NEW YORK, NY – Jan. 25, 2010 - Quick trip early this Monday morning, across W47th to the corner deli to get the New York Times. Wet streets from a light rain. 53 degrees. Feels more like spring even though we’re in the dead of winter. Hard to believe that a week ago, I was walking home from a movie in 22-degree weather and a hellacious wind blowing.
Ah global warming. Bring it on!
Piper Laurie (yes THAT Piper Laurie!) has produced a lovely production called “Ground Zero” at a little theater off Times Square. I caught a Sunday matinee yesterday.
It’s about Zero Mostel and the communist witch hunts of the 50s. Playing the late Mostel in the one-man show is Jim Brochu, who looks very much like him. Mostel is probably best known for the movie “The Producers” or “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. But I remember Mostel from the play “Rhinocerous” back in the 60s. I saw it on Broadway with my college friend Dennis Johnston. I sneaked a picture with my Canon IV S-2 camera.
“Ground Zero” chronicles a dreadful and shameful period in American history – the blacklisting of creative people, mainly Jewish writers and performers in Hollywood and in New York. I was just a teenager at the time and quite well behaved. (My rebellious, anarchistic phase was yet to come.) But even then I had an inner sense that something was not right about Senator McCarthy and the reckless charges he was throwing around.
In my mind, that period dovetails with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as an equally shameful period. In both cases, we let hysterical fear overwhelm our allegiance to the constitution.
But then what we’re doing now, in the name of political correctness, is our own form of idiocy. The fact that airport cops waste time with light-skinned Okies like me instead of zeroing on the Achmeds with their beards and swarthy skin and exploding underwear is just downright stupid. (Remind me to tell you sometime about my interrogation last year at Reagan Airport in Washington. Scary.)
Tomorrow, I'll be attending a taping of the Colbert Report. Always nice to see a live performance. Since I’m here for a while, I'm also going to apply online for tickets to Jon Stewart and David Letterman. They’re free. But they’re extremely popular so it takes a while.
Heading downtown today to look at renting an office cubicle in the Madison Square Garden area. I can get a space, a desk and a mid-town address for only $350 a month. Not a bad deal. So no matter where I live, I’ll have a consistent address.
Life is good. Praise God!
Copyright 2010 James C. Lewis
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