3 MONTHS DOWN THE LINE

                          - Ken, Johannesburg, December 15

MOZART THEN & MOZART NOW

My mother wanted me to play Mozart. I liked baseball. You can’t play both while growing up, so she didn’t get a piano player for a son, but she didn’t get a baseball star either. She got perhaps instead, a solitary man who goes alone and doesn’t always trust everybody. Not anymore. People taught me that. Wrote that a long time ago, but the older I get the harder it is for me to be cynical about anything, the world, politics, people situations. More and more I'm optimistic about nearly everything.

Well maybe not about Kenneth Starr, a one track hack hired by members of a party so desperate to get even for having lost two elections in a row that they'll seemingly stop at nothing -- even bringing down the office of the United States Presidency. And, I don't care how many boxes of "evidence" is trucked to The House, Senate and twenty minutes later MSNBC and the world, it would be hard for me to loose faith in a man who has done as much for this country in the last six years as Bill Clinton.

Let's see now, I've lived through eleven presidents and outlived all but four. I've seen the country in good shape and bad shape but never in better shape. Admittedly each of my presidents has added something of lasting worth to this great nation. Usually if it happens on their watch, they get credit for it. As well they should.

Roosevelt saw us through a depression and helped win a war against the most formidable and determined opponents the world had ever seen. Truman and Eisenhower stabilized the postwar years and took us from a war economy to a peacetime boom. Kennedy involved the young in this nation as no one has before or since. Johnson declared a war on poverty and nearly won it. Nixon opened the gates to China. Ford realized the only way to heal a badly wounded country was to take an action that probably cost him an election. Carter made admirable contributions without completely bending to entrenched Washington politics and proved that one can be an even more important rallying point for good works as an ex-president. Reagan was a daddy figure when we probably needed a Big Daddy and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Bush was unafraid to protect our oil interests and give a swift kick to bullying in The Middle East in general; resulting for awhile in the highest public approval rating of any president since the republic was born.

I voted for Bill Clinton the first time because I felt he had some great ideas. He and Gore won my punch in the ballet booth four years later because, as promised, he had managed to successfully put many of those ideas to work and he had a number of newer issues that other candidates didn't seem willing to address.

As I've indicated, it is traditional to acknowledge the man at the helm when America moves ahead on any front. Always has been during my lifetime. So let me see if I can sort this out; we have the lowest unemployment rate in modern American history, the first balanced budget in 28 years, a growing economy [even as the financial affairs of nations around us are crumbling], a surplus in the treasury and fewer people on welfare than in several decades. The problems of education and the disenfranchised are being addressed - finally, real strides have been made in health care for every American and there are honest to God ideas for saving Social Security and keeping our kids from having to save us when they grow up. Gee, I wonder who was responsible for all this? Who was on watch at the time?

Did the Clinton/Gore campaign fudge on spending election campaign advertising money? Oh my goodness it would be horrible to think that some political group would ever take advantage of advertising loopholes. There goes The Republic. God forbid that we should have campaign finance reform which both parties, including one very honorable Republican Senator from the state of Arizona, have been working so hard at for so many months. Last time it came up for a vote House Majority leader Trent Lott managed to filibuster by singing so many choruses of "Elvira/Papa Ohh Mau, Mau" that house members fled in fright and fear of even further ear damage. That same bill is due to come up for a vote again soon. Wanna bet? Pass the earplugs, Mr. Lott and Company are rehearsing even as we speak. Mr. Lott isn't much of a singer, but he's a better entertainer than a legislative leader, particularly when it might endanger his campaign slush fund.

Don't remember any filibustering when The House and Senate voted themselves three secret pay raises in a row. A hundred and thirty grand for about sixty days of work a year and then millions in retirement funds and benefits for each member. Nice work if you can get it (Thank you Ira.)

Morality? Everybody I know makes good and bad moral decisions! Mr. Clinton's sex life is of no importance to me. If I had an affair, I'm sure out of/or under oath, I'd lie and say I didn't. Duh. That's why they call it an affair, you're doing something stupid in a moment of weakness. It's dumb and thoughtless enough to do the deed in the first place, let alone assist someone out to get you by helping to uncover the so called facts... Sorry, but the Presidency, especially a good one, is far more important than a sexual indiscretion.

Does Mr. Clinton owe you and me an apology? He does not. I think his public contrition has been more than sufficient. Now if I felt that Sox & Buddy weren't getting three square a day, I'd be pissed. Based on the photo ops I've seen they look contented; as are the American people with this President and the job he's doing for all of us. Ask the pollsters.

Perjury? Is there a worse kind of lying to the American People than Congress & The House adding unprocessed pork on to already debated bills then passing them in the middle of the night? Make-work pork that builds bridges in your state that go nowhere, while the nations overused highways go to hell? I loved Lawrence Welk, he was a nice guy and played many of my songs, but no one asked me if I wanted to help pay for a Welk Museum when libraries are closing all over the country because of lack of funding.

Obstruction of Justice? Q. How many heads of tobacco companies raised their right hands before congress and swore they knew nothing about tobacco causing Cancer. A. All of them. Q. How many millions of dollars have tobacco companies contributed to elected politicians? A. It isn't millions, it is billions. Q. How many of those lying tobacco company presidents [now all conveniently ex-presidents] have been brought up on perjury and obstruction of justice charges? A. None. No one in Congress has even suggested such an unthinkable thing. On the contrary "Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky argues that law makers have a constitutional right to take money from special interests, especially the tobacco industry" [The New York Times 9/8/98.]

Would I vote to impeach this president? Listen up. If in the next two years Mr. Clinton continued to perform domestically and in matters of foreign policy the way he has in the past six, I'd work for him and vote for the Clinton/Gore ticket again. Alas that's constitutionally impossible.

The nights get longer every year. There’s always somebody whistling down the corridor, but when you open up the door nobody’s there. I’ve been thinking of giving up the old life, maybe learning to play Mozart. But I guess you can’t make that kind of music in baseball gloves. About as difficult as trying to run the country with both of your hands tied behind your back. Well one president during my lifetime has been able to do a helluva job of continuing to govern and govern brilliantly for some time now under just such circumstances.

I voted for a president, not a saint. I'm thrilled and delighted that I got exactly what I voted for and as far as I'm concerned he turned out to be the best of the eleven. If this president is impeached, the big looser won't be Mr. Clinton it will be the country. Winners? How about Mama Lewinsky, keeper of the stained dress? Her daughter was offered seven million for a tell all book. Mom is holding out for 10 mil. Take the seven, honey, if you still can get it. By the time those 36 boxes of "evidence" that cost about 40 Million of taxpayer money are leaked, your sleazy story won't be worth 2 bits. As for you Ms. Tripp, you may wind up being a friend in need. Sorry, Baby, the boat sailed.

                                - "My Mother Wanted me to play Mozart" is from                                     "The Earth", 1968. "Mozart Now," 9/10/98

AMERICAN LANGUAGE

It is a rich and ruddy language
full of sweet and salty talk,
one that should be held aloft as badge and banner..
It even sounds good mispronounced.

And where but in America
                could weaponry contribute ?
Bazooka, Tommy, the Gattling gun
                         and Sunday Musket.
As we survey the now no longer
                      distant stars
and count the new heads
still on their way
to seek out freedom here,
so many words of wonder brush the ear
that dictionaries in the making
          die on publication date.

Every day some new word stops,
looks around, then settles in the land.
A poet, among other things, should help protect
                        his country’s language.
Even as he versifies, he adds,
                       subtracts and multiplies.
This poem, then, inspired by the land
the love and luck of living here
observing and conserving words
is by necessity and not neglect
                         to be continued.

What I’ve left out this time ‘round
I’ll pick up another - and another
until the time when speech
with new words being added
is drawn and done and ending.
But since a language has no ends
                 and no beginnings
I’ll be long in dust before it’s over.

I charge new bards to take it up
these remarks and this go-round
add, amplify, and explain away
the talk they hear that no book
                      nor The Daily News
picks up and uses.

And for every metaphor she adds
and for every adjective he chooses
drops an older one that’s worn
or wasn’t right enough to find
its place upon the tongue
the first time out.

                                -  from The Power Bright And Shining,