I have seen a beautiful and moving film called “Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon,” and I am very pleased that my new company, Fisher Brothers Media, has acquired this great documentary for domestic distribution. The film can currently be seen on Showtime, but the film is also available to pre-order on DVD right now – simply click this banner:

The film deals with one family’s coming to terms with a son who is autistic, as well as a father who suffered from bipolar disorder. The film resonates with me and my brother Jack very closely, as it in some ways mirrors our first documentary, “A Generation Apart,” which deals with the impact of the Holocaust on families of survivors, including our own family. “Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon” deals with the impact of mental illness on one family – filmmaker Tom Murray’s. It is a stunning and exceptionally moving look at the way this family has dealt with mental illness.

Tom and Chris Murray

We are proud to be associated with the film in another way – our film “Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbook” deals with the aftermath of the infamous Willowbrook State Institution – a scandal that was uncovered by Geraldo Rivera three decades ago. The Willobrook scandal made a huge impact on society’s treatment of the developmentally disabled. Our film “Unforgotten” continues to be seen all over the country each day, by individuals, in schools and health organizations, and has become a teaching and motivational tool among health professionals. We are so proud to help make a difference.

On a more personal and intimate level, my brother Jack is bipolar and my son Aaron also was diagnosed with bipolar disorder four years ago. I know firsthand the heartbreaking challenges in dealing with this illness and how it impacts not just the individual with the illness but the entire family.

It is a wonderful feeling to produce films that inspire and inform as well as entertain. It is also highly rewarding to serve as a distributor on films that matter, and I am hopeful that many of you will have the opportunity to see this heartwarming movie.

Please check out the website for the movie here.

The New York Times gave the movie a very well-deserved rave review here.

I encourage you to join the Facebook page for the film, called “Dad’s In Heaven With Nixon,” become a fan, and help spread the word in promoting meaningful documentary film.

If you are so inclined, please consider reposting this blog entry on your Facebook page to help us get this important film get all the attention it deserves.

So many wonderful things are coming together for me and my brother Jack and our partner Joel. Please stay tuned for much more news to come!

Be among the first to pre-order the DVD by clicking: Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon

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I am thrilled to be returning to my blog after a too long hiatus. Things have been really encouraging for my brother Jack and me in our efforts to rebuild a new company after we lost our previous company, City Lights Media, less than one year ago, and we are working on quite a number of projects and ventures, and for that we feel truly blessed. In Nicholas Ray’s posthumous autobiography, “I Was Interrupted,” he expresses appreciation at the end of his life, saying “I have been given a second chance, and there are no second chances.” So I thought I would tell whoever may want to know some of the things I have been up to.

I have just come on board as a producing partner on my very first Broadway musical, “Josephine,” about the life of Josephine Baker. The creator and lead producer is the extremely talented and successful Ken Waissman (”Grease,” “Torch Song Trilogy,” “Agnes of God”) and I am flattered that he asked me to join him in producing what I think will be a stunning Broadway musical for the 2011 season.

Josephine Baker

Jack and I are producing television commercials for various clients, and we are grateful for their support. We have become “Mad Men” as our company, Fisher Brothers Media, serves as ad agency as well as production company, and I have been enjoying doing the creative as well as the production of our commercials.

We are very close to a green light on a television documentary series called “The Lost Songs of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison & Starr,” which takes a unique look at the history of the Beatles – it is a dream project created by Steve Boyle, and I am proud to be serving as executive producer.

The screenplay Jack and I wrote with recent Academy Award nominee Oren Moverman, called “Interrupted,” about the life of Nicholas Ray, has come to the attention of Al Pacino, who loves the script and intends to star in the role of Nick Ray. The female lead of Susan Ray (who was just 18 when she began her relationship with the 60 year old director in 1969) is now being cast and it is an extremely exciting process. We hope to be in production this fall, with one of America’s greatest living directors at the helm: Phil Kaufman (”The Right Stuff,” “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” “Quills”).

I am working with Kyra Sedgwick on helping to set up a superb independent film she is producing and co-starring in, called “Story of A Girl,” directed by Laurie Collyer (”SherryBaby”). Also co-starring is Kevin Bacon and Terrence Howard. The script moved me to tears and I am proud to be associated with the movie.

Kyra Sedgwick

Since I no longer have 400 employees and a huge machine to feed, as I had at City Lights, I am free to explore new terrain, including outside the media business. I am working on a number of real estate ventures and enjoying the learning process with my friends Tzippy Spear and Arthur Strout.

I am heading out to Los Angeles next week with my new business colleague Alan Klingenstein – who has produced a number of memorable films over the past decade, including the acclaimed “Trumbo” – and we are exploring a project that is completely outside the realm of anything either of us has done – a major global recycling venture. We are working with my friend and colleague Jonathan Zilli, who was head of international licensing at Paramount Pictures for 11 years, as well as serving as head of MTV Films Europe, where he produced six films. He has become an expert in the world of recycling and renewable energy and I thought – why not explore this opportunity – I am free to do anything I want to do, and I am eager to learn new things.

We are distributing films once again, and have a happy relationship with Screen Media Ventures, with whom we have an output deal for Digital distribution, and who are wonderful people to work with. Our first three iTunes films launch in two weeks.

My friend Alan Klingenstein says I remind him of the regular on Ed Sullivan who used to spin multiple plates – because I seem to be all over the place. I thought at first he was criticizing me for being scattered, but he clarified that he was complimenting me, was impressed with how much I have been able to put together since losing my company less than a year ago, and eager to collaborate with me on spinning some of my plates. I am looking forward to our three day trip to Los Angeles next week, and to being guests of Jonathan Zilli, who is also a superb cook – I am sure we will not be disappointed.

I attended a breakfast that my close friend and mentor Richard Rubenstein invited me to last week, which was sponsored by the Kabbalah Center. Like others of Richard’s events, this was truly inspiring and I learned a lot. One thing I was encouraged to do was to think BIG and follow my VISION to the hilt and make no downsize accommodations to my vision and objectives just because we are in a worldwide great recession. That is a reality that must be dealt with, for sure, but I do not need to let the world’s downsizing cause me to downsize my own vision.

I am grateful to so many people who have been supporters of mine in the past, as well as the many new friends I have been making.

I hope to keep up with In Search of Lost Time and share my thoughts with anyone who cares to drop by for a visit.

Often these days I am reminded of Sally Field’s moving Oscar acceptance speech, “You like me, you really like me.” I know those lines have been made fun of, but I feel liked more and more these days, and after a very painful last year, I am, in the words of Sean Stephenson, reinterpreting the past to replace struggle with gratitude.

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Steve Fialkoff is a very talented film editor and we worked together for many years. He is now facing blindness at the age of 56. Please help Steve achieve his goal and remember to count all the blessings in your life.

You Can Make A Difference in my life by Steve Fialkoff

You probably don’t know what Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is – I didn’t either, that is until age 25, when the doctor told me I would be blind sometime in my 60’s. Well I am 56 now and his prediction, unfortunately seems to be on target. I should be depressed but I am not. That’s because of you. Yes, you. I know that your donation is going to be the one that funds the next biggest breakthrough in sight restoration. I’m very serious. The last time we asked my friends for support, a few months later, a nine year old boy’s sight was restored. This treatment was funded mostly by this foundation. There’s another reason; I am getting a little scared of facing the ever increasing darkness that invades my life everyday. Thank you
Steve

Steve’s goal is to raise $5,000 for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and as I post this, he has achieved $781 toward his goal. Please consider helping Steve reach his goal.

You can make a donation here.

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I became interested in Marcel Proust, for whose monumental masterpiece my blog is named, when I worked as an assistant to director Nicholas Ray at his acting and directing workshops at the Lee Strasberg Institute. In addition to the dynamic workshops of Nick Ray, I had the opportunity to sit in on a workshop given by the legendary Lee Strasberg, in which he chose a volunteer from the student audience and used the student to demonstrate the technique of emotional recall. That left an indelible impression on me, as the student was transported into another place, and all his senses were recreated – relived – to the most minute detail. The recollection of the student’s senses evoked the recall of the emotional state – as close as one could get to reliving the actual experience – it seemed a work of hypnotism on the part of Lee Strasberg.

Lee Strasberg

I had the further opportunity to personally experience such an intense emotional recall during Nick Ray’s workshops, using the techniques of Lee Strasberg combined with Nick Ray’s intensely personal directing style. I was able to relive a moment in my life, and felt that I was “there” for the period in which I was in the “spell.” Nick Ray and Lee Strasberg both had spoken about Proust in reference to the subject of the recollection of the senses and emotional recall, and about Proust’s famous madeleine and cup of tea, the taste of which unleashed memories in Proust resulting in several thousand pages and seven volumes which feature over 2,000 characters.

Marcel Proust

I was intrigued, and began reading “Remembrance of Things Past,” later retitled to the more literal translation “In Search of Lost Time.” I was tremendously captivated by the novel and read some of the volumes several times. It is my favorite book, the deepest and most profound book I have ever read – yet I am certain that I have not yet captured most of its meaning.

The book is not an easy read – it is admittedly tedious (but well worth it, at least it was for me) – and some of the sentences are so long that it is extremely hard to follow. I have been thinking for a while about a sentence I remember reading in “In Search of Lost Time” that was so incredibly long and I was eager for another read of it. I couldn’t possibly search for this sentence by perusing the seven volumes – that would likely take me years – but through the power of the internet, I tonight rediscovered Proust’s longest sentence – possibly the longest sentence in all of literature – and I am pleased to reprint this 958 word sentence in its entirety as a special bonus feature available exclusively (well, not really) in this blog:

“Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet who one day was feasted at every table, applauded in every theatre in London, and on the next was driven from every lodging, unable to find a pillow upon which to lay his head, turning the mill like Samson and saying like him: “The two sexes shall die, each in a place apart!”; excluded even, save on the days of general disaster when the majority rally round the victim as the Jews rallied round Dreyfus, from the sympathy–at times from the society–of their fellows, in whom they inspire only disgust at seeing themselves as they are, portrayed in a mirror which, ceasing to flatter them, accentuates every blemish that they have refused to observe in themselves, and makes them understand that what they have been calling their love (a thing to which, playing upon the word, they have by association annexed all that poetry, painting, music, chivalry, asceticism have contrived to add to love) springs not from an ideal of beauty which they have chosen but from an incurable malady; like the Jews again (save some who will associate only with others of their race and have always on their lips ritual words and consecrated pleasantries), shunning one another, seeking out those who are most directly their opposite, who do not desire their company, pardoning their rebuffs, moved to ecstasy by their condescension; but also brought into the company of their own kind by the ostracism that strikes them, the opprobrium under which they have fallen, having finally been invested, by a persecution similar to that of Israel, with the physical and moral characteristics of a race, sometimes beautiful, often hideous, finding (in spite of all the mockery with which he who, more closely blended with, better assimilated to the opposing race, is relatively, in appearance, the least inverted, heaps upon him who has remained more so) a relief in frequenting the society of their kind, and even some corroboration of their own life, so much so that, while steadfastly denying that they are a race (the name of which is the vilest of insults), those who succeed in concealing the fact that they belong to it they readily unmask, with a view less to injuring them, though they have no scruple about that, than to excusing themselves; and, going in search (as a doctor seeks cases of appendicitis) of cases of inversion in history, taking pleasure in recalling that Socrates was one of themselves, as the Israelites claim that Jesus was one of them, without reflecting that there were no abnormals when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ, that the disgrace alone makes the crime because it has allowed to survive only those who remained obdurate to every warning, to every example, to every punishment, by virtue of an innate disposition so peculiar that it is more repugnant to other men (even though it may be accompanied by exalted moral qualities) than certain other vices which exclude those qualities, such as theft, cruelty, breach of faith, vices better understood and so more readily excused by the generality of men; forming a freemasonry far more extensive, more powerful and less suspected than that of the Lodges, for it rests upon an identity of tastes, needs, habits, dangers, apprenticeship, knowledge, traffic, glossary, and one in which the members themselves, who intend not to know one another, recognise one another immediately by natural or conventional, involuntary or deliberate signs which indicate one of his congeners to the beggar in the street, in the great nobleman whose carriage door he is shutting, to the father in the suitor for his daughter’s hand, to him who has sought healing, absolution, defence, in the doctor, the priest, the barrister to whom he has had recourse; all of them obliged to protect their own secret but having their part in a secret shared with the others, which the rest of humanity does not suspect and which means that to them the most wildly improbable tales of adventure seem true, for in this romantic, anachronistic life the ambassador is a bosom friend of the felon, the prince, with a certain independence of action with which his aristocratic breeding has furnished him, and which the trembling little cit would lack, on leaving the duchess’s party goes off to confer in private with the hooligan; a reprobate part of the human whole, but an important part, suspected where it does not exist, flaunting itself, insolent and unpunished, where its existence is never guessed; numbering its adherents everywhere, among the people, in the army, in the church, in the prison, on the throne; living, in short, at least to a great extent, in a playful and perilous intimacy with the men of the other race, provoking them, playing with them by speaking of its vice as of something alien to it; a game that is rendered easy by the blindness or duplicity of the others, a game that may be kept up for years until the day of the scandal, on which these lion-tamers are devoured; until then, obliged to make a secret of their lives, to turn away their eyes from the things on which they would naturally fasten them, to fasten them upon those from which they would naturally turn away, to change the gender of many of the words in their vocabulary, a social constraint, slight in comparison with the inward constraint which their vice, or what is improperly so called, imposes upon them with regard not so much now to others as to themselves, and in such a way that to themselves it does not appear a vice.”

- Marcel Proust, “In Search of Lost Time”

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What can I say, but it’s so hard.  Hard to get out of bed.  Hard to go to sleep.  Hard to get through the night.  What can I say, but it’s so hard.

“You got to live,
You got to love,
You got to be somebody,
You got to shove,
But it’s hard,
It’s really hard,
Some times I feel
like going down…”

Rebuilding:  Jack works on a new edit room

I am trying to rebuild.  I am trying to redefine myself.  I am trying to reinvent myself.  I am trying to get back on my feet.  Hard to be with new people.  Harder still to be with people I knew.  How do people see me now?  How do I see myself?  What can I say, but it’s so hard.

“You got to eat,
You got to drink,
You got to feel something,
You got to worry,
It’s so hard,
It’s really hard,
Some times I feel
like going down…”

I live each day with great uncertainty.  Anything can happen.  My glass is either half full or half empty.  That depends on the day, the hour of the day and the minute of the hour.  Uncertainty can bring troubling thoughts and hardship – but it can also bring wonderful feelings and accomplishment.

“But when it’s good,
It’s oh so good,
And when I hold you
in my arms baby,
Some times I feel
like going down…”

Rebuilding: Joel Dovev

I have been off antidepressants for more than two years.  Today I looked at the old pill bottle and said maybe its time for that bit of help.  But is that really what I want?  I thought of my last blog post, the last quote from Sean Stephenson said “On your darkest days remember what it feels like to have sunshine on your face.”  So I walked out of my house as the sun was setting and walked the 3.5 miles around Prospect Park.  The sun glowed golden on the lake and the air was breezy and nice.  Spring will soon be here.

“You got to run,
You got to hide,
You got to keep your
woman satisfied,
But it’s so hard,
It’s really hard,
Some times I feel
like going down.”

-John Lennon

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“When we’re being puppeted by our insecurities, we read into everything. It’s as if we plot our own demise.”

Ever since I met Sean Stephenson, who is three foot tall and has overcome tremendous physical and psychological hardships, I have turned to him for wisdom and inspiration.

Sean is not only one of the happiest people I have met, but he has dedicated his life to help others find contentment and overcome life’s challenges.

“Just imagine a world where everything is ALWAYS going your way, even when it doesn’t look like it. That’s actually the truth of life.”

I turn to Sean’s sayings every day – sometimes every five minutes. I need to be continually reminded.

“If you know your personal truth there’s no need to prove it to anyone else. Energy spent proving is energy wasted.”

I spend so much time trying to prove myself to others. Why do I do that? I wrote one and only one screenplay in my life, and I placed it on a far away shelf for no one to see. I am not a writer and why would anyone want to read my screenplay? It is now moving closer to production as a major movie (”Interrupted”) with big stars and will be directed by one of America’s greatest living directors (Philip Kaufman). My co-writer (Oren Moverman) has been nominated for this year’s Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (”The Messenger”). I suffer from phobias. One of my lifelong phobias has been winning an Academy Award, as I would never be able to step up onto a stage with the world watching. I have so far been spared such a nightmare! Good luck Oren!!!

“We waste so much time brooding about the past and worrying about the future, we often miss the shimmering of the present.”

Life is now. It is so obvious – why do I continually forget?

“Working on yourself is the best gift you can give to those you love.”

I found the gym to be incredibly crowded the first week of January – New Year’s resolutions week – I think it must be much less crowded now – but, then, how would I know?

“If something is meant to happen, take solace in knowing that it will and no force can stand in its way.”

On the first film my brother Jack and I made, “A Generation Apart,” Jack said the project was blessed and meant to be. We had no money, but it somehow materialized. I will never forget Jack and I sitting in a windowless room, facing each other in silence across opposite sides of a desk, on which was a black phone. We stared at the phone for hours and realized we had no one to call. But there was always someone to call, even if it was a name out of the white pages. The phone on the desk represented an insurmountable barrier – yet it also represented an entire world of unbounded opportunity.

“Staying calm is so underrated. The calmest person in the room controls the dynamics of the interaction. Your ability to stay calm, no matter what madness arises is your greatest resource.”

I have surprised people with my calmness for so many years and have had success with it. Yet I become hotheaded on occasion – usually at the absolute worst times.

“If you avoid difficult conversations you experience painful situations.”

The greatest mistakes in my life arose from avoiding difficult conversations. With others. And with myself. If I can go back in time and change my past to make it better, it would mostly involve adding the many difficult conversations I never had.

“Create a future that is so compelling that you laugh at obstacles. You know where you are headed, keep going my friend!”

I’m going. On and on and on and on.

“On your darkest days remember what it feels like to have sunshine on your face.”

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I have been listening to Instant Karma! every day for the last two weeks. Listening to the raw power of the words and the music. This song is keeping me going. On and on and on and on…

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do
It’s up to you, yeah you

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me
Who in the hell d’you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Ev’ryone come on

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re ev’rywhere
Come and get your share

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on…

- John Lennon

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Following Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts, following President Obama’s State of the Union that was confusing and offered mixed messages –and more recently, following the abrupt exit of Evan Bayh from the reelection race for the United States Senate seat in Indiana where polls had him 20 points ahead, I thought I would appeal to those of all political ideologies for a bipartisan/nonpartisan political platform.

1. HEALTH CARE:

a. Start from scratch on health care reform. Seek incremental but meaningful healthcare legislation that may be realistically passed and improve and extend care by reducing costs and increasing competition.

b. Tort Reform. Malpractice by health care professionals and organizations should indeed face severe consequences. But we need to strike a balance between accountability for gross and overt negligence and lawsuits whose merits are questionable, and for which there is no downside to initiating such malpractice claims as the plaintiffs in potentially frivolous lawsuits suffer no adverse monetary consequences by losing. They do not have to pay for the defendants’ legal bills, which encourages lawsuits. Caps on awards, while distasteful in many respects, need to be balanced by the fact that all health care costs are substantially higher due to the high costs of malpractice insurance and the widespread practice of “defensive medicine” whose primary objective is protection from lawsuits rather than the health of our citizens.

c. Foster competition through the ability to purchase insurance across state lines.

d. Incrementally address the unfair exclusion of “preexisting conditions” by insurance companies through a fund that could be established in the private sector with public sector support as a consequence of savings from tort reform and reducing costly “defensive medicine” to combat potential legal claims.

e. Gradually expand health coverage for the uninsured by lowered health costs – this can be accomplished through the private sector working with the public sector through such methods as tax credits and other support structures that are commensurate with the savings resulting from tort reform and increased interstate competition.

2. GAY RIGHTS:

a. Immediately repeal “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.” Gay and lesbian American citizens should not be required to hide their identities in shame in order to place their lives at risk as they protect our nation. There is nothing to debate – do it now. Gays and lesbians serve openly in other countries’ armed forces – America should be at the forefront of civil rights, not followers of the rest of the world.

b. Legalize gay marriage. Here too, there is nothing to debate. Don’t believe in gay marriage? Don’t marry a same-sex partner. Want to preserve the sacred institution of the family”? Stop screwing other people’s spouses and getting divorced at a greater rate than you get married. Gay marriage is not a “values” problem for anyone.

3. THE ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY:

a. Preserve the environment and do whatever you can to reasonably keep the earth as nature intended.

b. Develop alternative energy sources as a long term solution to energy independence: solar, wind, all reasonable and realistic alternative energy strategies need to be researched and explored. Do not be misled into believing that alternative energy will solve our energy needs this year or next year – but that does not mean we should not do everything we can.

c. Expand existing energy resources in an “all-of-the-above” strategy: that includes off-shore oil drilling, natural gas exploration, development of cleaner coal technology, and a serious plan to compete with the rest of the world on peaceful nuclear energy development.

d. Kill Cap and Trade. Do not waste time debating it and wining and dining lobbyists and politicians. We need jobs and we need to simulate and invigorate our economy. Cap and Trade will be devastating to our economy and is an unreasonable solution to an environmental problem that has not been adequately assessed by a science that is in fact not settled.

e. Global Warming aka as Climate Change is an unsettled science. I have said it – does that make me a skeptic or a denier? Actually, no – I am saying what the embattled head scientist Phil Jones effectively conceded as he stepped down from the IPCC: that the science is clearly far from settled, that verifiable man made global warming has not occurred for the past 15 years, that there were other warming periods in the 20thcentury that were not attributed to man-made causes, and that there was likely a medieval warming period that was clearly not caused by man. Moreover, major fixtures of the “scientific consensus” on global warming have been recently determined to be questionable at best: the hockey stick graph, the Himalayan glaciers, the Amazon, reports of weather stations throughout the world which are being questioned – that is, of those records that can be found and have not disappeared. Everyone, let’s come to grips with reality: man-made global warming may exist. But even if it does exist, we are not even close to knowing its true trajectory. We have learned over the past 15 years that hysterical and extreme claims of impending immediate worldwide doom from global warming have been alarmist rhetoric. We have learned over the past few months that climate science has been largely hijacked by those more interested in proving an agenda then studying science for the benefit of all. If that means manipulating data to “hide the decline” or using anecdotal reports by mountain climbers and environmental activists as a substitute for peer reviewed scientific research, it is a disgrace to true science.

f. Energy Independence: we need to be energy independent for many reasons. Preserving the environment is one reason. Another major reason – perhaps the overarching reason at this moment in time – we cannot be beholden to the tyrannical regimes of petro-dictators. We support terrorism each and every day by financing terrorism – not intentionally, of course – but we are financing some of the most ruthless and repressive regimes in the world, who in turn finance the terrorists who are bent on our destruction.

4. CIVILITY, BIPARTISANSHIP, NONPARTISANSHIP, POSTPARTISANSHIP:

a. President Obama promised us a post-partisan world. I am not going to get into whether he failed at it or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi failed or the Blue Dogs or Glenn Beck or Mitch McConnell or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin failed at it. I don’t really care who is to blame. The fact is, the post-partisan world did not materialize – far from it. From what I can see, it’s worse than ever. It most likely led to Evan Bayh’s surprise departure from seeking reelection and, just as with Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts, we should not understimate the significance of the message.

b. What to do about it: Fix it. Zero Tolerance for partisan bickering on either side of the aisle and even if you have no aisle. Stop blaming everyone else and put at least the most modest measure of civility in our national political discourse. Focus on how to solve things, not on how everyone else is to blame. Perhaps it is an old fashioned concept – but imagine a world where those who have the power to do something about our challenges are actually more concerned about addressing our challenges than scoring points against the other side and points for themselves and their side. The current political environment is an absolute disgrace.  Look at the polls on Congress – both parties.

c. Respect and listen to opinions that are not your own, that are not your parties’ own, that are not even the opinions of your circle of friends. Listen to opposing viewpoints without getting hysterical. I am simply amazed about the things I hear about Sarah Palin, the Tea Partiers, about those who oppose Obamacare, which happen to be the majority of Americans. Sarah Palin is a smart woman with great populist appeal, who actually carried out her pro-life principals in her personal life. She believes in limited government, tax cuts and strong national defense. So did John Kennedy. Some of my friends compare Sarah Palin to Hitler. Most of my family was wiped out by Hitler. I fail to see the comparison. Hitler wrote about and spoke about ethnic cleansing of the Jews – that was his dream – not tax cuts to incentivize business.

d. If you do not agree with the policies of our current president – and over half of Americans polled currently do not – that does not make you a racist, notwithstanding Jimmy Carter’s unfounded and absurd allegations to the contrary. It is ok to disagree with your elected representatives – it is downright American to do so.

5. THE ECONOMY:

a. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley (SOX). Yes, the scandals of Enron and other greedy and reckless corporations demanded a regulatory response. However, SOX is primarily further punishing the innocent. SOX is a significant factor in fostering economic stagnation and the stifling of free enterprise. It is costing Americans jobs . Investors are more reluctant to invest in private companies – including small businesses- as they are much more reticent about an investment exit strategy that involves going public. Yes, there are other reasons investors are reluctant to take companies public, but SOX adds discouragement in an environment where we urgently need encouragement.

b. Reduce or eliminate capital gains taxes. We need investment in business to create jobs.

c. Reduce corporate tax rates. I know, that is heresy for a liberal, even a centrist, to declare. But U.S. corporate tax rates are among the very highest in the world, and now that our economy is a global one, American companies need to be competitive with their international counterparts. It is convenient to call corporations the greedy bad guys. But they provide and create jobs that sustain us all – and they also create and preserve value for Americans’ retirement funds.

d. Deficit: We are on an unsustainable course and something is going to have to be done about it. However, I rather agree with President Obama that we cannot commit to resolve the deficit right now, without any regard to the stability of our financial systems. We do, however, need to recognize that a Great Reckoning awaits us, and we cannot simply defer and grow the deficit until the end of time.  We need to begin to address the deficit with seriousness of purpose and with consensus.

6. NATIONAL SECURITY:

a. We are at war with Islamist Jihadists. There is a time for political correctness, and on this issue, we cannot afford political correctness (see: Fort Hood). Terrorists should not be Mirandized 50 minutes after nearly blowing up a plane full of people. Terrorists should not be allowed to further bleed our country’s treasure by being granted civilian trials in the shadow of the World Trade Center were they would also be provided with an obscene public relations platform – at our expense – from which to recruit future Islamist Jihadist terrorists who want to destroy us and our way of life.

b. A World Apology Tour sounded idealistic and even cathartic after having a brush-clearing cowboy in office for eight years. But it did not work. Our enemies perceive us as weaker and less determined. Yes, our country has made lots of mistakes – everyone knows that – as has the rest of the world made lots of mistakes – all of the rest of the world. We should not be the only ones in the world to apologize for our mistakes, as it is misinterpreted as irresoluteness.

c. Support the State of Israel, fully and unequivocally. The Palestinians have long suffered, and the collective Arab States are primarily to blame for the perpetual suffering of the Palestinians. Why has the world forgotten that the Arabs attacked Israel upon its founding and not the other way around? Why has the world not acknowledged the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands, only the expulsion of Arabs from the State of Israel that was brought about by the attack against Israel by Arabs after its founding by the United Nations? Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East and must be supported and defended. Peace is obtainable. Palestinians and Israelis know exactly what the final peace treaty looks like, down to highly specific maps and details that have been worked out by working committees on both sides. Return to 1947 lines, with land swaps to adjust for the realities on the ground. The peace is there for the taking. All we are saying is give peace a chance. Extremists on both sides, and agitators on the sidelines (see: Iran, Syria) have no interest in peace. Their populaces run the danger of turning towards real grievances of their own, such as their being forced to live in a society more suited for the Dark Ages.

d. Keep the Bomb away from Iran. No one seems to be taking this very seriously. The Bomb in Iran will destabilize the region, the world, and the likelihood of The Bomb or an improvised version of it landing in the hands of Al Qaeda, other Islamist Jihadists and generally unsavory characters increases incalculably.  Support dissidents for reform in Iran.

7. SOCIAL ISSUES:

a. Roe versus Wade decided the abortion question once and for all. Pro Choice. A woman must have the right to choose what to do with her body. Against abortion? Don’t get one.

b. Stem cell research is pro-life. Do it. Save lives.

c. Separation of Church and State: It is in the constitution. Honor the constitution on this issue and stop debating it.

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“In the middle of the night
In the middle of the night I call your name…”

I have spoken here of my effort to rebuild my life and career.

I have spoken about Haiti and its suffering, of my mother surviving Auschwitz to rebuild a life she considered blessed until its end.

I have spoken about the impact of the recent Massachusetts senate election and a quest for a politics of the center and of the people.

I have spoken about the fascist poet Ezra Pound and the beautiful artist and friend Cecilia Peck.

I have spoken about the hopes of my days and the torments of my nights.

“In the middle of the bath
In the middle of the bath I call your name…”

I continue to make great progress in rebuilding my career.

I am grateful to the many people who have expressed their support and encouragement.

I feel blessed to have the opportunity for a second chance.

I see many exciting things ahead.

I am thankful that my family and friends are well.

“In the middle of a shave
In the middle of a shave I call your name…”

I continue to face challenges.

I continue to be haunted by demons, imagined and real.

I struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

I will be haunted by demons until the end of my days.

I accept that life is a bumpy ride.

“In the middle of a dream
In the middle of a dream I call your name…”

I learn from the three foot tall Sean Stephenson, who says “Everything is always going your way, even when it doesn’t look like it – that’s actually the truth of life.” Sean also says “No one can hurt you without your permission.”

I learn from T.S. Elliot, who says “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

I learn from Ezra Pound, who says “What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee.” And, “Pull down thy vanity!”

I learn from the great poet of my home town of Brooklyn, Walt Whitman– “I celebrate myself, and sing myself” and “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.”

I learn from my mentor Nicholas Ray, who said “Learn your limitations and take advantage of them” and “Do not care so much what other people think.”

“In the middle of a cloud
In the middle of a cloud I call your name
Oh Yoko,
Oh Yoko,
My love will turn you on…”
- John Lennon

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Ezra Pound, the greatest poet of the 20th century – and one of my favorite – was a fascist and anti-Semite. As a child of Holocaust survivors, it has always been difficult for me to appreciate Pound’s great artistry without highly charged and mixed emotions. But I still consider his writing among the highest art. Consider some excerpts from his monumental epic poem, The Cantos.

Canto I recounts Homer’s Odyssey in Pound’s stunning first person verse, where images, deep emotions, and the rhythm and sound of the poet’s words powerfully converge.

“And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers
‘forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-head;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
Of youths and at the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.”

Now Pound/Odysseus meets the soul of a man who was left behind, unburied, and he continues sorrowfully:

“But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit.And I cried in hurried speech:
“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?”
And he in heavy speech:
“Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe’s ingle.
Going down the long ladder unguarded,
I fell against the buttress,
Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.”

“Ill fate” – we are all victims of events beyond our control. “Abundant wine” – well, there are things that are in our control. Hear now what Elpenor states – a plea for being remembered:

“But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-board, and inscribed:
A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.”

“A name to come” – perhaps that is what Pound the artist seeks or envisions.

“And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
“A second time? why? man of ill star,
Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
For soothsay.”
And I stepped back,
And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus
Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
Lose all companions.”

“Lose all companions” – Pound the artist is alone. Ezra Pound the man was captured at the end of World War II and spent time living alone in a cage that was his prison. He was eventually found not guilty of treason by reason of insanity. I recall that Pound remarked to a poet friend who visited him in the American insane asylum that was his residence in the fifties: “Bird in cage does not sing.”

Turning far ahead to Canto LXXXI is this memorable and powerfully passionate verse:

“What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.
“Master thyself, then others shall thee bear”
Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst’ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
I say pull down.

But to have done instead of not doing
This is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
this is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .”

The final verse, Canto 120, was published posthumously. I think of this verse often. Perhaps Pound here admits the errors of his life. Perhaps it is about how all people err. This is the entire Canto 120:

“I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move
let the wind speak
that is paradise

Let the Gods forgive what I
have made
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.”

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