Unions, Politics, Stan Freberg and more.

UGLY WEDGE ISSUE

Congressional candidate Adam Jennings on Saturday afternoon at the Eden Prairie Library said he favors Medicare for everyone, a $15 minimum wage and collective bargaining.

Three women opposed to unions, a deaf man without a hearing aid and four others met with Jennings but the discussion got bogged down by a wedge issue, labor unions.  “My husband dislikes unions,” said one and another said “my brother in law is against them.”  

I sprang to the unions’ defense but later realized I had strayed down a familiar road where we argue and then Erik Paulsen wins another term through our inertia.

Had I to do it over I would have said to Jennings:  “I will attend the caucus on Feb. 6 and hope to be elected a delegate to the district DFL convention where I will support you so your name appears on the primary ballot.”

Didn’t do that.  Sorry Adam.

Jennings supports progressive causes although he works for Mortenson Construction/real estate.  He serves on the city council of Tonka Bay, in upscale suburban Minneapolis.  I got a lesson in grass roots democracy that was disturbing. 

CHANUKAH WITH OR EMET

Our humanistic Jewish congregation enjoyed latkas, salads and rich deserts Saturday night at our annual Chanukah party held at the Wellstone Neighborhood House Center in St. Paul.  Small children performed.  I left early and indigestion kept me up that night.

SONGBIRDS WARBLE DARK TUNES

Forties musical comedy divas Deana Durbin and Alice Faye, shortly before they retired, appeared in crime movies that are worth viewing. 

 “Christmas Holiday” has little to do with a winter festival but finds Ms. Durbin coupled with a criminal character played by dancer Gene Kelly.  She is memorable as a torch singer in this Universal movie directed by Robert Sidomak. Seeing Kelly in this movie I concluded that he would have been the one to play Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls,” not Brando.

Ms. Faye doesn’t sing a note in “Fallen Angel” where she falls for a drifter (Dana Andrews) with a questonable past.  Faye was the reining queen at TCF and Andrews had a voice that could melt butter.  Directed by Otto Preminger, the movie features Linda Darnell as a bad girl and she is super.  Faye never appeared in a starring role in a movie again after “Fallen Angel.”  See these two movies together.

TWO HEADED LLAMA

“Doolittle” is quite exotic and is reminiscent of my favorite that I saw as a teen, “Around the World.”  Both in Todd AO.  The bluray is the only way to see the ’67 version.

Where do they find a two-headed llama?  Antony Newley is massively talented but his stage play “The Smell of the Crowd, the Road of Grease Paint” has more memorable tunes.

I assume that TCF hoped to capitalize on the success of another British musical, “Oliver.”  Doolittle is featured in a book on 4 big movies from the 60s and was released at the time of riots in the streets over the war.  Despite negatives reviews, the movie was a success. 

EXISTENTIAL READING

Nathanael West’s novels are just the ticket for these gray gloomy cold Minnesota days.  I just finished “Miss Lonelyhearts” which doesn’t end on a sweet note.

IN THE SHADOW OF . .. 

I didn’t know it in 1963 but when I worked at KNBC I stood in the shadow of greatness with Cecil Brown, famous World War II reporter for CBS and Mutual radio networks.

Brown did news analysis on Ch. 4 and he wasn’t accesible to a lowly clerical like myself.  The other news analyst at KNBC then was Elmer Peterson.  

Reed W. Smith has written a Brown biography published by McFarland. 

SKIP THE INTERVIEWS

Some one should bar actors from appearing on talk shows to promote their latest movie.  Timothy was hyper, Armie was reserved and I was uncomfortable as Neal Patrick Harris, Ellen and a dorky MTV asked them about “Call Me by Your Name.”  Skip the You Tube interviews and see the movie playing now at the Uptown.

JEWISH CHRISTMAS

About 20 of us from Or Emet “celebrated” Christmas Monday night at  the mega Asian buffet Super Moon in St. Louis Park.  Thanks to Dan and Naomi this was a succesful outing.

Relatively healthy was the Mongolian barbecue if you went light on the sauces which I did.  No one was interested in the NFL game on the big screen TV.  The enormity of Super Moon is incredible. I am not a fan of Asian buffets but this one is decent.

FAMILIAR DISCOURSE

“This is our country and we must fight to keep it so. If America is ever again to be great, it can only be through the triumph of the revolutionary middle class.  We must destroy the Bolshevik labor unions!   We must purge our country of all the alien elements and ideas that now infest her!  America for Americans!  Back to the principles of Andy Jackson and Abe LIncoln….” (followed by a call for “Storm Troopers.”)

This scary talk is not from a Trump speach but it’s the demogogue “Mr. Whipple” speaking in Nathanael West’s 1936 novel “A Cool Million.”
Wall Street interests were as much involved in whipping up anti-labor sentiment as a wedge issue dividing the working class in the 1930s as they are today.  

This was evident in the recent meeting congressional candidate Adam Jennings held where the effort to unseat Paulsen was displaced by anti-union talk.

FREBERG REVISITED

Long before “Mad Men,” comedy writer Stan Freberg was making fun of Madison Avenue cliches (Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it) on his sustaining CBS radio show.  He got his start in LA on the kiddie show, “Time for Beanie.”

I was a big fan of Freberg on radio in 1958 as the networks were phasing out programing in the face of TV.  In recent years I scored highlights from his shows on an audio casette I found at a library sale.