Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-10-12

The political conventions are over, but I have found myself thinking of the past, not the future. Forty years ago a political convention, in a rather unconventional way, led to my career as a journalist and author. It was 1972, Nixon vs McGovern, a time and a campaign famous for “dirty tricks,” and an invitation I received to be a minor player turned a national footnote into my personal narrative.

I had been a middle-level player in college political movements during the tumultuous era of student protests and campus activism, on the right. State chairman of Young Americans for Freedom chapters (the youth movement founded by William F Buckley); employee at YAF headquarters; cartoonist for New Guard magazine; Editor of Free Campus News Service. Et cetera. A budding activist.

As the 1972 political season began, my girlfriend and I were invited to a meeting in a hotel room in midtown Manhattan by a person who went on to prominent roles in Republican politics, lobbying, and government work. He shows up as a talking head, these days, on TV news shows, and so do several of his old partners. Generically, these days, a “consultant.” His proposition that day was this: the Democrats were going to hold their convention in Miami Beach; their 1968 convention had been crippled by violent protests in the streets; and Would we be willing to travel to Miami and mix with the inevitable protesters? Not to provoke anything, of course, but to… encourage the angry, to seek out TV cameras, those sorts of benign things.

There were enough winks to know what was desired. It was an odd request, I thought, not the least because no recent grad looked LESS like a hippie than I did. My girlfriend might have blended in, but I would have looked like a pit bull at a cat show. No matter: I confess that I was interested. It was a season of dirty tricks. My friend Lucianne Goldberg pretended to be a reporter, and gained a spot on the McGovern press bus. Some goniffs visited the Watergate Hotel late one night, too…

My main interest, frankly, was what I perceived to be an expenses-paid front-row seat to history. Of course I didn’t know Lucianne yet or had a hint about Watergate. Wanting to wear a second hat, however, I had the idea to go to my local newspaper, the Press-Journal of Englewood NJ, which was so small they had trouble covering local school board meetings. But I asked the editor, Laurette Kitchen, if she would be interested in some reportage by a local guy, no charge.

She was not tempted for a moment – Laurette surely was realistic about the weekly’s modest scope in the community – but did ask if I would be interested to apply for an open position, for a local reporter. School boards. Town councils. Obituaries. Since I was floating, at the time, between grad courses and a vague idea to be a teacher, I jumped at the chance. As mentioned above, writing, cartooning, editing were already in my bag of ambitions. I took their writing test on the spot, did HORRIBLY on it (believe me), but was hired on the spot anyway. I have never looked back.

I did not go to Miami. I was a local reporter (yes, writing death notices, the ladder’s first rung, even for many literary giants); moved to a Connecticut paper where I was columnist, cartoonist, and magazine editor; I became editor at three newspaper syndicates; moved to Marvel Comics and Disney; and… 70 books later, found myself watching the political conventions this year, occasionally wondering “What if?”

One thing is certain, after 40 years. Political parties have changed more than I have. Dirty tricks? I don’t want to sound like a cynic – well, yes; I do – but the schemers we will always have with us. Franklin Roosevelt’s crew committed dirty tricks at their own convention in 1940. Afraid of tdelegates’ reluctance to crown FDR for a third term, the Administration stuffed the galleries and even the ventilation system with leather-lunged partisans who sparked “spontaneous” chants and rallies on cue. Even the hallowed Abraham Lincoln was the beneficiary of dirty tricks. The Republican convention of 1860 was held in Lincoln’s Chicago, so his handlers were able similarly to shape events… and even were on hand to bribe leaders with offers of cabinet positions. Sometimes the same office to different men. “With malice toward none, with offices for all…”

But a lot has changed in 40 years. More than 10 presidential elections have passed. Politics is different. The American culture has changed. Society has been transformed. Religion is on its head; not the Bible, but practice and standards in America. At political conventions, the only thing that has not changed, it seems to me, is funny hats.

A party whose icon, FDR, once led a nation in prayer on radio, and had a signed letter to servicemen inserted in Bibles provided during the war, this year celebrated in myriad ways homosexual marriage, unrestricted abortion, public funding of free contraception devices, and obeisance to those who identify themselves as bi-sexual and transgender.

But the dirty tricks of this convention, not well reported by all media outlets, came when someone noticed that the party’s platform had quietly removed all references to God. Even the perfunctory clichés of all past platforms – “God-given rights,” “God has blessed our nation…” “Boilerplate” language of the last platform was retained, minus the God particle, so to speak.

When this gratuitous omission was discovered, it went viral in certain circles. The party leaders must have feared a firestorm, so in the opening moments of the penultimate session, the convention chairman fast-tracked a rule change that would lead to a re-written platform. What unfolded was an astonishing lose/lose proposition.

He announced the new language and asked for a voice vote; approval requires two-thirds of delegates. But the “nays” outnumbered the “yeas”; the chairman had expected a rubber-stamp but did not receive it. In confusion he asked a second time, and the results also were mixed, to be polite, about re-inserting a mild reference to God in the platform. More delays, consultation with the parliamentarian, and enough time (as revealed in subsequent photos) for the teleprompter to display his script, straight from the bosses. After the third voice-vote, certainly inconclusive, the chairman nevertheless read, “In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of the delegates having voted in the affirmative …”

A good result? Good for traditionalists, Christians? Only if it is commendable for a major American political party to attempt to scrub acknowledgement, or thanks, to God, from its official document; to be hypocritical about ramming it back in because a public-relations disaster loomed; to be anti-democratic about the vote… and for the delegates, representing the rank-and-file, after all, to be enthusiastically in favor of abortion, homosexual marriage, and what history has routinely regarded as deviant lifestyles; but clearly, loudly, repeatedly against the very mention of God. Angry arm-waving, red faces.

I could almost hear a sound above the crowd noise as I watched this dirtiest of dirty tricks foisted on the body politic: “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, Peter – this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.’”

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There is theme music to this situation. The great song by Barry McGuire, from those tumultuous days of protest, more relevant year after year after year in our once-great nation:

Click: The Eve of Destruction

4-23-12

This week, two iconic figures of American culture, both of whom made their marks in the 1970s, died. Chuck Colson was a powerful political operative, convicted felon in the Watergate scandal, and then a leading force in the evangelical church. Levon Helm grew up in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas; played various – and “fused” – forms of country, folk, blues, and gospel music; was a major member of “The Band” that backed Bob Dylan; and became an inspiration to two generations of singers and songwriters.

There is no case to be made for “ideological bookends,” or the irony of two enemies in the culture wars: that is not the fabric I wish to weave. These two men did not face off 40 years ago; Levon, for instance, was not even a part of any major protest movement in the pop music of his day, otherwise a common association.

The lives of these two men, different as they were, offer, I think, powerful lessons for countrymen they leave behind. Their names were seldom paired in a sentence before this week, but should be in a certain way.

They showed us that how you live is important. But how you die is more important.

Colson’s story has become the stuff of legend (in fact, his autobiography, Born Again, was made into a movie): powerful Washington lawyer; connections; joined the Nixon Administration, where his official duties included communication with lobbyists and interest groups, and political strategy, and his unofficial duties included dirty tricks and monitoring “enemies.” He was involved in Watergate and the cover-up, but was convicted of complicity in a break-in and scheme to discredit an anti-war opponent. Colson served time in prison.

Having read C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, he gave his life to Christ. He witnessed to other inmates in jail. Colson founded Prison Fellowship after his release, and ever after toiled for prisoners’ rights, visitation reform, assistance to families of prisoners, and chapel programs. He founded an institute to enable Christians to be informed and effectively work in today’s society. He became an ardent, and thoughtful, foe of post-modernism. Prison Fellowship, as an evangelical outreach, is active in 114 countries; my son-in-law’s father ministers weekly in Ireland as part of the team there.

Levon Helm, in another corner of the culture, worked in many fields of music as a singer, mandolinist, drummer, and composer (“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”). His dedication to roots music began in the 1960s and ‘70s. He also acted in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and “The Right Stuff.” Battling painful cancer of the vocal cords for more than a decade before his death this week, he continued to perform until a couple months ago. Sometimes without singing. Sometimes digging deep, from somewhere, finding the strength and the pipes to sing some lyrics. Amazing. As always.

More and more he came to concentrate on old-time country, gospel, mountain music, and rural blues. This son of a cotton farmer represented something I have long held about the value of tradition, race, and nationhood: no matter where you roam, or how much you explore, or what faraway places you might live in, the best journey is that whose end is right where you started.

Chuck Colson returned to his Savior. Levon Helm returned to his musical roots. What really united this unlikely pair, in my eyes, was that they each completely sold out to the things they loved and knew. Their passion knew no bounds. They each died in the saddle, so to speak – Chuck’s brain hemorrhage came while he was speaking to a church group; Levon performed at his house (“Midnight Rambles”) in Woodstock right to the end. How many of us have that passion… and live with that passion?

We cannot be too sad when people like this leave us. They lived worthwhile lives to the fullest, enduring much even amidst their joy. No less a person than William F Buckley, for instance, doubted and mocked Colson’s conversion at first. Helm felt betrayed by members of The Band and sometimes met resistance to his mixed bag of roots music. But in a sense, passionate fighters like these men did not just die – they LIVED. How they lived is important, but to the rest of us, how they died might be more important.

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A predictable number in Levon’s stage show was the great Carter Family gospel song “No Depression in Heaven.” Purposely, the lyrics were ambiguous about economic or emotional depression – because neither will be there, in God’s place. Here is a stage version from a couple years ago with Levon on the mandolin and the great Larry Campbell among backup, and Sheryl Crow on lead vocals. Great lyrics.

Click: No Depression in Heaven