The Uncles in My Life, but Particularly the Coolest of My Cool Uncles, the Legendary Maurice Julius "Mitch" Freedman (1939-2026)

My Coolest Uncle, Maurice Julius Freedman, died yesterday at the age of eighty-six, in his eighty-seventh year. To this day, every one of my living high school and college friends say that my Uncle Moishe (as my Grandmother Sylvia had called him and my Dad, Mom, Sister, and I called him) was the coolest of my very cool uncles.  

Growing up, I was privileged to have had six uncles and four grand-uncles. Four of these uncles and two of these grand-uncles lived in the vicinity of New Jersey, my childhood state, at various times. They each had very different personalities. There is the still-living Jock Uncle, ten years my senior, who played high school football and at the University of North Carolina--until a knee injury ended what could have been a potential pro career, though he modestly denies the pro career part. This Uncle loved and still loves football and, to this day, loves Elvis Presley. He even looked a little like Elvis, and I remember meeting him as a six or seven year old, and how he lifted me and threw me in the air (I was a skinny and light kid), which I loved.  This Uncle also loved telling my high school friends and me the greatest and funniest stories of his band of young, mostly Italian guys who were not quite Jets (definitely not Sharks) in Carteret, New Jersey. Their high school and immediate post-high school hijinks remain the stuff of legend.

There was also my Partying and Sports-Fan Uncle, my Uncle Bernie. Now departed, he, along with my brilliant, funny, musically-talented and literary minded Aunt Cathy, always hosted bar-b-que, Super Bowl and New Year's Eve parties. He adored my Aunt, who was my mother's sister, and took her on cruises and trips to various places. Uncle Bernie was the fun-time guy who took me, with his three boys, my very cool and funny cousins, on camping trips, as well as visits to West Point and Cooperstown, the latter place to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

He and the Jock Uncle were the Sports Guys. If you wanted to talk with the Jock and Partying Uncles, you better know what was happening with at least professional football, baseball, and basketball (though they both stopped watching the NBA in the 1970s, while I became and remain fanatical about it). They knew their sports as well as any regular caller to sports radio talk shows and the sports hosts themselves. 

The other nearby Uncle, in my teen years at least, and still going strong in Florida, is my Hippie Vietnam Vet Uncle. In the early to mid 1970s, I would bump into him at rock concerts I was attending. For example, we met up serendipitously at a Grateful Dead concert in 1972, Pink Floyd in 1973, and Beach Boys/Poco in 1974, among a few other concerts. He has always been a happy-go-lucky personality, and a guy who, when you were with him, would always be laughing with you. He remains a truly kindly soul.

My grand-uncles, Nick and Carmen, were the guys who were barely employed, and somehow made money from time to time "at the track." Late in my Uncle Nick's life, I learned that Nick, more than Carmen, made money doing "juice" work for the Mob, which meant they beat up people who owed money to the Mob (with juice meaning blood, of course). They were not, however, in the Mob. They only did freelance work. Carmen was a relative family man, with multiple marriages, but also did some work as a plumber. Nick, however, nearly always had something vague going on. He was already infamous in the family for going to jail in Pennsylvania in the 1930s and not snitching, which always made him reliable to mobsters. Both he and Carmenooch, as the latter was sometimes known, were veterans of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and World War II (in fact all my grandmothers' four brothers fought in WWII). Nick's most steady job came in the late 1960s through early 1970s as the  manager of the mob-run Continental Baths, where he hired a young Bette Midler and young Barry Manilow. The Baths were a gay hangout, though straights went there, too. At the dawn of the 1970s, it was Nick who broke my mother's and Aunt Cathy's hearts when he told them in colorful anti-gay language that Rock Hudson was a homosexual. In his old age, Nick told me that the Mob told him he could not steal more than 5% of the box office receipts--or else. Therefore, Nick only stole 4% of the receipts to be safe, and was careful to never go over 4%. 

My Grand-Uncle Nick was also apparently nasty and likely worse to Bette Midler such that I would never blame her, if I met her, that she would yell or punch me for being the grand-nephew of Nick Russo/Rizzo (he used both names, though only the latter was his birth name). The irony is, though, my parents, sister, and I have always revered, and still do, the Divine Ms. M. Anyway, Nick either quit or left the position at the time the Continental Baths started their decline around 1974 or 1975. From there, he had spotty employment, and I would see him most often in his last years in Las Vegas, Nevada, when I would visit my grandparents who moved there in the 1970s for painting contracting and hotel service work, and then retired there in the 1980s. He died around 1991, saying to me in his last days that he had slept with a lot of women, and therefore had no regrets. It was a profound statement for him to make because I had read already that Aldous Huxley had once said philanderers were the only men he ever knew who, on their deathbeds, did not have regrets about what they did not do. 

MY UNCLE WHO MOST INFLUENCED MY INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT: MITCH FREEDMAN, LIBRARIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE

However, the uncle I was closest to over the past almost six decades was Uncle Moishe, the name his mother, my grandmother Sylvia Cassif Freedman, called him--though he has been known to the rest of the world in his adult years as "Mitch Freedman." When this Coolest Uncle would introduce me at various functions I was invited to with him, he would introduce me as his nephew, but then say I was the "real" Mitch Freedman. That is because my Uncle had taken on the name "Mitch" when he and his then young wife, Hermene, moved to UC Berkeley around 1960 for what was supposed to be his seeking a PhD in Philosophy.  My Uncle ended up crashing out of Philosophy because he had too much trouble reading Kant in the original German. Under his wife's threat to leave him (they later divorced in the early 1980s), he switched to Library Studies, where he graduated from Berkeley at the top or near top of his class in 1965. 

My Uncle thereafter went on to become one of the three most important librarians of the last half century who took libraries from the card catalog to the online catalog, and, along the way, became American Library Association president just after 9/11/2001 events. He was always the political activist, at the edge of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at Berkeley in 1964, but much more a centered political activist as a librarian fighting for union rights for public and private library workers, challenging censorship of books and people, and showing up to protest a variety of things that make us angry and frustrated at how far short the US falls from the ideals we are taught in civics classes and lie to ourselves about. He even has a Wikipedia page. See here.

I think it is clear at this point why I might have personally been closest to my Uncle Mitch/Moishe.

When I was still in elementary school and starting middle school, I was not close to my uncle. He openly told my parents, right in front of me, that he worried about me watching too much television. He would say, "How is Mitchell ever going to become reader if he only watches television?" My mother would say that I read well at school, and had time to grow up and develop an interest in outside reading. She would say I loved reading Dr. Suess and Maurice Sendak, and Hardy Boys mysteries. Despite my actively playing stickball, kickball, football, and lots of bike riding around the neighborhood, however, I did watch four to six hours of television a day through my early teens before listening to music became my passion. By age seven, I had memorized the TV Guide so my folks would never have to consult it. They would ask what was on television for that night, and I would proceed to tell them what was on six of the seven channels from the NYC area (PBS was in its infancy and simply didn't count yet), knowing every single prime time show. I also was a major Soupy Sales fan, and loved the Winchell-Mahoney Hour. And of course Looney Tunes, where I perfected my memorizing dialogue--and also trying to learn to become a cartoonist, which my mother squelched as ridiculous. Oh well. Anyway, I once had to correct the local newspaper for publishing out of date tv show information in its newspaper. In my seven year old handwriting, I not only told them where they were wrong, but provided them a template how to redo their section. In one of those "Isn't America great?" moments, the newspaper updated its format and began to correctly list what was on every night. :)

I also loved comedy albums. I memorized the songs comedian-singers Allen Sherman and Tom Lehrer wrote and sang, and listened to Bob Newhart, the First Family Vaughn Meader records, Flip Wilson, and Bill Cosby, among others.

But unbeknownst to my Uncle, I was reading even more than the children's books. As my parents also knew, I was reading Mad Magazine first and foremost from the age of seven. Consistent with my curious mind, I took the time to consult with sources in our home to understand the many Mad Magazine references. This included my parents, as well. My mother loves to tell the story of an eight-year-old Mitchell reading Mad Magazine, and suddenly asking, "Mom, what is S-E-X?" My mother replied, "It's nothing you need to know. It's just a word for what adults do but children should never do." Somehow I accepted that answer without further questioning, which shows how much I revered my parents' word. I also remember asking around that time--1965--why the astronauts who went into space did not find God. My mother replied, "He's hiding." I can't believe I accepted that answer, but I did for years--until I was about thirteen and then, at fourteen, starting to read Bertrand Russell and the New York Review of Books (NYRB). But I get ahead of myself except to say, both Russell and the NYRB were sources courtesy of Uncle Moishe. 

Our home, however, was highly literate. We had scattered books and encyclopedias, mostly in our attic, but we also had regular and continuing subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, two daily newspapers, and one weekly newspaper. Starting in second grade, I read those newspapers and magazines, and at least skimmed or sometimes studied the books, and definitely the encyclopedias. By the time I was twelve in 1969, I had become deeply influenced by television, radio, and print media. I used to beg my mother to let me stay up late to watch "The Twilight Zone," in its last year or so, and then religiously in reruns. In the late 1960s, I also religiously watched "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" on CBS, and, around 1970, began watching Bill Buckley's "Firing Line" on PBS plus another PBS show called "The Advocates." These programs complimented the Smothers' show as I began to learn about public policy and the art of debate. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., a hero in our home, and then RFK, had politicized me as I thought, What the heck is going on in our nation, and how can we get ourselves on a better track. After RFK's assassination, I rode my bike to the next town (Rahway) rail station to watch the funeral train go past to Washington D.C. and began to wonder how the U.S. future was going to change because of RFK's assassination. Yes, it was that moment I began wondering about alternate timelines, having already been immersed in the Twilight Zone and reading about a guy named Kurt Vonnegut. Around age fourteen and fifteen, I watched the famed and controversial show, "The Great American Dream Machine."

We were, though, still a Cold War Suburban Liberal home. It was a home where nobody drank alcohol, nobody smoked, and we were a tight knit and loving family. We were a family which revered FDR and JFK, and where we did not understand why my Uncle Moishe hated Hubert Humphrey so much. Also, we didn't understand why so many of our Italian relatives were racist and voted for George Wallace in 1968.

As I searched for books and old magazines in our attic, around 1970, I found several issues of Paul Krassner's "The Realist." My Uncle had paid for a subscription for my father--though my father found it definitely not to his taste. I of course had found "National Lampoon," too, and "The Realist" was a lost treasure. 

One evening, around 1969 or 1970, I was watching David Frost on television interview Bill Cosby (!). I, like most of the U.S. population at the time, loved Cosby. In the interview, Cosby mentioned his main influence had been Lenny Bruce. I turned to my mom, who was watching with me, and asked, "Who is Lenny Bruce?" My mother replied, "Ask your Uncle Moishe. He loves Lenny Bruce. He was a 'sick' comic--and you'd probably like him. He might be dead, though." 

Well! That was as great an incentive as any nerdy twelve-year-old needed. I immediately called my Uncle, who at the time lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My Uncle told me about Lenny Bruce, his untimely death from drugs in 1966, and that I should find at least one of his comedy albums. I did, and I was hooked! I also found, at a bookstore, a book that had transcribed nearly all of Bruce's routines. That book became a Bible for me. I soon memorized most, if not all, of the book. To this day, I will sometimes recall a Lenny Bruce line or routine in the midst of something happening or someone saying something else. I should add that, over the years, particularly in this century, my Uncle would call me to say how he referenced a Lenny line in a conversation with someone but the person didn't understand the reference--so he had to call me, tell me the context, and enjoy a laugh at his Brucian witticism. 

Anyway, my Uncle found he liked talking with this precocious and curious-for-learning pre-teen. Knowing I loved music, and had learned some music theory through playing the accordion (bleh!), my Uncle, still in Minnesota, began to introduce me to his favorite bebop jazzers. These included the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, a favorite of his, Lester Young (a major individual favorite besides Clifford Brown), Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Pops Louis Armstrong, and others, of course. He winced at my early love for Dave Brubeck, but forgave me--and I still love Brubeck. 

When I was thirteen, in 1970, for my Bar Mitzvah gift, my Uncle got me a subscription to I.F. Stone's then Bi-Weekly, which I devoured. Then, in 1971, when I was fourteen, Stone retired his then-bi-weekly, and switched subscribers to the New York Review of Books. That is how I began to read that magazine with the big dictionary a family friend had bought me for my bar mitzvah to understand the vocabulary of that post-graduate level journal. I continue to subscribe to and read the NYRB fifty-five years later. For years, I could only talk with my Uncle about what I had read in the NYRB, which was a lifeline for me to have anyone to talk with about the articles there. Every issue remains one where one learns something. It is the only non-formal academic journal where one may say that, with the exception perhaps of "The American Prospect."

When I was fourteen, my Uncle bought, and sent to me, two Bertrand Russell books, "Why I Am Not a Christian" (a book of essays) and the "History of Western Philosophy." I did not read the latter until college, but skimmed it. I (the word again) devoured "Why I am Not a Christian." This book immediately turned me into a First Cause/Jeffersonian Deist, and then later, Agnostic/Atheist. In going through my Father's archive of documents, photos, and paraphernalia concerning my Uncle yesterday with my mother, I learned that, in my Uncle's office, he had two posters of men he revered, Bertrand Russell and Lenny Bruce. I have had the same Lenny poster I purchased at a store in N.Y.C. since I was about fifteen.  It graces my main bookshelf room in our home, though my wife hates the poster--and my children's friends thought it was a poster of Billy Joel. :)

My Uncle also introduced me to "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers," an "underground" comic by Gilbert Shelton, which led me to Robert Crumb and the world of "underground" comics. And no, the recent "Freak Brothers" animated series is awful, and I would never recommend it. 

My Uncle, visiting the N.J./N.Y.C. area in 1971, took me to see the Julian Barry play, "Lenny," with Cliff Gorman. When my Uncle and Aunt Hermene moved back home to Westfield, New Jersey, my Uncle began taking me to concerts, including Frank Sinatra. He also once took me on a trip to see the Strand Bookstore in N.Y.C. When I learned to drive, it was great for me to be invited over to their home to listen to jazz, and sometimes, he would try to like the progressive rock I loved by then. Yes, I had found FM radio, WNEW-FM 102.7 in particular, through a cool neighborhood guy a couple of years older than me. This began to culturally radicalize me on top of the Uncle's influences. I became a progressive rock fanatic, and went to at least fifty prog rock concerts in the 1970s, and another twenty-five jazz or other music concerts in that decade. 

One may think, and ask me, "Did you smoke pot or do drugs?" The answer was and remains a definite "No!" I had no use for drinking alcohol or smoking anything. And hard drugs? No way! My Uncle, however, at that time, indulged a bit in marijuana. I remember, one time, when I visited him in 1972 or 1973 in Minnesota, my Uncle reluctantly took me, on my begging, to see "Harold and Maude," which had been continuously playing at the Westgate movie theater. The theater eventually showed the film for at least two years straight. I had missed the film in the initial run, and always wanted to see it. He took me, but he decided to get high watching the film. My memory is he fell asleep during the film. :) I of course loved the film and would see it at least twenty-five times in revival theaters in the 1970s and early 1980s until I could buy the VHS and then DVD. However, I admit I have become wistful about the film, and have much more sympathy for the beautiful, though still flawed, mother, who simply was unable to understand her son because she didn't know how to relate to him. I have a very much opposite relationship with my mother, who I speak with and see every day. I add this singular fact for her sake as she is still going strong at ninety-one and will likely read this part at least. LOL.

Anyway, my Uncle was a very deep and abiding influence over the years for me, as I expect this shows. I have separately always been proud of his many accomplishments in the library field, and as a person. I was also honored to be a guest at multiple American Library Association (ALA) conventions in the 1990s and early 2000s. Through him I met the sainted Barbara Ehrenreich, who I consider the greatest public intellectual mind of the past half century, as she was broader in her writing and thinking than Chomsky, and far more open to speak with. See here for my personal story with Ehrenreich when I was trying to find a publisher for my eventually-published alternative history novel about RFK and the U.S.  I should also mention his activities also landed him on the right-wing "Discover the Networks." See here.  One should be known by one's enemies, I suppose. :)

This morning, I was trying to find the poem my Uncle wrote in his late teens in honor of Clifford Brown, who died in a car accident in 1956. I used to keep it inside one of my Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet albums. I can't find it yet, but it may be in a box in our garage, as with things like that. My Dad, who is in hospice right now, took the blow of his younger brother's passing better when I said, "Dad, you really have been a great archivist for your brother. It is the greatest gift you could leave him for his legacy." I am also going to try and find some of the videos my Dad took of his brother's various award ceremonies my father attended, and maybe a few of my uncle's local cable interview show he had when he was the head of the Westchester Library System from 1982 to 2005. 

I offer my love to my cousins Jenna, Susan, Danna, and Jesse, and my Aunt Paula, my Uncle's second wife and now widow, and will always say my Uncle Moishe was, among my family members, my most abiding influence on my intellectual development. I will miss him dearly. I am comforted, however, knowing his legacy in the world of libraries will live on, and knowing too how many librarian activists have been influenced by his example and his leadership in the library field.  If I'm wrong and there is something called Heaven, I am sure he is running around trying to find Clifford Brown, Lenny Bruce, and Bertrand Russell right now. And yes, they will be there if God is as loving and caring as people like to say. 

I also end this blog post with a link to what my Uncle often told me was his favorite Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet work, "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You." He said "Sweet Clifford," as Brown was known among his fan base, had a trumpet sound that was sweeter than any other living trumpet player of his time.

1976 in progressive rock showing cracks in the mirror, but still some great music

For the past few years, I have been listing what I consider the great progressive rock and related classic rock albums from fifty years before. This year 2026 would mean listing great progressive rock and related classic rock albums from 1976. Sadly, the wheels had begun to come off from several of the most famous progressive rock bands, with Yes, Renaissance, PFM, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer releasing no albums that year. Nonetheless, there are still some great albums released in 1976.

Gentle Giant, "Interview." This was a problematic album at the time as it was an inward look that was too eclectic for the larger audience that had begun loving Gentle Giant for its previous album, "Free Hand." Over the decades, there are outstanding songs from the album that stand on their own. "Design" may be the best multi-voice work they ever did, even more than "On Reflection," though the latter remains uniquely powerful as well. 

Genesis, "Trick of the Tail." This was a surprising album, as people including me figured Genesis would go mostly instrumental, as with Camel (see below), after Peter Gabriel left. Instead, Genesis began a three year trek toward commercial oriented music, though this album has plenty of progressive elements from start to finish. This was a fun album to hear, and seeing the concert tour that year, where Bill Bruford joined Phil Collins behind drum kits, was a great treat. The night I saw Genesis on this tour, April 9, 1976, was the night Phil Ochs committed suicide. I had never heard of Phil Ochs, much to my embarrassment, but I knew of some of his songs. In those days, where a college radio station played Ochs, I would wonder, "Who IS that?" and then forget to call the radio station to ask. In the pre-Internet days, one never knew who played what unless the DJ told us right after it was played. A friend of mine, who had an older sister who revered Phil, then lent me a double album of Ochs' songs, and I became a Phil Ochs fanatic. I've read the two main bios and have nearly everything that has been released by Ochs. Anyway, though, this Genesis album remains even more powerful as time has gone by, though it cannot meet the level of the previous albums with Gabriel. 

Genesis, "Wind and Wuthering." This was released at the tail end--pun intended--of the year, but I think the US market did not see a release until January 1977. This was a step more toward commerciality, but the first track and a few others still showed progressive tendencies. A solid album with some outstanding to this day tracks. 

Return to Forever, “Romantic Warrior.” The greatest jazz fusion prog album of the decade. Hands down. Saw the tour for this album and still have strong and wonderful memories of it. The show was divided into half the show electric and half acoustic. 

Camel, "Moonmadness." This was third part of the trio of the greatest Camel albums, starting with "Mirage" (1974) and "Snow Goose" (1975). One can still go from start to finish with this album. 

Kansas, "Leftoverture." This is an extraordinary album! It perfectly encapsulates a progressive sound with a commercial pop sound. It has "Carry On My Wayward Son," but so many great, longer progressive tracks. I still love "Carry On," too. Again, an extraordinary album that was to be the pinnacle of the band's creative output.

Soft Machine, "Softs." This is the first album with guitarist John Etheridge, fresh from Darryl Way's Wolf. This has "Out of Season" among other great instrumental tracks.

Tangerine Dream, "Straosfear." This was an interesting album at the time, but one that never made me return much to it over the years. This German band never emotionally reached me, though I knew others who loved this band.

Rush, "2112." I have never been a Rush fan, which I chalk up to my perhaps lack of taste. I will never begrudge a Rush fan, as they have been important in progressive rock annals. This was perhaps one of their two or three top albums for those willing to listen.

Brand X, "Unorthodox Behaviour." This was Phil Collins' other band, where he could let his fusion-jazz-progressive rock playing fly. The other players were classic Canterbury type progressive rock musicians, who knew how to play and with some humor laced within the instrumental music. A great album to this day.

Van der Graaf Generator, "Still Life" and "World Record." I was privileged to see VDGG in its only US tour appearance, a one shot show in NYC (they also played Boston, I believe). They were nervous and took a bit to get comfortable with the NYC audience. The albums were, sadly, weak, when compared to even "Godbluff" (1975), which has gotten better over the decades per progressive rock fans. When that latter album was released, it was seen as deficient compared to the previous three albums, but, again, over time, there are great tracks and the album flows start to finish. "Still Life" has "La Rossa" and "Still Life" title track, but not much else. "World Record" has the opening track and the side 2 monster track, "Mergulys III." However, that monster track is not anywhere as memorable beyond the first five minutes as VDGG's "Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" (1971) off its "Pawn Hearts" album. Nor is it anywhere in the same league as the entirety of Tull's "Brick" and "Passion Play" one track albums, or the one side tracks' Yes' "Close to the Edge," Pink Floyd's "Echoes," or Genesis' "Supper's Ready." Still the song and album are worth a listen.

Caravan, "Blind Dog at St. Dunstans." Caravan trying to get more "poppy," but not producing anything memorable as far as I can see or hear. 

Frank Zappa, "Zoot Allures." This was a weak instrumental album, and, at the time, I wondered about the future of Zappa. The next year, he would release "Zappa in New York" which had some great tracks, though the lyrics are fully cringe at this point in our cultural history. As for pure instrumental albums, Zappa would come back in the 1980s with "Jazz from Hell," which brought back memories of a previous serious and hard mostly instrumental album, "The Grand Wazoo" from 1972. 

Queen, "A Day at the Races."  A weaker sequel to the 1975 release, "A Night at the Opera," I must say Queen straddled prog and pop better than any other band of the decade. The songs on "A Day at the Races," other than "Somebody to Love" are now largely forgettable, but Queen is an iconic 1970s band in a way the other prog bands can only look at with admitted envy. I love that this British band chose titles from two of the great Marx Bros. films of the 1930s. There was always a retro-1920s/1930s sound within Queen's melodies, and even some of their lyrics. Playful, sharp, and ironic. 

Electric Light Orchestra, "A World Record." This was ELO's full march into pop music and away from progressive. It has "Telephone Line," a ballad that harkened back to earlier prog ELO ballads, and a remake of the great Move song, "Do Ya," though this one lacks the punch of the original version. Jeff Lynne wanted a Paul McCartney and Wings sound and he got it on this album. And much of his audience overlapped. We prog fans merely bid them farewell. :)

Curved Air, "Airborne." Darryl Way returned to play on this album, but it did not help in the least. It was a confusing album, where it tried to straddle pop and prog and utterly failed. It was quickly in retainer bins of records stores for $0.99 and it couldn't sell even then. Well, I bought it and was appalled at how bad it was. 

Kayak, "The Last Encore." This band's first two albums were awesome mixes of pop and prog, and really as good or sometimes better than most Queen tracks. This Dutch band just didn't take off beyond Europe. This album, however, is best described as a clunker. Just misses any emotive power. 

Jethro Tull, "Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die." This is the worst album Tull released during the 1969 to 1980 run of albums. It is awful from start to finish. Dull, self-absorbed, and so bad it is weird. There are no songs worth hearing then or years later. I worried about Tull's future at the time, but the next year, Tull released "Songs from the Wood," which was a great album with powerful tracks.

Billy Joel, "Turnstiles." This should surprise people, but it has great progressive rock elements. "Angry Young Man," "Summer, Highland Falls" (sometimes understood as "Sadness or Euphoria") and "New York State of Mind" definitely go into progressive rock structures. I am glad Billy Joel has gotten respect as a musical mind beyond being a mere pop star. 

Banco, Goblin, and La Orme, three Italian prog bands, released albums in 1976. I admit to having never heard any of the four albums (two from Banco). I will have to try them, as I am sure they are now on YouTube. I did not know Banco or La Orme in the 1970s, and did not hear of them until the dawn of the Internet in the mid 1990s. I have become a fan of what I have heard, but my knowledge of them is sadly limited. My Son, however, can probably vouch for them as he went full throttle into progressive and other types of music over his still three decades of life.

When or if we reach 2027, and we write about 1977 releases, it should more of the same, but with some great albums, such as the first National Health album.

Thoughts on the improbable Dodgers' back-to-back, the burning issue surrounding immigration, and my Dad

I think the key stat that explains why the Toronto Blue Jays did not hoist the World Series trophy last night is LOB (Left on Base). The Blue Jays clearly had the superior hitting team and their pitching was more than enough to win. But, in 10 of 11 innings last night, the Blue Jays had men on second or third with zero or one outs and did not score. It was a similar story to what happened in Games 3 and 6. Each time, the Dodgers pulled out wins on timely hitting and more important, timely scoring. The Blue Jays were awesome, but came up short. I have never seen a team like them since perhaps the 1975-1976 Cincinnati Reds, where every player up and down the lineup was a hitting threat. How they did not score is a testament to the Dodgers' defense and timely pitching, especially Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts knowing who to put into the game and when.

But I hope someone notices something else in this particular historical-political moment. The Dodgers were able to do enough to win because of its players who are immigrants. Let's acknowledge first the Japanese players, Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki, who were each pivotal throughout the playoffs. Yamamoto, just signed last year for the highest sum ever paid to a pitcher who never pitched in the big leagues, is probably now underpaid in modern baseball economics. His pitching saved the Dodgers and will bring much in the way of economic activity to Los Angeles and Major League Baseball.

And we are not done. How about Venezuelan baseball player, Miguel Rojas, in the twilight of a decent, though not stellar, career? Rojas saved the Dodgers' season with an impossible home run he hit in the ninth inning off the Blue Jays' top reliever during the season. His defensive plays in Games 6 and 7 were key to the Dodgers' winning those games on the road in Toronto. Also, let's say a word for the Cuban refugee, Andy Pages, who hit terribly in the World Series, and much of the postseason, but who contributed during the season with his bat, and most importantly his defense. His catch of that fly ball in the bottom of the ninth or tenth inning, I forget which, was not Willie Mays. But it was ridiculously awesome as he ran over the half-Cuban, half-Puerto Rican, Enrique (Kike) Hernandez, and got to that ball.

Kike. Let's say some words about that guy! Kee-Kay, as his name is pronounced, is an American citizen, as much as Bad Bunny--and me and probably you. He was key in most of the playoffs, and the early games of this series. It was also fantastic, so pride-inducing, to see him, after his heroics in the field to end Game 6 for the Dodgers, answer reporters' questions in his perfect English, and then watch him answer in what to me, a helpless English-only speaker, was perfect Spanish in response to a Spanish reporter's question.

I say all this not to diminish Will Smith, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, etc. I say this to make sure we noticed what we are also seeing. For, just as the Brooklyn Dodgers truly became competitive in the late 1940s when they broke the skin color barrier with Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella, and Joe Black, maybe we should take this moment, too, and acknowledge how the Dodgers' immigrant players have made the Dodgers stronger--and have strengthened the international brand of Major League Baseball. There were great white skinned players on those Brooklyn Dodgers, from Pee Wee Reese to Duke Snider and Carl Furillo, among others. But again those black skinned ballplayers were key to the Dodgers becoming a premier team. Cue Frank Sinatra, and the film and key song written by blacklisted people.

My final thoughts concern my Dad. My Dad and I watched every inning of nearly every game (I watched Game 3 end with my Mom at her home after I left Dad in the seventh inning). We also watched together every inning of Games 6 and 7. I must disclose, though, that as my Dad and I settled into Game 7, I had to explain to him what happened the night before. He simply could not remember. Dad's short- term memory is becoming really bad. However, for reasons I find intriguing, he still remembers that I am completing my Master's Thesis on Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886). In Dad's young days, in his late twenties and early thirties, Dad was a middle school History and Civics teacher while he attending law school at night. He had previously served in the military from 1956-1959 as a Captain in the Air Force. This, I hope, explains why I am named after a B-25 plane and was born near Vance Air Force base in Enid, Oklahoma.:)

Dad can still live in the moment, though. And boy, oh boy, what a set of moments the two of us experienced together last night. We were both listening to the television announcers in that ninth inning as they used the tone and language that was prepping everyone for Toronto to be crowned the MLB champions, and we watched that at-bat of Miguel Rojas when the impossible happened. Dad never moved from his bed, unlike in other games, while I was still able to jump out of my chair and jump around. He was smiling and not quite yelling, but it was not at all like last year's miracle against the dreaded Yankees. As I was ordering my championship t-shirt and hat, my sister texted, saying I should order a t-shirt for Dad, even though he didn't want one last year. So I ordered a t-shirt for Dad, too. Five years ago, it would have been a large. It is now a medium, as Dad has shrunk down to 130 pounds in the past eighteen months. It is tough to see for my Mom and me. However, I say it often, but every day is a blessing. As I have previously said, my Dad has rooted for the Dodgers since age five in 1939. He has marked the time through baseball, though his History teacher-mind does still sometimes think in terms of presidents and senators. It has again been a blessing to sit with Dad throughout these playoffs.

I will be seeing Dad on Monday evening to show him, on YouTube, the highlights of Monday's victory parade in Los Angeles. I am sure he will enjoy it. 

My Dad and the Dodgers

Last night's Dodgers' victory, with Shohei Ohtani hitting three home runs, pitching a shutout into the seventh inning, and striking out ten batters, was one for the ages. My Dad, now confined in a nursing home at 91, but still showing engagement, was high-fiving a lot with me in his room last night. My Dad has rooted for the Dodgers since 1939, at age five. He heard on the radio broadcast Mickey Owen drop the ball in Game 7 of the Yankees Dodgers 1941 World Series that led to the first of multiple Yankee wins over da Bums in World Series play. He heard Jack Roosevelt Robinson’s first major league game, Bobby Thompson’s shot heard round the world, and saw in person, at Ebbets Field, Jackie, Newcombe, Snider, Hodges, Furillo, and Campanella. By the way, he met most of them at one time or another. He also saw the da Bums finally defeat the Yankees in 1955 (though he doesn't like to talk about 1956 and Don Larsen:)). Dad stayed with the Dodgers when they left Brooklyn, even though he didn't know at the time how Robert Moses and Mayor Robert Wagner were the ones kicking O'Malley out of Brooklyn. He saw on tv and, at Shea Stadium in Queens, Sandy Koufax and Drysdale, and, then, starting in 1985, moving west with my Mom to join me, he saw Fernando. Dad, of course, also saw on tv Gibson’s homer against the favored Oakland A's. Of course he did.

We watched together all of last year’s title run, with his childhood favorite number 5 playing an uncanny, powerful role in last year’s Dodgers' World Series title. From the nursing home he’s been in since June, we are doing the same in watching this year’s more improbable playoff run. We keep saying we can’t believe what we are seeing, but we are laughing and smiling together. Each night, I kiss his bald head and say, “See ya tomorrow, Dad.” And he says with an up voice, “Alright! Love ya!” I reply, “Love ya, too!”

As Terrence “Terry” Mann famously said, while standing on the first base sideline of an Iowa baseball field, “Baseball has marked the time.”

The continuing defamation of Gordon Wood by the "resistance" historian, Tad Stoermer

This historian, Tad Stoermer, loves to overstate things in this Tik-Tok video. It's too bad because I can largely agree with him. First, he seems to contradict himself from an earlier Tik Tok video that the Revolution was primarily about preserving enslavement institutions. Now, he talks about how after the Declaration of Independence, enslavement became deeply unpopular in the North and how states started moving to abolish slavery. He also admits and then wants us to ignore the 1787 Northwest Ordinance did abolish slavery in the Northwest Territory immediately, and instead focus on a Jefferson led failed 1784 ordinance that did not immediately abolish enslavement in the so-called "western/northwestern territories."

 
What the resistance historian describes as "hating" on the Founders is more in this one an attack on what I have long called the Jefferson Cult. The irony is the resistance historian has to talk about heroic Timothy Pickering, a military guy in the Revolution and a major booster to ratify the Constitution, and Rufus King, who signed the Constitution at the end of the 1787 convention, and was perhaps too young to sign, but definitely was active in the Revolution that began more in earnest after the Declaration of Independence was announced. I would call those men "Founders," too, and the resistance historian really can't deny that. He wonders why they are not known, and I would say it is because they did not become president and were not as consequential overall as a Franklin or Hamilton. I wish it was different as I, the history buff, sure know those guys.

But what fried me is how he cherry picks a paragraph from Gordon Wood's really outstanding "Empire of Liberty" He makes it sound like Wood's book was trying to sweep slavery under the rug.  In doing so, Stoermer ignores how Wood provides over the next thirty pages a history of slavery as a central issue in the early Republic. Do I like Wood's ironic phrase of antislavery advocates "inadvertently" pushing white southerner enslavers toward overt racism to justify slavery, which opens the chapter? No. But Wood's point is better stated not at the beginning of the chapter, but by the end of the chapter, where Wood states that race became an obsession in white-dominated US politics, north and south, by the late 1790s. Wood is certainly not sweeping enslavement under a rug. In fact, the word "slavery" and "slave(s)" etc. are mentioned about 300 times in a 738 book, about once every two or three pages. It is central to his story. Wood never discusses Jefferson's 1784 proposed, but failed, ordinance EXCEPT for its actually PRIMARY purpose, which was to show how our Founders were foursquare wanting to conquer Native American lands. This understanding of US officials wanting to conquer Native nations wouldn't help the intrepid resistance historian in painting historians such as Wood as soft racists, I guess.

But what about Joseph Ellis, another modern historian Stoermer attacks? Here I can only say this resistance historian does a three quarter-slander of Joseph Ellis. Here is Ellis in his main, major biography of Jefferson at page 68:

"(Jefferson) wrote the Ordinance of 1784, which established the principles on which all new states would be admitted to the Union on an equal basis with existing states. The final provision required the end of slavery in all newly created states by 1800. But it lost by one vote, prompting Jefferson to remark later that “the fate of millions unborn [was] hanging on the tongue of one man, and Heaven was silent in that awful moment!” It was the most far-reaching proposal to end slavery that Jefferson ever wrote but also the high-water mark of his antislavery efforts, which receded afterward to lower levels of caution and procrastination."

Wait. I thought this resistance historian said people like Ellis never mention the 1784 ordinance would not end slavery until 1800? Ellis sure did. And note what Ellis also says, which is that this 1784 proposal was a "high water" mark for Jefferson on the topic of slavery, which is a pretty low mark for Jefferson on slavery. But give the resistance historian one thing: Ellis never mentions Rufus King and Timothy Pickering reintroducing a ban that was immediate--but note the resistance historian says it passed unanimously. I wonder how that happens if "the" "Founders" are ALL to be so hated?

I can agree with the resistance historian about the excesses of the Jefferson Cult. Still, the Cult is far less powerful than it was two generations ago. Sometimes I think the resistance historian is making arguments against professional historians (Jon Meacham, please sit down) that would have far more salience a generation or two ago. I think there has been far more understanding of the centrality of enslavement as an institution than at any time since the rise of professional academic historians in the late 19th Century.

I can also agree we should have a resistance form of history to help people see alternatives, hopes, and the contradictions that make history a politics of the past that keeps seeping into our present and likely our future. But I really don't like his overstatements and certainly not the type of attacks he makes against someone such as Gordon Wood or even Joseph Ellis. One can be critical of their work over decades to be sure. But Wood above so many has been an amazing scholar who has written so many important and insightful works. Ellis has been an academic who has straddled the Meacham-McCullough worlds, but I think his histories are really good. And Meacham-McCullough can be fun to read and still fairly informative.

To me, the focus on slavery as central is important as far as it goes. But we must never obscure what I call the 1492 Project, which is genocide and replacement of most Native nations in our nation. One goes from 3-4 million Native Americans in 1770 to 250,000 (!!) in 1900. That's a genocide, and our Founders were sadly united in moving Native peoples further and further across the continent, with lies nearly every step of the way, and extermination whenever Native Americans became too frustrated with those lies. It is as central as the institution of enslavement.

See an older blog post on Gordon Wood. 

A public comment I made to the US government not to gut the civil service.

Yesterday was the last day to submit a public comment against Trump's plan to gut the professional civil service known as Schedule F reforms. It was a plan the Project 2025 folks believed was important to knock out the professional civil service and expertise of the civil servants so that dumbness on behalf of corporate power can rule. Anyone who thinks, "Oh, the civil service is so dumb, so corrupt," etc. has no idea how bad it will get if we essentially reinstitute a "spoils system." I urge my FB friends and followers to read this informative primer on the proposal, my comment I submitted below, and then comment for yourself. Please make your voice heard. Not only will administration people read the comments. Courts who will hear challenges to the proposed set of rules will also read the comments and help them understand why this would destroy part of what has actually made the USA great. My comment to the government was as follows (with a couple of small edits):

"Heckava job, Brownie!" Remember that from nearly twenty years ago, which became a "gallows-humor" punch line? That moment of regulatory failure should remind us why it is a BAD IDEA to politicize the US civil service. Yes, this reference concerned a FEMA department head, which was and remains a political appointee position. However, FEMA itself was not destroyed by that bad appointment because the department had, and continues to have, so many great people with practical and technical expertise. This proposed set of rules to re-establish political appointments throughout the civil service will do such serious damage and potentially destroy the entire civil service that our ancestors fought so hard to create.

The fight for a non-political and professional civil service has its roots in political battles during the 1870s and 1880s. People across political worldviews recognized there was a need for expertise in various matters important to human existence. They recognized there was a need to care about having people in department positions who knew how to reasonably follow existing regulations, and write new regulations with good faith and professional understandings and motivations. As there are always ways people try to get around various laws or regulations, the need for new regulations, creating exceptions, closing loopholes that were not anticipated, etc. becomes a very difficult task. It requires people who have knowledge of how regulations function, how people behave, and looking beyond common prejudices and passions.

Partisan politics tends to result in rewarding short-term thinking and often have bad faith motivations that undermine confidence in the rules which govern our daily lives. A professional civil service provides what people ultimately demand from government, and in society, namely fair and equitable rules to function on an everyday level. So many times, one may read a regulation and say, "What is that about? Why so onerous?" and come to find out WHY the regulation was promulgated in the first place. I myself have had many an "ah-ha!" moment where I recognized, "So THAT's why this regulation exists." Partisan politics never gets that far and would rather jettison a regulation that went through a painstaking writing and hearing process.

The argument that executive agency rule-making is a modern "thing" is simply and historically wrong. In George Washington's first administration, Treasury Secretary Hamilton wrote regulations for his department to assist the department in executing laws Congress had passed. Hamilton recognized the actual functioning of the government, and HOW to follow the laws Congress passed, required regulations. He recognized there was a need for expertise in understanding how different situations required more minute, and often more complicated, rule-making. The administrative state was born in that administration, and Attorneys General in the Washington administration understood this as well. Hamilton even used the courts to determine what was a proper regulatory interpretation of a congressional law, sometimes, in those early ethics days, hired lawyers for both sides of a question and helped write the briefs for both sides so the most forceful arguments were able to be made.

The so-called "spoils" system that was formally established under the Jackson administration in the 1830s proved to make for a very inefficient, very wasteful, and very corrupt government, and while railroads grew during that time, nobody who lived through that era nor studied that era would say that this was a good way to run a government. It is why, after the US Civil War, so many from across the political spectrum saw civil service reform as an important reform to undertake. It was an anti-Civil Service reform President , Chester Arthur, who "saw the light" and signed the law creating what became the modern civil service in the mid 1880s. Our nation's civil service thereafter became the envy of the world over decades. Yes, there will always be human frailties that create bad regulators and bad civil servants. But anyone who knows public servants over decades also sees pride in those civil servants who truly do wish to serve the public, and do their best to offer the knowledge and experience they have.

I am a person who worked in the private sector for over forty of my forty-five years of my adult life. However, over most of my 67 years, I have dealt with many public servants and they were, by-and-large, outstanding and caring about the work they do. It was rare to meet someone who fit the stereotype that is so ingrained in so many jokes and partisan attacks. Please do not undermine our civil service system. Having a professional civil service is one of the things that has made our nation great. Don't undermine that greatness.

CNN did a great public service in showing the Murrow-McCarthy play. Its context before and after the play was largely awful.

It was funny in a sardonic way for me to see how, before and after the CNN showing of the Murrow play with George Clooney, the people interviewing and interviewed missed that they themselves have been fearful and lacking in courage in our time. The big issue of our time as US citizens is our nation's enabling, supporting, and egging on Israeli genocide of Palestinians in a misguided attempt to further our nation's strategic, imperial interests. Not one of the people interviewed before or after the showing of the play would dare to remotely speak in any way against what the US has enabled Israel to do and continue to do. Not. One. Of. Them.

CNN put on its post-play panel an outright hack like Bret Stephens, who had gleefully supported the lies the Bush/Cheney administration put out to get our nation to overthrow the Iraqi government in 2002-2003. That Stephen never even thinks of apologizing shows that supporting propaganda is the true way to national success as a pundit in legacy corporate media. And nobody on the panel, excepting Abby Phillip (good for you, Abby) even dared to challenge Stephens. Still, she was a long way off in speaking truth to Stephens' power.

It was also downright hilarious to hear Scott Pelley say that Murrow was a success because of what he did with Joe McCarthy. Even the play acknowledges he lost his weekly Tuesday night prime time slot, and was relegated to a relative few reports (called "CBS Reports") in the dead time of Sunday afternoons. For Pelley to have made a commencement speech in May 2025 telling students to stand up for free speech and speak truth to power when he himself has been and continues to be silent throughout the Israeli genocide the US has enabled and supported, and silent about the student protestors across the nation who have suffered (certainly they have not been "successful" in the way Pelley and that asshat Anderson Cooper assume), is the height of legacy corporate media hypocrisy.

Yes, CNN did a great public service last night in showing this outstanding play without charging anyone wanting to see it on their computers without signing up for CNN's streaming service. They showed it without commercial interruption. It was, again, great. But, CNN's attempt at context before and after almost completely failed.

As a postscript, I'm old enough to know Connie Chung and Tom Brokaw were, in their time, physically attractive airheads of the type the film "Broadcast News" was criticizing. Neither could have ever written the script Murrow did with a Shakespearean bent. They were and remain fairly shallow.

 

And really, CNN. The only historian you could dig up was Tim Naftali? Really? He showed what a schmuck he is when he said Murrow's report on McCarthy was at the "height" of McCarthy's power. Wrong, Tim. McCarthy's hearings against the military were already underway and ABC was showing those hearings every day. For the first time, housewives across the US saw how menacing, reckless, and sometimes drunk McCarthy was. Murrow still acted bravely, yes. But McCarthy was already beginning to slip when the first of the ultimately three shows aired. And I admit that whenever the story of Murrow and McCarthy is told, I cry every time for the late Don Holllenbeck. Every. Time. That was a man with courage whose own personal demons did him in.

I would also almost bet Naftali probably doesn't even know the one liner about "Annie Lee Moss" in the play was the playwright's acknowledgement that the Murrow report on McCarthy got that one wrong. The middle aged black woman, Annie Lee Moss, a federal public servant was most likely a Red. She played dumb before McCarthy's committee when called, and did so brilliantly I may add. But even the Murrow people just assumed the middle aged black lady was not smart enough to be a Red. She was certainly not a spy, however. She was, though, merely a low level civil servant in late 1940s through mid 1950s (and of course beyond) America who lived with a man who subscribed to the Daily Worker. Both knew very well the Communist Party was the only party that fully and consistently supported African-American civil rights in the 1930s through early 1950s. There are a whole bunch of historians CNN could have brought on who have written important works on McCarthy and the Red Scare overall. None, however, are generally allowed to appear in legacy corporate media.

So, ironies pile up upon ironies. Yes, the Trump administration is a danger to so many of our civil liberties. But there are clear boundaries of lies that cannot be countered if one wants a career in legacy corporate media.