sustaining itself. Unfortunately for Cheney, he can’t take credit for it. Since, technically, he worked for Bush, any credit (or blame) goes to the Chief Executive.

Is there any way to reverse the damage? Any defense against the dark arts? Yes, it is variously called leadership or management and it’s not easy. Fortunately for us, we seem to have elected a leader - one who appoints good managers, too. I’ve only written about three agencies, though, and three days in October. There are many fresh tragedies ahead. Whenever one happens, consider it George W. Bush’s way of saying hello.