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The Revolution Starts Now

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

 

GORDONVILLE — So I was rapping to this guy the other day, and I was describing some ordinary situation in my day. I added that it annoyed the heck out of me.

His response: “Everything annoys you.”

Well, not everything.

But enough “things” that the point is well-taken and met with little resistance.

Near the top of the AL – Annoyance List, not American League – standings is the propensity on the nightly news, usually on a Sunday, to list the top movies of the week.

The criteria? The box office sales are it, which is really a sad commentary on culture, given the subject matter of the majority of the movies.

Want to raise the bar on Hollywood, challenging it to do better than it does with lame scripts and gratuitous violence? Change the approach. Why not list the “best” movies, according to critics, that week?

Dumb?

Not so, dumb-dumb.

Not an alien concept, really. AP and USA Today release Top 25 rankings for college football and basketball – among other sports – on a weekly basis. Those votes are also based on media observations from those with trained eyes.

Why doesn’t this happen in the movie universe? Well, if you subscribe to the theory that everything is a conspiracy until proven otherwise, Hollywood is in cahoots with the networks that broadcast these lists of high-budget B movies.

It’s not that, say, science fiction cannot have a role in storytelling. At its best, the genre uses an alternate setting to send a strong message. But how often, realistically, does that happen anymore?

I have an idea for the perfect sci-fi thriller, as it eerily hits close to home. It need not be set too far into the future, either. Maybe 50-75 years, tops.

And it is rooted in today’s headlines.

Seems that a day doesn’t go by without hearing of bears infringing upon man’s arrogant eminent domain and attacking and mauling, right? Ditto for coyotes. And we all know about deer daring to get in our way on the roads to the extent that hunting season is cast in a way that is supposed to be for our best interest – and that of the hunted (LOL!). And we are also getting more reports of shark attacks than ever.

Some of it is the 24-hour news cycle and Internet bringing this stuff to light more readily, but it’s hard to buy as the only reason.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

So here is the plot. The bucks, with their mighty antlers, decide to get angry about the violence perpetrated against their women and children and begin turning aggressive toward human women and children. The bears, the sharks and coyotes – and maybe alligators and snakes — follow suit.

The only way to stem the tide is for the adult male of the future where just about all (49 of 50) are stricken with autism (1 in 50 boys now, in 2013, and the epidemic is getting worse, so it’s not outlandish) to find a way to communicate and work together, to create an environment where we can co-exist with these animals again and reverse the risk factors for Austism Spectrum Disorder – clearly in the polluted air, the food loaded with additives and medication we take in the U.S. at a rate well beyond that of the rest of the planet – to have that Hollywood ending.

We can call the movie “The Revolution Starts Now” after the Steve Earle song (I have Steve Earle on the brain after he rocked my world at the Sellersville Theater Thursday night).

How’s that?

Nah, too close for comfort.

Bring on the vampires and zombies and keep on annoying me.

I’ll be OK. It’s just another example of … drum roll … What Is And What Should Never Be.

Ready for more?

What Is: A study conducted by the University of Michigan – my favorite college football team once each year, when Penn State is the opponent – reveals that making connections, via Facebook, might have us singing the blues.

And What Should Never Be: Letting a positive turn into a negative.

The point of the study was a good one. Facebook time can cause us to compare our lives to that of others and leaving us coming away feeling like we have bought one-way tickets to Loserville.

I have been there, done that. Not gonna lie.

For myself, being home a lot this summer with Sofia has led to time interacting on Facebook, often engaging in political debates and just touching base with people I am better for knowing.

It’s just a phase, though. I have gone – and will go – through others where it’s a secondary activity and not my immediate connection to the outside world.

We just have to take it for it is, and stare the truth in the eye.

Certain people, for whatever reason – who and what they represent in relation to our own life and times, and ensuing trials and tribulations – can put us in a funk by paging through their pictures or status posts about how they are in this place or that enjoying wine and cheese with friends.

But this is an onion that needs peeling, the study cautions. In actuality, it is the people who “socialize the most in real life” that are most prone to these oft-unhealthy comparisons.

According to John Jonides, the research co-author and a University of Michigan cognitive neuroscientist: “It suggests that when you are engaging in social interactions a lot, you’re more aware of what others are doing and, consequently, you might be more sensitized about what’s happening on Facebook and comparing that to your own life.”

I would have to say that more good than bad has come of entering the Facebook universe that allows room to breathe, despite 1.1 billion co-inhabitants.

What Is: Just to prove that man does not live by Facebook alone, a more recent discovery – Netflix – has opened up new horizons.

And What Should Never Be: Having a closed mind.

I had heard how Netflix reinvented itself for years, but figured the likes of HBO had me covered in the quest for inspiring and intriguing entertainment.

Even knowing that Netflix had an original series starring Steven Van Zandt wasn’t enough.

But then I got an iPad for my birthday in March and I took the plunge, figuring seeing the likes of “The Wonder Years” and “Star Trek” – while playing catch-up on “Mad Men” — was worth the price of admission.

Turns out, I went off in a completely different direction. First it was “Sons Of Anarchy.” Then, a friend told me about a show called “Freaks and Geeks” about high school in the early 1980s, which is when we were in high school. The only bad part of the show was that it only lasted one season and left me lamenting what could and should have been.

Next, I turned to the Van Zandt vehicle, “Lillyhammer,” and got a kick out of him pretty much reprising the role of Silvio Dante (“The Sopranos”) in a bizarre setting (a New York mob guy in witness protection in Norway).

The cool thing about Netflix is that, like Facebook, it takes a snapshot of what you like and suggests more ideas.

That led me to another original Netflix series, “Orange Is The New Black,” and I roared through the first season in about two weeks. Ditto for the award-winning “House of Cards.”

HBO cornered the market with the catch-phrase of “it’s not TV, it’s HBO.” Now, one has to consider saying, “it’s not HBO, it’s Netflix.”

Then again, “Boardwalk Empire” returns Sept. 8 on HBO.

How do I know?

Facebook.

What Is: The aforementioned Steve Earle – even though his show ended too late to stay in line for an autograph, which I may live to regret – got me thinking about our place and time in history (including the story line for the movie, as he spoke of his toddler son with autism).

And Should Never Be: Not turning the deep thinking to action.

Earle explained that all songwriters of his generation follow in Bob Dylan’s footsteps, whether they want to admit it or not (don’t the ones who refuse to submit just annoy you?). He continued to explain that Dylan modeled himself after Woody Guthrie, whose legacy was pretty much creating the realistic soundtrack of The Great Depression era. Earle added that Dylan would be the first to admit that he never experienced America going through the hard times as seen through the eyes of his hero, Guthrie.

Earle, who has been touring by bus for a while, said that it has struck him that the America he is now seeing is as horrific as that of Guthrie’s time.

And he’s spot-on accurate.

I blame Bush, you blame Obama.

Others point to Wall Street.

And maybe we should just look in the mirror, blame ourselves and start doing something about it.

After Earle and his band – The Dukes – aptly ended their show with “The Revolution Starts Now,” the lights went up and a recording of Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” (should be the national anthem, but don’t get me started on that) began to play.

It sounded new again.

It sounded great.

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Dylan

Got to be an important person to be in here, honey
Got to have done some evil deed
Got to have your own harem when you come in the door
Got to play your harp until your lips bleed.
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king
There’s only one step down from here, baby
It’s called the land of permanent bliss
What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this ?

Bob Dylan

-Sweetheart Like You

No Crisis: Opportunity Knocks In The Danger Zone

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By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – There is a Chinese word that is kind of like Shalom – hello, goodbye and peace — in Hebrew, as it takes on multiple meanings.

It translates to the following: crisis and/or danger, but also opportunity.

No clue how to pronounce it, but that’s cool.

It has a symbol instead.

And given the choice between dying or living while branded for life with a tattoo, I would
probably opt for this symbol (at least on one arm, with the other bearing a heart with Sofia’s name and birth date — 3-29-07 — within it).

It has come to mean that much to me since my life was put on a different course a few months ago.

Save the typical jobs one holds down as a young adult – camp counselor, bus boy/dishwasher, file clerk, waiter and a retail mall-rat – I only knew one field, that of journalism, from April of 1988 to April of this year.

That’s 25 years, more than half of my 48 on the planet.

It was a crisis. There was a danger involved when considering the next steps, which remain an ongoing process, but the possibilities – the opportunities – are wide open.

This is perhaps why the word – and the symbol – has the double meaning. You can’t have one without the other. If one craves true opportunity, the danger of a crisis is the bridge to get there.

No way around it.

Pay the toll and cross, or pull up and look at the water while others continue their journey.

A big part of the crossing is what you are reading now – a blog entry.

It is a continuation of the “columns in exile” that I began posting on Facebook, but now I have moved forward in seizing the opportunity by endeavoring to do something a lot of detractors said I didn’t have the aptitude to pull off.

One of the lessons we all need to learn is what you can’t read in a book. Other people’s attempts to define us say more about them, and their quest to like the person they see in the mirror.

That’s baggage no longer worth carrying.

I am more me now than I have been in a long time; as carefree as the spindly kid in a Jew-Fro playing street hockey on some blacktop in Northeast Philly until dark, as focused as the Bob Dylan wannabe furiously scribbling song lyrics (a phase that commenced when it was
clear the NHL was not knocking).

As a wonderful summer of catch-up quality time with Sofia, who is still at that tender age when parents are not sharing time with her friends, I have soared into the Blogosphere
here at ingordonville.com.

It’s not an end point, or even the beginning of the end, but the beginning of turning the danger/crisis into opportunity.

No matter where the road on the other side of the bridge takes me, I will always have this.

Here, as I discover “digital” toys at my disposal, you will find at least one missive per week – maybe more – that would equate to my weekly column.

I will also add photos, quotes, Top 10 lists ranging from pop culture to pizza topics, random thoughts, polls and groovy links.

You will also get updates on some exciting projects I have working – production of a music CD of original songs I have co-written, books, etc.

There are no delusions of grandeur here; no notions that this will land me as a guest on “Real Time With Bill Maher” (his loss).

But it is an opportunity – an opportunity to connect with others, which is the goal of any self-proclaimed
writer type.

For those of you who have sought me out on Facebook and continued to follow my columns there, I appreciate it more than I can … put into words.

Some of the messages you sent – along with Friend requests – kept me going at times when I felt like pulling over at a rest stop with this bridge to somewhere nowhere in sight.

It was a crisis. Danger was in the air.

So was opportunity.

And so it begins.

Welcome to ingordonville.com.

Shalom.

Bruce

“Poor man wanna be rich. Rich man wanna be king. And a king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.”

Bruce Springsteen

-Badlands

Life Is A Carnival

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By GORDON GLANTZ
Gordonglantz50@gmail.com
@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – A week ago, prior to the devastating news about James “Tony Soprano” Gandolfini’s sudden death, I was prepared to deliver a bittersweet missive about an about-face on carnivals and the “carnies” who work at them.
Well … why not?
It is still a story worth telling, and that’s kind of what I do.
It was a few years ago that the song “Everybody Plays The Fool” by The Main Ingredient went from pleasant 1970s ditty to funeral dirge when, at the carnival hosted by the Lower Providence Fire Co., I was repeatedly fleeced at the booths.
I spent about $120 and came away with a tiny wolf stuffed animal – probably worth 50 cents at a dollar store – for my trial and tribulations of shooting basketballs at baskets smaller than the ball and tossing softballs at jars with holes not big enough to fit a marble.
When the wife suggested we take Sofia to another carnival — this one hosted by the Centre Square Fire Co. in our home hood in Whitpain Township – my initial reaction was that I’d rather sit through a zoning hearing or an episode of “America’s Next Top Model.”
But Sofia gave me that “Please Daddy” face, so off to the carnival we went – with expectations about as low as those we all hold for the Phillies to turn it around this season.
Much to my surprise, it was the complete antithesis of the mockery of a farce of a sham in Lower Providence.
As a matter of fact, the Centre Square Fire Co. should put out a “How-To” DVD on ways to not alienate families looking for innocent fun.
Not only did Sofia have a blast on the rides, the alleged “carnies” (who must have been born-again Christians or something) could not have been friendlier.
And at the booths, where the prizes are supposed to be won? They guaranteed prizes. Seemed dubious at first, but they weren’t kidding – or understating it.
We came home with more than our money’s worth in stuffed animals.
And, a goldfish Sofia named Marina (she scoffed at the names we suggested, taking great joy in mocking her Nana for suggesting “Goldie”).
We didn’t quite know what to do with Marina, as it was too late to acquire the proper creature comforts for it.
As it was, my wife put her in a vase while I managed to find two containers of fish food at CVS (sneaking in another affirmative blood pressure check while there).
We had some logistical concerns as well, as we have two cats to consider. The older cat, Hank, didn’t seem to care as much as the little one, Licorice, but that could have only been because he was not as hungry as that moment.
We decided the only safe place was the bathroom. Another dispute was over whether or not to cover the tank/vase. My wife said it would “jump out,” but I had never – in my whole childhood of winning goldfish – seen one jump for joy.
Nonetheless, you never win an argument with a woman, especially one who is also a lawyer, so I went along.
The next day, I hit a pet store. The woman there gave me a refresher course in Goldfish 101. She said that it if it lived past a month, it could live for years.
I was determined to make that happen, even though building a pond in the backyard – like her husband did – seemed a little out of my skill set (we Jews may have been “chosen” to do some things – like control the media and Hollywood – but being handy isn’t on the list).
Knowing Sofia’s sensitivity level, a short was going to lead to a long grieving period.

The carnival that lifted my spirits was on a Friday night. Sunday morning, the wife and I took showers in the bathroom where Marina was housed in her vase covered by a spaghetti strainer without much of a break in between.
When my wife checked on her a short time later, Marina had made her way upstream to Goldfish Heaven.
We broke the news to Sofia and got the expected, and heartbreaking, reaction.
The official inquest revealed that, indeed, the covering vase/bowl – and the combination of two hot showers – caused what seemed to be a happy and active goldfish to suffocate.
I’m more into mammals than fish, but it was still upsetting – mostly because of Sofia.
In her lifetime, which totals a little more than 6 years on the planet, she has lost three grandfathers (counting my stepfather in there, too) and two cats (Tyler and Donovan).
And while I could gloat to my wife that she was wrong about covering the vase/bowl, I am still responsible for letting Donovan slip outside one night. We were unable to find him until dawn, and he was dead of unknown causes by then.
They say a child doesn’t fully comprehend the brevity of death until they reach a certain age, but Sofia has always been ahead of the emotional curve.
When her Pop Pop died on her third birthday, she was told he was “with Jesus.” She asked if he was coming back and was bereaved when we told her it was not going to happen.
She fought through her grief for Marina by organizing a funeral, during which we buried her by a mermaid statue outside. We each said a silent prayer, during which she began to sob.
At that point, I sat her on my knee and said it was time for a discussion.
I promised we would get her a real fish tank with fish that live longer than goldfish and that we would always remember Marina, because she was her first fish (she even giggled when I said when would name this joint Marina Memorial Aquarium).
We also won’t forget the carnival that restored our faith in the American institution of cotton candy, bumper cars and guaranteed prizes.

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In Memory Of The Sad Clown

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Wrote this immediately after the passing of the great James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) a while back. At the time, I couldn’t bring myself to watch “The Sopranos” but I’ve come to realize that it wasn’t the best way to honor his memory.

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — We all need our dreams, and one of mine was that “The Sopranos” would return one day, either to the big or small screen.

The dream ended this past week when the man who made Tony Soprano a household name, James Gandolfini, died at age 51 of a massive heart attack while vacationing with his son in Italy.

For all the times I have been touched, and touched deeply by his acting, I remain in stunned silence.

Not much in the way of tears, or overt sadness.

Not yet.

That might come when I watch the show again, which I, myself, have been unable to do.

Not yet.

Right now, I probably won’t make it through the opening credits.

Right now, I’m just trying to make it through one of the most difficult columns I’ve ever had to write.

It was much the same way when I lost close family members – my father (2008), father-in-law (2010) and stepfather (2011) — during these intervening years.

It took a while for the reality to set in.

And mock me if you will, I almost feel like I lost a member of my family in Gandolfini.

“The Sopranos” was in perpetual syndication in Gordonville.

It never got old.

Why?

Perhaps, I craved that sameness amid the many changes in my life – good and bad, sad and glad, personal and professional — since it first aired in 1999.

Perhaps, it just appealed to me as a fan of the mob genre. After all, the great movie of my generation is “The Godfather.”

Perhaps, it’s a mixture of all the above, along with the fact that I saw a lot of myself in Tony (sans actually whacking people). I have been known to have a short fuse, but I also have a big heart – exemplified by a love of four-legged creatures displayed by Tony — and expend a lot of needless energy worrying what other people think.

In addition to sharing paranoia bordering on unhealthy, we both held disdain for those who drift through life – and in between the raindrops without getting wet — as the “happy wanderer.”

When he described himself as “the sad clown,” I completely caught his drift.

The most amazing times were the first viewings of episodes, on Sunday nights, when I would be thinking exactly what Tony was thinking before he made his gestures of war and peace, and understood the indecision that followed his decisiveness.

Part of the immediate appeal of “The Sopranos” – when I first caught it during one of those free enticement weekends of HBO — was that the star, while captivating, was not a dashing leading man in the traditional sense.

It gave it brevity and levity.

And it shot to No.1 with a bullet in my heart, my soul and mind.

I soon took to wearing jogging suits and using the verbiage. It gave me a shield for my sensitivity.

In 2007, the same year my daughter was born, “The Sopranos” aired its final episode, with the screen suddenly fading to black while Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” was halted at “don’t stop.” I defended it publicly, but secretly found it a bitter pill to swallow.

Still, I had the body of work — like that of The Beatles, Shakespeare or “The Brady Bunch” – to rely on.

And, like fans of the Fab Four – up until the death of John Lennon — I held out hope for more.

My little lullaby: The final show’s ending could mean anything.

Maybe Tony didn’t die in that diner, even though the fade-to-black hint was foretold in a prior episode. Maybe Silvio (Van Zandt) will come out of his coma. Maybe Chase, the show’s visionary, won’t take himself so seriously and will create a new world around Tony and Carmela (brilliantly played by Edie Falco) by using top-shelf Italian-American actors that would be at his disposal for a feature film or HBO mini-series.

And maybe Gandolfini, who turned Tony into the character that stirred “da gravy,” would wake up one day and have an epiphany. Maybe he would realize that he was meant to play Tony, not second bananas in big-budget movies, and call Chase and get on the same page for a new chapter.

While it seemed less and less likely, “The Sopranos” never let me down.

The show became my beacon. Nothing before it, or since, will ever take its place.

Part of its brilliance is that it never gets old.

It has kept me grounded, and kept me thinking.

I don’t drink, gamble or smoke. I don’t even golf or play cards with the guys.

My outlet, when the house is dark and no one else is awake, is to watch “The Sopranos.”

The more I allegedly evolve – or at least change – the more I glean from watching it on a continual loop.

My holy trinity – if Jewish guys are allowed such things – consisted of Sofia, Springsteen and “The Sopranos.”

And Gandolfini is the main reason it achieves such lofty status.

A night or two before I learned of Gandolfini’s passing, I watched an episode on HBO Signature. It was the one where the inner-circle holds a drug intervention for Christopher Moltisanti (played to perfection by the unheralded Michael Imperioli).

Christopher lashes out at each person in the room, including Tony. He tells him that he is going to die of a heart attack “before 50” if he keeps eating the way he does.

Ironically, Gandolfini – in a rare interview – was quoted as saying it would be “kind of lame” if the show ended with Tony dying of a heart attack.

Instead, that’s how the dream ended.

As much as Hollywood thrives on remakes, the curtain has now fallen on “The Sopranos.” The greatest compliment to Gandolfini is that if they made a remake 50 years from now, it wouldn’t work. No one can replicate his masterful portrayal.

In that sense, he was a true original.

He takes that to his early grave.

I am not one of Gandolfini’s loved ones — a group that includes both family and his many professional associates — and I can’t pretend to imagine how they feel.

But I count myself among his legion of enduring admirers.

Together, in ways we can’t yet fully express – or shouldn’t have to explain to those who “don’t get it” – we mourn his loss.

And I mourn my lost dream.

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