The recent ugliness surrounding The Squad is a case in point. Frustrated by the continued string of off-the-script attention garnered by freshman Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rasheda Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley (known collectively as "The Squad"), Nancy Pelosi groused publicly about them a while back, mustering as much condescension as she could. A back-and-forth continued for days as the Squad was not prepared to take the digs lying down. Seizing on the moment, the president jumped on Pelosi's bandwagon, commandeering it until it went careening down a hill of flaming bigotry and racism to the delight of Trump's base and forcing Pelosi to attempt a backpedal in defense of the women she had been trying to tarnish.
But you have to wonder who Pelosi is defending them to? She has no influence over Trump's base, and her recalcitrant refusal to hold Trump accountable for his abuse of office -- her preference to run out the clock on his first term, thereby in effect doing her part to keep Trump's agenda in motion -- is destroying any credibility she may have once had with the vast and nebulous multitude of potential democratic voters who needed no help in supporting the Squad to begin with. That leaves her true constituency, the Democratic establishment and their corporate donors, a well-heeled group who will have no guarantee of success in defeating the Know-Nothing Trump in 2020 on their own, and whose tenuous grip on what motivates voters in these times shows no sign of tightening, a predicament that spells continued, and by now all-too-familiar trouble for the coming election. In this case, it was clearly trouble of Pelosi's own making. And it's no trouble for Trump.
The answer for Pelosi and these types always seems to be to tone it down, stay the course, hold the middle. It's really no mystery why the sexless, featureless, flavorless center that voters understandably reject-- and after all, why not reject it since what has it done for them lately?-- is so seductive to the Dem establishment: it's the Benjamins, baby! Come on! This is exactly what their donors are paying for. That glazed look in Nancy Pelosi's eyes that you observe whenever she is explaining herself for the cameras is the 100 yard stare at her true audience, the donors watching the show from their skyboxes.
That show is going to continue for as long as it has sponsors. Sponsorship seems to have little to do with popularity as measured by the count of heartbeats, nor with effectiveness-- although we can almost certainly rest assured that it is having whatever effect the sponsors are after. What really concerns me is the sway that it seems to continue to have on a certain segment of the electorate that votes Democratic. These are the voters who if you polled them would state as their first priority for 2020, defeating Donald Trump. According to a Harris Poll taken in May, 65% of voters who identify as Democrats say the top characteristic they are looking for in a candidate is his or her ability to defeat Trump, above any policies that they may agree with. This singular focus no doubt accounts for Biden's enduring support in the face of public airings of his superhero origins in States Rights, advocacy of amped-up privatized incarceration, credit card company favoritism and the propounding of anti-busing legislation, which support we can expect to endure as long as the mysterious perception that Biden stands a good chance against Trump survives. It's hardly worth constructing an argument against, given Biden's pattern of imploding on his own.
I am the first to say that Trump has got to go. That's obvious. But obviousness is exactly the problem with investing all of one's hopes and dreams on that one anti-goal at this stage of the game. Defeating Republicans is what Democrats exist for -- obviously!-- but it cannot be everything that they exist for, or they will lose again.
Until there is only one Democrat left in the race, it should be the mission of democratic voters to define the alternative future that their candidate is going to represent. Trump has clearly laid out the future we do not want to have. If Democrats don't sell us a better future, Trump's may continue to be the dystopian one we live in.
Do you ever get an itch in a place you can't reach? Please tell me it's not just me. There are a couple of options when this happens. A person can ignore the itch, but I am not that person. There is sometimes the option of finding (or declaring some existing feature of one's available environment) a scratching post to scratch yourself against, but this is not always practical or appropriate given the social situation or the location of the itch. One could overcome one's reticence and ask someone in the immediate vicinity to find the compassion within their heart and the communal ape within their bosom to act as an extension of one's mind and perform the scratch for one, but in these too divided yet too apathetic times, success in the quest for a volunteer is not always assured.
For me, the answer to this, and to so many other quandaries, is witchcraft. It so happens that regardless of what ails you, no matter what plagues you, for whatever you lack, there is a spell for that. For instance:
Skay-brus scab-rous
Abracadabrus
Pepsi Free and Classic Tab-rus
Hey there hi there ho there hee
Itchiness fly away from me!
Saying the above, spin anti-clockwise 3 times until you're facing east, now click the heels seven times and --- Ahhh! Doesn't that feel a whole lot better?
Indeed, witchcraft serves me in traditional ways as well for my more typical venal urges. To get a refund at tax time, I prepare a tincture of owl whiskers boiled in the sweat of a toad, dab a spot the size of a hedgehog's freckle behind each ear and intone the following:
Apis Avis
Pops and Mavis
Lay some on me, Ossie Davis.
But the true function of magic is to coordinate the wills of mortals who would otherwise stand in one's path. Quite literally sometimes:
Hocus Pocus
Big Fat Dokus
Hee-nuss Hay-nuss
Podilliokus
Land of Nod and Land of Goshen
Set this traffic lane in motion!
You'll need a branch cut from the north side of a yew tree on a full moon at midnight whilst a raven calls. Now say the above while waving the branch three times over your head in a counterclockwise direction and you'll soon be on your way.
I am not above using my powers for good from time to time especially in these times. For instance when I'm nearing my limit watching the news, I sometimes direct my magic on the Durwood-in-Chief. In preparation I procure the blood of a gnat, the sighs of a sparrow and the tears of a shrew. I pour these into a vat and bring to a boil. Add the eye of a fly and 3 warts from a whip-poor-will's knee and stir until viscous. Now sprinkle the potion on the soul of a salamander while speaking the following:
Flea nut Peanut
Flipperty pan
Kangaroo Bangaroo
Fast as you can
Kiss me a kinkajou
Son of a monkey!
Resist these words
With the will of a junkie!
Video Radio Vo-dee-o-doh!
Who shall to the rodeo go?
Easy peasy, dopey sneezy
Bashful rashful,
Enough with the sleazy!
The one obvious question is, given the unmagical state of the world why doesn't magic work? I think I know the answer to this: We're all practicing it at the same time. My good magic is being cancelled out by your sucky magic. I'm working on a spell for this. I'll keep you posted.
As a youngster transplanted to the deep American Northeast in the 1960's I became invested in the fates of sports teams from the nearest metropolis to the south, Boston. When I was young, the Red Sox had not won a world series since 1918. They had not been in a world series since 1948. They had not even made it to the playoffs since before I was born. So when they took the American League pennant in the Impossible Dream season of 1967 it was a huge deal for me along with everyone else in New England. They lost to Saint Louis in seven games. When they returned to the World Series in 1975 (losing to the Reds 4-3), I was too deep into becoming the renegade that I am to be bothered; but in 1986, living at the time in a landlocked state in the American South, I got wrapped up in Boston’s next World Series appearance through a lens of irony-tinged nostalgia, and my heart skipped a beat along with everyone else watching Mookie Wilson's line drive to single roll between Bill Buckner's legs in Game 6, allowing the Mets to score, and tying the series which the Mets would go on to win in Game 7.
Some years later, I am back on the east coast, happily working for an outfit that merges with a firm from Boston. My initial excitement at the prospect of reconnecting a bit with my roots is immediately squashed by my experience of dealing with my instant colleagues. A trip to Boston which I had eagerly anticipated in order to get acquainted with the other firm's business practices does nothing to mellow the impression I'm getting. It seems that in spite of the transaction being touted as a "merger of equals" every accommodation, every sacrifice, every ditched plan, every lost benefit, every draconian policy adoption is being made by us. "You can't think of it as us versus them! We're all us now!" Easy for them to say. Suddenly the association I have with Boston is "interloping assholes." Now the chip on its shoulder that I always thought was Boston's due is annoying the crap out of me. It is 2004, the first World Series the Red Sox have been in since 1986, what could be their first World Series win in 86 years, a rematch of 1967 with Saint Louis, and this time I'm praying for the Cardinals to kick Boston's ass again.
My prayers fell on deaf ears, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I've moved on to greener pastures leaving the "Bostards" as I came to call them behind me, and have even had a pleasant time or two in the city since those days, but my feelings about Boston have hardly changed. What I'm dealing with is a grudge-- a debt owed me that Boston can never repay. I don't know what to do about it. Even knowing that I come from a long line of grudge holders whose lop-sided beefs with neighbors, politicians, tv stars, car manufacturers-- food products, for the gods's sake-- sometimes looked ridiculous to me; even knowing a grudge is pointless, silly, petty, counterproductive, I can't deny that it's deeply, deeply satisfying.
I mention grudges because I believe I've tapped into it as a volunteer for the presidential campaign of a certain Vermont senator. As one of my contributions, it has been my pleasure (if you can call abject terror and trepidation "pleasure") to cold call supporters of the candidate in 2016 who have been mostly thrilled to hear from me, sometimes less than pleased, but occasionally shocking in the venom they can't contain in telling me to piss off. I'm no fan of unsolicited phone calls, so I'm surprised (and a little dismayed, truth be told) when anyone picks up at all, but I have to admit, I was really puzzled at first by the hate that filled some of these former supporters who could not tell me fast enough that they had jettisoned the revolution in the three years since the last primaries. When this happens, as the script dictates, I politely thank them for their time and wish them a great day and move on. I'm reading from a script and they are merely reacting to my self-identification as a Bernie Sanders supporter, so I don't think it's anything I've said. Bernie Sanders has not changed a bit from what I can tell. If anything his consistency -- utterly uncharacteristic for a politician in my experience-- is a great deal of his appeal. He's consistent because he's never really been on the wrong side of an issue in 40 years of public service. There's nothing for him to waffle about. What appealed to his 2016 supporters I presumed is still there today, so I was puzzled by the fury of some of the folks, until I pondered possible reasons.
What I came up with is something I can easily relate to, because I've written about it myself from time to time. It's not Bernie Sanders per se that they're reacting to, I think, but to a tiny handful of his 2016 supporters who rather than following Bernie's lead after the primaries in supporting Hillary Clinton to avoid the certain disaster of a Trump presidency, took their balls and went if not into the Trump camp then to frivolous support of a third party or merely home after the primaries, often extremely loudly, making clear that they would have no part in supporting Hillary, even at the risk of Trump winning. Given the hostility toward Bernie by the mainstream media and establishment Dems, some of these "Bernie Bros'" anger was understandable, but some of it was abjectly absurd, petulant, arrogant, some of it bordering on ugly misogyny, and as anyone with consciousness knows reckless as hell.
People do forget (or simply do not know) that the contingent of "Bernie Bros" was smaller and on the whole less objectionable than the Party-Unity-My-Ass former Hillary supporters, the PUMA's who flocked to support John McCain after Barack Obama defeated Hillary for the Democratic nomination in 2008 and especially after McCain cynically inflicted the clueless Sarah Palin on the culture by selecting her as his running mate, a move precisely calculated to attract disgruntled Hillary supporters. Nevertheless the contingent of Bernie Bros in 2016, although not as decisive as Hillary Clinton's poor campaigning in losing the election, were a convenient place to hang blame for Trump's victory. Not content to harangue Clinton supporters for their "support of the Neo-liberal status quo" before the election, if you lived somewhat online as you tried to work through your grief over the election results you could not avoid many of them gloating at you afterward.
It's difficult today to recall Trump's obscenely racist performance following the Nazi march on Charlottesville, to see the plight of immigrants as we speak on the southern border, to contemplate the portent for reproductive, worker's and voting rights of the appointments of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, to behold the tattered state of the Iranian Nuclear deal, to come to grips with the trillions of dollars starved from the public treasury in order to enrich the billionaire class even more, or to consider any number of other Trumpian outrages and not see the arrogant rebellion of Bernie Bros in 2016 as an extremely myopic and privileged response to Bernie's defeat in the primaries. But Bernie was not himself a Bernie Bro! He did not fade away or even shirk after Hillary's nomination, but rather held 39 rallies for her in 13 states (including the ones she badly needed to win but did not herself visit) by election day.
It's not the nature of a grudge to be fully transparent and revelatory about the perceived crimes against the grudge holder that instigate it. Once formed, grudges admit no new knowledge. Nothing feeds them, and yet they grow. So I think I understand how the grudge of a Bernie Bro against Hillary Clinton and her supporters in 2016 might find itself engendering a reactionary if completely misdirected grudge against Bernie Sanders in the heart of even someone who like a grownup transferred support from Bernie to Hillary in 2016 when it was clear that she was the last, best hope against the election of Donald Trump. Grudge holder that I am, I somehow avoided the trap, first by voting for Hillary in 2016, and then simply picking back up my support for Bernie in 2019. But if I'm right that this explains the hostility to him felt by some former supporters even though if anything we need the revolution now more than ever, I recognize the pull of it. And my quandary is familiar: I just don't know what to do about it.
It was cloudy and windy but a mild 60°F in Carrabassett Valley Maine that Monday, October 5, 1981. Jud Strunk was on the airfield at Sugarloaf Regional Airport, at the controls of the 1941 Fairchild M62-A he had bought and restored, and was preparing to take his new plaything on a test flight. His passenger was Dick Ayotte, a friend of many years. With Dick strapped in to the tandem seat behind him, Jud called "Clear prop!" and pushed the starter. While the propeller on the nose worked up a spin, he checked the controls and instruments, adjusted the fuel mixture to rich, and began taxiing to the runway. At the end of the runway, with the all clear from the control tower, Jud took a visual of the airspace, opened up the throttle and accelerated. His focus was on the take-off, so he ignored a numbness in his left arm, but as the nose of the plane lifted, taking the wheels with it, was he imagining his life flashing before his eyes?
*****
There must have been something in the Chadakoin River water to account for it. Jamestown, New York, the birthplace or residence of giants of comedy: the incomparable Lucille Ball (August 6, 1911); Brad Anderson, creator of the Marmaduke comic strip, (May 14, 1924); the loony oversexed Mormon apostate and sworn enemy of Joseph Smith, Doctor Philastus Hurlbut (February 3, 1809). But none epitomized the show business life in quite the way that Jud Strunk did. Born in Jamestown, June 11, 1936, Jud was raised in Buffalo, an hour away to the north on Lake Erie. He showed an early aptitude for performance. Having learned the banjo and piano, he performed for local audiences before heading off to Virginia Military Institute for college.
After graduation, his passion for skiing no doubt brought him to Farmington, Maine in his early 20s. Within a short time he expertly adopted the linguistic tics and dry wit of his adoptive state, incorporating the shtick into his country flavored act to the delight of local audiences. From the base of his farm in Eustis, Maine he took his act on the road, touring for the US Armed Forces with a one-man show. From there, he was called by the folk music revolution to begin making regular trips to New York to perform his comedy and compositions in coffeehouses and clubs.
In late 1960, his big break came just Off Broadway at the Madison Avenue Playhouse. The show, by William Engvick, was Beautiful Dreamer, a biography about and featuring the songs of Stephen Foster in which Jud (appearing as Jud Bartlett) played the banjo and is credited with the parts of Turk and Bob. The New York Times' Harold Taubman raved that the show was "well intentioned." After its three week run, there was no turning back from life in the public eye for Jud. By all accounts, his next stop was Colorado where he served as spokesman for the United States Ski Association, making several paragraphs in another New York Times story in 1966 about a ski conference in Stowe, Vermont promoting New England as a ski destination to rival the resorts of the West.
While it's true that corporate spokesmanship is the epitome of razzle dazzle, actual show biz itself was never expunged from Jud's bloodstream, and his next frontier was the music industry and television. In 1969, he went to the logical place, Rockland, Maine to record the Christmas classics Santa's Got a Moto-Ski and A Special Christmas Tree for the Moto-Ski Corporation. At the dawn of the Nixon era, Jud began to make his mark elsewhere in country music starting with the album Downeast Viewpoint in 1970, a critical and modest commercial success. Singles and other albums followed including the mildly racy novelty hit The Biggest Parakeets in Town, and the sophomore LP Jones' General Store.
The next frontier was television. In conquering it, he had the help of an enthusiatic early fan-- the powerful and influential producer of television and broadway, Pierre Cosette-- who caught his act in an out of the way venue in San Diego. Cosette knew a star when he saw one even if no else had seemed to notice. First came a CBS television special, unprecedented for such an unknown. From there, almost as Cosette predicted, Jud's face became ubiquitous in the wallpaper of American TV comedy. In 1970, Samantha Stephens and the second Darren, along with their wacky relatives and colleagues spent several episodes of the ABC Situation Comedy Bewitched in Salem, Massachusetts. For 2 of those (Paul Revere Rides Again and Darrin on a Pedestal), Jud portrayed comically bemused hospitality industry employees (Bellhop and Maitre D' respectively). Throughout the period, there were appearances on variety shows hosted by the likes of Bobby Goldsboro -- as sure a sign of arrival as there was at the time
Elsewhere on the tube, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, the groundbreaking comedy variety show on NBC that had done the unthinkable by going up against the formidable institution of Gunsmoke on CBS on Monday nights and beating it in the ratings, in the process churning out such catchphrases as "Sock it to me", "You bet your sweet bippy" and "Verrrry interesting" and introducing America to the talents of Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson and Tiny Tim among many others, was in its 6th and final season in 1972. In search of something different, the producer George Schlatter hired a rash of new talent, including Moosie Drier, Patti Deutsch, ventriloquist Willie Tyler, and Donna Jean Young. Rounding out the cast was none other than Jud Strunk.
Around this same time, the twice married Jud found his biggest and arguably most enduring success, with a song about a guy who falls in love with a girl in his youth and demonstrates his enduring love for her with the bestowal of a simple gift, a gesture that continues each day throughout both of their lifetimes, and beyond:
With its high concept simplicity and quintessential country flavor, Daisy a Day was a hit not only for Jud. It was recorded as well by Ernest Tubb, Glen Campbell, Roy Clark, Hank Snow (who named an album after it), Patsy Montana, and by Dutch star Conny Vandenbos (as Ik geef je een Roosje mijn Roosje). The Malaysian singer Kamahl had a hit with it in Australia. As seen above, Jud performed it himself on Johnny Carson in 1973. As an indication of its importance at the time, it received the Spike Jones, Jr. treatment in a never released rendition, that was played on Dr Demento's radio show several times.
The most unique honor for the song came in December 1972, when in the course of the Apollo 17 mission it became the first song to be played on the Moon in a specially designed player for the lunar lander, along with 4 other Jud Strunk tunes. Apollo 17 (Dec 7-19 1972), was the last lunar mission, ensuring that Jud Strunk's distinction as the only Earth composer to have received playtime on the surface of the moon may stand forever.
The article that appeared in Cash Box about it appears to have conflated the lunar orbiting command module with the lunar module— I.e., the lander. By several accounts the player was on the lander.
*****
It wouldn't be show biz or country music if there weren't alcohol and brushes with the law involved. Jud had his share of problems with both following his success. Dick Stacey, owner of a motel lounge Jud played frequently with his band Copeland Kitchen in the late 70's reminisced that as payment for an appearance, Jud asked if Stacey wouldn't mind making a check payable to the Maine District Court System for $500 and delivering it to the cashier in Bangor. For Jud, not a problem. On another occasion, Jud requested a place his horse could stay for the night. He was on his way to Augusta on horseback to protest nuclear power and demonstrate for alternative energy sources, but first had to spend the night at the facilities of the local jail for another public drinking offense. Stacey put the horse up by the pool. The hard living inspired Jud's philosophically titled fourth and final album, A Semi-Reformed Tequila Crazed Gypsy Looks Back, in 1977.
Jud's passion for alternative, renewable energy in the midst of the energy crisis of the 1970's earned him yet another mention in the New York Times on March 16, 1975 ('Re‐Inventing the Windmill—And Selling It', Page F15 of the New York Edition)
What's the latest in energy for the home—nuclear, solar, atomic, gasified coal?
Well, no, it's air power, according to William Gillette and Alan Lishness, two former aerial photographers in Maine whose Zephyr Wind Dynamo Company introduced last week a wind‐powered electrical generator otherwise known as — you guessed it—a windmill.
The Zephyr windmill, which can store energy and provide for about half the space and “water heating needs of an average 2,500‐sq.‐ft. house, has no gears, belts or chains and is expected to last up to 40 years.
What's so new about a windmill? The developers say theirs is different because of a slow, direct‐drive generator for which they have a patent pending. The generator, which produces 7½ kilowatts in a brisk, 28 mile per hour wind, has propellers hooked directly to it.
Zephyr, which can build the units in 40 hours, has completed three of them, one of which is used to help heat its plant in Brunswick. The windmill, easily shipped, is asserted to be the largest production wind‐power generator in the world and a worthy competitor for European models that cost nearly twice as much as the $4,600 fully‐installed Zephyr.
Within two days of the windmill's introduction, Jud Strunk, the country‐music singer, purchased one for his new “alternate” energy house planned for Eustis Ridge, Me.
His environmental involvement inspired him to open a new chapter in his varied life. In 1980 he ran for the Maine state senate, and according to the lore, lost by one vote.
*****
And this is where we find him October 5, 1981, preparing for takeoff in his 941 Fairchild M62-A at the Sugarloaf Regional Airport in Carrabassett Valley, Maine. As the plane reached 300 feet, the pain in Jud's arm spread to his chest. Struggling with the aircraft, he suddenly lost control of it. The aircraft banked, rolled and fell back to earth killing Jud and his passenger Dick Ayotte in the wreckage. The cause of Jud's death was determined to be congestive heart failure.
At 45, Jud's meteoric rise had come to a meteoric end. For Jud Strunk, downhill skier, one-time corporate spokesperson, windmill pioneer and author of a poem called ‘Bury Me on the Wind’, it might have been a fulfillment that he also died on the wind. It's reported that his sons have been shopping Jud's story around Hollywood, hoping to interest someone in a biopic. If they succeed, could there be any more fitting conclusion to the story?
