Taking a break from Trump, DeSantis and the MAGA crowd…

Commentary

…Around the Block talks musical theater…with a slight Trump detour I couldn’t resist writing about.

How about a change of pace from the usual Around the Block topics? Frankly, I’m Trump’d, DeSantis’d, CPAC’d and MAGA’d out. And based on the number of views of my last post, “I’m a MAGA, she’s a MAGA, he’s a MAGA three!” (https://around-the-block.com/2023/03/21/im-a-maga-shes-a-maga-hes-a-maga-three/), it looks you might be as well.

My intention today was to write about the budding “bromance” between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian president, Vladimir Putin – I mean did you see the photos of an adoring Xi batting his eyes at Putin in their get-together in Moscow?

I actually wondered if after they met they were going to retreat to the Stalin Memorial Bedroom to consummate their “arrangement.” And then I thought about it. Boring!

So, what to do? What to post?

A little background.

But before that background – even when I try a change of pace, I can’t help myself.

Trump Posts Photo Of Him Holding A Baseball Bat Next To Pic Of Bragg

By the way, no legal scholar I, but others more in tune with the law have suggested that threatening a prosecutor is a crime.

Coincident with the photo, Trump also posted a vicious, all-caps screed directed at NY DA Alvin Bragg on his Truth Social site:

“WHY WON’T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE? EVERYBODY SAYS THERE IS NO CRIME HERE. I DID NOTHING WRONG! IT WAS ALL MADE UP BY A CONVICTED NUT JOB WITH ZERO CREDIBILITY, WHO HAS BEEN DISPUTED BY HIGHLY RESPECTED PROFESSIONALS AT EVERY TURN. BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY.”

“HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL WHO JUST DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT. THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE. DISGRACEFUL!”

“EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG, BUT HE DOESN’T CARE. HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”

Is there a judge in NY who can say, “Gag order?”

But, I digress – back to what I really wanted to write about.

As some readers are aware, Around the Block is not my only writing endeavor. Among the projects I’ve been working on are two that focus on one of my passions: musical theater. While it’s too early to say how either of these two projects will turn out, or whether either will ever get beyond my imagination, I began thinking about what it was that led me down this musical/theatrical path. And then I remembered a piece a wrote a while back for my community’s monthly magazine. I thought I’d share that story with you. I hope you enjoy it.

Love of Show Music

I can’t pinpoint when I first fell in love with Broadway musicals. It certainly wasn’t because my parents took me to see shows; they never did. Perhaps it was my mother’s many 78 RPM record albums of Rogers & Hammerstein shows that got me started. My favorite Rogers & Hammerstein album then, and still today, was the original Broadway cast album of “Carousel” starring John Raitt and Jan Clayton. To this day, whenever I hear the “Carousel Waltz,” the show’s version of an overture, I instinctively get up to put on the next record; remember, those 78’s contained only one song per side. And, in case you forgot, the next song was “You’re a Queer One, Julie Jordan,” followed by one of the greatest Rogers & Hammerstein songs, the heartfelt, “If I Loved You.”

Many, many years later I attended a revival performance of “Carousel” at the NY State Theater in Lincoln Center. I was in the last row of the highest balcony (I was in college at the time and couldn’t afford better seats). It was a terrible seat but for one saving grace – watching the last scene in which Billy Bigelow, the troubled protagonist, amazingly recreated by the original Billy Bigelow, John Raitt, over 20 years after his original Broadway performance, comes down from heaven bringing a heavenly star to the daughter he had never known, Louise. When Louise refuses to take the star, Billy slaps her but to Louise, the slap feels like a kiss. With that, the great inspirational song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is sung by the entire ensemble. As the music swelled, the curtain came down to a completely silent the theater…except for the hundreds of sniffles from the audience, amplified up to my seat in that last row of the highest balcony by the vast theater’s great acoustics.

I’ll never forget that moment and would never question the emotional power of great musical theater.

I’ve always wondered where this Broadway musical fascination began. Perhaps it was influenced by my mother’s younger brother, my Uncle Aaron. Uncle Aaron taught me the lyrics to songs from many Broadway and Hollywood musicals. I remember “The Donkey’s Serenade” by Rudolf Friml from the film “The Firefly,” was one of his favorites. Uncle Aaron was probably the reason I became fascinated with putting parody lyrics to famous tunes. My favorite of his parody songs, way before it was sung by Bart Simpson on the Simpsons TV show, was this send-up of the famous Carmen tune:  

Toreador-ā/Don’t spit floor-ā/Use the spitor-ā/That’s what it’s for-ā.

Or, when he taught me this little ditty he sang to his campers when he was a counselor at a day camp in Coney Island:

T-I-P does not spell soap/Put it in an envelope/Send it with you little dope/T-I-P does not spell soap.

By the time I got to high school, I had joined the Macy’s Broadway Theater Club with my best friend, Howard Rubin. The club offered students the opportunity to attend Broadway shows, both musicals and dramas, for as little as fifty cents. Imagine, on one weekend Howard and I saw Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” (a little too heavy for two 15-year olds) and on another, the musical “Do-Re-Me” starring the incomparable Phil Silvers. With music by Jule Styne, but overshadowed by Styne’s blockbuster from the year before, “Gypsy,” “Do-Re-Me” did have one big hit, “Make Someone Happy.”

I guess that day, I was that someone. And, when it comes to theater, that happiness has endured to this day.