TheModernMay2013V2N3

m dern the

May 2013 • Vol. 2, No. 4 www.themodern.us

your life in retro

You’re Gonna Make It

After All The Modern Girl in the Big City

Robert Redford Keeps Us Company Laura Prepon Leaves The ‘70s Behind Lulu In New York Christopher Kennedy Lawford Recover To Live

That Girl! • Rhoda • LA Gear • Athlete Ally

Eva Mendes New Training Day

c ntents T h e M o d e r n — Y o u r l i f e i n r e t r o

In this issue:

Reconnecting

Laura Prepon

She leaves behind That ‘70s Show — and her red hair — for headturning acting projects.

Lulu The British poster makes her first NYC stage appearance.

Headliner

Robert Redford

The iconic actor continues his winning streak with The Company You Keep.

The Great Forgotten

Modern Woman Songs From “Modern Girl” to “Modern Woman”

Rehab Retro

Christopher Kennedy Lawford

The actor and bestselling author shares his addiction demons and his expert-driven book about recovery management.

Modern Sports

Hudson Taylor

Retro Merch

His Athlete Ally organization works to make homophobia in sports a thing of the past.

Dig This DVD

On the cover: Sarah Blessing | Ford

LA Gear Sneakers That Girl, Season 1 Often touted as TV’s first truly liberated gal is…that girl!

Adventures in Modern Sound Modern Sports Quiz Before They Were Stars

Girlie Action

Eva Mendes Finding herself in The Place Beyond The Pines.

Modern Masterpiece

With Nothing on Our Lips But “Hallelujah.”

The strange story of the spiritual standard.

Read This Retro Book Just Plain Dick: a new book explores Nixon’s infamous “Checkers” speech and its modern implications.

Funny Papers

Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary Comic strip legend and deeply complicated man, Al Capp channeled his talents but lost to his demons.

Cover Story

You’re Gonna Make It After All The modern girl in the big city.

Parting Shot: The Doris Day Show: abrupt cast and plot changes and a desperate attempt to stay relevant makes this a train wreck worth witnessing.

tweet. tweet.

Follow us on twitter.

twitter.com/themodern1

m dern the

your life in retro

letter from the editor

My Breakfast with Rhoda Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing hundreds of people from all walks of life. One of the standouts was actress Valerie Harper.

In 2007, I interviewed her by telephone to promote her work as the lead in the film Golda’s Balcony, based on the Broadway play about the life of former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. Valerie, who is not Jewish, is best known for playing yet another Jewish character: Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Rhoda was the perennially unmarried, artsy, insecure funny girl from New York who brilliantly played against Mary’s WASPy, sorority girl, small-town sensibilities. Lightning struck, and the character became iconic, spinning off into her own classic TV series in the mid-Seventies. I plugged in.

It fed my dreams of moving to New York to live a writer’s life, which I eventually did.

Of course, as eager as I was to promote Golda’s Balcony, I was even more pumped to find out about her experiences as Rhoda. Most actors only want to talk about and promote their current projects, but Valerie could not have been kinder and more open about sharing her career highlights (and lowlights). I was transfixed.

We hit it off. That’s not hard to do with Valerie, who has the gift for making friends. The long phone conversation lead to an invitation to breakfast later that week. In Manhattan, we met at Pastis and talked for three hours. I never drank so much coffee in my life, but even if I hadn’t, I was super-caffeinated and electrified: here I was, in New York having breakfast with Rhoda! To this day, I have to reassure myself that it actually happened.

m dern the

I’ve found that many folks under 35 have no idea about Rhoda (astoundingly, some have no idea about Mary Tyler Moore). However, the thrill of meeting one of your idols and having it go swimmingly is a universal dream that is rarely realized. Yet in the small chance that it does, it’s one of the most intense pleasures in life. Valerie’s easy warmth, kindness and gift of gab ensured that my experience was unforgettable.

We had since lost touch, but a few years later I had seen her on Broadway when she portrayed film legend Tallulah Bankhead in the comic play Looped. She was amazing, as always. Backstage, I reconnected with her, wondering if she even remembered me. Not only did she recognize me (and remember my personal story), but she remembered my daughter’s name. That, to me, was incredible. Stunning, actually.

This year, Valerie announced that she had been diagnosed with a rare and terminal brain cancer. As devastating as this is to her, her family and all of her millions of fans, she is determined to live life to the fullest and make every moment count. Her attitude doesn’t surprise me, but it surprised me. It was beyond inspiring. She made a brave, heart-tugging appearance on The Doctors, and told CNN, “I’ve had a magnificent run — the most wonderful husband in the world for 34 years, a great career. I really look at my life as blessed.”

Include in that blessing all the people she touches and inspires, including me.

Ron Sklar Editor

Contributing Writers: Jay S. Jacobs • William Shultz • Art Wilson

Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o .

Editor • Ron Sklar Art Director • Jennifer Barlow Copy Editors • Patty Wall, Jay S. Jacobs

C o n t a c t

u s :

Director of Photography and Video Harley Reinhardt • Harleyhallphotography.com Video Editor • Rich Kortz

i n f o @ t h e m o d e r n . u s

We’ve Got Issues.

BIG Issues.

Simply click on any issue to read more retro.

m dern the

headliner

Robert

Redford J a y

S

About the time that the Weather Underground was gaining infamy for its violent protests, Robert Redford was well on his way to becoming the biggest star in Hollywood (his films of that period include Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Downhill Racer and Jeremiah Johnson). Redford was familiar with the generational revolt going on in the late Sixties and early Seventies, but he was a part of a different world; he was a young family man whose career was exploding. Still, he was sympathetic to youthful causes.

Forty years later, that fascination has led to his latest film, The Company You Keep (based on the Neil Gordon novel of the same name).

The film stars and is directed

by Redford. He plays Jim Grant, a smalltown lawyer who is exposed as a

.

J a

c

o

b

s

former member of the Weather Underground. He had settled down after being on the run for 40 years (a protest had gone wrong, leading to a bank guard’s death). When one of his former cohorts (Susan Sarandon) is captured by the FBI, a reporter (Shia LaBeouf) starts sniffing around him. Grant must go back on the run to prove his innocence.

A few days before the film’s debut in New York and Los Angeles, Redford held a press conference to discuss his film and his feelings about the Sixties movements that inspired it.

What drew you to the material? Had you read Neil Gordon’s novel?

It was the book. I was drawn to [it] because it’s big and wide-ranging. It had a lot of plot lines. It had a lot of email stuff going on. It had many, many characters. But there was something at the core that captured my attention, and so the next four-to-five years were spent shaping that material into what could be a film.

Were you surprised that so many talented actors signed on for the film?

I’m blessed with my colleagues coming onboard.

Because look, let’s face it, there’s no money in film these days. It’s shrunk

The Modern | May 2013

www.themodern.us

s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

b y

down to a nub. You have to depend on the kindness of — not strangers — but of colleagues to come in and help you. I was blessed by having a wonderful cast. [They] didn’t have to. There was nothing in it for [them]. Except the joy of working with me (laughs).

What do you want people in the 21st century to take from this movie about the legacy of The Weather Underground?

To simplify it, probably the first thing would be: to make you think.

Some films are made not to necessarily [make you] think. You have a wonderful ride, then its over. That’s all that you really want. Other films are designed to at least make you ask a question afterwards. Think about what’s happened or maybe dialogue with someone. That’s what I would prefer. It’s not always possible.

The second thing has to do with a criticism I have for my own country. I don’t think we’re very good at looking at history as a lesson to be learned so that we don’t repeat a negative historical experience.

Looking back in time to say: this happened then. What did we learn from that? I just think it’s an American tradition to be so busy pushing forward, driving forward, doing, doing, doing. They don’t look back and say, “What can I learn from mistakes I made before?” So the hope — that’s all it can be is a hope — is you look back at this moment in time.

When this happened, I was of that age. I was with them in spirit.

But because I was starting a career in the New York theater as an actor – and I was also starting to have a family — I was obligated to that task. So I wasn’t a part of it. I was certainly empathetic to what they were doing. I also thought [The Viet Nam conflict] was a wrong war, a war that was going to cost unneceswww.themodern.us

sary lives, a war designed by people who had never gone to war. It had a lot to do with a tragic history of the United States and the mistakes they never seem to learn by. So that was my own personal criticism about my country.

I would hope that you look back and it’s not about what happened then. It’s about 30 years later. As people who were filled with that passion and intensity grow older and look back, they are trapped by their past. In order to stay free from the law, they go underground, with a false name. How long can you live without your true identity? That’s what interested me, to tell that story, not then but now.

The movie is one of your first forays into the new world of journalism. These days there is no “fair and balanced,” it’s mostly very far right or very far left. Were you trying to explore that dynamic?

It’s tricky business when an artist starts to mess around with journalism. I’ve done that before. Basically, I was protected by a story that was written by somebody else and I was just documenting that. But it’s tricky because I don’t know that the media is comfortable being criticized by people who are not in their own world. I don’t know. I might be wrong. It’s just a hunch. In other words, you have to be careful. On the other hand, because I have such a keen interest in the media, because I think it plays such an important role in our society, I’m very concerned if it’s ever threatened in any way. If it is threatened, I would like to know how and what, and maybe that’s a story.

The Internet has so drastically altered the landscape of journalism.

Now you’ve got so much informa-

tion, I think there sometimes is too much information. How do you find the truth? Where does a public citizen find the truth when so much is coming at him? As you said, you have the far right and far left hammering stuff. Much of it is lying. So the public maybe gets fed up and turns away and then there’s real danger. I’m really curious about the state of journalism, where it is right now. What’s going on?

Do you think there is a similar passion amongst young people today?

I was thinking about that time 30 years ago and the commitment that young people had. It was a young people’s movement. That generation came so close to accomplishing, so close to get to the final point of destination, and then collapsed before they got there. It’s a movement that kind of ate itself.

You went, “Oh! I just wish they had gone one step further.” They were so close as a generation as we know now. Now it’s 30 years later, your generation is Occupy Wall Street and other organizations. It was similar. It came close.

The Modern | May 2013

reconnecting

Laura

Prepon She leaves behind That ‘70s Show -- and her red hair -- for head-turning acting projects.

All Images © 2012 The Kitchen Movie, LLC. Courtesy of monterey media.

“I tend to play women who are intelligent and confident, not these little naïve girls,” Laura Prepon tells me. “I had moved out of my house when I was 15. Maybe it’s from that.

I don’t know. But it’s a compliment that people think I have my stuff together.”

Fortunately for Prepon, art imitates life, and vice-versa. The tall redhead we’ve loved for years (and in reruns) on That 70s Show is turning her now-blonde head toward the future: Netflix, that is. In the wake of Kevin Spacey’s

B The Modern | May 2013

y

R

straight-to-Netflix megahit, House of Cards, comes Prepon co-starring in a women-in-prison series, Orange Is the New Black.

“Netflix totally left us alone,” she says, ”and we pushed the envelope like you would not believe.”

Based on the prison memoir by Piper Kerman, the series co-stars Jason Biggs, Kate Mulgrew and Taylor Schilling. Prepon plays a drug smuggler caught and sent to the Big House. Be sure to recognize her with this spoiler alert: her hair has been dyed jet black. “[My character] is this rockabilly international drug mule,” she says.

“I need black hair for that. People are not going to recognize me in this role and it’s amazing. As an actor, one of the cooler things is when people don’t know that it’s me.”

The series, which debuts this summer, is a welcome-back for an actress we always admire for her gravity and seamless confidence.

As Donna on That 70s Show, she suffered fools gladly and, with her arms folded, transcended the kitsch cliché. Her best prep for that may have been her former career as a model.

“I was not a fan of it,” she says

o

n

a

l

d

S

of the modeling business, which came after her when she was 15. “I kind of stumbled into it. I was really into sports and hanging out with my friends. Modeling never even crossed my mind. Ever. Within months, I moved to Milan by myself, with all the castings, all the cattle calls. When you are 15-years old living in a foreign country by yourself, you really have to take care of yourself.”

The bookings came easily, but the satisfaction was hard-bitten.

“You’re really just a hanger for clothes,” she says. “Some people don’t mind it. They love it. But for me personally, it was just slowly chipping away at me. The essence of me — and all I had to give — didn’t really matter. This is not me.

This is not what I want to do.”

Brighter skies beckoned, however. Modeling is how she transitioned to acting. After a series of TV commercials (she booked the very first commercial she auditioned for) came an opportunity for a new Fox series called The Kids Are Alright, later renamed That 70s Show. Prepon had just turned 18 and had never acted before, yet she won the audition.

The series was an immediate hit and ran for eight years, then forevermore in reruns.

“We were all so new,” she said of her young co-stars, which included Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. “Danny Masterson was the only one who had done anything. None of us knew what we were doing, but we were all so perfect for these characters. All of us helped each other grow. We’re a family. We’re still like family. No-

k

l

a

r www.themodern.us

body knew what it was going to turn into, that it was going to be this huge, amazing show. It’s so amazing to be part of television history like that.”

To what does she owe the iconic status of the series?

“The chemistry of the characters,” she says. “That’s what it’s all about.

That’s what it all comes down to.”

Prepon, now all grown up, plays a woman about to turn 30 in The Kitchen. With all due respect to Molly Ringwald, this could be the worst cinematic birthday ever for Prepon’s character, who finds out that her boyfriend (Bryan Greenberg) is cheating on her — with her friends! As a topper, it seems that her best friend is secretly in love with her. Thank goodness cake and alcohol will be served.

On her own recent landmark birthday experience, Prepon says, “People are nervous about turning 30. But I think about all the experiences I’ve had thus far in my life and I was so fortunate to have them. I cannot wait for what’s going to come in my thirties. It’s going to be so cool. I just embrace it.”

Her experience with the film is already embraceable, as her acting talents were tested and, in a way, vacuum-sealed.

“The entire movie not only takes place in one location but in one room,” she says. “It was like a play, and the whole thing is like a choreographed dance.”

The dance continues as Prepon continues to test her limits. She, as usual, is ahead of the game. Even she admits that, as a youth, she was listening to The Psychedelic Furs when her friends were listening to New Kids on The Block.

“Even at a young age, I was always way beyond my years,” she reflects. “I was always searching for something. I don’t know what it was, but there was something out

there for me. And when I found acting, I was like, this is what I was looking for. I never took drama classes, I was never in a theater group. None of my friends acted. It didn’t even enter my mind.”

Seems like The Kid is alright.

“

www.themodern.us

To download The Kitchen, click on www.thekitchenmovie.com

I never took drama classes. None of my friends acted. It didn’t

”

even enter my mind.

Laura Prepon

The Modern | May 2013

reconnecting

Lulu How do you thank someone?

It’s almost impossible to believe that in a music career which has lasted about 50 years, with multiple hit singles, several TV series and a good amount of movie work, Lulu never played a full concert in New York City before this February. That changed when she fronted an all-star band of TV musicians — including Paul Shaffer, Jimmy Vivino, Will Lee and Rich Pagano — at BB King’s in the midst of the Times Square area.

That’s a long way from her beginnings as a young Glasgow-born soul singer whose given name is Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie. She had her first hit as the leader of Lulu and the Luvvers at fifteen-years old with a cover of The Isley Brothers’ “Shout.”

Lulu continued having hit after hit in her native England and became a star in the States when she acted in and sang the title track to the Sidney Poitier film To Sir With Love. Lulu has been recording and acting ever since, having big hits like “Oh Me Oh My (I’m A Fool For You Baby)” and “I Could Never Miss You (More Than I Do)” and writing Tina Turner’s smash hit “I Don’t Want To Fight.”

How is it possible that this is your first New York show?

I ask myself the same question.

How is it possible? Really my roots

b y The Modern | May 2013

J a y

S .

are so steeped in American music. Not British music. [I] didn’t care for British music until The Beatles. Of course, The Beatles were influenced by the same music that we liked. BB King, Ray Charles or Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as well as appreciating what Bobby Darin could do with a song. He could turn it from a pop song into something bluesy and gospel. It’s like going to church.

Did you do stuff from throughout your career or focus on covers?

Certainly a couple of obvious songs from my own career.

There’s so many of them that I wouldn’t do, because they’re too poppy. There was a time in my career when I was so young and guided by producers and record companies that probably didn’t quite know what to do with me. Because I looked little and cute, they wanted me to be Herman’s Hermits and I was clearly not Herman’s Hermits. A different kind of voice.

J a c o b s www.themodern.us

You were a little girl when you started singing professionally. Could you have ever imagined that 50 years later you would still be able to make a living in music?

It’s crazy, isn’t it? But today, it’s not so much. It’s going back to my roots again. I don’t do it for the money. When I started, I didn’t do it for the money. To get paid was like: “Whoa! I get paid for this?” It wasn’t a lot, of course. Then you become a business. It’s all about taking jobs. Some you don’t even want to do. You take them because of the money. Today, I don’t so much do the gigs because I’m going to get paid a lot of money. I’m doing it now because I love it.

You were only 15 when your cover of “Shout” hit the charts. What was it like to suddenly hear your music on the radio?

It was unreal. I relate to a lot of young kids who become instantly successful today and find it difficult to cope. But it was a different business then. I lived to sing. I didn’t want to be famous.

www.themodern.us

You came up at the height of the British Invasion and in the middle of the whole swinging London scene.

What was the scene like?

I don’t really remember too many details. I was so busy. I had my head down. I was on the road, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

When you’re 15, you can do that. I had this female manager who took care of me when I was in London.

I was on the phone to my mother every night, telling her what had happened. Hanging out with The Beatles and Stones and Animals.

Then I finally married a Bee Gee. Yes, Maurice...

It was all a little bit of a whirlwind and it’s amazing that I’m still alive to tell the tale.

Certainly your best-known song in the States is the theme from To Sir With Love. When you were recording the song, did you have any clue that it would become a standard?

My manager said, “If you want her in the movie, she has to sing the title song.” That was the deal, which was kind of genius, now that you look back. I thought because Columbia Pictures were connected to Screen Gems publishing, they would have Burt Bacharach or some of the greatest writers in the world. But the songs that were sent to me weren’t good enough. I ini-

tiated the writing of that melody with Mark London. I wish I had said put my name to it, because really and truly I had a part of it, but one has to be grateful for what one has. The people involved with the film didn’t care. To me, it was really important. We called Don Black, who was famous for writing “Born Free.” He looked at the script, came back with the lyric.

The lyric helped the melody. The melody is actually very odd. It’s not a song you’re going to have people singing at parties. You’re not going to sing it without accompaniment. It’s not easy to do.

It’s an odd, out-of-the-box song.

But his lyric was so descriptive and painted a picture of what was happening in the film.

You worked with lots of amazing musicians over the years, people like John Paul Jones, who went on to be in Led Zeppelin.

John Paul Jones was my musical director. He did all the arrangements for [producer] Mickey Most, all the records I made with Mickey from the age 16. When I would do gigs, he would conduct the band with his bass. Before that, when I was 14 or 15, Jimmy Page would be on my records.

Looking back on your career, how would you like for people to see your body of work?

My whole body of work is not something that I would love. There are so many years that I spent in the wilderness. Having hits, but for me, [unfulfilling as an artist]. What people would not immediately get from me is that I am completely driven. Completely focused. It’s all about the work. I’m small. I’m blonde. People have always called me cute. I’ve got a personality, but that belies a steely core. People just say, “Oh, she’s so cute.” (laughs) They don’t know me.

The Modern | May 2013

rehab retro

Christopher Kennedy Lawford The actor and bestselling author shares his addiction demons and his expertdriven book about recovery management.

B y

R o n a l d

S k l a r

Christopher Kennedy Lawford is no stranger to living life at warp speed. He has long overcome his own wild ride of alcohol and drugs, and is now sharing his secrets (both tragic and triumphant) in his new book, Recover To Live: Kick Any Habit, Manage Any Addiction.

In it, he brings together the world’s top addiction experts who identify dangerous habits and understand self-treatment options.

As a member of America’s most famous family, and having an actor father (Peter Lawford) who unsuccessfully tangled with addiction, he has taken a sober look at the habits and addictions that are slowly eroding our country.

How have your own experiences with addiction helped you putting together this book?

I just acknowledge from my own experience that people take alcohol when there is really something else going on. Recovery people, if they give up what they are actually using, usually develop some of these other [addictions] in recovery. The interconnectedness of these compulsions is somewhat interchangeable. People may move from alcohol to gambling. Or food. All of these things go to the core issue.

You enlist a team of experts who suggest time-tested treatments for addiction. How has this helped give a deeper dimension to your goals for the book?

I’m not a scientist and I’m not a statistician. My purpose is to empower people to begin looking at this stuff and to do something about it if they wanted.

And [the book serves as] a mar-

The Modern | May 2013

keting tool for me to talk about these issues, because the more we talk about them, the less trapped and isolated people will be, the less they will feel the shame of it.

You have been sober for over a quarter century, but this topic is still important to you. Why? This is what people don’t really understand: drugs and alcohol are really not the issue. They are only an issue when you are using them and they become a problem. They are a symptom of something else.

So what matters are the choices you make in dealing with the stresses of life?

I go to hot yoga every day for an hour because it shuts my mind off.

I try different ways to medicate that ‘dis-ease’ that I feel that pretty much all addicts and alcoholics feel. I’m not saying that we don’t feel more than normal people, but for some reason we are able to deal with it less effectively.

Your father, Peter Lawford, was an actor, a member of the Rat Pack, and a brother-in-law of President Kennedy. Yet he was also in a losing battle with addiction, specifically drugs and alcohol. What is your take on your father’s tragedy?

He was one of the unfortunate ones who didn’t make it. He died due to alcoholism. That disease is a patient predator. It changed my dad’s life in a very miserable way. He never got to meet his grandchildren, who he would have loved. This is a nasty, nasty illness. I don’t blame him for that. He had this thing, and it killed him. And it kills a lot of people. It’s not an easy thing to deal with over time. It affects generations of families, because people die. www.themodern.us

modern sports

Hudson Taylor His Athlete Ally organization works to make homophobia in sports a thing of the past.

By Ronald Sklar Not everything about the good old days was good.

Activist Hudson Taylor is working to reverse the sexism and homophobia that – up until now – have been pervasive and generally accepted (or ignored) in both professional and school sports.

By recruiting athletes to reject prejudice and encourage acceptance of everyone in sports’ participation, Taylor is helping to change attitudes and make it safe for athletes of every orientation to feel comfortable and welcome in their chosen sport.

Taylor, who is straight, gives us the lowdown.

What drew you to this cause?

The #1 reason is obviously it’s the right thing to do. I was a theater major and I had friends who were coming out. Seeing the juxtaposition of me being accepted in the theater department and not in the locker room made it clear to me that we as a community could and should be better.

In my senior year of college, I was training for a national [wrestling] title. I did an interview about being an ally. One of the things that is really important to me is to start the conversation with as many people as possible. So I asked that they share my email address with the article. In response to this piece running, I got over 2000 emails from closeted kids across the country.

www.themodern.us

[Many of them wrote:] Now, for the first time in my life, I can join a sports team.

This was the catalyst that moved you to a larger picture and a life calling.

I realized that if a college wrestler can get 2000 emails for calling himself an athlete ally, then I can get a football player or a basketball player to take a similar stance. This could really make a big difference in the culture of sports.

What is the healthier mindset that you are trying to develop?

Sport does not discriminate. And I think that sportsmanship is synonymous with allyship. So regardless of your sport, regardless of where in the country you live, there is an understanding that we want to be the best athletic communities we can be. And I think that happens when we are as inclusive as possible.

What non-toxic environment do you want to create?

We want to create an environment where homosexuality is in no way shameful or undesirable. I think we’re trying to create an athletic community where gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning [athletes] can develop their full potential and to give their maximum contribution to any

The Modern | May 2013

sports team to which they are a part. I believe that the best way we are going to get there is to inspire straight allies to start speaking out. And that’s what Athlete Ally is really focused on. And why we are working with the professional athletes who can really take a stand and make a difference.

I would imagine that this kind of mission cannot be accomplished overnight.

Obviously, that’s the end goal in all of this. I think we are very close to having an environment to where more and more athletes can feel comfortable coming out. But there are still lots of areas of athletics that are really far behind. For instance, there are still very few openly gay or lesbian college coaches. Transgender issues in sports continue to be a real issue. We haven’t even talked about the experience of bisexual athletes.

What are some of your goals for the near future?

The one big-picture goal for me with Athlete Ally is to start providing teams with Athlete Ally pageants.

There is no reason why there shouldn’t be an LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] Ally equivalent [to breast cancer ribbons]. So one of the things that we

are really hoping to do with Athlete Ally is have teams collectively speak out as allies; to get entire fan populations to wear Athlete Ally T-shirts to make clear that this idea of allyship is not separate and apart from the identity of sports. It’s something that every athlete, every coach, every parent, fan and administrator should understand.

It all sounds awesome, but will homophobia always be with us?

So long as sexism and racism will always be with us.

Many of the isms and the phobias are not mutually exclusive. I don’t think we can have homophobia without sexism. At some point, all of these fears and oppositions, from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, will intersect. I think eventually we are going to get to a place where my kids are going to have to come out as straight if they are straight. It’s going to be no different an experience as coming out. I don’t think straightness will always be an assumption, hopefully. But we’re not there yet.

To find out more about Athlete Ally, and to take the pledge of tolerance and respect, athleteally.com

retro quiz

Women In Sports

In the 20th century, men were constantly reminded that women were capable of more than just housework.

By William Shultz 1. Which Amercian woman won nineteen Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, the most in women’s history?

2. Who was the first American woman owner of a professional baseball team?

3. Who was the first woman jockey elected into the National Museum of Racing (Horses) and Hall of Fame?

4. What team is the only coed professional basketball team, and who was their first female teammate?

5. Who owns the record for most international goals (goals scored playing for your country) in football (soccer)?

1. Helen Wills Moody 2. Helene Hathaway Britton owned The St. Louis Cardinals from 1911 – 1916.3. Julie Krone in 2000. 4. In 1985 the Harlem Globetrotters picked Lynette Woodward as its first female member. 5. Mia Hamm of the U.S.A. with 158. That’s 49 more than the men’s leader.

The Modern | May 2013

www.themodern.us

In director Derek (Blue Valentines) Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, Mendes takes on perhaps her most tragic and broken character yet. Mendes plays Romina, a young waitress in Schenectady, New York, who has a son after a one-night stand with a traveling motorcycle stunt driver named Luke (Ryan Gosling). When Luke returns to the small town and finds out that he is a father, he decides to try to settle down and become a family man.

Everybody had to go to difficult places in this film. Was that uncomfortable?

No. Hey, this is what I love to do. I’m an actress. My film career started with Training Day. I was as raw as you could get in that movie. Since then that’s what I gravitate towards. When you do the bigger Hollywood films, they tend to like you a little bit more cleaned up, but I’ve done a lot of films that I’ve been gritty and raw for. I’m an actress and I’m certainly not a glamazon in that way. I turn it on when I have to. But that’s not where the art lies, obviously.

girlie action

Eva Mendes Finding Herself in The Place Beyond the Pines Eva Mendes may be known for her stunning looks, but beneath is a selfless actress who is willing to get down and dirty for her characters. Mendes has always worked to find gritty dramas, such as Training Day, Girl in Progress and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. These films make a good counterpoint to some of her more traditional Hollywood leading lady spots, such as Hitch, The Other Guys, 2 Fast 2 Furious and Ghost Rider.

b y

J a y

S .

J a c o b s

As an actress, how interesting was it to be playing a character in two totally different periods in her life?

So fun! The aging process was so fun as well, because I didn’t so much think of it as aging. I thought of it as the pain manifesting its way through time. I had certain tricks. I had certain garments I would wear under my clothes to make me feel a certain way.

I did the obvious stuff, some pencil work, creating lines. I did the graying. Just things that would suggest that this was a woman who had abandoned herself. So, that’s just what I went out and did.

What was it like to be filming in real places in the town with real people?

Amazing. I lived at the Holiday Inn Schenectady. It was incredible. I loved it.

Romina obviously cares very deeply for Luke, but she sees Kofi as a safer route.

Before I made the film I had this women’s day at my house. Friends, family and everyone is a mother. I was like: “You have a baby with a guy who is a fling. He’s no longer in your life. He’s out of town. Now you have this baby and a man who is not the biological father, but who is stable and wants to raise the child as his own. Then the biological father pops back into the picture. What do you do?” I thought that the women were going to be like what’s best for the child is a stable father. But they were like: “You do everything in your power to make it work, because there is a primal pull, a connection that happens with the baby’s actual biological father.” Really? Even though you know he’s unfit? It was so interesting to me, because all these women [felt that]. There’s a lot of moral ambiguity. Hopefully that came across, because she’s very flawed, which I love.

The Modern | May 2013

modern masterpiece

With Nothing on Our Lips But “Hallelujah” The strange story of the spiritual standard.

by Jay S. Jacobs There are certain songs that feel like they were born as classics. Immediate standards like “Something,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Imagine” were fully formed in the pop culture firmament from the very start.

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” took a much rockier road to become a musical masterpiece. The song was a rather unnoticed album track. It took twenty years and hundreds of cover versions — most vitally the ethereal cover by the tragically short-lived singer Jeff Buckley — for “Hallelujah” to attain the popular ubiquity that it has achieved.

Many of the biggest names in music — including Bono, Bob Dylan, Justin Timberlake, Neil Diamond and Jon Bon Jovi – have taken a stab at the song. From the Olympics to Shrek to American Idol to concerts for the survivors of the World Trade Center disaster, Haiti and Hurricane Sandy: when a song is needed to convey a sense of tragedy, hope or faith, chances are good that “Hallelujah” will be performed.

Longtime music journalist Alan Light was fascinated by the unusual journey in which the song has ingratiated itself into so many hearts. In his fascinating new book The Holy or the Broken — Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” (Atria Books), Light takes a detailed look at the strange and troubled road that led to this iconic pop culture treasure. Soon after the book’s release, Light gave us a call to discuss his work and the cult of “Hallelujah.”

So why “Hallelujah”? What is it about that song that has captured people?

There’s not one easy answer to why the song resonates.

It reaches some very basic and universal emotions. When you’re dealing with a Leonard Cohen song, it’s very easy to get caught up in the poetry, lyrics and the intricacy of the imagery – all of which are very significant to the The Modern | May 2013

impact and longevity of the song. The elemental, irresistible and very singable melody at the heart of this song is something that we’ve seen everybody from opera singers to Willie Nelson can sing convincingly. Then the feeling and universality of this word “Hallelujah.” It’s the kind of spirituality that people are hungry for. Especially as they go outside of more organized religion. That idea of “Hallelujah,” giving praise and thanks and finding spirit and survival at difficult times. That’s an idea that cuts across different faiths, different beliefs. Everybody gets that.

Unlike an overnight smash like “Yesterday,” “Hallelujah” started out completely obscure and then slowly engrained itself into the public conscious. How important is it that the song had a slow burn?

It was that trajectory that made me interested in exploring the song.

I cannot think of another song that had a comparable experience. Anything that’s up in that altitude, songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or “Imagine,” people got right away that those were important songs. They were big hits. Obviously, their meaning changed over time, but there was this huge splash and everybody was aware of them. “Hallelujah,” when Leonard turned in the album the song was on, his label rejected it. When it came out on an indie label a little later, nobody noticed the song. Rolling Stone [wrote] a nice review, but it didn’t mention “Hallelujah.” This song starts not just under the radar, but way off the radar. It was never a hit. It was a gradual build of momentum that snowballed from different covers, versions and uses. Even though it’s become one of the best-known songs in the world, it still feels like a secret that you’ve been let in on.

This is not some big pop song that everybody knows, even if it is a big pop song that everybody knows.

How daunting was it to take on the idea of doing an entire book about a single song? www.themodern.us

I wasn’t fully convinced at any stage that it was going to work. I had this idea that something really fascinating had gone on with this song and maybe that was worth spending some time with. Writing the book proposal was like: Okay, does it seem like there is really enough going on here? Around every corner was more. The story got richer and richer. What was really striking was that everybody who has sung this song has ideas about it.

You expect that Bono, or k.d. Lang, will have profound things to say about a song, but you don’t necessarily think that the American Idol contestants or Jon Bon Jovi [would]. I found nobody sings this song blindly. They are all very aware of what it means and how important it is, the kind of legacy that you are a part of when you are singing this.

Leonard Cohen only does very limited interviews and of course Jeff Buckley is no longer around. Did the inability to talk with them make the writing of the book harder?

No. I had no expectations that Leonard was going to talk about it. Like you said, he hardly does any interviews. Also what does he have to gain with this song, with all of the aura around it, when he tells me “I thought of that line when I was brushing my teeth?” What does that contribute to the legacy of the song? I really went to him just asking for his blessing. The book could have gotten too top-heavy as a Leonard and Jeff co-biography.

Knowing I wanted it to be the story of the song, I didn’t want to spend too much time with those two guys. You

tell the story and set it up, and present these most pivotal versions and how everything else bounces off of them.

John Cale is the unsung hero to the “Hallelujah” story.

Were you surprised by how important his version of the song ended up in the song’s ascension?

I’m not surprised. I had known his version and his re-edit and rearranging of the song. I didn’t know it was very directly: Jeff Buckley learned John Cale’s version of the song. He hadn’t heard Leonard Cohen’s version when he first started performing “Hallelujah.” What John Cale did was strip the song down musically and emotionally. Take it away from the grander spiritual aspiring of the original recording. Do it just as voice and solo piano. Speed it up a little. Make it feel more human, more edgy. What his edit and then Jeff’s version did is really make it a younger person’s song. When Leonard recorded it, he was 50 years old. It really has a feeling of looking back on the lessons learned in surviving the challenges of life, almost elegiac. Those are not lyrics that a 24-year-old Jeff Buckley would have been convincing singing. By doing Cale’s version, it’s much more present tense. Much more about learning about heartbreak and pain as it is happening to you. Seeing what it is that life throws at you and how you have to press on. Still hold on to hope and faith. Cale’s version obviously is critical to the direction the song took. “Leonard wrote it, John Cale edited it, then Buckley was the vehicle to perform that out to the world.”

before they were stars Penny Marshall and Farrah Fawcett for Head & Shoulders The silky and the sulky! Talk about perfect casting: the plain Jane and the hot bubblehead (literally).

Farrah is soaping up her pre-Farrah-‘do with Head & Shoulders shampoo. This was a Seventies sitcom waiting to happen (it never did). When Farrah gets famous, she’ll pimp her very own shampoo brand bearing her name. Penny will go all-bouffant for Laverne & Shirley.

Could’ve been Laverne & Farrah. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcxQkRU-ZpA&feature=player_embedded

www.themodern.us

The Modern | May 2013

read this retro book

To Fifties America, He Was “Just Plain Dick.”

A new book explores Nixon’s infamous “Checkers” speech and its modern implications.

By Ronald Sklar Watergate was not the first time that Richard Nixon was in deep doo doo. In fact, the press seemed to loathe him from the time that he was nominated to be Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president. A shady slush fund and fishy political contributions discovered by the press forced Nixon to appear on national television (then a brand new medium). He had a lot of ‘splaining to do, to save his political career. The resulting oratory, now called “The Checkers Speech,” has since lived in infamy. In it, Nixon attempted to be an open book. He awkwardly explained away his finances and his role as an everyman with integrity.

The cherry on the cake was a mention of a Texas supporter’s gift to his children, which was a cocker spaniel they named Checkers. Nixon said it was a gift they were not giving back.

For the most part, America bought it.

As a result, the era of television politics (i.e., show business) had dawned.

In his new book, Just Plain Dick, Kevin Mattson delves into the implications of that speech, which are far-reaching and telling. Ultimately, it would cast a long shadow on the Watergate crisis and beyond.

Would the Checkers speech hold water today?

That Checkers speech, that specific one, could not fly today. But this is when television was very new. It was a very different time from our own in terms of how we scrutinize television performance. Today, there is no way that that speech would have worked. What Nixon was doing in that speech was trying to put politics on an emotional level. He was trying to say, “Hey, I’m an authentic guy. I’m a man of the people. I’m sincere. I can speak from my heart.” I think there is a good chunk of the American population that still wants that in their political leaders. It’s not that the Checkers speech was The Modern | May 2013

ever redone again, but Nixon tapped into something that was still wanting. One of the reasons that [Mitt] Romney did so poorly is that he never came off as authentic, who could reach people where they’re at. It’s not that the speech would work if it were done in the same exact way. But we still search in our political leaders for those things that Nixon tried to play upon. Here’s a guy in a stage set in a television studio, saying, “Hey, I’m authentic.” There are more of us wanting that today than we necessarily like to think.

He was lashing out against what was known then as “eggheads,” now known as liberals and elites. Was this a deliberate ploy?

He knew exactly what he was doing, and he tapped a deep current in culture and American politics. This is something that is still very much a part of our political discourse: a distrust of eggheads, that they come off as knowing better than the average guy. Nixon is the mastermind of that. I think that’s a consistent thing that he does throughout his career. He is taking money from these folks and he is able to flip it around and say, “I am the common everyday guy. I am the one who is at war against the elites who are trying to keep me down.” That is a master stroke.

What did Nixon himself learn from this horrible experience?

The most important thing that he learned from this is that there are ways to get around the media. That’s one of those institutions that he characterized as elite. A direct form of teleprompterism is the best way to get around all those Ivy League elites and journalists who are going to ask pestering questions. In many ways, it’s that discovery of how you control your message, how to make sure that you are in complete control and nobody else is tripping you up and that you are communicating this directly to the American people. That is something that sticks with him.

Watch the Checkers speech here (and keep an open mind): www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqjwBDH-vhY www.themodern.us

funny papers

Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary Comic strip legend and deeply complicated man, Al Capp channeled his talents but lost to his demons.

By Ronald Sklar

as Jewish sounding.

At the height of cartoonist Al Capp’s success, his satiric comic strip Li’l Abner was featured in 900 newspapers with 90 million dedicated readers. From 19341977, hillbilly Abner and his family faced the best and worst of pop culture and hilariously confronted hypocrisy. Capp earned a fortune with Abner merchandise and a hit Broadway musical, and his fame went supernova from numerous radio and TV appearances.

His compulsion to rib targets in the public eye landed him on the covers of Time, Life and Newsweek.

However, beneath the success was a dark and complicated man. He became infamous for sexual misconduct. His increasingly conservative politics became his ultimate downfall in an era when his views fell out of favor with the times.

Authors Michael Schumacher and Denis Kitchen have presented the first Al Capp biography, Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary [Bloomsbury Books]. Their study tracks the incredible highs and lows of a man who had brought great joy as well as great misery to many.

What was the appeal of Li’l Abner?

Denis: Li’l Abner represents the best in terms of honesty and loyalty and core ethics. Capp’s characters tend to be universal, or extremes.

They were either drop-dead gorgeous or hideous. I think that’s what the appeal was. We knew these people.

Michael: At the heart of it, Li’l Abner was pure. He was the allAmerican boy. The Beverly Hillbillies was an absolute rip-off of Li’l Abner. These were people who were so unbelievably innocent and funny. They were decent people.

As difficult as it may be, can you sum up Al Capp in just a few words?

Michael: He was by nature a very unpleasant person. Even as a little boy. But he was remarkably consistent in some respects. He wasn’t as politically astute as he would like to think he was. I think it’s very important to understand just how awful his behavior was. It certainly would not be tolerated today.

Denis: Throughout his entire life, he was what used to be called a womanizer. So much of it comes from secondary sources or hearsay, so we have to be careful.

We limit it to the cases where there was hard evidence.

But this guy really was a mess as far as his relationship with women was concerned.

His talent took him far after humble beginnings.

Michael: Jewish cartoonists were the root of comic strips as well as comic books. Anti-Semitism was so prevalent in the early days of commercial art. They wouldn’t hire Jews. So [Jewish commercial artists] took comics, because it was a way to make a living. Al Caplan changed his name to Al Capp, so it wouldn’t be www.themodern.us

How did Capp’s conservative political views seep into the strip itself, especially during the Sixties?

Denis: Capp claimed he didn’t change [politically].

He was for most of his life what you would call a Roosevelt Democrat, but his core social views didn’t change.

He took offense at the hippies protesting the Viet Nam war. He didn’t appreciate the way they dressed. He thought they were wasting their parents’ money. I think that was in large part because when he was young, his parents were very poor. His parents couldn’t send him to college. He had to become self-educated.

In the end, Li’l Abner was discontinued due to increasingly unfavorable newspaper articles about his attacks on women, including charges of rape.

Denis: Half the newspapers dropped him around the time that the 1971 attempted rape accusation incident broke. A lot of newspaper editors and readers were kind of fed up with him. The scandal headlines gave them the excuse to drop the strip. The last of his papers were in small to mid-size towns that were by nature more conservative. It was devastating to him economically and of course to his ego. He finally hung it up in ’77. In his last interview, he admitted that the strip hadn’t been funny for years, which for him was a pretty startling admission.

The Modern | May 2013

photo essay

a n n o G e r ’ Your Make It

After All!

The Modern | May 2013

www.themodern.us

n r u t n a c Who d l r o w e th r e h h t i on w smile? k a t n a c Who g n y i t i h C t o g i n B e a h t n i l r i G The Modern day, and y l n e d d su make it all seem e l i h w h t r wo u o y s ’ t i l l We Why do we love a lonely girl in the big city? Because of the possibilities, of which there are mucho. For one, she brings out our protective instincts. We cheer for her and get so emotional as she makes friends, finds lovers, lands a job, and stands up to her crusty but lovable boss.

She’s finding her way, and we look to her as we find ours.

The story is as old as the hills, but the women’s liberation movement of the Seventies gave a new face to the story, a deeper tale with more at stake. Mary Tyler Moore, as Mary Richards, came to Minneapolis in 1970 with nothing, and, in the end (1977), left with nothing. Existential, for sure, but oh, the history she made in between.

Marlo Thomas was That Girl in the Sixties, but as fancy-free as she was, she was way too ahead of her time and ultimately had to dial it back (despite her intense perkiness).

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was where lightning truly struck. It ushered in The New Woman on television, reflecting the millions of American women who found careers, pushed off marriage and children a little longer, and discovered that men can be sex objects too. Wholesome Mary made it okay.

B y

R o n a l d

S k l a r

Photography by Harley Reinhardt Harleyhallphotography.com Model: Sarah Blessing | Ford

photo essay

The Modern | May 2013

www.themodern.us

Here are just a few more shining examples, both before and after Mary.

Brenda Starr, Reporter (1940)

girl, and d l u o h s u yo know it

Dale Messick created a career gal comic strip when it was almost unheard of in real life. Despite Brenda’s glamorous reporting job, her biggest goal was to marry the dashing Basil St. John, which she finally did in 1976 (worth the decades-long wait). Nervous newspaper editors erased Messick’s depictions of Starr’s cleavage and navel.

Sex & The Single Girl (1962)

Helen Gurley Brown would quite naturally become the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965, but a few years earlier she wrote the book that asked the musical question: “how does a single girl go about having an affair?” The Pill was introduced two-years before; the question was suddenly valid and in vogue. Brown, however, was not allowed to use the word “sex” in television interviews. The message must have gotten through anyway: it sold two million copies in three weeks.

The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Author Betty Friedan addressed “the problem with no name,” namely the stifling unhappiness of upper-middle-class suburban housewives. Picture June Cleaver having a dark night of the soul. Nerves were touched, along with the outrageous suggestion that housewives may want to try careers and expanded horizons, including those of a sexual nature. The book was called one of the most influential of the 20th century and led to the formation of The National Organization for Women.

Annie Hall (1977)

Woody Allen’s masterpiece examined his relationship with the small town girl in the big city, and why it failed. Not only a love song to independent women, but to New York City as well. Roger Ebert called it “just about everybody’s favorite Woody Allen movie.” Diane Keaton (in the title role) in-

h c a e h Wit d n a e c n gla e l t t i l y r e v e t n e m e mov t i w o h s you

l l a s i e v o L o n , d n u aro

photo essay

The Modern | May 2013

www.themodern.us

need to waste it e v a h n You ca y h w , n a tow u o y t ’ n o d take it n n o g e r ’ You make it after all n n o g e r ’ u Yo make it after all

troduced a masculine Ralph Lauren look that was first observed as “crazy.”

Later, “genius.” For better or worse, this film inspired every romantic comedy you’ve seen in the last thirty years.

Working Girl (1988)

Melanie Griffith plays a working-class Staten Island girl who toils as a secretary on Wall Street. Long story short: she closes a merger deal, all by herself.

As she evolves, her Eighties ‘do de-poofs.

Sex & The City (1998)

Some would argue that this urban fairy tale is really about four gay men, not women (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Nevertheless, deep-seated sexual issues are unraveled, discussed, dissected and, uh, laid bare. Heady stuff. Millions of women and gay men give the big thumbs up. Straight men wince. Call that empowerment.

The Devil Wears Prada (book 2003/film 2006)

Angel vs. Devil, 2.0. The new Satan is not The Man, but The Woman, in all her Anna Wintour vogue (the editor was initially displeased about the comparison). The angel, of course, triumphs in the end, and breaks the mysterious fashion code by which she lives (millions of other fashionistas stand up and cheer; others do some serious re-examining.).

30 Rock (2006)

Tina Fey as Liz Lemon shows the modern woman as perfectly imperfect.

Like most of these career gals with the gifted sense of humor, Liz uses the office as a means to keep the mean city at bay (for the most part). It acts as a protective shell. The brilliant comedy showcased the gal as independent and successful, but hooked on junk food, lacking in fashion sense, and having root canal on Valentine’s Day. And astoundingly, she never gets the guy (Alec Baldwin).

The Modern | May 2013

the great forgotten

Modern Woman s o n g s B y

J a y

S .

J a c o b s

Interestingly, the rock and roll era pretty much coincided with the sexual revolution. As the youth movement took hold sociologically and artistically, the music world has featured the halting but strong progress of women taking their fair place in the world. Looking back, the songs become an amusing bookmark of a movement finding more traction. You really have come a long way, baby.

“Modern Girl” – Sheena Easton

Ironically, this tribute to a fashionably modern working girl was Sheena Easton’s second huge hit single, following up the nostalgically subservient “Morning Train (9 to 5).” In that song a woman hangs around waiting for her man to come home from work, feed her and give her good loving. “Modern Girl” was a much more Eighties independent vibe. This girl (to paraphrase Teri Garr in Tootsie) read The Second Sex, read The Cinderella Complex and knows she’s responsible for her own orgasm. She likes dating and having fun, however this modern girl don’t build her world around no single man. (Nor does she build it around taking English classes, which could help her avoid those pesky double-negatives.) And frankly she doesn’t always even find her guys as interesting as the tiny 13-inch TV that she watches in the wonderfully on-the-nose pre-MTV music video. www.youtube.com/embed/2p7C1hISbBM

“I Am Woman” – Helen Reddy

“I Am Woman” has come to be somewhat mocked as being a bit cheesy in the 40 years since Helen Reddy topped the charts with the song. However that isn’t taking in consideration what a daring song it was in the early Women’s Lib universe of 1972. Reddy wrote the song simply because she felt it was a subject that

The Modern | May 2013

was not being addressed in pop music. The song soon became an anthem for female empowerment and still is a stirring call to arms in the war of the sexes. The mockery it has received has more to do with how the song was used than the song itself – for a recent example watch the cringe-worthy scene in which pampered fashionista Carrie Bradshaw and her besties taught the song to their downtrodden cellmates in a Middle Eastern jail in Sex and the City 2. www.youtube.com/embed/MUBnxqEVKlk

“I’m a Woman” – Peggy Lee

Way back in 1963 (the sociological if not chronological start of the swinging Sixties), Peggy Lee took this forward-looking jaunt into the war of the sexes. The song described a world where a woman could bring home the bacon, cook it up in a pan, feed the baby, www.themodern.us

grease the car and powder her face at the same time.

Lee becomes a superwoman, an executive in the office, a gourmet in the kitchen and a wildcat in the bedroom.

The song is charming in it’s insistence on a have-it-all look at the power of a woman. Every once in a while you wonder why her husband doesn’t get off his lazy ass, but otherwise in this song, Peggy Lee makes being an overworked wife, mother and executive sound kinda hot. www.youtube.com/embed/uh8ZpZkUr2Y

“Georgy Girl” – The Seekers

This song was the theme to the phenomenal movie of the same name about a groovy British bird who was shedding her dowdy feathers in swingin’ London. Interestingly, for a song that was so upbeat and happy, the movie’s story was a rather bleak look at the heroine’s life. However, the song works almost as a balm to the hard life on screen, instead focusing on the wild and happening moments of the technicolor London street life that Georgy so desperately aspired to experience. www.youtube.com/embed/c-GApOqzgWM

“Manic Monday” – The Bangles

The pain about equal rights is that you have to get up at six o’clock in the morning when you’d rather snuggle in bed. This wonderful psychedelic pop tune about the doldrums of being a working woman made stars of The Bangles. However, the song was actually written by a man named simply Christopher, which was a quickly leaked pseudonym for Prince, who was only the biggest star of the day. He wrote the song specifically for Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs, who gave the song a smart Eighties girl panache and a longing for both success and love in a complicated world. www.youtube.com/embed/oFPZzmfu6j4

“She’s Leaving Home” – The Beatles

Leave it to The Beatles to take a completely unique way to look at a young women growing into a brave new world of professional and sexual equality. “She’s Leaving Home” takes a look at a young girl coming of age and leaving the nest. However, the lyric tells it ironically from the perspective of her heartbroken parents who are feeling the full weight of empty nest syndrome.

While this smart and capable young woman takes her first steps into adulthood, maturity and meeting a man from the motor trade, mom and dad mournfully wonder what they have done wrong and why she can’t be their little girl forever. www.youtube.com/embed/-lG3nXyI41M www.themodern.us

“Pink Bedroom” – Rosanne Cash

Rosanne Cash’s extraordinary cover of John Hiatt’s poppy tribute to a girl growing into jailbait sexuality is as smart and literate as it is catchy. The story of a hip young girl who hasn’t quite caught up to her budding body, but is enjoying the attention she is getting... if not quite understanding it. A mix of shallow fashion and surprisingly deep emotions, this song maps out the hazardous waters of a young lady graduating from being a girl to being a woman. www.youtube.com/embed/lo4ULW1uqVE

“A Smile and a Ribbon” – Patience & Prudence

Welcome to girl power circa 1956. Patience and Prudence were the young (14 and 11) daughters of Frank Sinatra’s former keyboardist Mark McIntyre.

Dad recorded his two adorable little girls for a series of singles in the mid-late Fifties. This song was the bside of their biggest hit: “Tonight You Belong to Me.” However the old-style charms of this song has kept it on the pop culture radar for going on 60 years. Most recently this song has been used (only half snarkily) in the acclaimed graphic novel Ghost World and its movie adaptation as well as in a British lottery ad. We have a perky young moppet (I believe 11 year old Prudence took lead on this song) giving important life advice like “To be a girl who’s noticed takes more than a fancy dress.” The song is outdated, both musically and in subject matter, but damn if it isn’t freakin’ adorable! It’s the musical equivalent of sugar and spice and everything nice. If Cindy Brady could be a song, this would be it. Reality check: those cute little singing princesses would now be 71 and 68, if they’re even still alive. At least they’ve finally grown into their first names. www.youtube.com/embed/6ckgyjVkx7c

“Modern Woman” – Billy Joel

Because who knows more about modern women than Billy Joel, right? Strangely, this musical tribute to a hot and happening young woman who was living the fashionable professional life and resisting Billy’s old-fashioned charms was originally released on the soundtrack of the hit 1986 Danny DeVito/Bette Midler comedy Ruthless People. This odd usage led you to wonder whether the modern woman being serenaded was supposed to be Midler’s bitchy harridan or Helen Slater’s sweet and shy kidnapper. Hmm... Even though it was a top ten hit at the time, Joel has since said that he doesn’t really care for the song and it is routinely left off of the multiple compilations of his greatest hits. www.youtube.com/embed/PdzQi_hh7Qc The Modern | May 2013

modern tech

Adventures in Modern Sound

By Art Wilson Before I met my wife, her relatives were close to the family of Bob and Sarah, whose two older daughters grew up to lead interesting and creative lives. Their younger brother Frankie, though, had challenges and blessings.

Bob was a businessman and Sarah was an interior designer. In their beautifully decorated home in the nearby suburbs, they were hospitable and gracious hosts. Sarah was a wonderful cook.

At my first visit to this household, I met Frankie. He was about sixteen-years old, but appeared younger in size and demeanor. I was told, he was developmentally challenged. He was very friendly and outgoing.

As a baby, Frank was diagnosed too late with a

Horiyan/shutterstock

constricted esophagus. That deprived his body and brain of adequate nutrition. He was raised with special care, love, and acceptance by his family, and before long, he started to exhibit musical talent.

As soon as Frankie could sit at the piano, he would pick out tunes by ear, kicking the piano, frustrated, not being able to reach the pedals. He sang harmony parts with those who sang with him. He was obviously a musical savant.

In subsequent visits, I brought my guitar so that Frankie and I could play duets. He could play piano arrangements of just about any song that I or others would call out, that he had heard possibly just once before. This developed into happy sing-alongs, with The Modern | May 2013

family and friends gathered around the piano. Our repertoire developed favorites, and a particular one was BJ Thomas’ “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.”

A few years after I met him, it was decided that Frankie would benefit from a group living experience.

He moved from home to a beautiful working farm, run by staff and residents who lived in home-like dormitories. There were community activities and learning, and it seemed to be a happy environment for Frankie. His job was to deliver vegetables, and he had lots of opportunities to play the piano.

Our crowd of Frankie’s family and friends visited the farm often, and on Family Day, Frankie would have the largest number of guests of any resident.

Our sing-alongs became public concerts, with much clapping and joy.

On occasion, Sarah would invite some of Frankie’s friends from the farm to her house for a pizza party, with the usual musical fun.

Frankie regularly rode his bicycle on the farm, and one day had an accident, falling and sustaining a severe head injury. After some recovery, his personality and musical abilities were unchanged, but he walked with a limp and apparently had suffered some permanent damage.

We assumed he could continue on despite his additional challenges, but were saddened to hear that he eventually slipped into a coma, and then died.

He was over forty years old, but the eternal child.

Years before, when I saw Elton John perform “Candle in the Wind 1997” at Princess Diana’s funeral, I was impressed by how he could keep it together emotionally, and wondered if I would be able to do so in a similar situation. Well, sadly, I got my chance.

The farm family hosted a gathering in their community room prior to Frankie’s burial. Anyone was free to get up and speak, and many did so.

Sarah requested that I bring my guitar and sing our signature song, “ … Done Somebody Wrong Song”.

We were seated in a circle, and when it was my turn I played and sang the song - without Frankie’s accompaniment.

We miss you, Frankie.

Art Wilson is a Philadelphia-based musician, teacher, software specialist and retired chemist.

www.themodern.us

retro merch

Jay S. Jacobs

LA Gear Sneakers

By Jay S. Jacobs As timeless as Kathy Ireland, bright neon colors and sky-high hair, LA Gear sneakers snuck up on the big companies like Nike, Adidas and Reebok. For a heady few years in the late Eighties and early Nineties, the company became a player in the athletic shoe game.

As the hot Eighties blonde said in some of their most memorable commercials, “It wasn’t a fantasy.”

Yes, for a short time the little shoe company that could was getting celeb endorsements from some of the biggest names in the sporting world, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky. Supermodels like Ireland and Deprise Brescia steamed up the ads. The brand even got a pre-stardom (and pre-pubescent) Jennifer Love Hewitt for their holiday ad one year.

Also, LA Gear was the first shoe company that tapped into the pop music market (because musicians need sneakers, right?) The first singing celeb endorser was former Go-Go’s leader Belinda Carlisle. They sniped Paula Abdul away from Reebok, right in the middle of her “Rush Rush” stardom. Eventually the company got so powerful that Michael Jackson became an endorser.

So LA Gear had the sizzle, but did they have the sneak?

LA Gear’s specialty was essentially knocking off other sneaker company’s ideas, but doing it in a louder, more colorful manner. Particularly they loved the women’s sneakers market, adding neon pink flames

and pink shoelaces into the fashion vernacular. (Or neon green, or orange, or purple, or many other offbeat colors.) LA Gear also did a bit of trailblazing themselves, making the first running shoes that included the little blinking lights in the soles. However, for the most part, they seemed to be following the trends – making their own versions of the “pump” sneaks and Air Jordans.

LA Gear’s ad-centric business strategy lost its way in the early Nineties when they sunk some huge coin on celeb spokesman James Worthy of the Los Angeles Lakers, who immediately went out and was arrested for soliciting a prostitute.

They also deemphasized the women’s styles, which probably was their sweet spot. Soon bad press, changing styles (damn those grunge people with their Doc Maartens!) and declining sales left the Gear in the dust.

In 1994, they jumped back into the women and children market, but it was too late. After years of declining sales, LA Gear filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1998.

The company has attempted to return to prominence in the field periodically ever since, most recently in 2009, but they have never regained their market share.

Maybe it was a fantasy.

Jay S. Jacobs is the author of the books Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits and Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos.

He is also senior editor and founder of the pop culture web magazine www.popentertainment.com.

Just what we wanted!

LA Gear commercials were the state of the art of Eighties ad pop whether featuring a perky, inquisitive little sister (a grade-schoolaged Jennifer Love Hewitt) or perky, inquisitive pop stars like Belinda Carlisle and Paula Abdul. The commercials promised us a sunny world of palm trees, beaches, blonde hair, faded jeans, colorful shoes and Santa — all cut to a music video beat. That’s my guy!

Jennifer Love Hewitt

www.themodern.us

Paula Abdul

Belinda Carlisle

The Modern | May 2013

dig this dvd

That Girl

Season 1 (1966-1967) Shout! Factory 2006 Often touted as TV’s first truly liberated gal is…that girl!

By Ronald Sklar Like one of Marlo Thomas’ minidresses, That Girl perkily sashayed into TV history as a feminist-era earthshaker. It gladly took credit for bravely paving the way for the likes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and even — according to this DVD’s liner notes — Murphy Brown and Ally McBeal.

We could argue and bicker about this all day if you want — but the thing to do is watch the first season of this gentle giant and write an essay determining if you’re watching a pioneering landmark or simply a hyper-condensed Doris Day movie. And while we’re at it, is the Marlo Thomas character a strong, independent woman — or a spoiled brat?

Sure, the concept was novel for 1966 (the original title of this series was Miss Independence). Despite the dizzying social upheaval that was happening — and “happening!” – by that decade’s midpoint, prime-time television was not only slow to change, but decidedly resistant.

Despite punches being pulled left and right, Ann Marie was the girl with something extra (Ann Marie was Marlo Thomas’ character’s name — and yes, Marie was her last name, based on the nomenclature of Ann Margaret). She was free to be you and me, but her claims toward feminine liberation may be too strong a term, at least for this first season, which still focused on the Cute and the Adorable.

Yet here’s where the show detours from the humdrum: this That Girl moves to New York and dreams of being an actress (that’s not the novel part) but — and dig this if you can — she has absolutely no designs to get married! Her career — such as it is — comes first, and she actually means it. Yes, she has a boyfriend, but no, they don’t ever sleep together and very rarely discuss getting hitched. As Liz Smith says, only in New York, kids! Only in New York!

We don’t care anyhow, since there would be nothing really to see, would there? The boyfriend, Donald Hollinger (everybody say it together: “oh, Donald!”), was played with nervous energy by the late, great Ted Bessell. In the pilot, he was known as Don Blue Sky, but skittish network executives insisted he be painted whiter. As well, her parents in the series’ pilot (one of them The Modern | May 2013

being the terrific veteran character actor Harold Gould) were considered “too ethnic” by network a-holes. Apparently, for all the talk of groundbreaking, on both counts Thomas caved.

In an episode amazingly written by James L. Brooks (responsible for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Simpsons, among others!), That Girl and her boyfriend get stranded at a faraway lodge in a snowstorm, and have to deal nervously with sleeping in separate rooms, since they are not married. The comedy begins when it appears that they will, after all, have to share a room, and maybe even a bed. It’s moronic, but ultimately kind of sweet, considering the sitcom sexual obnoxiousness that is to come and bore us to tears in future decades.

“I’ve never seen your ankles before,” Donald says of Ann in another episode, which is code for us to be reassured that they have never been intimate. In fact, according to Thomas in the commentary track, network censors were constantly worried that it didn’t look like Donald was leaving Ann’s apartment and going home for the evening.

That Girl delights in its own sexual revolution, void of sex: she gets a job at The Caveman Club, which is based on The Playboy Club, but the most action she sees is a gangster fistfight and a night in the slammer; of course all as a result of a comic misunderstanding.

That Girl and that boyfriend are more like brother and sister than Manhattan lovers, but their chemistry is so right-on that it never sticks in the craw. And let’s face it — would you really want to endure a prototype will-they-or-won’t-they storyline, a la Sam and Diane or Ross and Rachel? Be thankful to Thomas that she at least spared us that. Now that’s groundbreaking.

However, the real co-star of this series is not her boyfriend, but her very false false eyelashes. And let’s not forget those sunglasses worn on the top of the head (how can we?).

Like Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City, Thomas wears outfits that no self-respecting New Yorker would ever, ever wear, and more often than not, the clothes look like they are wearing her.

On the commentary track, Thomas says (actually out loud!), “I don’t remember much about any of these shows, but I remember the clothes!”

Although Sex and the City matches That Girl for its www.themodern.us

less-than-real take on a real life in Manhattan, at least Thomas takes measures to depict her character trying to earn a real living the way real people do (waitressing, catering, shoe sales, and appearing in thankless, lowlevel, low-paid roles on television programs).

However, like Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, how she manages to live alone in a swell one-bedroom apartment on East 78th Street is what fairy stories are made of. Additional funding probably comes from her biological parents whom she doesn’t resemble in any way (played by Lew Parker and perennial TV-mom Rosemary DeCamp).

It’s New York’s last glimpse of pure, Breakfast-At-Tiffany’s-type glamour, a civil world of dining and dancing and eveningwear, before that city sunk into its dark night of crime, bankruptcy, graffiti and an X-rated Times Square.

That Girl’s dark underbelly is actually white and smooth: the seediest New York criminal Ann Marie encounters is a blond, bumbling Jerry Van Dyke, who goofily holds her up at pretendgunpoint.

You’ll marvel at the stunning exterior shots that accent the cosmopolitan feel of the series, from the dazzling, Broadwayoverture style opening to the fashion-toned closing credits (she throws food at pigeons, and they all respond by rising up in the air. It will take some research to determine whether this was cliché before or since).

Incredibly cool footage also includes amazing vintage traffic and real-time film of Broadway at its very peak (a sign reads, “Funny Girl In Its Third Smash Year!”). It’s a disorienting, Olde New York, long gone — filled with only white people, especially men in suits, and women in day dresses. No jeans, no tattoos and no languages other than English. Archeologists should be studying this.

The color on which this series is filmed is vibrant, almost thrillingly so, and a full orchestra optimistically provides the incidental music (unlike today’s tiresome synthesizers).

One troubling curious moment, though: in the opening credits, Thomas is not too busy being perky to stop in her tracks and help lift a toddler up so that the baby could get a drink from a water fountain. This is www.themodern.us

marvelous in theory, and is meant to endear That Girl to us as a nation. However, ask yourself this: what is this small baby doing by herself, right next to traffic on Columbus Avenue, with absolutely no parent or guardian within range? And even more infuriating, Thomas puts the child down and continues on her rushed, perky way, leaving the child again endangered by oncoming traffic.

Equally troubling: her father, worried about her getting home safely, says to her, “I’ll take you back to your place and I’ll spend the night at a Turkish bath.” Uh, okay.

You’ll also witness Dabney Coleman, very young and hardly recognizable, as Thomas’ dependable doctorneighbor; Richard Dreyfuss playing an exuberant actor/ waiter (with a failed mission to charm us and not annoy us); and Jerry Seinfeld’s “Uncle Leo” (Len Lesser) playing a tough security guard (“That Girl! Hello!”). And what Sixties series would be complete without Paul Lynde, in extreme Paul-Lynde mode?

Her personal problems cause no physical or emotional consequences whatsoever, and in the end, rather than a visit to an emergency room or a detox unit, her boyfriend simply sighs to himself and says, “oh, that girl.”

The main highlight of the entire DVD is not the series itself, but a promo reel from its original network, ABC (you’ll want to replay all of that Sixties energy – it’s deliciously dated and pure feel-good). And don’t miss a pre-hippie and handsome George Carlin, appearing only once as Ann Marie’s dippy but well-groomed agent, in an episode with the great and not-yet-famous Sally Kellerman, who acts rings around everybody.

Ultimately, though, what fills us with intense anticipation is the regularly scheduled set-up in the initial scene, as we wait for someone — anyone — to point to Marlo Thomas and say, “THAT GIRL!” We are not disappointed, ever, as what was meant to be a onetime event became a weekly writing challenge and a series signature throughout its five-year run (example: “Which girl? This girl?” “No — THAT GIRL!”).

Buy this DVD here.

The Modern | May 2013

parting

sh t

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBMa9ucXpbo&feature=player_embedded The Doris Day Show (1968-1974) was a hot mess. All in the typical life of a contemporary, modern TV woman of the Seventies: the crusty but lovable boss, the flaky friend, and the fashion show in which she wears her hair not so much in a ponytail but more like a backwards, upside-down horse tail.

What contemporary Seventies woman doesn’t drive a convertible wearing a raincoat (wouldn’t it make more sense to put the top up?). Yet she still relies on public transportation: she hops and skips off the cable car as if to say, “aren’t I adorable? Won’t whatever will be, be?”

CBS, in an effort to reach a younger, hipper, more urban audience, mercilessly revamped Doris’ folksy Sixties sitcom. It was her Sophie’s Choice: she was ordered to ditch her kids and her farm in the country and move to San Francisco and toil in an office. And wear hideous Seventies clothes. But the new version was no Mary Tyler Moore Show. Instead, it felt more like a Photostat. Oh, well. Que sera sera.

Ronald Sklar