Time to reflect

Well, if it's Tuesday, it must be the Orleans Parish Criminal Courts Building again. Jury duty means another opportunity to learn about what the criminal justice system is all about and to reflect on the events of the previous few days. First of all, the death of actor Patrick Swayze from pancreatic cancer, while expected, nevertheless hit me hard. The reason is a bit personal: my father died from that insidious disease and I know how hard he fought it for the past two years. A friend of mine's father is fighting the same battle even at this moment. Swayze's recent starring role in "The Beast" should go down in the annals of Hollywood history as one of the most brave and stalwart efforts by an actor, similar to the extraordinary effort exerted by Spencer Tracy when he turned in his final performance in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." While most recall Swayze's memorable roles in "Ghost" and "Dirty Dancing," his athleticism and prowess made him a actor to be admired by guys too. "Point Break" in which he plays a surfer turned bank robber and the cult classic "Road House" in which he plays a philosopher turned bouncer were two roles which showed fans he could be more than a pretty boy. Swayze kept fans and producers guessing when he did all of the skydiving shots in "Point Break" (Take that, Keanu!). Although "Road House" has generated many more jeers than cheers by movie reviewers, fans kept it popular throughout the years since, even spawning a DVD-direct release of a sequel a few years back that starred none of the original stars. It really all boils down to Swayze, who as an actor first came into renown when he starred in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" along future big screen stars Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio and Diane Lane. The fantasy "Red Dawn" in which America is invaded by Russians and defended by a ragtag group of teenagers armed with rifles also generated some positive reviews for Swayze. I seem to recall it playing ad nauseam over HBO when I still subscribed to that cable service and was hoping for better. Of course it was as dashing Johnny Castle opposite Jennifer Grey's character of Baby that made Swayze a true movie star. It was a movie with a shaky plot and, despite the presence of the great Jerry Orbach and others, there was very little character development apart from the two main stars. Yet, there was something special about this little film. Perhaps it was because it was set in the Catskills Mountains – the so-called Borscht Belt – at a time when the nation was still fairly innocent and yet to go through the full extent of soul-wrenching fallout from the assassination of its young president and reaction to the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. When Phil Medley and Jennifer Warnes' "I've Had the Time of My Life" is played at the terminus of the film and Swayze held Gray up fully extended as if in flight, a moment was etched forever in the collective mind of film enthusiasts everywhere. I'd like to think I had a small part in the success of the song, since I was one of the first individuals to play it for the public in New Orleans even before the motion picture was released. Swayze lost his battle to pancreatic cancer at 57. Other prominent actors like Michael Landon, Fred Gwynne, Donna Reed and Joan Crawford were victims of this particularly virulent form of cancer many years ago. The youngest of them was Landon, who died at 54, and the oldest was Crawford, who passed away at 72. My dad lost his battle at 69 some 14 years ago.

Meanwhile, something also happened at the MTV Awards ceremony this past weekend. The entire nation reeled in shock as bad boy Kanye West (who would have been the first person to open his mouth had anyone else done what he did) yanked the microphone away from amazing wunderkind Taylor Swift and launched into an unsolicited and improper call out to Beyoncé for her just-defeated video "All the Single Ladies." I must admit that I didn't take time out to watch the proceedings as they aired live, but I did watch the entire broadcast via the Internet and it was even more shocking seeing it as it went down in realtime. I must admire Swift's response to reporters after the show in which she admitted to being in awe of West at first and later feeling the kick to the belly his ill-advised remarks caused her. She never put West down and declined to do so when prodded by the media. She is a real classy star. So, too, it turns out was Beyoncé, who allowed Swift to have her measure of spotlight following the earlier debacle with West. The most telling incident to this was last night's innaugural "Jay Leno Show" in which Leno expertly asked West the best, most-measured question of his career. "What do you think your mother would have said?" West, whose mother died last year while undergoing cosmetic surgery, was silent. He couldn't answer because of his overwhelming guilt and the feelings his mother's death still have on his psyche to this day. In a way, it's especially ironic because at the beginning of the MTV broadcast the mention of West's name brought considerable cheering. After his impromptu announcement, Sean "P Diddy" Combs mentioned his name and heard considerable booing afterwards. Perhaps it is a good time for West to take time off and consider his career and the effect his unkind words have had on those like me who hold him accountable not for being talented, but for being boorish and brutish. A little more gentleman and a litle less gansta, if you please.

Fourth time's the charm...

Bride and groom at the Millennial wedding at Mardi Gras World

My cousin Sidney, a tireless self-promoter and husband many times over has done it again. After marrying three times within three decades, he couldn't let another ten years pass before finding Miss Right again. The girl he chose Saturday night, Georgianna, is probably the loveliest and may be the youngest bride he has ever wed, a mere 26 years old. At 55, Sidney, that old rascal, is twice her age and then some, but the couple seems truly happy and unconcerned about conventionality. Take the wedding, for example. It was held at Blaine Kern's recently opened Mardi Gras World, the interior of which houses an antebellum mansion replete with faux live oaks bearing Spanish moss and all manner of fake flora and fauna. The bridal party seemed like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean with "wenches" dressed up in specially-designed costumes that looked like, well, wenches. Leading the procession was a young fairy, complete with genuine gossamer wings. The bride's mother and the bride each wore period pieces with hoop skirts. The bride's black-tinged and dark red taffeta gown featured a breathtaking four-foot long train bejeweled with crystals. The two wedding cakes were also anything but standard. The bride's cake was a three-foot tall expansion of a red bass drum, a blue throw pillow, a woman's bodice and two smaller red drums on top , the uppermost adorned with peacock feathers. The groom's cake was a guitar festooned with sugar figurine faces of all four Beatles. The band played many Beatles tunes in obvious homage to the influential band that led Sidney to pick up his first guitar and, more importantly, to pick up a camera and start documenting some of the most famous musicians who came through New Orleans in the period beginning in the late Sixties. Sidney's photographic essays at the Warehouse and other venues became so well-known that his work became legend even so that his idol Paul McCartney chose Sidney to take pictures during his recording sessions at Sea-Saint Studios for the album that became "Venus and Mars." For those of you who wonder why Sidney's pictures aren't credited on the album, there is a sad story there. Apparently, the awe-struck photographer was the victim of thievery when someone spied his bag full of cameras and rolls of spent film and decided to make off with it from a party aboard a Mississippi riverboat McCartney had rented. To this day he only wishes he could get back the irreplaceable film of McCarntey, his wife Linda and other famous friends that probably landed in the garbage somewhere. Even though those pictures got away, Sidney has plenty of others behind that he's taken in the decades since. A French Quarter gallery on Royal Street showcases much of his photography as well as that of his son Justin's artwork. Also, since the decade of the Eighties he became a tour promoter, emphasizing the macabre and mysterious in the form of his Haunted History Tours, seen on the Travel Channel and written up in travel magazines the world over. His company is the original, although many copycat operators have sprung up in the decades since. The wedding reception went on until late evening Saturday night and then to continue the celebrations he invited family and friends to his Uptown home where he hosted not one, but two bands to serenade guests with even more Beatles music throughout the very rainy day. Not to miss a beat, Sidney unveiled his new TV show "Haunted New Orleans" at midnight on Sunday, the first of 13 shows that will be repeated an additional three times each over the course of the next year. The host of the show as seen on Channel 26, Chicago Tribune owned WGNO-TV, of course, is none other than the incontrovertible and redoubtable executive producer Sidney Smith. In a little over a day, he has gone from bachelor to husband and from promoter to producer. Nice job, Sidney, and many happy returns....or is that reruns?

National Day of Service and Remembrance

Today not only marks the eighth anniversary of the 2001 attacks on America. It is also the first National Day of Service and Remembrance as proclaimed by President Obama. This is far more than turning lemons into lemonade. It is in fact a way to remember all those Americans who perished during the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the aborted attempt on the White House. It is a way to honor the survivors of those families and at the same time to forge an amalgam of determined, altruistic service providers and give them an opportunity to make our nation ever more strong and supportive of one another. If the September 11 attacks showed our terrorist enemies one thing, it was that we as a nation are ready to come to one another's aid in a time of crisis and that we are an irrepressible force who will never be deterred in the purpose of providing our citizens with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those men and women who render charitable service to others should be honored for all they do in making this a better place in which to live. May their actions today strengthen the bonds of peace and love and make our enemies even more fearful of our resiliency and resolve.

The day before

We live in interesting times. Eight years ago we lived in an age of innocence and naiveté. All that changed on September 11, 2001 when organized suicidal Al Queda murder squads commandeered jetliners and flew them into the Twin Towers, the glimmering symbol of American capitalism, and the Pentagon, the seat of American military prowess. Prior to this attack, with but a few exceptions, we all felt comfortable in knowing that the threat of terrorism was real, but somehow less menacing to us in our daily lives here in America. All that changed as the roar of American Airlines Flight 11 bore down on the North Tower. The subsequent crashes of United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, American Airlines Flight 77 into the west side of the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania only added to the misery and pain that all of us Americans have suffered in the eight years since. We have engaged the nation's enemies on the field of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have overthrown a crazed dictator who probably should have been dealt with a decade before during the first Gulf War. Yet, I don't believe any of us feel much safer with the shaky democratic government that has been put into place in Iraq and the truth is the Taliban is becoming more brazen and shoring up many of its strongholds in Afghanistan. The recent election process there did little to aver my fears that an assassination there of one or more top leaders could plunge that country into a far worse crisis and embroil that conflict even more, threatening many more of our brave soldiers. The news that Iran is on the brink of achieving nuclear weaponry is a chilling prospect. It would seem the only country willing to engage the Ayatollah and Ahmadinijad is the tiny Middle East democracy of Israel, which they have threatened for years. Whether Israel will fight that battle alone or not seems uncertain, but make no mistake about it. Were we to be pulled into that conflict, we would certainly be starting down a slippery slope from which we could not remain unscathed. I remember as a child how I felt about communism and the threat of mutually assured destruction from nuclear weapons. Somehow, though, I knew we were dealing with governments, which were answerable to the people. The possibility that religious fanatics bent on the destruction of Israel and America could wield nuclear arsenals makes me no less frightened. Indeed, because of the nature of their philosophies and lack of humanity towards "infidels," my fears are ramped up even higher. I somehow wish we could return to those innocent days of yesteryear when our shores seemed more protected and when the hate manifested by those who would destroy us was separated by vast oceans. The destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was a wake-up call about homegrown terrorism. The attacks of September 11th made the external threat much more real. Today the continuing threat of terrorism looms as a reminder of what we as a nation have endured and the pain we have shared since that eventful day. I hope the world my son inherits is one that will not be as nearly as horrifying, but somehow I know that is wishful thinking on my part because of all that changed eight years ago tomorrow.

The day after

Labor Day is not even a few hours over and I am back at the keyboard killing time while week number two of jury duty begins. Labor Day is an unusual holiday. Few people, if any, can explain its meaning or why we celebrate it. It is not like Memorial Day, Veterans Day or even Thanksgiving, all of which we have specific knowledge. Labor Day is an amorphous holiday that celebrates the workingman, but the reasons why it exists, other than a convenient way to signal an end to summer, is unknown. Let me state for the record that Labor Day is a federal holiday, but the reason it is celebrated in this country is directly due to earlier celebrations held in our federal neighbor to the north, Canada. The Canadian labor movement of the 1870's grew out of a desire for a nine-hour workday and other demands in Toronto. It eventually spilled over into other provinces of Canada, resulting in annual parades and festivals to celebrate the passage of legislation preferential to them. It was in 1882 that American labor organizer Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these festivals in Toronto and decided it would be a great import to the United States and help shore up his efforts for promoting labor interests. The first Labor Day festivities were held in New York City on September 5 of that year. Through the intervening years other cities and states followed suit, but it wasn't until 1894 that President Grover Cleveland helped rush legislation designating Labor Day as a federal holiday in the hope it would help appease labor interests following the contentious Pullman Strike in which 250,000 workers in 27 different states were involved. That strike led by Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union created animus between the railroads and striking workers, eventually causing Cleveland to send federal troops to Illinois to break it up. His response to the crisis eventually cost him a possible third term as president and led Debs to prison, where he began reading the works of Karl Marx. Debs later emerged as the leading socialist of his day. All of this began in one way or another as an outgrowth of a Canadian labor movement. Stranger things have happened in American history and I guess other countries can give credit to us for some of their celebrations. In the meantime we won't celebrate another national holiday until Columbus Day in October. I guess we'll look into that one next month when I won't have jury duty (hopefully) and try to figure out why we remember an Italian captain who sailed for Spain and somehow missed most of the landmass of North America in his voyages to the New World.

The gift of time

It is a sad fact that many of us squander our most precious possession, time. We are so busy scampering from pillar to post for much of our lives conducting our regular business, raising our families, being with our loved ones and sleeping that a change in our daily activities and schedules can hit us like a load of bricks out of the blue. The inactivity associated with waiting in the jury pool is a shock to my system. I am restless, confined to one room filled with 50 people. Across the hallway is another room with at least another 100 potential jurors. The powers that be have warded us Internet access, so many of us are keeping busy writing or checking e-mails or working on proposals for business. Some of us are blogging (lucky us). Others are working on the morning crossword puzzles and sodeku. We are all trying to entertain our minds, anxiously awaiting the news as to whether Orleans Parish will need to utilize our services as jurors or not. If so, we may be impaneled for the the remainder of the day or sequestered for an even longer time. If not, we may have a half-day to do with as we see fit. When time is one's own, it is largely taken for granted. When our time is given over to an employer or other taskmaster of our own choosing, we do so with the knowledge there is a recompense we receive. Usually, it is some financial reward or, at the very least, something that results in our feeling charitable or helpful. When our time is given over to a government, we don't receive anything other than a slap on our backs and a hearty thank you, if that much. Does that mean we should be resentful for doing our civic duty? I think not. After all, if we don't serve, who will? As American citizens, we need to be involved in the process. Some authoritarian governments wouldn't be bothered with the albatross of empaneling a jury of one's peers. They would simply find the parties guilty via a kangaroo court or panels of judges who would act as the state would demand. So, my being here is a lot about justice. I believe in the American system of juris prudence, but I must admit that seeing it up close and personal is not something I would willingly chose to do. Nevertheless, I am happy that I am hearty, hale and able to add my voice to the system. The number of courts needing jurors started at six and has now dwindled down to three. I'm hoping I won't be needed, but if I am called, I will serve. I just hope the judges realize there's a Saints game tonight at 7:00 p.m.

Fires and storms

The scorched earth and smoky skies near Los Angeles are clear evidence that no matter where one lives, no matter how pleasant and peaceful life may be, there awaits the constant threat of death and destruction. In Mexico Hurricane Jimena and in the Caribbean Tropical Storm Erika have lashed pleasant villas and otherwise tranquil beaches and still threaten hundreds of thousands of others in their paths. Four years ago the sleepy and charming Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans suffered catastrophic wind damage and flooding from Hurricane Katrina. Living in a post- Katrina environment, we see constant reminders of the pangs and anguish we have endured. We tend to define life in terms of pre-K and post-K. Yet, we are still here, a bit more jaded and distrustful of government and false promises, but nonetheless here. We endure because of our own support systems that are in place and, when government fails to deliver, we know we can count on each other. I would never wish a firestorm or a hurricane on any community. The horrors of countless tales of survival or those recounting the tragically lost would compel me to think otherwise. However, I do wish that Los Angeles, Mexico and the Caribbean would have the collective strength of character to pull together and help one another in the wake of these acts of destruction similar to what we've experienced here in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. It's a shame that tragedy must precede such common bonds and sense of community. Perhaps, in the future, these feelings will manifest without natural disasters. I pray one day they do and wish the best for all those communities affected at present.