Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye

There is an old Irish song called Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye. That in my mind encompasses my thoughts on JFK and his administration .
President Kennedy gave his life for his country 50 years ago today and I or any American will never forget him . During the time of his presidency many Americans did not understand his vision of America. He moved fast on some things like our race to the moon against the Soviet Union but not fast enough on issues like Civil Rights of Women's Rights.
We were inspired by his inaugural speech that asked us not to just  take from America but to give as well to take the torch that has been given to us and to light the world. He gave the challenge to youth at the time to go out into the world and make it better . He started the Peace Corps that said to the world that American troops would not be the only young people in their countries.
President Kennedy inspired us all and gave us hope but we did not know him. We did not know that he was very ill and suffered excruciating  pain throughout his presidency. We did not know that his father suffered a stroke and was unable to communicate. As someone whose father suffered a stroke and cannot communicate, I understand the stress he must have been under. His children were under a constant spotlight. President Kennedy was from privilege  and did not always understand what it was like not to have it but he was willing to listen. What was great about President Kennedy is that he did not know everything and he knew it . He reached out to America to help him understand. He made mistakes and was willing to admit it . He made mistakes and he made changes. He toured FBI headquarters and asked director J Edgar Hoover why he had only one Black agent in the entire FBI and called him to recruit more. President Kennedy knew that America was far from perfect but he was willing to do what was necessary to make it such. He was slow and sometimes resistant on Civil Rights but went on to know that it was either Civil Rights or Civil War.
President Kennedy was all that was good about the new America and he was willing bring us into it kicking and screaming. I was only 6 when President Kennedy was killed but he has shaped my thoughts , my political philosophy and all that I dream of .
Johnny we hardly knew ye but we're glad we did.

When Life Gives You Broken Legs, Walk on Your Hands

I was watching a movie the another night called "Wings of Eagles". It was about the life of Frank "Spig" Wead aviation pioneer and screenwriter . It was directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne as Wead. It was an average movie kind of melodramatic and stiff in some parts. What I liked about this movie was not the movie itself but its message. It was my burning bush for career change and the incentive to move on.
In the movie, Spig Wead an award-winning aviator and recently promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander returned home to visit his wife and two daughters in Coronado California.
Awakened in the middle of the night by his daughter crying, he leaps from his bed and rushes to her aid. On the way he trips and falls down the stairs breaking his back.
The injury caused paralysis making it impossible for him to sit up or walk on his own.
Having hope that he would fly again he underwent physical therapy but abandoned the idea of being an aviator again . He was unable to fly again but he came to realize that he had other talents that could be used by him to start another career.  After reading  stories in detective magazines, Wead started to submit stories . At first he was rejected but after revising his stories and resubmitting them, he eventually sold one and the check for the stories arrived on the same he was to be medically retired from the Navy.
To make a long story short, Frank "Spig" Wead became a Hollywood screenwriter, novelist and award-winning playwright . At the start of WWII Wead went back into the Navy and became a top-notch aviation strategist and planner. His ideas helped to re-build naval aviation after Pearl Harbor . He died two years after the end of the War.
Okay, that's the outside story here is the inside story, my story.
Just like Frank Wead, I came to a roadblock in my career that stopped me in my tracks. I didn't break my back and I wasn't an aviator but my career as a teacher meant a great deal to me and I put my all into it and became the best prepared of any of my peers, little too prepared. To make a short-story shorter, I was forced off my job because I made too much money . That broke my back in many ways, financially, professionally and socially. At first I was angry and frustrated that I could be forced off my job for the simple fact that I wanted to stay prepared as an educator.
I thought this way until I saw "Wings of Eagles" and realized that some people do not have a rosy career path and run into obstacles . When something is taken away from you like your back or your job you have to look at not what you don't have but what you do have . Maybe I didn't have my teaching job any more but I had to think about what I do have . A good education, a wealth of experience and the confidence and ability to know that there isn't anything that I can't do .
I am an excellent communicator, resourceful and a quick study. I know what I am willing to do and what I am not willing to do. I am a salesman but I do not like sales . I am a teacher but I do not like when people do not value learning. I know what kind of business I would like to work in and will not stop until I am in a work situation that I am comfortable in.
I want to began a career in the area of training and communications. I have taken the talents that I have and parlay them into a new career knowing that is will not be easy. The most difficult thing about starting a new career is the fact that most of the people that you have come in contact with see you in a particular role and it is hard for them to get that role out of their head. This might sound harsh but I will have to distance myself from those people and find people who see me in the role that I want to be seen in and prepare for that role. Isolation sometimes is a good way to  stay away from people until you are fully immersed in the role that you want.
I want to be a writer so I have to write, blog publish and develop ideas. I have to spend all of my free time preparing for my new career. Sending out resume's and preparing writing samples, going to trade shows and conventions until people see me as a technical writer and trainer. Do not waste my time being involved in anything that will not get me into my new career.
Just like Spig Wead, I broke my back and now I have to take what I have been left with and start anew. I may not be able to fly anymore, but soon I will soar like an eagle.

Gatsby is Still Great

Gatsby is Still Great
I did something that I was very reluctant to do the other night. I went to the theater and saw the latest version of The Great Gatsby. I was reluctant to do it because I did not want to ruin the visions that I had of the 1975 version of the movie starring Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby. I was apprehensive about viewing the latest version because I felt that it might take away from Redford's stellar performance and destroy my adolescent illusion of what I saw to be a perfect adaptation of the novel.
I approached this new version with a sense of caution caused by this idea of perfection. I was wrong about the movie and the entire concept of the hip hop version of the Great Gatsby. After sitting down and putting on my 3-d glasses and settling in for the show I realized that this movie was well beyond a hip hop Jay-Z produced version of a classic.
I think that Sean "Jay -Z" Carter took on this project as a way to show the public at large that he has risen well beyond that role and his talents far exceed the implications. I like, I am sure many of the other viewers, were coming to hear hip-hop but what we saw was a fusion of jazz hip-hop and pop music of both the 1920s and 2013. The scenes and the characters were well enveloped by this blend of music and magic that transported us from our seats into the world of Jay Gatsby taking Jay-Z our music genius of the 21st century to George Gershwin the Jay-Z of the 1920s.
This was clearly evident with the introduction of Gatsby on the heels of Rhapsody in Blue, delivering the character from enigma to reality and face to face with Nick Caraway who to this point had only had brief glimpses of his elusive neighbor and whiffs of evidence that he actually exists  . Rhapsody builds up to a crescendo and there is Gatsby face to face with Nick. I have not seen as spectacular a meeting since Spenser Tracy said to Cedric Hardwicke " Dr. Livigstone, I presume?" Leonardo DeCaprio simply says Jay Gatsby . At that point the torch was passed from Redford to DiCaprio and Gatsby was his.
What I liked about DiCaprio's performance was that by the end of the movie you truly believed that Leonardo DiCaprio was Jay Gatsby not the Redford version but the Fitzgerald version . He showed what Redford did not Gatsby's frailties, his insecurities and his downright weakness. Particularly in the tea party scene where he walks outside in the rain to avoid Daisy afraid to confront her after a 5 year hiatus from her life.
Tobey McGuire gives an excellent performance as Nick Caraway . By the end of the movie I was wishing  that he was my friend. His performance took him far beyond the Sam Waterson version of Caraway who in my opinion was more of an observer and by the end clearly unaffected by the events of the summer and the death of Gatsby. Waterson was clearly upset by Gatsby's death but McGuire was completely changed by his experience with Gatsby and led to a nervous breakdown and a recovery through literature. McGuire like DiCaprio is a consummate actor, who becomes the character he is playing and because of is nondescript persona he is like modeling that enhances a movie rather than overshadow it. These two actors to my knowledge have never been paired up before and may never be paired up again but they are foundation that this quality movie is built upon.
The rest of the cast follows the lead of DiCaprio and McGuire and complement one another including Carey Mulligan and Elizabeth DeBicki  playing Daisy Buchanan  and Jordan Baker respectively. They transcended the roles played by Mia Farrow and Lois Chiles in the Redford version . They brought more personality and aggressiveness to their roles and showed they were in Daisy's words not just little fools but complemented DiCaprio and McGuire.
All in all the new version of the Great Gatsby has a place right up there with the 1975 Redford version . This version was more blunt and sassy and makes Gatsby greater and gives us a real sense of the character that Fitzgerald labored so hard for us to get to know. By the end of the movie I agreed with Nick Caraway that he was better than all of them put together.