On Sunday morning, just before going to the Charles Theatre for a matinee of Hard Truths, the great Mike Leigh film that finally screened in Baltimore (and, not that I’m much interested in Oscar winners, should’ve nabbed nominations for Best Director, Best Film and Best Actress (Marianne Jean-Baptiste); it was superior to the so-so Brutalist and superfluous A Complete Unknown), I stared and stared at the fuzzy-wuzzy photo above, taken by a zipped-up pal on New York Avenue in Huntington, New York. That’s Andy Stone on the left, a who-knows-who dog carrier in the middle and an LP-toting yours truly on the right. I was fixated on the telephone pole and wires extending to the sky on this summer day, thinking it an antiquated look that might be anywhere in America.
Andy was a “drug friend,” as my mom indelicately labeled him, although I can’t remember him once sharing a joint in the woods above the Southdown Shopping Center. He liked beer. I haven’t seen, or even heard about, Andy for more than 50 years, and if he’s still alive (actuarially semi-likely) I hope he’s a judge pounding a gavel in Riverhead, Nashville or Boston. That’d be a fitting redemption, for Andy had (undeserved in my book) a bad reputation among the reputable parents I knew. He was a cut-up in the public schools I attended with him from kindergarten through high school, sometimes a truant, and twice a year participated in a fistfight after school in Heckscher Park, which he usually won. (Those events were often ticklish—and in my coterie attendance was mandatory, unless you had a note from the ringleader—in the event that both brawlers were friends.) Andy was complicated, perhaps because of a mysterious home life (and I’d wager he was in therapy), but well-read and very smart, even though he didn’t give a shit about grades.
I recall one incident in fifth grade that may have scarred or emboldened him. Hard to tell. All the kids at Southdown Elementary were whisked out of class for the weekly fire drill, and were told to stand in a military-style line. It was a 10-minute pointless exercise, but on this occasion two girls started giggling upon seeing Andy with a pants-splitting erection. “Stoner has a boner,” the gals chanted, much to a teacher’s consternation. As for the guys, we took a furtive look (hard to miss), a few blushed, but didn’t make a peep. This was at a time when puberty was rare in fifth grade, and it was pretty weird. The following year, Andy started shaving, and had a five o’clock shadow.
Anyway, like a lot of long-ago friends and acquaintances, it’d be swell to wave a wand or employ magic beans and Andy would show up and we’d talk about American culture and politics. I wondered, after looking at the picture, what he’d make of New York Times Illusionist David Brooks, whose I’m-fighting-the-last-war essay I read on Sunday. Headlined “How Trump Will Fail,” Brooks (or his intern) peppers his prose—he’s Mensa-smart and well-educated—with names: Henry Steele Commager, Frederick Jackson Turner, Old Hickory, William McKinley, P.T. Barnum, Henry James, Paul Bunyan, Richard Hofstadter, Herman Melville, Fanny Trollope and Morris Birbeck. He makes light of Trump’s assignation with a bullet last July.
Brooks concludes: “If I were running the Democratic Party (God help them [gratuitous and insincere self-deprecation]), I would tell the American people that Donald Trump is right about a lot of things. He’s accurately identified problems on issues like inflation, the border and the fallout from cultural condescension that members of the educated class have been too insular to anticipate. But when it comes to building structures to address those problems—well, the man is just hapless and incompetent.”
Populism doesn’t work, Brooks says, citing the ebbs and flows of the 19th century, a time he believes Trump aspires to. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s way off the mark. I have no idea. But Brooks’ arrogance, writing about Trump’s certain failure just three days after the inauguration, is that of an affluent lunatic.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Willy Brandt wins the Nobel Peace Prize; no Fiction Pulitzer Prize is awarded; Roman Polanski releases his first film since the murder of his wife Sharon Tate; Rolls-Royce goes bust and is nationalized in the UK; Jackie Stewart won the Monaco Grand Prix; the first Hard Rock Café opens near Hyde Park Corner in London; Queen Elizabeth’s “yearly allowance” is more than doubled; David Tennant is born and Cecil Parker dies; John Lennon records and releases "Power to the People;" John Gardner’s Grendel, B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity and Gay Talese’s Honor Thy Father are published; and the Faces’ Long Player is released.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023