The Baltimore Colt & Mr. Broadway - Part I

When you’re a kid, things get poured into your brain that never leave. That’s how most of us become sports fans. We get infected before we’re able to build our natural defenses.

What I remember most about 1959 was watching professional football, on Sunday afternoons, in my living room, with my father. Being an especially astute 10-year old, I noticed a big difference in the way Dad watched baseball and the way he watched football.

When we watched Red Sox games, he would glance at the newspaper, leave the room or talk on the phone, then returning his attention to the game, he would ask: “What did I miss? But when he watched football, he watched every play. If the phone rang, he would hold it to his ear and talk, but his eyes would be focused on the screen. He had an on-off switch in his head, so that if I spoke during a play, he heard my voice, with all of the words filtered out. It converted my chatter into white noise.

In Boston, in the 1950’s, we did not have a professional football team of our own. We watched the New York Giants. We rooted for the Giants, but we knew that they were not really ours. It was like we were borrowing them.

I’m going to have to correct a previous statement. I rooted for the Giants. Dad rooted for a different team every week. When I asked him why, he explained that when he bet on a game, it only made sense to root for the team that his money was riding on. He added, instructively, that I should never, ever make a sentimental bet.

Some fathers preach safe sex, mine preached safe gambling. I suppose all vices can get you into trouble, so you need to watch the ones that you think are most likely to entrap your kid.

One Sunday afternoon, the Giants were about to play the Baltimore Colts. When quarterback, Johnny Unitas took the field, my father said, without taking his eyes off the set, “He’s the best there ever was.” Dad was not one for superlatives. With all the games, in all the sports that we watched before and after this one, he only said that about one other player, running back, Jim Brown.

For me, this was one outstanding piece of information. I knew that I would walk into school the next day and let my friends know how smart I was. The method chosen for this sort of announcement would be critical. If I stood up and blurted it out, it would be obvious that I was simply passing on information that I just received from someone else. So I knew that I would have do it with a kind of casual thinking-out-loud delivery:

Hey, did you guys watch the Colts game yesterday? Man, Unitas has to be the best there ever was.

It has been said about Unitas, that for most of any game, he was great, but there were other quarterbacks who were his equal, that is, until the final two minutes. Back in those days, quarterbacks called their own plays. Unitas was completely in charge, and he was a master. For him, being down by a touchdown, with two minutes to play was like playing with the game tied.

Johnny U. (as he was called) completed a touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games. A feat, often compared to Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. The 1959 season ended with the Colts beating the Giants in the championship game, which is still often referred to as the greatest game ever played. For most fans, it solidified Unitas’ position as football’s number one QB.

Finally, in 1960, we got our own team, the Boston Patriots. They were the last franchise awarded in the upstart American Football League. Mainstream pundits everywhere said the league wouldn’t last. Earlier attempts to challenge the NFL had failed, and surely this one would be no different.

That old AFL were a fun gang to watch. With wide-open offenses, they scored a lot of points. The uniforms were colorful and so were the players – like Abner Haynes, Clem Daniels, Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion, Cookie Gilchrist, Gino Cappelletti,Wahoo McDaniel, Big Daddy Lipscomb and Lance Alworth.

But it was not always easy being a fan. For one thing, the Patriots had no home of their own. They borrowed playing time at Harvard Stadium, Boston University Field, Boston College’s Alumni Field, and Fenway Park. Following the Patriots, literally meant following them around.

Worse than that –much worse than that– was the putdown factor.

NFL fans, players, and most sportswriters looked down upon the AFL as a junior league. I heard this a lot: Any AFL team could be beaten by a good college team. AFL teams can’t play defense. Their biggest stars wouldn’t even be starters in the NFL. No matter how much success the league began to enjoy, the insults never let up.

You’d be sitting at a bar, watching the Chargers and the Chiefs, or the Pats and the Raiders, and someone would yell to the bartender to switch channels to the real game, meaning the NFL game, regardless of how dull it might be. You might protest, but you would usually be shouted down.

The AFL wasn’t going to go away. AFL teams were attracting more talented players, which included opening the doors to more and more black players, never an NFL priority. We AFLers were extremely loyal fans. Our days of borrowing an NFL team were over for good. We were not going to let this league die.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the NFL made a big strategic move. They would merge with the AFL. Well, imagine that!

The merger would not be fully completed until 1970, but in 1967 they would begin their new relationship with a slate of inter-league exhibition games. On August 13, the NFL Baltimore Colts played the AFL Boston Patriots at Harvard Stadium.

That morning, my father put down the newspaper, and said, “We should go to the game.” I probably told him I was busy. After all, I was now a semi-rebellious 18-year old, living THE Sixties.

He probably told me to stop thinking I was so cool. We drove to the stadium, bought tickets and ended up in about the fifth or sixth row. The announcer began calling the names of the Colt’s starting offense. With their helmets tucked under their arms, Each player trotted onto the field, right up to the section of stands where we were seated.

We all gave each Colt a warm welcoming applause. And, then, the announcer’s voice said, “at quarterback, Johnny Unitas.”

And, instantly, I was 10 years old.

He trotted toward us and stopped, as had each of his teammates. But this time, the crowd rose to its feet, clapped – louder than any clapping I had ever heard – and cheered, and didn’t stop. The slender man wearing the white uniform, the crew cut, and the boyish smile seemed genuinely touched. He nodded a thank you. Near me a man with a small boy had tears in his eyes. And so did another. And another.

Mind you, this was years before men got together for the specific purpose of group crying. Public tears, in the men’s department of life, were not yet fashionable.

My father looked at me with a grin. The grin said, well you hot shot, smart-ass, think you know everything little punk, you will never forget this moment as long as you live.

And he was right about that. Actually, he was right about all of it, but that’s another story.

The Colts beat the Pats 33 to 3. I didn’t remember the score; I had to look it up. The score really didn’t matter. It was just a meaningless exhibition game. But for the fans of the Boston Patriots, of the American Football League, who happened to be in the stands that afternoon, this was Validation Day.

If you happen to be an old AFL fan, I do not need to explain what we felt on that August afternoon, watching our guys, the new guys, the cast-offs, the disrespected, playing on the same field with the Baltimore Colts.

Or, how it felt having The Greatest There Ever Was as a guest in our home.

My father has been gone for nearly two decades. Often, when I think of him, I think of that day.

But there is more to this story.

In fact, this is really just background information, intended to put the real story more squarely in perspective.

TO BE CONTINUED…

FLIP THAT LOUSE!

Jenny Sanford is the first lady of South Carolina, and might have been in the running for next first lady of the United States. That is, until that wild and wacky hiker of a husband of hers confessed to spending Fathers Day down in Argentina, doing the dirty tango, thus putting a rather abrupt end to his political future and probably his marriage.

Please shout: Olé!

Jenny seems like a nice woman. So I thought I would send her some words of advice. Sure, she’s probably getting plenty of that already, but mine is different, because I’m putting my advice in a song.

To get the most out of this, you will need to sing it as you read it. I’m not kidding. This is the only way it’s going work.

But first, I will need you to go grab some of your favorite gangsta rap music and play it until you are immersed -- mind, body and soul. Select that tender tune you first heard blasting out of car, in line at the drive-thru, or stopped next to you at an interminable red light, to which you responded by racing to the mall in breathless pursuit of your very own CD, which you’ve been saving, like a chilled bottle of champagne, for the right occasion, which just happens to be right now.

So pop it in, and by all means, crank up the volume.

Please no cheating. I shouldn’t have to say this, but you will not get the same effect from Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits or anything from Norah Jones. That stuff will not help you with the proper interpretation of my song. In fact anything like that will kill the message, not to mention the rhythm.

O.K. I’m assuming you’ve done as I asked, and your mind and body are now on the same wavelength with mine. But first let’s do a short warm-up exercise to help open your lungs and close your mind. Ready? All together now, one…two…three…sing…

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!

Again. This time, Louder.

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!

I can’t hear you! Jenny can’t hear you!

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
KEEP THE HOUSE!
DON’T BE A MOUSE!
DUMP YOUR SPOUSE!

Great. Now please take a moment to catch your breath.

Now visualize yourself staring straight into the MTV camera.

You should try to come up with a threatening facial expression. Think gangsta. And, for the best possible delivery, keep pointing your index finger as though you’re jabbing it into someone’s chest.

Oh, one more thing: there’s no profanity in my lyrics. If you really dig your gangsta rap, feel free to drop-in the F-word, wherever you think it’s needed.

Ready? All together now, one, two, three…

HE WENT TO ARGENTINA TO PLAY WITH HIS CHIQUITA
DON’T CRY FOR HER LIKE YOU DID FOR EVITA
THANKS TO HER HE’LL NEVER BE PREZZ
BUT HE’S THE ONE TO BLAME LIKE JUST YOUR GUT SAYS.
HE’LL APOLOGIZE WITH NOTHING BUT LIES, SO JUST…

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!

HE WENT BEFORE THE CAMERAS TO TELL HIS STORY
HE LOOKED SO STUPID, HE’LL NEVER HAVE THE GLORY.
JEN, YOU DID THE RIGHT THING BY NOT JOININ’ IN
THAT MISSUZ SPITZER THING CAUSES CRAWLIN’ OF MY SKIN.
LET HIM TWIST ALONE, TOTALLY ALONE, AND…

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!

HIS AIDS COME TO YOU. THEY BEG AND CAJOLE
TO SAVE HIS FUTURE IS GOOD FOR THE PARTY
BUT HER TAN LINES TRUMPED ALL THAT FISCAL CONTROL
THOSE PLEAS FOR FORGIVENESS ARE PRETTY DAMN TARDY.
STAND IN HIS WAY? STAND IN HIS WAY? YOU’LL…

TRIP THAT LOUSE!
TRIP THAT LOUSE!

HOLIDAYS ARE COMIN’ AND THIS GETS STICKY
HAVIN’ HIM AT THE TABLE SHOULD MAKE YOU SICKLY
THIS TURKEY-GUY PLEASE KEEP OFF YOUR LIST
HE CAN GO SALSA WITH HIS ARGENTINE MISS.
LEAVE HIS CHAIR EMPTY, JUST…

SKIP THAT LOUSE!
SKIP THAT LOUSE!

HE’S PROBABLY TELLIN’ YOU HE’S FILLED WITH REMORSE
HE WANTS TO BE PUNISHED, BEATEN WITH FORCE
DON’T HESITATE. THIS WILL MAKE YOU FEEL GOOOOD
GRAB SOMETHING ROUGH, HIDE HIS FACE WITH A HOOD
AND WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT…

WHIP THAT LOUSE!
WHIP THAT LOUSE!

AS HE CRUMBLES, TEARS OF PITY YOU MAY SHED
YOU MAY EVEN WEAKEN AND LET HIM INTO YOUR BED
HE MAY HAVE HIS WAY, THEN FALL OFF TO SLEEP
WHILE HE’S LYIN’ PEACEFUL, REMEMBER HE’S A CREEP.
GO GET YOUR SCISSORS AND…

SNIP THAT LOUSE!
SNIP THAT LOUSE!

THE DAY WILL COME WHEN YOU’RE READY FOR SOME FUN
TRY SAN DIEGO FOR ITS SURF AND ITS SUN
FIND A BLOND SURFER FOR YOUR OWN BOY HOTTIE.
WHEN THE GOV ASKS WHY? IT’S THAT TWENNY-SOMETHIN’ BODY.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO…

FLIP THAT LOUSE!
FLIP THAT LOUSE!


A very special thanks to those of you who actively participated. If Jenny will sing this number with the same sneering, finger pointing, take-no-poop attitude, she’ll be just fine. Trust me. Music works miracles.

The Mama and The Papa

Her nickname was Mama, pronounced Ma-maah. She was a black woman from Louisiana, who came to New York to begin a career that she would not be allowed to pursue in almost any other U.S. city. In 1961 she rented the basement of a building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and started an experimental theater, which she named Café La Mama.

She started her theater to help two of her friends who wanted to be playwrights. Even back then, Broadway was ruled by box office mainstreamism, and Off-Broadway -- once a freer alternative -- was fast becoming a near clone. The fresh artistic voices that were often angry, irreverent, even revolutionary, found homes in the random collection of New York churches, cafes and basements that became collectively known as Off-Off-Broadway.

La Mama began with tiny audiences. Mama would walk on stage before each performance and ring a cowbell to get all five or ten, in attendance, to stop talking. To sustain the theater and the playwrights and actors who slept on her floor and ate her food, Mama kept her day job.

They did daring, ground-breaking work in that basement at 321 Ninth Street, work that got them noticed, but they were forced to move, several times – pushed out by complaining neighbors, racism, phony charges of prostitution, zoning regulations, and license requirements aimed at cleaning up the riff-raff.

New York was not hospitable, but Mama dealt with it all, attracting, protecting, and nurturing new artists, allowing them to push the artistic envelope, while she battled city hall.

Mama’s real name was Ellen Stewart. You can be an avid theatergoer and not recognize the name. She was a tireless promoter, but never a self-promoter, which might explain why the names of some that she nurtured: Sam Shepard, Terence McNally, Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Harvey Keitel, Danny DeVito, James Coco, and Al Pacino are more recognizable. Ellen introduced Harold Pinter to American audiences.

In 1965 Ellen took her show on the road. Her troupe performed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, and eventually in more than 70 countries. Ellen spread the gospel of experimental theater all over the world, and brought the world’s artists back to La Mama.

In the late 1960s, La Mama, the anti-Broadway, harnessed the energy, creativity, and social upheaval of the times in ways that sometimes pushed their productions onto Broadway stages, Hair, Godspell, and Jesus Christ Superstar started at La Mama before going neon.

Even with success, La Mama lacked a permanent home, that is, until 1970 when Ellen’s tenacious fundraising, having won grant money from the Ford, Rockefeller, and Kaplan foundations, enabled La Mama to buy its own building, from which it could not be evicted.

That is, until 1992, when the theater was threatened with foreclosure and needed to be saved.

Friends, made along the way, helped rescue La Mama. Friends like Robert DeNiro, Estelle Getty, Sally Kirkland, F. Murray Abraham, and Billy Crystal. Mama was never about getting rich, and maybe that had a little something to do with earning the respect and admiration of those who mattered most.

For nearly 50 years, Ellen Stewart has provided a stage for the new, the original, and the provocative.

Still, her work is not done. Asclepius is now running at La Mama. Asclepius was the Greek god of medicine and healing. Some think the play is Ellen’s poetic commentary on our present health care system. Asclepius was conceived, written, and directed by Ellen Stewart. She is believed to be 91 years old, and has been in ill health for the majority of those years.

The story of Ellen Stewart and La Mama -- from a dingy dirt floor basement to one of the most influential forces in American theater -- really is quite a story.

But it is not the story I came here to tell.

You see, in 1950, when Ellen first arrived in the Big Apple, with sixty dollars to her name, it was to pursue her dream of becoming…

…a fashion designer.

Alone and broke, she walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral, lit some candles, and prayed for a break. On the way out, she noticed the sign across the street for Saks Fifth Avenue. She had never heard of Saks Fifth Avenue, but she walked in, found the personnel department and asked for a job. While sitting there, designer, Edith Lances walked in, looking for someone to snip threads from brassieres. Instantly, Ellen had a job.

If you don’t have religion, that might make you reconsider.

Black women who worked at Saks were required to wear blue smocks. I’m sure all blue smocked black women looked pretty much alike to everyone else. Maybe that was the point: to conceal their individuality. But, customers began to notice the colorful handmade clothing that Ellen wore under her blue smock. They wanted to know what department they could visit to buy something like it for themselves.

Three months after starting at Saks, snipping threads from bras, Ellen became executive designer of sportswear. Her designs were a sensation. She became the only American to have two gowns at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The career of her dreams was now reality.

And she lived that reality, until her health made her quit. She had a heart condition and more. Ellen does not shed much light on the details of her life. Those who love her story are left to connect the dots themselves. But she ended up resigning from Saks and doing freelance designs for Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.

Then, she had a nervous breakdown. She went to Morocco for a change of scenery and a change of life. She rested and reflected. Then, she returned to New York, rented a basement and opened her theater.

And now, as commentator, Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story.

Well, not quite. There’s still a piece missing.

And here it is.

When she first arrived in New York, in 1950, she explored the neighborhoods. On the Lower East Side, she happened onto Orchard and Delancy Streets, where the sidewalks were crammed with tables and pushcarts, piled high with fabric.

There she met Abraham Diamond. The elderly Jewish merchant and the black woman from Louisiana became friends. When she’d visit, he would hand her a packet of fabric with a request to make something special. She would come back, wearing what she had made, and he would parade her around, showing off her creations -- the creations that, at Saks, would be seen and admired, sticking out, irrepressibly, from under her blue smock.

The fabric, of course, was a wonderful gift, but perhaps not as precious as the accompanying words of advice, that to find fulfillment, she should have a pushcart, and that she should push it for others.

Ellen later said that, while recovering in Morocco many years later, the words of the man she called, Papa Diamond came back to her.

The basement she rented at 321 Ninth Street was supposed to be a studio, for displaying her designs. Instead it became Café La Mama, with a pushcart wheel hung over the entrance.

Find fulfillment by pushing the cart for others. Interesting concept.

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Postscript: It is not easy to obtain the facts of Ellen Stewart’s life. Do the research and you will find contradictory information on her age, place of birth, the exact nature of her health problems, and other details that would normally be easily accessible. But, on personal matters, Ellen has not been one to set the record straight. One day there will be a definitive biography, written by a privileged member of her inner circle. Until then, she will live in the kind of mystery that surrounds an avant-garde stage character. And, she probably prefers it that way.

Dear Ford Motor Company, I Have An Idea...

That’s right FMC, I have an idea, and I think you’re going to like it.

But first, let me just say congratulations! You won. You played it perfectly by not taking the bailout money. GM took piles of it and then went back and begged for more, and now they’re in Chapter 11 anyway. It couldn’t have worked out any better if your own writers had written the script.

And by the way, did they? Just thought I’d ask.

Didn’t you just love (privately, of course) that little business of closing all of those dealerships with almost no notice? What mischievous Tokyo consulting firm suggested that PR triumph?

Story after story of family-run dealerships, doing business in their communities for generations, sponsoring little league teams, supporting the local theater company, remaining loyal to GM and Chrysler through good times and bad, suddenly and callously forced to sell the their cars at huge losses – cars they had bought in good faith, cars they were often pressured to buy – putting their employees out of work and driving the owners into financial ruin. Nice.

And won’t that be the gift that keeps on giving, as we get to drive by all the prominently located shuttered dealerships, in buildings that will likely sit depressingly empty for a very long time, serving as monuments to incompetence. Catchy phrase, don’t you think?

So, while GM continues to implode (and Chrysler, well, I think we can safely forget about them. Can’t we?), Ford is fast on the way to becoming America’s Car Company.

And, your brilliant strategy is starting to show.

Your cars have been getting some very impressive reviews. I rented a Fusion recently. Not a bad car at all. And, I can see myself driving a Mustang, or maybe an Escape, but I’ll get to that later.

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed at least three taxicabs that were Escape hybrids.Yup, the next time the price of gas goes out of sight, those guys will be shuttling passengers without losing profits. Smart. Very smart. It’s great street-level, sticky advertising, and it won’t cost you a dime.

And, speaking of great street-level, sticky advertising, here’s my idea.

This has been a bitch of a year for all of us. You’re probably stuck with some cars that, sadly, will never get sold. I’ve heard that some of those cars will eventually be worth less than the ground they sit on and will be sent to the crusher to be turned into metal splinters.

I would like you to save one of those for me. My Subaru Forester is on its last legs. I’ve been driving foreign cars my whole adult life. It’s time for me to get with the program – The Ford Program.

Here’s my deal. Give me one of those cars. Like a lot of people, I happen to be a victim of this very dismal economy. But, please do not think that I’m asking for a gift. Far from it. I want you to turn the car into a mobile billboard. You could paint a powerful message on both sides like: Ford Escape Hybrid – 34-MPG City, or Most Fuel-Efficient SUV On The Road Today – something like that.

Your job is to figure out the message and my job will be to get out there and spread that message. And I just happen to have a few strategies for doing this.

STRATEGY #1:

I call this my CAN’T MISS ME IF THEY TRY STRATEGY.

I would intentionally get caught in traffic jams, where I’m on a highway, heading in the jammed up direction. Where heading south is bumper to bumper, I would be heading south.

I would be sure to be in the left hand lane, so that free flowing traffic, heading north would have to see your mobile billboard, and I would smile and wave as those cars pass by. They would plainly see how much I was enjoying the traffic jam in my comfy, fuel stingy Ford.

I would commit to doing this at least three days per week, for at least an hour per day. We’ll put that in my contract.

STRATEGY #2:

I call this my HOW MANY CASES OF TOILET PAPER WILL FIT? STRATEGY.

I will make weekly trips to Costco, where I will buy cases of as much bulky product as could be neatly packed into the car.

First, I would be centrally parked so that shoppers going to or from the store could watch me cheerfully loading cases of toilet paper, paper towels, humongous bottles of salad dressing and tomato sauce, into the cargo space. While loading my mobile billboard, I would loudly remark, “I can’t believe how much this car can hold. It’s practically impossible to fill this baby up.”

STRATEGY #3:

This little gem is called the HERE COME THE ELEPHANTS STRATEGY.

For exposure to pedestrian traffic, there is nothing better than being downtown when families are walking from the parking garages to the civic center or arena to go see the circus. The trick here is to be stuck at a crosswalk where the pedestrian traffic never lets up. If you don’t hit it just right, you circle around until you do.

It’s not just circuses. This strategy works great for sporting events, home or garden shows – any event where pedestrians cheerfully exercise their right to ignore green lights and saunter across busy streets, sticking it to people behind the wheel. I confess, I don’t understand the mentality, since most of those pedestrians had just, themselves, been behind the wheel. But, no matter, it works every time.

Well FMC, are you with me so far? Admit it, you like this, don’t you? Now, let me give you the big picture, which is not just me out there spreading the good word about America’s Car Company, its lots of us. It’s an army of highly trained, super motivated, unemployed foot soldiers (make that: car soldiers) positioned strategically across the country, on a mission.

Are you seeing the heartwarming PR in this fabulous campaign?

Well, Ford guys, that’s just a taste. I have other ideas. Lots of them. But, I don’t want to give them away all at once. If you like this deal, I’ll be happy to send you a proposal with lots of detail. I don’t want to be negative, but I did see that movie about the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, who brought his idea straight to you and you stole it, basically ruining his life.

Look, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of. And, besides, that was the old Ford Motor Company.

The new Ford Motor Company has found its Focus, created its Fusion, made its Escape, and gained its Edge. Pretty good, hah? And, there’s a lot more where that came from.

I’ll be waiting for your call. Oh…and, red, if possible.

Out of Work, Luck, Sight, and Mind

September, 2008 - 321,000

October, 2008 - 380,000

November, 2008 - 597,000

December, 2008 - 681,000

January, 2009 - 655,000

February, 2009 - 651,000

March, 2009 - 699,000

April, 2009 - 539,000


These are the official figures of non-farm job losses, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And what a story they tell. The economy hadn't been a good story for sometime, but in October, it went over the cliff, and by November...well, the numbers tell the story. Come to think of it, there are many more stories that the figures don’t tell – several million stories.

You often hear it said that the economy is shedding jobs. Shedding jobs? If you’re a few pounds overweight, you might want to shed a few pounds. You may get mad at your cat, when she sheds all over the furniture. Let’s agree to drop the word shed and replace it with hemorrhage – as in blood. Much more appropriate, don’t you think?

To listen to some, we should have taken to the streets and celebrated those April job loss numbers. They were “surprisingly good.” The markets reacted well. There’s cause for optimism. The May numbers will be out on June 5th. Who knows? We may fall below the 500,000 mark. That will certainly be cause for celebration. Won’t it?

Imagine only 500,000 new souls being added to the ranks of the unemployed. As if that spectacular news isn’t enough, we are hearing reports that the housing market may finally be bottoming out. It probably hasn’t quite hit bottom yet, but let’s try not to be the skunk at the picnic.

Make no mistake about it. Good news will soon be upon us and we’re going to greet it with open arms. We’ve been waiting anxiously for it and we’re ready to start cheering, no matter what.

But about those millions of stories that don’t get told. The human stories behind the staggering numbers that are mostly confined to charts and graphs. Unless, their story just happens to strike a certain human-interest cord, which gets them singled out by 60 Minutes or featured in your local newspaper, you will not know them. And they will not know each other.

Today, dignity is protected, at all costs. No more standing in line to get your public assistance check. Our sensitive society spares you the humiliation. You go online. You get it in the mail, or by direct deposit. They give you classy looking debit cards, rather than ugly, demeaning food stamps. You are protected from prying eyes. From busybodies who want to know your business. You are practically invisible.

I did not live through the Great Depression. I know those sad times only through books, movies and black and white photographs. Those pictures of men standing in the bread lines or swinging pick axes by the side of a road made an indelible impression.

For those men there was no anonymity. They were out in the open. But, they were with each other. There were lots of others standing in the same lines, who were just as down and out and just as visible – real faces, not just statistics.

Today, how awfully alone some people must feel in the dignified privacy of their own homes. Not seeing the faces of neighbors and strangers as burdened as themselves. And how much worse it will seem to them when confronted with headlines and news stories announcing: The End of The Recession, and reports on a Return to Normalcy.

Get ready to hear about how well so many of us are doing. Stimulus money creating new businesses and revitalizing existing ones. New opportunities creating new fortunes. Consumer confidence back at last. Mall shoppers once again piling onto the escalators.

But don’t look for good job numbers quite so soon.

Jobs come back slowly – painfully slowly. Businesses get good at running lean. They will see the economy getting healthy, but they will not yet trust it to stay healthy. They will wait to hire. And the employment numbers will stay bad, though experts will tell us that they are not as bad as they could be – not nearly as bad as they could be.

But what about all of the individual downward spirals that have been set in motion – taking families and futures slowly down the drain? For so many, a job loss is just the first loss, followed by losses of incalculable value: marriage, home, health, life-savings, education. For some strong or fortunate souls, the spiral will slow or maybe stop, providing breathing room, allowing them to recover.

For others, it will not.

I have no idea how many will fall into the recover category and how many will continue whirling downward. I just know that there will be a lot of each. For the recoverers, let’s be grateful – not just for them, but also for ourselves. We’ll remain stronger.

For the down-the-drainers, I guess it’s better not to see them. Seeing them up close could cost us our optimism.

Remember, you heard it here. The good news is coming.

Boxing Lessons From Nana

When I was in the fourth and fifth grades, my parents regularly went out on Friday nights, leaving my grandmother with the job of keeping an eye on my sister and me. I don’t remember what my sister did on those nights, but I remember quite vividly what my grandmother and I did. We were glued to our twenty-one inch Zenith, watching The Gillette Friday Night Fights.

The fights, as Nana referred to all boxing matches, were a visit into a very different world. We watched as some guys took awfully bad beatings, which didn’t seem to bother my grandmother, who grew up in a much rougher environment than her suburban grandkid. We watched Carmen Basilio win, while covered in his own blood. “Don’t worry,” she told me. “He’s a bleeder. He’s not really hurt.”

At that age, all of the fights, including the bad ones, were interesting. All of them had lessons to be learned. Lesson #1: You sometimes get beaten up while you’re trying to win, or maybe trying, with everything you’ve got, not to lose.

Not all fights were clean, crisp exchanges of jabs, crosses, and uppercuts. Some featured round after round of one fighter draped around the other like in a scene from They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Lesson #2: Fighting while exhausted comes with being a pro.

One of those Friday nights held special significance for all of us at school who hung around with Anthony Vasquez. When Anthony first told us that the up and coming fighter, Joe DeNucci, who was about to fight the tough ring veteran, Ralph “Tiger” Jones, was his cousin, we naturally thought he was making it up.

Then, one day, our teachers ushered us all into the school auditorium, where, sitting up on the stage was – Hol­y Cow! – Joe DeNucci, and running up onto the stage to introduce him was – Double Holy Cow! – Anthony Vasquez. Did that shut us all up? Yes. That shut us up good.

I don’t remember a word of what Joe said to us that day, but, I remember that, thanks to my grandmother, The Friday Night Fights had introduced me to my first real gladiators, and that day in the auditorium at Bowen School, brought to us by Anthony Vasquez, put one of those gladiators very up close and personal. In my memory, he had a small band-aid above one of his eyes. That mental snapshot is still with me.

Soon after that big day, Joe lost his fight with Tiger Jones. “The kid just needs a little more seasoning,” said my dad, reassuringly, and added: “The kid put up a pretty good fight.” It didn’t matter so much that he lost. He fought bravely. But he must have learned that he would never get the best of a Tiger Jones, so he went on to carve out a future in Massachusetts state politics. When he’s on television, I always see the fighter, not the state auditor.

Years ago, I started hearing and reading alarming stories about parents and teachers who used their influence to have scorekeeping removed from their kids’ baseball games. Apparently, losing contributes to a loss of self-esteem. So your team hits lots of home runs, while the other team hits nothing but air, and both teams get to go home and celebrate. Call me crazy, but I think a kid should be armed with more than self-esteem when it comes to dealing with the real world.

The desire to win is in our bones. Winning is how we measure ourselves against our rivals, and it is the way we are judged by our spectators. Once upon a time, an early caveman was the first to club a rival caveman over the head in order to be in the perfect position to club to death a four legged dinner prize. (I guess that would have been a double win.) And, a Stone Age grandmother just might have been on hand, to enjoy the contest.

The great Lombardi, famously uttered: “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” Trying to take that sentence literally always gives me a headache, but we know what the great coach was saying.

You’ve heard the overused line about ties: A tie is “like kissing your sister.” We demand clear winners and losers, especially when we invest our time and passion, and scream ourselves hoarse.

Seldom have I ever rooted for a draw. The first Ali-Frazier fight was one of those times. I loved Ali – most of us college, white, liberal, Nixon-hating fight fans did – but I also admired like hell Frazier’s toughness. They both deserved to win. Only one of them could. It was Frazier’s leaping left hook, which perfectly exploited a weakness in Ali’s otherwise perfect defense.

Find your opponent’s biggest weakness, exploit it, and victory shall be yours – usually. You know that from playing tennis with your work buddy. You may pretend that it doesn’t matter that much to you when you find his or her weakness and exploit it, but then, of course, you’re lying.

Ali and Frazier were each other’s nemesis. Each had the other figured out, so much so that they nearly killed each other in their final contest – ­­­­­­­­­that famous Thrilla in Manila, which should have ended in a draw. The only clear winner was us. In your whole life, you don’t see many contests like that one. Without each other, their claims to greatness would always have been in dispute. It took one to validate the other.

Most of us are not win-at-all-cost people. We want contests to be fair. Of course, fairness doesn’t always happen. Refs make lousy calls that take wins away from the deserving. But that’s part of life. The human element can change the outcome – like when players cheat.

Drugs are also part of life. No question about it, the era of performance enhancement drugs has badly tarnished some of our sacred sports – especially baseball. The records we grew up with, as kids, are the measurements we still hold dear. McGwire’s amazing record has been rendered meaningless, and has only served to shine the light more brightly on Roger Maris. Bonds could have gone on to hit 2,000 big ones, and it wouldn’t have mattered. We care about our winners so much that we demand purity in their performance.

Then there’s Manny.

Manny Ramirez plays baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He used to play for the Boston Red Sox. I was at the Fenway opener, his first season. First time at bat, first pitch, a blast out of the park. Oh man, we were going to love him. And we did, for a while. What was he really like? He was described by one of his teammates as a “big teddy bear.”

What’s not to love about a big teddy bear who hits the ball out of the park when the game is on the line? Well, as we got to know him, we found that Manny didn’t always try very hard. Didn’t run out his slow grounders. Didn’t attack the ball in the field. Took time off with phony injuries, when the team really needed him. Finally, we were happy to say goodbye to the childish athlete with the bloated paycheck.

Still, there was something nice about a guy that didn’t do what too many superstars got caught doing – the drug thing. Alex Rodriguez – no surprise – A-Rod’s a jerk. Roger Clemens – too old to still be throwing that kind of heat – well, the Rocket’s also a jerk. But Manny, in spite of his faults, did it naturally. We had to respect that. Until now.

He got caught with one of those bad prescriptions, and he’s out for 50 games. That little weakness of not caring if he let his team down a little bit here and a little bit there becomes a possible season killer for the Dodgers. The other day, at the command of the owner, he apologized to his team.

Now he needs to apologize to the kids who are wearing his jersey. Kids who have a whole memory full of stats and measurements that they might as well throw away.

Kids who are keeping score.­­

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Astonishing Signs of Normalcy

I’ve said this before, and I really need to say it again: I’ve seen too many movies. You might not think a movie problem is a big deal, but trust me, it really can hurt you when it comes to the reality thing.

Take, for example, Iraq. This war has been going on for as long as I can remember, and you might be a little foggy on some of its history. If you think back, you’ll remember turning on the news and seeing some of the locals toppling that big Saddam statue. That scene was pretty darn dramatic; wouldn’t you agree? It was so dramatic, I figured there wasn’t much that could top it. There would be some more action. Then, the movie would end with dancing in the streets – kind of Bollywood.

Then, they caught Saddam. There he was, right there on our television screens, looking like some crazed, off-his-meds street person. Time to roll the credits? Not so fast. OK, here it comes: The grand finale – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Remember that? Well, that was a very long time ago -- measured in cinematic time, that is.

I grew up with little screen and big screen cowboys. The good guys weren’t always that good, but (sometimes with a little prodding from the townspeople and the pretty school teacher or sultry saloon gal) they eventually did what they had to do. They walked into the saloon, called out the bad guys, killed the worst of them and either jailed the rest or ran them out of town.

It was a damn good formula. Even a very modern Western, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven stuck to the same basic script. The hero walks into the saloon and kills the villain. Clint’s own formula, which brews up a not-so-virtuous hero and a not-so-evil villain, is more morally murky than the westerns of old, but the plot keeps the tradition alive.

Back to Iraq:

In the midst of being stuck in that awful quagmire, an odd thing happened that almost went unnoticed. Wyatt Earp rode into Tombstone, told the frightened townspeople to go home, and that he, Morgan, Virgil, and Doc Holliday would take care of the bad guys. That’s pretty much what happened when General Petraeus announced his plan for “the surge.” Of course, everyone, including me, was sure the quiet cowboy was just trying to buy some time for his boss to sneak out of Dodge, unmolested. A surge? Give me a break.

The Iraq movie had gone all reality on us, ages ago. Every time a cattle rustler got killed, more would pop up. That pudgy, pompous little cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr was continually sticking his thumb in our eye. No, there would be no Hollywood ending.

But, hold-on a minute.

There was a Hollywood ending. The General and his gang cleaned up Baghdad. The pudgy, pompous cleric was told to behave himself. And he did. The General reported: “astonishing signs of normalcy.” Of course it wouldn’t last. But it did. Sure, there’s still work to be done. People are still getting blown up, and Baghdad isn’t on anyone’s top ten vacation destinations, quite yet, but even Tombstone still had outlaws, after the Clantons were removed.

So where was the celebration, marking this incredible accomplishment? There should have been a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, but the Committee in Charge of National Celebrations had ruled: No more Mission Accomplished celebrations until May 2, 2103 -- one hundred years from the date of that unfortunate scene on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where a cowboy president flew noisily into the spotlight and took that famously undeserved bow.

Americans expect heroes to emerge and handle every major crisis. We shouldn’t. We had our Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Patton, Schwarzkopf, and lots of others, including I think, Petraeus. (This is no place to argue good wars vs. bad wars. Let’s do that another time.) It would be good for us to start losing that unrealistic expectation. Maybe it was a good thing not to celebrate the General’s achievement -- letting it slowly slip from our consciousness, making it easier for us to stop expecting the arrival of movie heroes and movie endings. Sure it takes away some of the joy of victory, but we’re better off in the long run.

Now, on to the next movie:

The gangs had looted the banks. Wait, that’s not quite accurate. The bankers were in the gangs that had looted the banks. That may not be it either. It’s confusing. The point is that everyone went broke except the gang leaders who got paid millions and billions for stealing our money. “Don’t panic!” said the new President. “A new marshal will be riding into your town. Go on with your lives, and leave the bad guys to him.”

Then, one day, we met him.

We waited anxiously for him to tell us that everything would be fine, now that he was in town. We listened. He finished. Then, the markets and our hopes dropped like a rock. Some said it was because he was too close to the gangs, maybe even a gang member himself. Yes, that was the problem. Or, part of the problem. He was too much one of them, but he was also too much one of us. Too little. Too nervous. Too flimsy. He was dwarfed by the small screen. Forget the big screen. This movie was not going Hollywood.

And so it continues. Every day, we search for astonishing signs of normalcy – in the job market, the housing market, the stock market, the shopping malls.

I’m writing a screenplay.

I call it a Surrealistic Monster Movie Western. In it, The General is seated at his old roll top desk in the frontier jailhouse, with his shotgun across his lap. (I am really, really mixing metaphors here. It's that damn movie problem.) He is keeping a close eye on Monsterstan (that would be the Afghanistan-Pakistan monster, in case it wasn’t obvious to you), when his mail arrives. In it, he finds a foreclosure notice for the jailhouse, along with notification that his pay is being rolled back and his 401k match has been eliminated.

On the streets of Tombstone, the similarly plagued citizens are looking for someone to hang. He calls for his deputies. Together they round up the bad guys – you know, bad bankers, bad brokers, bad regulators – and march them to the O.K. Corral.

And shoot them.

You think that’s going too far? Relax. It’s just a movie.