A few years ago, I re-connected with a guy I hadn’t seen in about 50 years.  We’d been friends in junior high, but once my family moved, Gary and I wound up attending different high schools.  Which is pretty much like living on different planets. 

After he came across my stuff on the Internet, Gary contacted me and suggested getting together for lunch.  And so we did.  While reminiscing about the old days, I told him that I was still grateful that he’d taught me to play tennis.  He was surprised to hear that I still played.  But his surprise was nothing compared to mine when he said that he was grateful that I’d introduced him to good books and great music.  Quite honestly, I hadn’t realized I’d done that.  Unlike his teaching me tennis, it wasn’t something I’d set out to do.  But he assured me that I was the first person he’d ever known who read Steinbeck and Dickens, Salinger and Dostoyefsky, Hugo and Twain, Robert Benchley and S.J. Perelman, and who listened to classical music.  (more…)

Several years ago, after I emerged from the fog of knee-jerk Liberalism that envelops most of the entertainment business, I began to wonder why it was that so many of my colleagues remained mired in the magical thinking that so often seems to characterize the Left. After all, many of my colleagues were reasonable, kind, and intelligent people. Among my friends, were musicians, actors, photographers, and writers – all of whom were highly creative and dedicated to their craft yet, as is typical of those on the Left, they couldn’t be swayed by facts if those facts contradicted the prevailing winds of Liberal dogma. So, the big question emerged: why is the entertainment industry so disproportionately skewed to the Left?

I soon decided that some of it could be explained by the pervasive insularity that characterizes the creative community. Musicians hang out with other musicians, actors, with actors, etc. And it quickly became apparent that despite the grandiose pretensions that entertainers maintain about being free thinkers, the incestuous idea-swapping of Liberal slogans was the easiest way to stay in the “club” and not have to waste too much creative juice on real societal problem solving. (more…)