I haven’t written in several weeks. Pain kept me away, and Pain has brought me back. Angela Lansbury passed away on October 11, 2022. Just a few days ago and just a few days before celebrating her 97th birthday on October 16. I have already done a blog on her life, so I will refer you back to that. I want to make this a memorial of sorts.
When I think of Angela’s death or hear on my Amazon Echo device speak of it, the tears come. I’m trying to figure out why. How did a woman who wouldn’t know me from Adam get deeply embedded in my heart? I know it’s not only me; NASA dedicated a Cosmic Rose in her honor. I’ve seen pictures of this rose, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. One had to wonder why? NASA does not often align itself with the entertainment industry. They use Snoopy as a mascot from time to time, but that’s about it. Angela Lansbury and Snoopy seem an odd combination. But NASA knew that everyone loves Snoopy, and I guess they came to realize that everyone loves Angela Lansbury too.
In my family Miss Lansbury delighted at least five generations, possibly six. My great-grandparents immigrated to this country early in the 20th century. I don’t know much about them as they died when I was very young. I don’t know if they went to the movies or even watched TV. If they did, they might have enjoyed Miss Lansbury in her film work, the opportunity was there, but I don’t know. My grandmother did love Murder She Wrote, as did my parents and I. My nieces and nephews grew up on Beauty and the Beast, and they are showing that movie to their children along with Bed knobs and Broomsticks. That tallies to a definite five generations.
In my previous blog, I concentrated on the films Miss Lansbury was in, not the roles she played. Today, I want to talk about her characters. I first met Angela on the screen in 1971. I was ten, and Angela played the role of Eglantine Price in the Disney feature film Musical Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. Eglantine was a spinster determined to become a witch to help England win the 2nd World War. Her studies get interrupted when three children from London come to stay with her to escape war-torn London. This is where the fun in the film begins.
Eglantine Price was a great role for Angela. In an interview, she stated that she enjoyed playing the part and the process of creating the character. In her first appearance, Eglantine seems stern and unapproachable; as the movie progresses, you learn that she is warm, caring, and not afraid to take on a challenge. These were great lessons for a ten-year-old. I loved this movie and so did my friends who went with me to see it.
Mame Dennis. Five years earlier, Miss Lansbury landed the role of Mame Dennis in the musical version of Auntie Mame. In the 50s, no one could have touched Rosalind Russell’s portrayal of the aunt every child would love to have. In 1966 however, Lansbury made that role her own, and with the words and music of Jerry Herman, she made a mark on Broadway that would, in some ways, compel the rest of her career. She went from being a second banana to being a true star in every way possible.
Mame would be considered a person who thought outside of the box in every conceivable situation. Her solution to problems was to get involved in outlandish schemes that would both court disaster and triumph. But all through the character is the essence of life is meant to be lived. “Live, live, live, life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” This was her motto for life rain or shine.
Angela made the character her own and played her differently than Rosalind Russell of course, I can only tell this from the songs, but I think Angela was a bit more of a gentle Mame. Russell tore thru like a tornado, whereas Angela gracefully swept through, winning people to her side as she went.
Salome Autobahn was a supporting character in the first of the three filmed versions of Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile. The star of the film was Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poitot, the great Belguin detective. Some of the rest of the supporting cast boasted Bette Davis and Maggie Smith, so Angela was in good company. Salome Autobahn is a drunk author who is a suspect in the murder. Angela is a delight as she romps through this movie, outshining all the other cast members through her crazy antics. Basically, Angela gets all the laughs in this film. It’s not a comedy, but the light-hearted moments made up for the gruesome tale. This movie was made in 1978 right on the tail of Murder on the Orient Express, another Christie book, but this was not the end of Angela and Miss Christie.
In 1980 Miss Lansbury took the lead role as Miss Marple Agatha Christie’s other leading detective. Lansbury was 55 when she made this film. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster with a mind like a steel trap. Nothing gets past this old lady, and Lansbury plays her well, undoubtedly setting the stage for what was to come to her in four short years.
In 1979 Lansbury again made a hit on Broadway as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Playing opposite Len Cariou as Sweeney, Angela was a delight as the pie shop lady that baked Sweeney’s murdered corpses into meat pies. The show found a way to make an otherwise appalling legend humorous and a little fun. Everyone, in the end, gets their just desserts, pun intended, and Angela walked away with that year’s Tony Award for best actress in a musical.
On October 7, 1984, Angela began her twelve-year run on Murder, She Wrote. The weekly murder mystery series starred Angela as Jessica Fletcher, a retired school teacher from Cabot Cove, Maine, who globe trotted her way into a different murder every week. When she wasn’t in some distant place solving a murder, one would pop up in Cabot Cove. Between Jessica Fletcher and Stephen King, Maine is not the safest place to live. Angela was nominated every year the show was on for an Emmy award, and the sad truth is she never took one home. It makes you wonder if the award shows aare more about politics than talent?
On November 22, 1991, Angela would again make a stamp on childhood. This time a symbol that, I believe, at least for the next several generations, will never go away. Much like adults in the past love to share Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz with their children. Parents now share the magic of the animated film Beauty and the Beast with Angela Lansbury as the lovable Teapot Mrs. Potts singing the title song. And like Judy’s unforgettable rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Angela’s singing of Beauty and the Beast brings to hearts sheer beauty and hope to the soul.
There is so much more to say about Angela Lansbury’s brilliant career. I didn’t touch on the villains she played; she played more than a few brilliantly; for proof of this, watch the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. Honorary mention must go to her portrayal of Ada Harris in the original film version of Mrs’ arris Goes to Paris, Penelope Keeling in The Shell Seekers, Aunt March is the BBC/PBS version of Little Women and her wonderful cameo appearance as The Balloon Lady in Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns.
I want to talk about one more role of Angela’s before I end this memorial. In 1996 Angela would again team with Jerry Herman, who wrote the music and lyrics to Mame to bring to life and finally give center stage to one of legend’s most unrecognized characters Mrs. Santa Claus. I loved and still love this musical that takes place in turn of the century New York City where Mrs. Santa Claus finds herself stranded just a few days before Christmas. In 90 or so minutes, she reunites families, makes a stand for women’s suffrage, and thwarts the plot of a nefarious toy manufacturer. All the while singing some of the best songs ever. My favorite is Almost Young, an anthem for always staying young at heart.
My bones are often racked up,
They often act up each time it rains.
But arthritis and fleabites are simple growing pains.
So let them say I’m past my peak,
That I’m a million years from hide and seek,
But when my dirge is sung,
I’ll still be struttin and kickin,
Like some little chicken,
And tough as a riddle,
And fit as a fiddle
And almost young.
Last night October 16, 2022, the lights dimmed on Broadway for Angela Lansbury. The lights went dark on NYC’s most prominent street, and an image of Angela shown for a few seconds. Now it’s time for us to say goodnight too.
Sometimes I have no idea what to write about in this space. Most of the time an idea strikes me when I sit down and see the blank sheet of paper on my computer screen. Today I had a hundred thoughts but none of them would make a good blog on their own so here are one or two that I thought you may find interesting.
First The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power starts next week on Amazon Prime. If you are a Tolkien fan you have been aware of this and you are either anticipating the show with joy or dread. What amazes me is the number of people who have decided to give a negative opinion on a show they haven’t seen. The show is based on the side stories that are told in The Lord of The Rings and its appendices. There is a lot of good material there and The Tolkien Estate and Trust are involved in the production. I think we are in for a treat. I will never understand how anyone can be judge and jury on something that no one has seen.
I also read this week that schools in Florida are beginning to ban books. Banning books in any place is very frightening to me. This is behavior that occurred under Hitler in Germany. The government of Florida is not allowing the public to consume what our free press is producing. Now the first I read of this there was a list of books attached. That list was revealed to be bogus. The correction was down to two known books The Diary of Anne Frank and The Bible. Banning either of these books from schools is just stupid. Most of our laws are based on Biblical principles. The Bible has played an important role in U.S. history and students should have access to it for that reason alone. The Diary of Ann Frank seems to be the desire to forget what happened to the Jewish people under Hitler. It used to be required reading and now it’s being banned. Something is dreadfully wrong here. I know it’s only in Florida at the moment but how long until this spreads to other states?
I also want to take a moment and discuss something that gets little press but is slowly becoming a national issue with both men and women and that is porn addiction. Porn addiction or sex addiction or as it is referred to clinically Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder is now something that is being taken very seriously by the medical and psychological community. Globally the porn industry takes in 97 billion dollars a year. This is an industry that everyone says they never look at but let’s face it more people do than don’t. Pornography is addictive because when you orgasm the same areas of the brain get stimulated as when a person uses heroin. Some people can use small amounts of heroin and not get addicted. Sex is the same. You can have a healthy sex life and not be an addict. Sex, however, when used inappropriately can lead to addiction and its consequences can be just as severe as abusing drugs or alcohol. The sex addict opens him or herself up to danger when they participate in anonymous encounters. There is always the threat of venereal disease or AIDS. For those who use pornographic material the law of diminishing return applies.
The pornographic industry is very smart when it comes to marketing its product. You can go on the internet and get almost anything you want to see at no cost. The problem sets in when the free stuff fails to satisfy in the same way. At this point, you begin to look for something a bit more graphic or exotic, you may still find some for free but slowly it will become less and less and then you begin to pay. Once hooked on the paid sites people begin to spend more and more money sometimes up to six or seven dollars a minute to get what they crave. The industry has you hooked and an addict is born. This is the law of diminishing return and it works the same way with drugs and alcohol.
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. For many people when pornography fails to satisfy they find themselves craving live encounters and employ male and female prostitutes. All of this can turn into hundreds and thousands of dollars a year for just one person. There is however hope for the addict.
Sexaholic Anonymous has been around for years recognizing the problem before the medical community did. Other groups have recently sprung up as well recognizing that this problem is more common than anyone wants to admit. The biggest problem and parents take heed, is the porn shop we have in our house.
In the year when I was growing up buying pornography was embarrassing. If you bought it at all, you went to a store that was nowhere near where you lived. You secreted it into your house and hid it from prying eyes. Now porn is available instantly on your phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop computers. Anyone and everyone is just a few clicks away from images they are better off not looking at. And this is both men and women. According to the U.K.’s Daily Record, one in four women are admitting to using pornography. That’s 25% of the female population. Men’s usage is in larger numbers but women are moving up.
The reason I am bringing this to your attention is that these things need to be talked about. People need to know that there is help and that they are not alone in this battle. If you are caught in porn’s grip you are just as many clicks away from finding help on the internet as you are from finding your next hit.
Random thoughts. The things that run around in my head that need a voice. I’m sure you have thoughts about some of the things I wrote about today or maybe some thoughts about another topic all together feel free to leave your own ‘random thoughts” in the comments.
This is first and foremost a book review but before I begin to talk about this particular translation of The Bible a little history is necessary.
The Bible as we know it has a long history. The book itself is made up of 66 separate books with a total of 40 authors written over 1500 years. It begins with the first five books of the law which were written by Moses and ends with The Book of Revelations written by the apostle John the disciple Jesus loved. It contains books of history, law, prophesy, wisdom, poetry, and even drama.
The Bible is a book of faith for two separate religions. The Jewish people follow The Old Testament and Christians follow the old and New Testaments. Each book of any modern Bible whether it is being used by Jews or Christians has been broken up into chapters and verses. This was not always so.
First, the books of the Bible were all separate entities. It was at The Council of Hippo held in North Africa in AD 393 that a group of Christian church leaders put together a list of books that they believed were true scripture or the inspired Word of God. A few years later at The Council of Carthage, that list was affirmed.
These books did not have chapters and verses that most of our Bibles have today. The Chapters were added to all the books in 1227 by Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury. The Old Testament verses were added by Rabbi Nathan in 1448. In 1555 Robert Estiene divided The New Testament into verses. The whole book came together in The Geneva Bible published in 1560.
Now you may be scratching your head and asking why all of this information is necessary for a book review? I’ll tell you. First, it’s fun. It’s good to know where things came from. The second reason is, that it gives a foundation for what I find best in this Bible.
The Bibliotheca is according to its publisher “a gently updated edition of the 1901 American Standard Version” of The Bible. It was worked on by some “heavy-hitting” scholars so that the language and meaning are clear. That’s the technical part. Here’s what I like about this Bible.
The Bibliotheca is amazing because it took out all the chapters and verses and reads as a book should read. The language is beautiful and well thought out. My experience of reading it was like meeting an old friend who had lost a lot of weight and you are seeing them again for the first time. All the good parts are still there but they are refreshing and new.
Removing the chapters and verses gives you a feeling of freedom to read as much or as little as you like in one sitting. I found myself gliding through The Sermon on the Mount normally known as Matthew Chapters 5, 6, and 7 as if it was the most natural thing in the world for there was nothing to tell me to stop. The Sermon in particular was fascinating to read as a whole like I was taking in a breath of fresh air.
The Bibliotheca is not printed in two columns like most Bibles are but as a regular full page. It was easier to read that way. I also cannot believe how much the chapters and verses get in the way. I’m not saying chapters and verses are bad. They have a purpose and help us all to find certain parts of the Bible we like or want to remember. They also help priests, pastors and rabbis prepare their sermons but they don’t as a whole lend to readability which The Bibliotheca certainly does.
I think that the greatest praise I can give this Bible is that it makes me want to read more.
I have not written my blog for several weeks due to my health. It’s been a rough month due to my need to straighten out my issue with constipation. When I started my diet program a lot of what we used to call roughage and now we call fiber was left out of my diet. Consequently, my bowels slowed down to the point of three days between bowel movements. This was not good so I went to a G.I. doctor at Penn Medicine. Penn Medicine is associated with The University of Pennsylvania and is considered one of the best levels of care in the area. So I felt fairly confident in going there. What a ride it has been.
I met with the doctor via Telemed as I got an appointment faster that way. He had quite a program mapped out for me by the time we were finished and he told me that if I followed his advice I would begin to move my bowels at about the same time every day. And no my doctor was not named Sheldon Cooper. I liked that idea and got to work on what he wanted to be done.
Diet changes were necessary. I was to have a high fiber diet and try to get 25 grams of fiber in my body each day. This is not as hard as I first thought, but it wasn’t easy either. The doctor recommended prunes and prune juice, pineapple, apple and apple sauce, whole grain bread, corn and creamed corn, figs, raisins, beans, lentil soup, and a few others.
Gone went my Slim Fast Breakfast and nice dinner. I now start my day with Refrigerator Oatmeal. What is Refrigerator Oatmeal you ask? I’ll tell you. It’s delicious and only takes a few minutes to prepare sometime before you go to bed.
For one serving of Refrigerator Oatmeal, you need one half cup old fashioned or rolled oats. And one cup of a liquid of your choice. You also need a leak-proof lidded container. A mason jar works well but some Tupperware-style containers also work just as well You could use regular milk of any fat percentage, Almond Milk, Oatmilk, or any other liquid that you feel goes well with oatmeal. I have a friend who uses water and he loves it. Place the oats and liquid in the container and then add anything else you might like. I had one-third cup of raisins, cinnamon, two teaspoons of cinnamon, and vanilla. I have a friend who alternates frozen blueberries and cherries. The fruit thaws overnight and the juice permeates the oatmeal. Once you add all your ingredients put the lid on the jar and shake for about 30 seconds or so. Then place it in the refrigerator overnight. When morning comes take it out pop the lid and eat. The oats absorb water in the same way they would if you cooked it only it’s a slower process. I eat an apple with my breakfast which brings my fiber intake to 12 grams of fiber every morning. That doesn’t include Sundays. On Sundays, I have eggs toast, and sausages if at all possible.
Unfortunately, though the doctor’s diet advice was sound his other advice was not. He first wanted me to take two medications daily. One he said was a stool softener and the other an over-the-counter laxative called Miralax. A third medication was what is commonly called GoLitely. This medication is used to clear a person out the night before a colonoscopy. It consists of a gallon jug that you fill with water. Some fowl-tasting powder that you mix into the water and drink over 24 hours. I was to do this once a week.
I started the regimen on a Friday night by taking the laxative mixed in cold water. I woke up the next morning and dislodged whatever was in my bowels and then some. That afternoon I was to start the GoLitely. I started it at two and by three pure water was coming out of me. I drank half of the medication between two and six. I was also taking the medication the doctor told me was a stool softener. I had diarrhea for a week. From that point on for more than a month, I never felt like I didn’t have to move my bowels. I had diarrhea or I would have to strain to get the stuff out of me. It was ugly and exhausting. More than once I didn’t make it to the toilet and ended up messing myself and the bathroom floor. I had to clean up as best I could whatever I had messed up and I had to hope I wouldn’t have to go again before I was done cleaning up. This was my month between June 24th and July 27th. It was close to being the worst month of my life. Scratch that. It was the worst month of my life and I hope I never have another like it.
This past Wednesday, July 27, I fired the GI doctor. I had spoken to either the doctor or a staff member almost every day of that terrible month. Things did get changed but the combination was never right. The GoLitely was stopped after the first half gallon. The Miralax was stopped next but I was still having diarrhea while taking only what I was told was a stool softener. The dosage was reduced and that didn’t help. I wanted to stop it and was told to keep taking it. Finally, I realized I wasn’t being listened to at all. At this point, I felt abused and decided it was just time to do things my way. That Monday I did not take what the doctor told me was a stool softener. I just ate the high-fiber foods and I began having regular bowel movements. I tried to talk to the doctor and all I got back was misinformation and the orders to continue taking the stool softener. It was at this time that I found out the stool softener wasn’t a stool softener at all but a laxative a fairly powerful one. The doctor misled me. He lied. I was angry, and hurt but determined.
I did a lot of thinking during that month. What else did I have to do? I realized something very important, that bothered me at the time, but I thought I was wrong. The Gastrointestinal specialist never did what I would consider a proper intake evaluation with me. He found out what my issue was, which was severe constipation, and went ahead and ordered all of the drugs that we already discussed. Before I went to that first appointment I felt that my diet needed to be worked on. I wasn’t sure how to do that and a nutritionist was not covered by my insurance. So I went to an expert and, though he recommended a 25-gram-a-day fiber intake diet, He never once asked me what I was eating. I felt that was what should have been discussed at least a little but it was never even brought up.
I worked in dialysis and in a doctor’s office for years and though I don’t feel intimidated by any doctor I do get a little scatterbrained when a lot of information is pushed at me at once. I tend to forget to ask the questions I meant to ask or bring up the things I forgot to talk about. I do believe that my diet was something that should have been discussed almost first and I lay that on the doctor. On the other hand, I wish I had remembered to talk about it.
So what can we all take away from this? First, if a doctor doesn’t seem to listen to you get rid of him or her. You and I are the patients and we know what our bodies are telling us most of the time. If a medication is too strong or seems to be harming us we have to decide on what to do. There are other ways to find medication information. Your pharmacist is a great place to start. He or she knows a good deal about each medication and what it does or has great resources to help you out. You can do a Google search on the medication. Be careful here. The internet is a wealth of information but a lot of it is wrong. Go to websites such as the medication manufacturer’s page or a trusted medical sight like The Mayo Clinic. Avoid reading people’s opinions that can lead to fear and disaster. Foremost speak to your primary care doctor and find out what he or she thinks. They know you better than the specialist and will be able to steer you in the right direction.
Speaking to my primary care doctor was my next step. I thought out a plan that I felt would help. My plan was first to stop all of the specialist’s medications and then simply concentrate on the foods I was eating attempting every day to get the correct amount of fiber into my diet. I also knew I need to hydrate more. I never drink enough water and that is a component of a healthy stool. Also, movement of some kind was very important. With a crippled foot, I am limited in exercise but I knew there was some stuff I can do. Luckily I had some exercises my physical therapist asked me to do at home and so I called and asked if he would add a few more to that list. I’ll go into this another time, but my Primary Care Doctor suggested that I begin following The FODMAP diet. That is one word and is an an acronym for a bunch of words I can’t pronounce yet. More on that later.
I really felt the fiber was the key. So I made plans to eat as much of it as I could every day. Some of this even involved happy memories. I remember my mom making stewed prunes for us growing up. I think we got them for dessert every once in a while. I remember liking them and so was determined to find a recipe. The internet came through for that. Stewed prunes are delicious and taste much better than eating them dry. The recipe is very easy and takes about fifteen or twenty minutes to make. You take a standard package of dried prunes. Put a cup and a half of water in a small saucepan. Add the prunes and add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Put the pan on the burner and set the burner at high until it comes to a boil. When the liquid begins to boil cover the pan and turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for fifteen minutes and then remove from the stove to cool. Once cooled place prunes and the liquid, which has become a syrup by now, into a Tupperware container and refrigerate. These can be eaten once they have cooled but I prefer them after they spend the night in the frig. You eat five prunes in a serving and get I think six grams of fiber. Other high-fiber foods that I love are figs, pineapple, corn, apples, and prune juice but add cinnamon and vanilla to this too, otherwise, it’s too sweet. Oatmeal and raisins are also very high in fiber and make a great breakfast as mentioned earlier.
A few weeks back I attended a webinar given by Jerome Ludde and Mike Morrell. Dr Jerome as he prefers to be called is a neuropsychologist and has written a book on the Enneagram (pronounced Anyagram) a personality test that helps you define why you act the way you do. After taking the test, the results assign you a personality number. The purpose isn’t used to define who you are as much as to see how you can become better. The test that is the most accurate is The RHETI TEST. It can be taken at The Enneagram Institute website which is https://www.enneagraminstitute.com . The cost is twelve dollars and includes the test, which takes about forty minutes to complete, and the results that come to you in a PDF file. Your results are in-depth and include your three highest numbered scores. My scores were #4 The Individualist, #2 The Helper, and #9 The Peace Maker but the scores adjoining your main number are also important. The two adjoining 4 are numbers 3 and 5. #3 is The Achiever and #5 is The Investigator. It is a great tool to help you learn about you.
The webinar was not actually about the enneagram but it was the enneagram system that led me to this webinar. The webinar was titled HOW THE BRAIN AND HEART CREATE WHOLE LIFE COHERENCE. I’m going to boil it down for you into the six essential things to gain coherence in your mind and heart.
The six are breath, eat, move, rest, sleep, and hydrate. That’s it. It’s pretty simple or is it? Let’s go through them one by one.
Breathe. Breathing is something that we all do all day every day. In this case breathing means to breathe intentionally. You do this by being still and breathing in for 3 seconds and then out for 6 seconds. You should do this approximately 6 times in a row. You can start once a day but ultimately you will get the best results if you do it once an hour. I have experimented with this and I find I am generally feeling better and my anxiety has markedly decreased. I have not made it to once an hour maybe twice a day at this time.
Eat. Eating doesn’t mean just eating whatever you want but eating right and eating mindfully. Mindfulness has become a common idea used in many ways to keep you in the present moment. Eating mindfully means that you eat slowly savoring every bite. Feeling the texture of the food and the taste. Taking your time to eat this way does two things. One, you enjoy your meal more and two, your body will signal to you sooner when it’s time to stop because it has the time to adjust to how much you have eaten. Therefore you will eat well and not overeat as you’ll feel full sooner.
Move. Move means exercise. Some kind of exercise that you can do every day. You do what you can do. Keep it simple or complicated but do it. This is hard for me but I had my physical therapist give me a list of exercises to do at home. He asks me if I have done them or not so I know I must do them. Moving can be a simple walk around the block once a day or training for a marathon. It’s all in your hands.
Rest. Rest is different than sleep. Rest is when you stop for a few minutes each day and just be. No screens, no books or magazines, no music. Just you being quiet for a few minutes every day. Phones and smart TVs are ruling our lives these days. We need to regularly unplug or we will get overwhelmed just by the amount of sensory input we take in every day. So find a quiet spot and just be you for 5 minutes every day. Let peace enter your spirit and soul. Breathe in the way discussed above. Let your mind go where it will until you aren’t thinking at all just rest.
Sleep. There is not much to say about sleep because we have no control over it. Sleep is great and I love it but I can only ready myself to go to sleep my body decides when it happens. I can will myself to do the other 5 things on this list but I cannot will myself to sleep. Most people know now that you should have no screen time an hour before bed. You should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. You can do all of this faithfully and still not fall asleep as soon as you hit the pillow. I have bouts of insomnia and have many times existed on one or two hours of sleep or no sleep at all. I have learned to not fight insomnia but I have also realized that there are things that keep me awake. So nothing personally exciting after nine o’clock. No phone calls, no singing nothing that will stimulate my mind. Light TV shows are best for before bed. You can only help sleep happen but you cannot control it.
Hydrate. Water is one the most essential things we can do for our bodies. It helps regulate more than we can ever really understand. The minimal amount of water to take in a day is 64 ounces. On the other hand, new science is showing that the amount of water we should be taking in is half of our body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 180 pounds you need to drink 90 ounces of water a day. That’s about 11.3 cups a day. That’s not impossible but it will get harder the more you weigh. I have a very fit friend who believed that it was best for him to drink two gallons of water a day and he did. I never knew him to even catch a cold so maybe there is more to this than we realize. I know for a fact if your urine is clear you are hydrated if it is light to dark yellow you need to drink more. That however is the bare minimum.
That’s it. That’s the six. I am just beginning to follow these. There is a bit of a road ahead to implementing them into everyday life. It is an effort to exercise. Sometimes. in fact, all the time, movement, and deliberate exercise is the hardest thing in the world for me. It brings my horror-filled gym classes where I couldn’t keep up with the rest of the kids back into my mind. I’m not a kid anymore and these exercises I can do at home. I don’t have to keep up with anyone and so since it must be done it can be done.
This is much longer than I usually write but I wanted you the reader to understand fully the last few weeks of my life. Maybe it will help others in their quest to find, as some put it, gut health.
The weeks in all of this have not been a total loss. I went from having lost 32 pounds to a loss of 38 pounds. I have my eye set on the forty-pound mark as my next goal. That’s it for now. May God bless and keep you all.
Jerry Herman was born on June 10th, 1931. At an early age, he fell in love with the musical theater. Living near the NYC theater district his parents were frequent theater goers and when they came home they were filled with the music of the show they had seen. Jerry’s parents were also amateur musicians and their home was filled with music of the theater.
When Jerry was old enough his parents brought him along on their theater excursions and much to their surprise on arriving home Jerry was able to play much of the score he had heard that night. Jerry was born with Broadway in his blood.
The lyrics quoted above are a line from one of Jerry’s earliest songs. In a way, it is the philosophy behind every song Jerry ever wrote. To him, every song was about the character singing it. And into each song, he infused joy and enthusiasm for life. Even in his most grumpy characters such as Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly, you can’t help feeling that deep down he’s a cuddly bear when he sings “It Takes a Woman.
Jerry Herman began writing for Broadway at a time when Broadway was at its zenith. The 50s and 60s brought show after show and each was memorable. Many are still being revived on Broadway or are perennially used in community and regional theater.
This was the world of Rodger’s and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Meredith Wilson, Kander and Ebb. A young Stephen Sondheim was just getting started and Ethel Merman and Mary Martin were both queens of Broadway. This was the Broadway Jerry Herman entered. Broadway would never be the same.
I came across Jerry Herman in an off-beat kind of way. My mother loved musicals and would play records and sing at the top of her lungs every Saturday while cleaning. These records were always musicals. The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Camelot, Funny Girl, and The Music Man were played almost every week but no Jerry Herman. I was not fond of musicals at the time. I was listening to The Archies and The Partridge Family. The theater bug bit me in the 8th grade when I was cast as Harry Macafee in our school’s production of Bye Bye Birdie. I heard applause for the first time, just for me, and it changed something deep inside me.
From then on my record money went to original cast recordings and Hollywood soundtracks. Always looking for a bargain, I was a teenager on an allowance, I would delve into the bargain record bins at Jerry’s Records, a store in the Bazaar of All Nation in Clifton Heights PA. One day I found a copy of the movie soundtrack for Mame in the bin. I had never heard of it but it starred my favorite actress Lucille Ball and it was $1.99. I bought it and ran home. I played that record over and over. Everyone was telling me that Lucy can’t sing but I only heard gold and though I knew nothing of the story I fell in love with the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman.
Mame was amazing. I soon found a script for the Broadway show in our local library so I understood where the songs fit and knew the story. Eventually, I was able to order the book the musical was based on Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis. I had to special order it at Walden Books and I got it but nothing compared to the music and lyrics of Mame.
Mame is probably the most uplifting and life-affirming musical ever written. Jerry had already had two successful shows on Broadway before Mame. The first was Milk and Honey the musical, as I understand it was about a group of older American Jewish women looking for husbands in The Holy Land or Israel. Two wonderful songs came out of that production, the title song Milk and Honey and a lovely ballad called Shalom. All the songs can be listened to by following the Youtube links.
Shalom Shalom,
You’ll find Shalom,
The nicest greeting you know.
It means bonjour, salute and skoal,
And twice as much as hello.
It means a million lovely things,
Like peace be yours welcome home,
And even when you say goodbye,
You say goodbye with shalom.
After that Jerry was asked to turn Thorton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker into a musical. That musical graced the stage and won the Tony Award for best musical in 1964. The show was Hello Dolly but more on that later. Back to Mame.
Mame came to Broadway in 1966 and also won the Tony for best musical. Mame was played by Angela Lansbury and is the story of Patrick Dennis an orphan who goes to live with his only living relative Mame Dennis in New York City. The opening of Mame takes place in the streets of New York where Agnes Gooch, Patrick’s nanny, and Patrick are looking for Mame’s Beekman Place apartment. They sing a prayer to St Bridget and arrive at Mame’s as she is throwing a lavish party. Mame appears at the top of the stairs blows a bugle and sings It’s Today
Light the candles.
Get the ice out,
Roll the rug up,
It’s Today.
Though it may not be anyone’s birthday,
And though it’s far from the first of the year,
I know that this very minute,
Has history in it,
We’re here!
This song set the whole tone of the show and gives Mame’s philosophy of life. In this song, she sings the spoken line that is in all of Mame’s stage and movie adaptations. “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Mame raises Patrick for as long as she can using this state of mind. It becomes more clear in the song Open a New Window. This song is a joyous anthem about taking chances and never saying no to whatever life offers you. It feels good, it’s upbeat, and when you listen you want to go with Mame to wherever she leads.
If you follow your Auntie Mame,
I’ll make this vow, my little love,
That on the last day of your life,
You’ll be smiling the same young smile,
You’re smiling now my little love,
If you wake up every morning,
And you pull aside the shutter,
Ans promise me that these will be,
The first words that you utter.
Open a new window,
Open a new door,
Travel a new highway,
That’s never been tried before.
I could go on all day about the wonderful songs in Mame. My Best Girl, Bosom Buddies, We Need a Little Christmas, If He Walked into My Life and of course the title song Mame. But this whole blog would end up being only about that one show. This was my first introduction to Jerry’s music and what I didn’t know was there was more.
There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Lucille Ball’s portrayal of Mame. Some felt her voice and her age worked against her playing the role. I’m not sure that’s all true. My biggest problem with the film is the stuff they cut out and the script. After finally seeing the stage production and hearing the original Broadway cast album a lot of the story was left out and or changed and this was not necessary. The song That’s How Young I Feel was cut and it was key to describing Mame’s feelings as an older woman as she sings it when Parick has grown up. The script just didn’t work for me in parts. One change that I did enjoy was Lucille doing her best to get out of a store where Mame has been fired from wearing one roller skate. It was hilarious and true Lucy antics.
For a long time, Lucille’s portrayal as Mame was all I knew and I loved it. When VHS tapes came out and you could buy movies to own them for the very first time. My first purchase was Mame. The movie will always be dear to my heart.
I have to admit I keep hoping every year that NBC will decide to do Mame Live as they have done with The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, Grease, The Wiz, Hairspray, and most recently Annie. NBC usually airs these television events at Christmas and Mame would be perfect, especially with a Christmas song embedded in the show. That is also my hope for the next Jerry Herman show we’ll discuss Hello Dolly.
Hello Dolly opened in 1964. It is the story of Dolly Levi a widow who has decided to “rejoin the human race.” She decides to accomplish this goal by marrying Horace Vandergelder the leading citizen of Yonkers New York. The musical takes place in 24 hour time period it has a prelude in NYC continues in Yonkers, goes back to NYC, and ends in Yonkers. Not bad for a day.
It took me a while to catch on to Hello Dolly. I wasn’t interested at all at first. All I knew of the show was the title song sung by Louis Armstrong and recorded in 1964. I was three years old and didn’t care much for it. My grandmother would be playing it while we visited her and it wasn’t a kid’s song. It took me a long time to find out where that song came from.
For a moment I want to take some time and talk about Jerry Herman the human being. Jerry’s songs were always joyful and filled with life. He came from a family that gave him that but he didn’t change when it came to being successful. Some folks when they make it big in their chosen professions don’t have time for others but Jerry was not like that as illustrated here by my good friend Richard Tyley Jordan. Richard has written the definitive book on the Character of Mame Dennis and it was over this book that Richard and I met. He is also the author of The Polly Pepper Mysteries which are great fun and have been called a cross between The Carol Burnett Show and Murder, She Wrote. Here is Richard’s story of his first meeting with Jerry Herman.
When I began writing my nonfiction book But Darling, I’m Your Auntie Mame!, I sent a letter to Jerry Herman requesting an interview. I didn’t actually expect a response. Why would the legendary composer of Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Mack and Mable, and La Cage Aux Folles, among other Broadway hits, deign to offer an audience to me, an unaccomplished kid (I was actually in my 30s, but I felt completely inferior compared to the great man)? I was equally terrified that he’d grant my request and find that I was an interloper in his rarefied world. I just happened to be in New York doing research for my book when I got the call. Yes! Jerry Herman would see me on Friday afternoon at 2:00! My world was spinning!
When I arrived at Jerry Herman’s brownstone, I was greeted by his amiable assistant, who guided me to the left and down two steps, and into Jerry’s wood-paneled office. A set decorator couldn’t have designed a more perfect room for showcasing career memorabilia of Tony Awards, Grammy Awards, framed gold records, and posters from Mr. Herman’s many Broadway triumphs. The assistant asked if I’d like a tea or coffee (“No, thank you.” I was too edgy as it was.) and said, “Mr. Herman will be with you shortly.” And then the moment arrived! Jerry Herman … in-person … appeared in the doorway, brandishing a friendly smile and a warm handshake. I was immediately instructed to drop the “Mr. Herman” formality and call him “Jerry.”
Jerry sat behind his desk (with a portrait painting of Carol Channing as Dolly Levi looking down from the wall behind him), and I sat nervously in a brown leather wingback chair. Neurotic me was trying very hard to appear intelligent and sophisticated so that he wouldn’t realize I was just a fan on a mission to chronicle the success of author Patrick Dennis’ Auntie Mame character. What I remember most about that afternoon is how gracious he was to me. For those two hours, we talked about how much he loved Mame and composing the songs for that show and how it was actually one of the easiest shows he’d ever worked on. But we also talked about how deeply and personally disappointed he was with Lucille Ball’s film version of his hit musical.
I guess I did something right that afternoon because when we concluded the interview, it was Jerry himself who offered to write the introduction to my book! This amazing man, whose songs I had admired my entire life, offered to personally contribute to my labor-of-love project! I’m still overwhelmed by his generosity. That’s the kind of man that Jerry Herman was. I’ve rarely known anyone more magnanimous. I will always be grateful to Jerry Herman, not only because he believed in my book and penned the introduction to it, but also because he gave me the soundtrack of my life:
I Am What I Am
If He Walked into My Life
It Only Takes a Moment
It’s Today
I Won’t Send Roses
Put On Your Sunday Clothes
Time Heals Everything
Although my book is long out of print (maybe I should release an e-book version), I am forever and deeply indebted to Jerry Herman, one of the finest men and talents I’ve ever known.
I don’t think much more can be said of the man. He was not only talented but he had a spirit of generosity to both see and nurture talent in others.This can also be seen in Angela Lansbury’s autobiography where she tells of Jerry so wanting her to get the role of Mame in the original Broadway cast that he coached her on how to sing the songs he wrote before she auditioned. This is the kind of man he was. Because of this generous, beautiful spirit music poured out of him.
Hello Dolly is a show about second chances. It’s a show about coming out of the fog and realizing you’re alive and life is worth living. It’s a show that tells you in no uncertain terms that you can begin again at any time of life. I of course saw Dolly first as a film starring Barbra Streisand. It may not have been my best introduction to the show but it was fun nonetheless and had a deep impact on my life. The music and lyrics are just as amazing as what Jerry would soon write for Mame but the theme was different. Mame is about knowing life is wonderful and teaching that lesson to the upcoming generation. Hello Dolly is about forgetting that life is wonderful and having to relearn the lesson. This didn’t mean much to me as a young man but it means a whole lot now.
In 2018 I had the privilege of seeing Bernadette Peters in a revival of Hello Dolly in NYC at The Schubert Theater. Watching Miss Peters was a revelation of what this show means. It’s for and about older people starting again. Anyone can start again, but there are plenty of movies and plays about young people starting again, not so many about our older generation. Right now, my generation. I came away from that show not only singing beloved songs but knowing I could start again. It took awhile but this blog is part of that second chance for me.
The songs of Hello Dolly are full of joy. I Put My Hand In, It Takes a Woman, Put on Your Sunday Clothes, Dancing, Before the Parade Passes By, Etiquette, It Only Takes a Moment and of course the title song Hello Dolly.
Carol Channing the original Dolly in the musical tells the story of recording the cast album. In the recording studio the whole cast couldn’t contain themselves and they burst into the kicks while singing the title song. It has been said that the cast recording of Dolly is one of the few that makes you feel like you’re in the theater.
In the show Jerry’s Girls, the title song gives a list of many of the actresses that played in Jerry’s shows. One of those names is Lucie Arnaz. I reached out to Miss Arnaz about how she feels about performing the music of Jerry Herman. Miss Arnaz replied:
“Jerry writes about joy and, as a performer, it’s a vacation to sing his music.”
And that is about the best thing that could be said. Singing Jerry’s music can be a balm for me when I’m down. The songs from Hello Dolly are infectious. You can’t help singing along and if you have them in your heart you can’t help singing them when life has kicked you in the gut.
One such song from Hello Dolly is a sort of anthem for second chances. The song is Before The Parade Passes by
Before the parade passes by,
I’m going to go and taste Saturday’s high life.
Before the parade passes by,
I’m going to get some life back into my life.
I’m ready to move out in front,
I’ve had enough of just passing by life.
With the rest of them.
With the best of them.
I’m gonna hold my head up high.
I’ve got a goal again,
I’ve got a drive again.
I wanna feel my heart coming alive again.
Before the parade passes by.
Can you think of better words to say to the world that you still have something to offer, that you still count, and that you are part of the parade ready to do your bit and find a full life? In this respect, the roles of Dolly and Mame are very much alike. Both women are driven to find the best out of the life that they have and to have joy in that journey.
After his stellar success with Hello Dolly and Mame Jerry would write several more shows for the Broadway stage some successful and some not so successful. Even the shows that weren’t so successful had memorable moments and great music. One such show was Mack and Mabel.
Mack and Mabel opened in 1974 and told the love story of silent movie director Mack Sennett and silent movie star Mabel Norman. It opened with two Broadway legends as the leads, Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters. It had wonderful music. Movies were Movies, I Wanna Make the World Laugh, Look What Happened to Mabel, I Won’t Send Roses, Wherever He Ain’t and the ballad Time Heals Everything.
This show only played 91 performances which had to be a big letdown for the entire team. I have read that the show’s ending with Mabel’s death due to drug addiction was hard for the audience to watch. With all the upbeat music the show brings you down in the end. I have also read that the ending was reworked and is now not as dark. I have never seen a production of this show but I would love to. It does continue to be performed in regional and community theater. The cast album is great and I enjoy listening to it. No matter the ending you can’t help feeling happy while listening to the music.
Jerry’s Next Hit would come in 1983 with his show La Cage Aux Faux. La Cage is about two gay men who have raised a straight son who now wants to marry. I have not seen this show but the son wants his dads to act a bit more middle of the road which is hard to do when you consider that the dads own a club that features men in drag and one of them is the star performer.
The title in English translates to The Cage of Fools and it was originally a French film, but not a musical. After the musical opened an American version of the film was produced called The Birdcage and it starred Nathan Lane and Robin Williams.
La Cage Aux Faux was a big risk for Jerry and Broadway. There had been plays about gay men before but they weren’t lavish musicals and this would be a big production. It also opened at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and gay men were again being attacked for who they were. But despite all of that La Cage was a hit and won the Tony award that year. To add to its honors the show was revived twice in 2005 and 2010 and won the Tony for best revival both times.
There are two stand-out songs in La Cage. One is almost a campfire song and Jerry himself describes it as such. The song has a great melody and is easy to learn. The song is The Best of Times.
The Best of Times is now,
What’s left of summer but a faded rose,
The best of times is now
As For tomorrow, well who knows
Who knows,
Who knows.
So make the moment last,
And live and love as hard as you know-how,
And make this moment last,
Because the best of times is now
Is now
Is now.
The other song is an anthem for gay men and for everyone else who feels misplaced in society. It is a song for the marginalized, for people of color, for the odd kid at school that gets beat up because he’s different. The song is I am What I Am.
I am what I am
I am my own special creation.
So come take a look,
Give me the hook or the ovation.
It’s my world that I want to take a little pride in,
My world, and it’s not a place I have to hide in.
Life’s not worth a damn,
‘Til you can say, “Hey world, I am what I am.”
I am what I am,
I don’t want praise, I don’t want pity.
I bang my own drum,
Some think it’s noise, I think it’s pretty.
And so what, if I love each feather and each spangle,
Why not try to see things from a diff’rent angle?
Your life is a sham ’til you can shout out loud
I am what I am!
In 1996 Jerry Wrote the words and music for a Christmas television musical called Mrs. Santa Claus. It was aired only once as far as I know but it had a terrific cast and storyline and of course incredible music. The leading lady was Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Claus. She feels neglected sometime around 1900 and decides she knows a better route for Santa to deliver his toys. She takes the sleigh in order to go around the world only to be stranded in NYC on Avenue A where she meets and is befriended by many locals. In the few days she’s there she reunites a family, softens the heart of an evil toy manufacturer, and strikes a blow for women’s rights. All to the sound of some terrific and clever music.
My favorite song from the show is Almost Young a declaration of you’re as young as you feel and Angela proves it to a bunch of children who work in the toy factory
I’m holding back the hands of time And though a fool might say I’ve passed my prime My heart has always clung to staying almost young
A few grey hairs, A few gold teeth Can never hide the kid that’s underneath The kid whose hopes are hung On staying almost young
My walk is swift and sporty My disposition is evergreen Why say I’m over forty, I’m over seventeen
I’ll still have all the speed it takes When all the others have applied the brakes And when my knell has run
I’ll still be struttin’ and kickin’ Like some little chicken I’m almost young
Considering Miss Lansbury was 71 when she made this musical you can see she was still pretty spry if you follow the Youtube link.
I haven’t said much about Jerry’s Love songs and there were a good many. It Only Takes A Moment from Hello Dolly, Time Heals Everything and I Won’t Send Roses from Mack and Mabel, Loving You from the film version of Mame. My favorite is from Mrs. Santa Claus and it’s sung by a young couple who Mrs. Claus helps bring together. It’s called, We Don’t Go Together at All.
{Sadie}: Look Marcello… A girl with a drive and a fellow with a dream Are like pickled herring with vanilla ice cream So, as unromantic as my words may seem We don’t go together at all
My big loud mouth and your quiet ways Are like August evenings with December days Are like corned beef and cabbage topped with mayonnaise We don’t go together at all
We’re like chicken soup And a slice of ham
{Marcello}: We’re the big bad wolf And the little lamb
{Sadiе}: Like a picnic lunch That’s ruined by a sudden squall
{Sadiе}: We don’t {Marcello}: No we don’t
{Both}: No we don’t go together at all
{Marcello}: Like an overcoat And a hot July
{Sadie}: Like a bowl of borscht And a pizza pie
{Marcello}: Like if I asked you To come to the policemen’s ball
{Sadie}: We don’t
{Marcello}: No we don’t
{Both}: No we don’t go together at all {Sadie}: An onion roll at a Mayfair tea Like a march by Sousa in a minor key
{Marcello}: So forget all the magic that was meant to be We don’t go together at all
{Marcello}: A stable boy and a suffragette Are about as peculiar as a pair can get
{Both}: So it’s, oh, such a pity That we even met
{Sadie}: We don’t go together at all
I love the cleverness of the lyrics to this song. It also has a catchy tune and it’s fun to sing either the girl part or the boy part or both.
This is truly the longest blog I have ever written. I hope I captured the joy of Jerry’s music and the inspiration he has given to…well too many people to count. If you are unfamiliar with Jerry’s work the CDs are still available to buy and Spotify has all of his original cast recordings and soundtracks as well as many many different artists that have covered his songs in one way or another. If you can catch a performance of any of his musicals spend the time and money it is well worth it. Mrs. Santa Claus is available on DVD and well worth adding to your holiday film collection. The film Mame is available on DVD and electronically on platforms such as Vudo. Hello Dolly is available on DVD and electronically. It is also available to stream on Disney+.
I’m leaving you with Jerry’s first hit. It was used in the show and to advertise lunchmeat and as a presidential song for Lyndon Johnson. I don’t know if it helped but he won the 1964 election. For the election it became Hello Lyndon, For Oscar Mayer it was Hello Deli, for me it will always be Hello Dolly.
Hello, Dolly, Well, hello, Dolly It’s so nice to have you back where you belong You’re lookin’ swell, Dolly I can tell, Dolly You’re still glowin’, you’re still crowin’ You’re still goin’ strong We feel the room swayin’ While the band’s playin’ One of your old favourite songs from way back when
Golly Gee, fellas Find her an empty knee, fellas Dolly’ll never go away again.
It is my Hope Jerry Herman will never go away too.
MPL and the estate of Jerry Herman have graciously given me permission to use the lyrics to Jerry’s songs. This author is grateful and I hope the article is a source of joy for many.
Had Judy Garland lived she would have been 100 years old on Friday, June 10, 2022. Tragically, she passed away in 1969 at the age of forty-seven. Judy is a show business legend and while delving into that legend I found some disturbing things. About Judy? Yes. But more about how we in the 21st Century treat our legends. When I Googled Judy here is what came up as to what people wanted to know.
What Illness Did Judy Garland Have?
Why did Judy Garland have no money?
What was Judy Garland’s net worth at death?
What was Judy Garland’s cause of death?
This is what Google thought most people wanted to know about. I have read more than one biography of Judy Garland. She has fascinated me since I was a teenager. I know about most of the struggles in her life and yet when I read some of the articles online they reported other tragedies which her biographers did not report and I am sure Judy herself would have preferred they remain private.
What is it about us as a society now that we have to take our legends and our heroes and tear them down? Why do we need to lay bare every sin of every person? To quote Lord Grantham on Downton Abbey, “We all have chapters in our lives that we would rather not have published.” And yet as soon as anyone in our current media culture gets an ugly fact they can’t wait to publish it. This is what I will not do today. Yes, Judy Garland had problems. Big Problems. The ones we all know about are enough. A battle with drugs, several broken marriages, people who embezzled her money, and much more. It is out of those problems that there emerged a performer who has been hailed as the greatest talent of the 20th century. This talent, this woman, this gift is what I will write about today.
Judy was born Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922. She was the daughter of a vaudevillian couple Frank and Ethel Gumm who had given up life on the road to manage a movie house in Grand Rapids Minnesota. In addition to showing movies the Gumms featured Vaudeville acts between shows frequently using their daughters, Francis had two older sisters, Mary Jane and Dorothy Virginia, as part of the entertainment. Francis joined her sisters at the ripe old age of two singing “Jingle Bells’ with her sisters. The Gumm Sisters were born.
In 1926 the family moved from Grand Rapids to Lancaster California. Reportedly this move was precipitated because Francis’ or Judy’s father had homosexual inclinations and he had been found out. In Lancaster, The Gumm sisters began to work the vaudeville circuit. Because their name, Gumm, seemed to attract laughter from audiences, and at one time they were billed as The Glum Sisters they were encouraged to change their last name. The name Garland was chosen and Francis chose to change her first name to Judy. This was late in 1934. Francis now Judy was 12 years old.
In August of 1935, The Gumm Sisters disbanded when one of the sisters left to get married in Nevada.
Also in August of 1935, Louis B Mayer the head of MGM sent Burton Lane to the Orpheum Theater in LA to hear the remaining two sisters ‘ act. Judy was brought to the MGM studio along with her father for an audition. Judy sang “Zing Went The Strings of My Heart and an old Yiddish song called Eli Eli. The studio immediately signed her to a contract with MGM and the magic began.
Unfortunately for Judy success wouldn’t come overnight. She was 13 when she was signed to MGM and basically too old to play a child and too young to play an adult. And though she wasn’t by any means unattractive she did not and never would have the glamour girl look of the 1930s. MGM signed her but wasn’t sure what to do with her.
Judy’s big opportunity came when she sang You Made Me Love You to Clark Gable at his birthday party. The studio was so impressed by her performance that they recreated it in the movie Broadway Melody of 1938. In the film Garland sang to a photograph of Gable. Here is the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/5OrCar5qFsQ
After the success of You Made Me Love You MGM made the historic decision to team Judy with Mickey Rooney. The pair would make many films together including Love Find Andy Hardy, Babes on Broadway, Strike Uo The Band, Girl Crazy, and Babes in Arms. Many of these films were dubbed Backyard musicals as in the story a bunch of kids always getting together to put on a show. Judy would star and also be featured in two other films Everybody Sing where she shared the bill with Fanny Brice (Funny Girl) and Billie Burke who would join Judy later in the film that would make her a star. She starred in the very Irish film Little Nelle Kelly with songs written by George M Cohan.
Judy’s first triumph came in 1939 when MGM starred her in The Wizard Of Oz. Judy would play Dorothy Gale a Kansas farm girl who gets knocked on the head during a tornado and dreams of an adventure in the Land of Oz. In her dream, she must face her very real nemesis Elvira Gultch who, in the dream becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Judy was not MGM’s first choice for the role of Dorothy. MGM wanted Shirley Temple for the part but 20th Century Fox would not release her to MGM. The studio reluctantly went with Graland but they struck gold.
The funny thing about The Wizard of Oz, the film was based on the book by L Frank Baum. In the book, the adventure is not a dream and there were a total of 15 Oz books written by Baum. MGM could have gone on and made a small fortune if they had not made the film a dream by producing sequel after sequel much as they did with The Thin Man. In the books, Dorothy, her Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry all go to Oz to live and there is a happily ever after for everyone. Toto too.
The Wizard of Oz would give us the most famous of all performances by Miss Garland, the song Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The song was written by Harold Arlan and Yip Harburg. It comes in the story at a point where Dorothy is in trouble but her family and friends are too busy to help. She’s told to go find a place where she won’t get into any trouble and walking with her dog she sings one of the most haunting songs of the movie musical.
Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high,
There’s a land that I heard of,
Once in a lullaby.
This song and the film is almost every child in the United States’ first memory of movies. Though the film was a critical success in 1939 it wouldn’t be totally appreciated by the public until the 1960s when it would air yearly on television. I was born in the early 60s and my earliest memories revolve around watching this wonderful story. When I was very young I remember hiding behind my father when The Wicked Witch of the West appeared. The Wizard of Oz was almost part of the rite of passage for being children.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow would be recorded by other artists over the years. It was in 1986 that Barbra Streisand even came close to capturing the same magic. In 1986 Barbra Streisand lovingly and with amazing grace recorded the song in a concert filmed and recorded at her home called One Voice. The concert was for 500 guests but it was a fundraiser for Streisand’s causes. After that, many artists including Mandy Potimkim and Matthew Morrison recorded the beloved song. None equaled Judy Garland.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow is haunting and hopeful. It’s a song of yearning for a better place. It speaks to the deep yearning in all of us for a world that’s different from the world we live in. A world where dreams really do come true.CS Lewis wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” This is a desire that seems universal to all people. Somewhere Over The Rainbow gives words to that desire and if we are willing we each can find our way to that other world.
Garland’s movie career would explode after The Wizard of Oz. No longer the teenaged misfit she would give a wonderful performance as Esther Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis and she would give The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as gifts to the world. Her other stand-out performances came in films that include, For Me and My Gal, The Harvey Girls, In The Good Old Summertime, Summer Stock, Easter Parade, and her acclaimed performance as Esther Blodgett in A Star is Born.
In Summer Stock she co-starred with Gene Kelly and in a way, it was a return to the old days of the backyard musicals. Judy plays Jane Falbury the owner of a farm that is struggling to make ends meet. She reluctantly permits a group of Broadway performers to use her barn as a stage and Jane is drawn into the life of show business. Judy’s break out performance is in the song Get Happy. This is a revival-type song that reminds us to ‘get happy and ready for the judgment day.” For me, it frames in music the joyous return of Jesus Christ where he will lead us across the river.
Garland would only be in two non-musical roles. She starred in The Clock in 1945 with Robert Walker and as a featured character in Judgement at Nuremberg in 1961.
Judy was not idle when she was not making movies. She did radio shows, went on publicity tours with her movies, and spent many hours in the recording studio. There is a long list of musical soundtracks and albums that are to her credit. When her film career ended due to her ill health, the star began concert tours that spanned Europe and the United States. She played both The London Palladium and The Place Theater in NYC. In the mid-sixties she desperately wanted to take over the role of Mame on Broadway when Angela Lansbury left but the producers, due to her ill health and her known erratic behavior on movie sets during her last years, could not trust her with the role.
Judy had a long history of drug abuse and mental health issues. It was both of these that led to her death on June 22, 1969, just 12 days after her 47th birthday. On that day, I believe, one of the stars in heaven went out.
Judy Garland worked for 45 years in the entertainment business. She gave her heart and soul to her performances and she had a voice that was unlike any other. She could belt like Ethel Merman but she could also sing very tenderly like Doris Day. It’s been said that Judy only had to hear a song once to have it down. In that way, she was a musical genius.
Many of us love Judy Garland and her many films. We feel we know her and when we are old enough to understand how young she was when she died we feel a great sadness in ourselves over her passing. I don’t know what would have happened if Judy lived. I would have liked her to play Mame in the film version of that wonderful musical. I think she would have recorded more and become very proud of her children Liza Minnelli and Lorna and Joseph Luft. In her elder days, she would have been a Great Dame of the Golden Age of Hollywood. With many of us listening to her stories. That wasn’t meant to be.
I could have said a lot more about the life of Judy Garland. She never had it easy. I believe that out of her pain came something beautiful and something that will be remembered for generations to come. Though we lost her too soon, we will have her forever.
In June of 2022, we celebrate the 94th year of Superman being in publication. In this week’s blog I’d like to take a look back at the first comic book superhero and discuss why he was important in 1938 and why he is still important today.
The word hero comes from the Greek word heros and it means protector. From the very start that was the embodiment of what Superman is. He protects those who cannot protect themselves. In his first stories, he would be confronting wife beaters and crooked politicians. He was a hero for every man and woman, and no one was beneath his notice. Of course, times change, And Superman’s powers grew and changed, and his enemies became almost as powerful as he was himself and yet the hero would always make time for others even getting a cat out of a tree.
Superman remains popular after 94 years. He has been in every form of entertainment that exists. Comic books, movies, first animated and then live-action, 5 television series and that does not include animated series of which I believe there have been three, radio shows, movies, novels, and a Broadway Musical. No other fictional character has ever covered all of that. The only one that comes close is Charlie Brown but he was never featured in a radio show or a novel.
Superman has more web pages than I care to count and several pages on Facebook both private and public and some official DC pages and other unofficial pages. He also has an encyclopedia in one volume, but it was published many years ago and a lot has changed in those years. It’s still a treasure trove of information.
Superman stories in comic books can be broken down into 4 eras, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, and The Modern Age.
The Golden Age began with Superman in April of 1938. From the very beginning, comic book magazines were dated three months after their release dates so Action Comics number one which featured Superman on the cover was dated June but appeared on the newsstands at the beginning of April giving the magazine almost 90 days of shelf life. The Golden Age brought all of the now-classic heroes to life. Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Aquaman, The Flash, Robin, Captain Marvel, now known as Shazam, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and many others all debuted during this era. All of these except for Captain Marvel were published under National Periodical Publications which later became DC Comics. Marvel started out at about the same time only they were called Timely. Their superstars were Captain America, The Sub-Mariner, and The Human Torch. The Golden Age would begin to fade at the end of WW2 and be completely gone in the early fifties. Comic books would come under the scrutiny of the U.S. government and would be considered a contributor to juvenile delinquency. The only three Titles to survive the 50s were Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman.
The Silver Age began with reintroducing The Flash. This was not the old Flash from the 40s but a streamlined hero made for the beginning of The Atomic Age. His costume, origin, and secret identity all changed and he was hit. Soon others would follow being brought back to life were Green Lantern and The Atom. New heroes were added such as The Martian Manhunter and old heroes were refreshed. The Silver Age at Timely came to life when Stan Lee created The Fantastic Four and Spiderman and all the other members of what come to be known as The Avengers.
The Bronze Age of comics began in the 1970s when comic books began to become socially relevant. Though in some ways mainly aimed at kids by 1970 the kids who were reading the Silver Age characters were now young adults and they wanted to keep reading so more mature storylines began to be introduced. Peter Parker’s girl Friend Gwen Stacy is brutally murdered by The Green Goblin. Roy Harper who was Green Arrows sidekick is hooked on heroin, The Joker is reintroduced as a ruthless murderer and Batman goes very dark. Superman changes too. No longer a newspaper reporter he is now employed by WGBS as a news anchorman which causes all kinds of new problems for The Man of Steel but he did not lose his Innosense.
The Bronze Age Continues until 1985. 1985 is a landmark year for DC Comics. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary and what an anniversary it was. DC set out a year-long story called Crisis on Infinite Earths. Over the years DC bought many properties from comic book companies that folded. They had introduced these characters into the DC universe by each of them having their own Earth. The explanation was that the Earth vibrates and all these other Earths vibrated differently but occupied the same space. Some of these Earth”s histories aligned with our own but different heroes were there. Captain Marvel’s family resided on Earth X. Our current hero roster resided on Earth One. Earth-Two housed the original DC comic book characters from the 30s and forties. These included the original Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. For several years the heroes of Earths One and Two would find a way to cross the vibrational barrier and have amazing adventures together. Over time all of these Earths became hard to keep straight and so in 1985 DC destroyed all of the other Earths and everyone was streamlined into one Earth and all of the DC Comics heroes were rebooted.
1986 marked the year of The Modern Age of Comics and the first book to spring out of that was a six-issue mini-series called The Man of Steel. In these six issues, Superman’s origin was retold. His relationships with his parents, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, and Batman were reworked. There was a love connection between Superman and Lois that would eventually end in marriage. Jon and Martha Kent were allowed to live and see their adoptive son grow up and become Superman. Batman became an uneasy ally with Superman but you wouldn’t call them friends anymore. Batman was the dark to Superman’s light. He even began calling Superman, “the boy scout” in a less than friendly way.
Superman’s origin n the real world began with two teenage boys in Cleveland Ohio. Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster created Superman first as a villain and published a prose story in their science fiction fan magazine. Soon they came back to Superman and reworked him into a newspaper strip. Jerry and Joe were very much more in the likeness of Clark Kent than Superman. They spent their formative years in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Neither was a great student or athlete. Neither was the one to get the girl. But they both loved Science Fiction, the popular pulp magazines of the time and they were both Jewish.
Being Jewish is important to the Superman story. If you look closely at the character’s origin you can see the similarities between Superman and Moses. Moses’s life was in danger as a baby and he is put in a basket and floated on The Nile River until he is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. Superman’s planet is about to be destroyed and he is p[laced into a rocket to Earth to be rescued by the Kents. Both men, one real and the other fictional become heroes to their people as they become adults. I do not believe there is much coincidence here.
Jerry and Joe try their hardest to sell their Superman strip to newspaper after newspaper only to be rejected time and time again. Eventually, they hear that National wants a new hero for its new comic book Action Comics. They redo the Superman daily strip into a single story and present it to National who bought the character and the rights for 130 dollars. National hires Jerry and Joe as writers and artists but they have no legal right to their character anymore.
Copywrite is the bain of all artists. If you don’t own it you don’t make money from it even if you created the property. Seigel and Shuster were reduced to living at the poverty level until the 1970s when the comic book artists and writers went to bat for them and helped them gain a piece of the very large Superman pie. By that time DC Comics was part of Warner Communications and the first Superman Movie starring Christopher Reeves was about to be released. Warner Brothers didn’t want the bad publicity so they made a generous settlement to the two men which included health insurance for the rest of their lives.
As an aside Maria Von Trapp did the same thing with her film rights to The Story of The Trapp Family Singers. She sold the rights to a German filmmaking company for three hundred dollars. The Germans made a film but then sold the rights to Rodgers and Hammerstein who turned half of the book into The Sound of Music. Maria made no money off of the broadway production but Fox studios offered her a small percentage of the profits on the film. You can glimpse The Baroness in the movie if you look quickly during the I Have Confidence sequence.
Superman has endured in popularity, in my own opinion, because he is a symbol of hope. In the later years years it has been revealed that that the S on his chest is the Kryptanian symbol for hope. Recently Superman’s slogan “Truth Juustice and The American Way” has be aletered to “Truth Justice and a Better Tomorrow.” With the United States History coming under attack The American Way seems distasteful to some people and so the slogan was changed. For many years The American Way was the hope to millions of people who immigrated to this country, including my grandparents. Millions of people still want to come to this country because of the hope that still exists. For those living outside of the USA, the American way ensures a better tomorrow.
Superman is American in every sense of the word. He is a first-generation immigrant that makes good in his new world and in his new country. He lives out the American dream. As Clark Kent, he is a successful journalist and as Superman, he is what all heroes strive to be. He is in actuality the embodiment of America and its promise.
Superman is something else too. He is something that every good person strives for. He is passionate about justice. He believes in mercy and no one is beneath his desire to help. We can all identify with Clark Kent. An average guy looking to make a living and a difference in his world. But can we identify with Superman? The answer to that question is a resounding YES!
We identify with Superman by using the best of who we are to benefit and help others. We don’t have to have super strength, the ability to fly, or x-ray vision to make a difference in this world. Anyone can make a difference. I read recently about The Peter Pan Children’s Fund. This is an organization that was started by a young girl after seeing a production of the stage version of this wonderful story, she then toured The Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children in London and found compassion for the sick children there. Instead of birthday presents that year she had money donated to the hospital and began a campaign to have other children do the same. The organization does not exist just for the hospital in London but for every children’s hospital. And by the efforts of one young girl.
It doesn’t take much to make a difference in this world. Just a desire for mercy and justice. A desire to love others as we love ourselves. A desire to give the best of who we are to the world and let God in heaven who made us all determine the outcome. Edmond Burke said, “Evil thrives when good men do nothing.” If you want to be like Superman be a good person and do something.
Churning out a weekly blog is not very easy. First, you have to have an idea and then you have to already have the needed information at your fingertips or you have to be able to do the research. Stumbling on the first can almost be a disaster as something might never get written. Take last week for example. I had no clue what to write about and heeding the advice of a good friend I decided it was better to say nothing than to write something that I don’t feel passionate about.
Make no mistake. I have yet to write a blog that I didn’t feel was important if only to me. I write because I was made to write and eventually I have to sit in front of a computer and start putting words on the screen. Before that, when I was young, it was pen to paper. Pen to paper has a nostalgic feel to it today. My penmanship is truly horrible and it only can be deciphered by me, but something is inspiring to write the way Charles Dickens, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Mark Twain had to write. I was inspired to write by watching The Waltons and seeing John-Boy sitting at his desk keeping notebook after notebook filled with his journaling. Watching him made me want to do the same and I did.
The second difficult part is research. Now research today is much easier than when I was growing up. We had no internet. Very few people had an encyclopedia which was a set of books that tried to comprehensively cover every possible subject in the world. Doing research for a school project meant doing hours in the library both at your school and the public library. We didn’t have an encyclopedia at home but my next-door neighbor did and I would go there when I need to look something up.
Let me tell you about my next-door neighbors. Their names were John and Mary Rainier. But to me and only me, they were Aunt Mary and Uncle John. Aunt Mary was a lovely lady that was a hairdresser at one time. She would give my mom permanents whenever she needed one. My Uncle John I really don’t know what he did for a living but he was kind to me and always had a smile and occasionally some good advice. Aunt Mary was special.
Aunt Mary didn’t mind my friends playing in her backyard which was joined to my side yard. She gave us taffies regularly always reminding us not to run with them in our mouths. Advice which most of us failed to heed but luckily we never got hurt. To me, she was a kindly aunt. Who took me out to lunch occasionally, bought me treats, and gave me the best Christmas and birthday gifts. I think she was giver at heart and showed her love in that way. On my mom’s birthday, every year, she made an incredible lemon chiffon pie. I have no idea how it was made but it was one of the most delicious desserts I have ever had and miss it even now.
I remember going to her house to use the encyclopedia. That set of books was something precious in that house. I don’t remember ever being told to be careful with anything while visiting her, which I did often, but those books were to be handled with care and respect. My parents even warned me before leaving my own home to be careful while using those books. And I was. I think my respect for all books comes from being respectful of that set of encyclopedias. If you looked at my shelves now you would find that many of the books I own are in the same condition I bought them in. That does not include the second-hand books I own, just the ones I bought new. If I order a book from Amazon and it arrives damaged in any way it goes back. I make it a point to complain because Amazon used to treat books with respect, now they just throw them loosely in a box or a puffy envelope with nothing to ensure no damage is done. I have Amazon on speed dial because of this.
I took a detour here but research is very important to me. I never want to present to you anything that is a fact that I haven’t checked. My mind holds a lot of wonderful things but the details are always sketchy. I have an Amazon Echo device that sits next to me at my desk. The device can usually help me with dates and spelling and sometimes information that I’m missing. Using the Echo device gives me the feeling of being on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and just asking the computer for information. Science Fiction has become science fact. The Echo can’t give me quotes or other longer facts those I have to do a general internet search for. I am truly grateful to Google for that. You can find almost anything on the web. Maybe I should try to find a recipe for lemon chiffon pie?
I feel like at least a part of all my blogs are research papers and out of respect to you dear reader, I want my facts to be accurate. Especially when talking about my health or any other branch of science. To give inaccurate information about anything is just wrong and if I ever do that and you catch it please contact me immediately.
This is the blog that almost wasn’t because again I don’t have a topic this week. I have topics for future weeks that I am working on now or at least thinking about now. We celebrate Superman’s birthday in June and the character turns 94 this year. I hope I am around for his 100th birthday. Judy Garland would have been 100 years old this year in June if she hadn’t died tragically in the 1960s. Those are two of my upcoming topics. I don’t know what else there will be. But, there is always something exciting on the horizon or at least I believe so.
I rambled a bit today but it was good for me to remember Aunt Mary and Uncle John. In the future, I will introduce to you various other people from my past. My cousin Joanne, my first best friend Charlie, and my next best friend Joe. And maybe you’ll meet my cousins and aunts and uncles all of who played and still play a big part in my life. One day too, I would introduce you to my family, my parents, Pat and Vince Roberto, my sisters Patty and Susan, and my brother Vince and tell you about my childhood all so long ago.
For the last four years, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the television show New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam is a fictional hospital in NYC but it is based on the very real hospital Bellvue also in NYC. The show’s stories are interesting and compelling. The scripts are well written and the cast of characters well defined.
In the first season and for the last four years the show centers around Dr. Max Goodwin. In the first episode, Max takes over as what I believe is now called The Chief Medical Officer in a hospital. In other words, Max was running the show. In the first three and half seasons, Max stays in this position until he marries Helen the head of the oncology department and they both move to London Helen’s original home. Max is back now trying to get the hospital back from the evil woman who the board elected to take his place. The culmination of that will take place tonight, Tuesday, May 10, 2022.
In his first season, Max is constantly asking the same question whenever a problem arises. That question is, “How can I help?” That attitude begins to take over the whole hospital as you begin to see the main characters more and more, some subtly some overtly begin to take on the characteristic of caring for each other and the patients of the hospital.
Now you would think patient care would always be the top priority of all medical facilities. Having worked in medicine for 30 years as a dialysis technician and a medical assistant. I have seen the level of care for patients being eroded by government rules and paperwork. Hands-on care by nurses is now relegated more and more to technicians who sometimes do not have the experience or the education to take on that care. Mandatory 12 and 13-hour days made people exhausted by the end of their shift, and basically useless on their days off in between shifts because of sheer exhaustion. Let me tell you no one asked, “How can I help?” We were all too tired just trying to keep up with our own work. I know this because I left dialysis while working under these conditions. But that is not the point of this blog.
What is the point? The point is how better the world would be if, when we are told about another person’s problem our first response would be, how can I help?
We live in a world where the rugged individualist has become something to aspire to. “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” or “Do you have to have someone hold your hand?” are both cliches that tell us we are all to be self-sufficient. That we shouldn’t need anyone else and to quote Dolly Levi from The Matchmaker that we should “Thank God that no one else’s life is tangled up with ours.” In The matchmaker, which became the musical Hello Dolly, Dolly learns that living that way is ultimately unhappy and the play and musical is her attempt, “to rejoin the human race.”
I think it’s time for us all to rejoin the human race.
People were never meant to live life on their own. It’s a Bible fact that says two are better than one and that’s not about marriage it’s about life. No one should have to or ever feel like they have to go it alone. And yet many people do. If this weren’t the case songs like Elinor Rigby or Alone Again Naturally, or Dust in the Wind, would never have become popular. Let’s be honest those are basically songs to commit suicide to, and I’m willing to bet that some people have.
Suicide is another problem which I believe stems from the idea that everyone has to make it on their own. Now, that is not the only reason. There are many other reasons people commit suicide. If you grow up being taught that this is the ideal way to live, making it on your own, then the minute you realize you cannot live this way you have to consider yourself a failure or feel less because you have to ask for help. Can you imagine with me a world that instead of chiding you for not making it on your own, asks, “How can I help?”
It would be a friendlier world. People would no longer be looking only at their own interests but also at the interests of all the other people in their lives. Dickens makes this perfectly clear through the character of Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. Marley was dead and in chains, eternally remorseful for all the times he “minded his own business,” and did not reach out a hand to those who suffer or are in need. I call this part of Marley’s discussion with Scrooge, “Marley’s Lament.”
“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”
“Life’s opportunities misused.” Marley is not talking about opportunities to advance his career or to make more money. He took advantage of all those opportunities and it led him to eternal torment. Marley is referring to all the times he saw someone in need and walked away believing it was none of his business instead of asking, “How can I help?”
We are all, in many ways, self-centered these days. First, it’s ourselves we look to and then our families. After that, we may find time to help out a friend, but many of us don’t. I’m thinking of myself as much as anyone else.
Today, for instance, I was just coming in from the doctor’s office, and a lady who I know just a little was coming in thru the other door. I let her in so she wouldn’t have to scramble for her keys. We said hello and I headed for the elevator. While I was waiting she said a package had arrived that was supposed to help her with her TV reception. She said she hoped she could figure out how to hook it up. I responded that those devices are usually very easy to hook up and it should be no problem. The elevator door was closing when I realized that she may have been actually asking for help. I stopped the elevator door and said if you need any help come on up and get me. I couldn’t just volunteer to come with her and set it up as I had to get out of the shoes I was wearing. They help my feet but I can only wear them a little while each day. I don’t have her phone number or apartment number so I can’t reach out and see if she needs help. I feel a bit bad for not saying outright, “how can I help?”
Most TV shows are entertaining very few are inspiring. New Amsterdam is a show that I find both entertaining and inspiring. It’s a rare breed of television show and I hope you all take some time to catch up with it. It runs on Peacock and Hulu as well as NBC. I don’t know where you can stream the whole series, although it may all be on Peacock. I really encourage all of my readers to watch.
HEALTH UPDATE
I went to my Primary Care Doctor today and though he was pleased with me in general, the bottom line is I gained two pounds in the last month and lost none. I wanted to avoid telling you this but when I began this journey I made a promise to keep you informed win or lose.
For me, I didn’t really lose this month. Yes, I gained two pounds, but I gained those pounds while actively dealing with another health problem. The stress of that problem influenced me to eat more than I was. Previously I was never hungry at lunchtime, all of the sudden I was always hungry at lunchtime and I had only bad choices to eat. And I ate them. That health issue is now under control and I am back on the path I had been on.
That’s it for now. Here’s my parting thought, if someone relates to you a problem they are going through, instead of offering advice first ask, How can I help?
The picture is the central cast of New Amesterdam from top left Dr. Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine) Head of Psychiatry, Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman) head of oncology, the big photo Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) Bottom left Dr. Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery) Head of The Emergency Room, and last Dr. Floyd Ryenolds (Jocko Sims) Head of Cardiac Surgery.
I am a Christian. I want to get this out of the way because there seems to be some confusion about what a Christian is and what a Christian isn’t. This blog is my unschooled attempt to explain that. I hope you read it and share it because I believe what I have to say is important.
First what a Christian is. A Christian is someone who has come to believe in their heart that Jesus, born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth in what we now call Israel, died for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised from the dead so that we too could share eternal life with him.
That’s it. That is all of it. It’s pretty easy and it is offered to every man woman and child on the planet.
Now let’s deal with some basics. First Jesus was real. The Bible which tells his story and many others has been proven time and time again to be historically accurate. Several years ago a man named Lee Strobel was totally ticked off that his wife became a Christian. He was an investigative reporter for The Chicago Tribune and had won awards for his work. He was also a die-hard atheist. He decided to prove to his wife that Christianity was false and launched an all out investigation to prove his thoughts and to get those Crazy Christians out of his life. Bottom line, he couldn’t do it. He only found the historical accuracy of Jesus to be beyond dispute. He also found that Jesus was indeed one with God. Ultimately he became a believer and wrote a book about his experience called The Case For Christ. Read the book. I am not here to do all the work for you.
Now you could tell me sure, “I know Jesus existed. He was a great teacher and we should follow all that he said but he wasn’t one with God.” This my dear friend is a faulty argument. Here’s why. I am going to quote a man named CS Lewis. He was a Christian writer in the 1940s and 1950s. He too was an atheist. It was his friend JRR Tolkien who was a devout Catholic who presented to him an argument that he could not disprove. After his conversion, he became one of the most prolific Christian writers of the 20th century. You may be aware of his fantasy stories which are called The Chronicles of Nania. He also has a sci-fi series and a few other novels but his greatest works were the explanation of faith the greatest of these is Mere Christianity. You can watch a great film on his conversion titled, The Most Reluctant Convert. Did I telll you Lewis was also an Oxford professor? This man was seriously smart. Here is the quote it is from the book Mere Christianity.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
I can’t put it better. Either Jesus was who he said he was or he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, ignore the Bible completely because it is just words on paper. If he was I suggest you read every line. So far I have shown you that Jesus can be proven historically real and that you have a choice to make about what to do with him.
Let’s talk about sin. The word sin is an archery term. It simply means missing the mark. Or not hitting the bullseye if you will. As we come to know God we learn that He is perfect and nothing imperfect can stand in his presence. God created us to be perfect too and we would have been if not for the fall of man by his being disobedient to God. In order to restore us to perfection God first set up moral laws for us to follow. This is what Christians call The Old Testament. Those laws can be found in the first five books of the Old Testament. He also set up ways to atone for all the times man didn’t meet those laws. Those were the animal sacrifices of The Old Testament. But all through the Old Testament God makes promises that one would come that would change everything. Those promises are called prophecies and those prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You can read this for yourself by reading Psalm 22 in the Old Testament and then read the last few chapters of The Gospels which are titled, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament. The comparison should amaze you considering those words were written about 2000 years apart. Psalms first and Gospels afterward, just to be clear.
Now let’s get back to sin. No one on this Earth except for Jesus has ever been perfect we all sin, or we all don’t hit the bullseye on a regular basis. Committing murder is a sin. But most of us haven’t done that. Telling a lie is a sin and all of us have done that. Jesus came to make us perfect in the eyes of God. He came to take away the sins of the world. Those sins are all forgiven, past present, and future when we accept in our hearts what Jesus did for us. This takes faith first and foremost. No one can pay for salvation. It is one hundred percent free. It’s a gift from a God who loves each and every one of us because he created and formed each and every one of us. All artists understand this anyone who has any creative juice in them at all understands this. When we create something, a mom who makes a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner is pleased with what she did. A Mechanic who fixes tunes up, and details a car can probably say he loves the work that he did, what we create, what we work on we feel good about it when it comes out right. God doesn’t make mistakes. God made each of us and none of us is a mistake. All of us at birth are beautiful in His sight. But then God did something radical. He wanted His creation to love Him and love cannot be forced on someone. Love is a choice. God gave us all free will to choose to love Him or to go our own way. When we choose to seek God and love Him we will find Jesus Christ. God is love. If we go to the New Testament and look up the famous love definition in the Bible in First Corinthians chapter 13 we can change the word love to God and get a full picture of how much He loves us.
This is what Christianity is all about. It’s about a God who loves us, a God who loves you my dear reader, who did all he could and gave all he had to bring his creation back to himself. Now it’s up to us to choose.
Now here is what a Christian is not. No Christain is to stand in judgment on any other human being. Are there Christians that do that? Yes!!! And they are far from God. Many people say they do things in God’s name. Evil things, things that make me extemely angry. People who call themselves Christians and approve of the bombing of abortion clinics. That’s not love. People who go to the funerals of gay men and women to tell the family that their loved one is burning in hell. That’s not love and that’s not the God of Christianity. The God of Christianity tells us to do everything in love as outlined in First Corinthians 13. I was going to make you look that up, but no. Here is the what love is and what God is.
First Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Charles Dickens wrote the best explanation of the people who do evil things in the name of God or Jesus in his book A Christmas Carol. This is The Ghost of Christmas Present speaking but in some ways, he is, to me, The Christ figure in the book.
“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
You can change the words “us” and “our” to “God” and “God’s” and you’ll see what I mean.
Here let me do it for you.
“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know God, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in God’s name, who are as strange to God and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not God.”
Christians are truly a mixed bag of people. We come in all colors. We all are different. Some of us smoke and drink. Some us are straight and some of us are gay. Some of us can cuss up a storm and some of us dance and sing and play cards. Some of us are overweight, and yes I’m working on that and some of us are recovering addicts. Some of us are addicts, caught in a web we are looking to break free from. We are all as different as different can be. We are all flawed. We simply have this in common. We found a God who loves us, we believed in Jesus who saved us and we want nothing more for those we know to come to know that same love.
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