JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 13, 2017

Is DJT our Great Gatsby?

Like most Americans I’ve been mesmerized by the story of Donald J. Trump aka The Donald. Real estate developer, entertainer, university founder, shirt and tie maker, birther-mythologist, pussy- grabber, casino failure, bankruptcy expert, and now the 45^th President of the United States.

It’s been quite a journey for DJT. At the moment it’s the best TV viewing since The Sopranos. I don’t want to miss an episode – the media coverage, tweets, rants, gaffes, alternative facts and walk-backs that dominate the news cycle. Since election night 2016, I haven’t been able to tear myself away from the TV, radio, print, and social networks.

First thing in the morning I’m outside gathering up the dailies (New York and Seattle Times). Next, I sit down with my coffee to read the papers and listen to CBS This Morning and Morning Joe for the latest tweets, insults, and surrogate apologies. At 9 a.m., in my home office, I put CNN, MSNBC, or Fox on to play in the background. In the car I’m tuned to Morning Edition, All Things Considered, or Sirius XM’s POTUS channel. At bedtime it’s Colbert followed by James Corden. I can’t help it; I’m obsessed with the unfolding drama.

It’s surprising, but super saturation hasn’t diminished my curiosity. There is plenty of fear and loathing to go around. The man we regarded as a joke, the one who seemed to be running for student body president, is now the most powerful person in the world. And yet, there is so much we don’t know about him – especially what’s in his tax filings.

We know he doesn’t smoke, drink, or sleep, doesn’t read but watches TV obsessively, tweets compulsively, loves money and beautiful women, despises criticism and craves the adoration of others, but how did he pull off his unexpected victory? Does he have “super powers”? If he wasn’t the President of the United States we might think of him as a cartoon character. The Riddler? The Joker? A new Marvel Comics villain?

Given that larger than life persona, doesn’t he deserve a better identifier? “Trump” sounds so low class, like Frump. You’d think he would have changed it himself. Trump – rhymes with Dump, Bump, and, yes, Plump. Not very dignified. Is this the way a larger than life President should be identified?

I think he needs a new ID. From now on he’s going to be DJT. I think he’ll be flattered. DJT, presidential shorthand, like FDR or JFK. Wouldn’t it be “tremendous” or “amazing” to be known that way? It would be “huge.” He’d be like JFK, the much admired 35^th President; the war hero with the quick wit, with wealth, prestige, Hollywood beauties, and a Harvard education. He’d be DJT, the kid from Jamaica, Queens, who made it to the golden penthouse on Fifth Avenue. DJT, with his Slovenian-model princess and his celebrated degree from the Wharton School of Finance.

But wait… Wharton isn’t taking my calls. What’s this mean? Where are The Donald’s records? Now I get it… DJT didn’t really commence that illustrious college career at Wharton. In fact, he didn’t technically end it there either. You see, after two years at Fordham, you heard right… after two years at Fordham… DJT transferred to Penn (home to Wharton School of Finance).

It’s complicated, as they say. Yes, DJT transferred to Penn after two years at Fordham and while at Penn he took some classes at the Wharton School of Finance but his degree, in 1968, is not an MBA from Wharton. No… like so many things Trumpian, the degree is not the shiny object he wants you to see (Wharton MBA), but a rather plebeian undergraduate degree from Penn. As Lloyd Bentsen might say, DJT is no JFK.

Always on the lookout for a creative analogy, I’ve been hunting for a figure of comparable notoriety to measure DJT against, someone as iconic in his time as DJT is today. If not JFK, then who? As a media creation, an entertainer, self-promoter, and outsider with no government experience he doesn’t match up with any historical figure I can think of, although the sex-drenched, bribe-ridden, media compromised, cabinet level whore-mongering of Italy’s recently deposed Silvio Berlusconi does resonate. But, Silvio’s scandals are singularly Italian.

No, I’ve come to think of DJT as a uniquely American phenomenon, and, as the country’s future unfolds before us, it occurred to me that it was more likely I’d find his counterpart in fiction rather than politics. Thinking that way, it wasn’t difficult for me to see DJT as the real life version of the most famous flawed character in American fiction – Jay Gatsby – the title character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He’s a fictional entrepreneur, living large in a world of self-promoting opulence, an imposter of “tremendous” proportions who is ultimately destroyed in the center of the fantasy he created for himself. DJT is the 21st century’s Jay Gatsby

It sounds odd, but I believe he’d be flattered to learn he is being compared to Gatsby. Although it’s well known he doesn’t read, I’m sure he knows the film versions of the novel. To see himself as Robert Redford or Leonardo DiCaprio would undoubtedly stroke his unquenchable ego and his self-created image as a figure of unimaginable wealth.

Though different in some ways, the similarities between Gatsby and DJT are astonishing. Gatsby, like DJT, was larger than life. Fitzgerald painted the portrait of a “successful,” enigmatic, and immensely rich Long Island entrepreneur who lived flamboyantly in a palace-like mansion, on a fortune of questionable origin.

DJT is also from Long Island, born in Jamaica, Queens, not far in distance but light years from the aristocratic, old money township of East Egg (Great Neck) and it’s lesser relative, the nouveau riche enclave, West Egg (Port Washington).

Both men – more surface than substance – are engaged in a struggle for acceptance, validation, and love in the only way they know – through the accumulation of vast wealth and the impressions and power it bestows. The shaky real estate empire, trophy wife, gold leaf, and period crown moldings of Trump Tower and Mar al Lago are today’s nouveau riche corollaries of the rolling terraces and baroque balconies at the Long Island estate where the mysterious Gatsby, in his impeccable white suit, presided over glitzy weekend parties designed to impress his neighbors and elevate his social standing.

The press is consumed with DJT but, as they say, every day there’s a shiny new object to distract us from his lack of substance just as the lawn parties at West Egg hid all eyes from the mystery that was Gatsby. In this post-truth, alternative-fact, universe, how can we tell fact from fiction? Gatsby’s goal was to capture the love of Daisy Buchannan, the Louisville, Kentucky princess he fell in love with before going off to war. DJT already has his gold-encrusted throne room and his Slovenian princess; now it’s America he wants for his trophy case.

So, where does all this lead? How does it end?

The Great Gatsby did not end well. Gatsby was murdered in a botched case of revenge and mistaken identity, assasinated by a blue collar husband who mistakenly thought Gatsby was having an affair with and responsible for the death of his wife. It wasn’t his illegal activities or questionable morality that brought him down. It was an unpredictable “black swan” event that unfolded at one of his glitzy parties.

The Great Gatsby is tragic love story thought by some to be the “Great American Novel,” and DJT, no matter what you think of him may also be another tragic story of epic proportions. We know the ending of Fitzgerald’s novel, but the end of the DJT story has yet to be written. I don’t know what will bring down DJT, but I believe it will happen because we are a country of laws and “we the people” will not allow the country and its values to be hijacked by an imposter who doesn’t know or respect those people or laws.

Will it be the FBI’s revelations about clandestine connections to Russia? Will it be the Democrats mobilizing the disparate factions that fear him? DJT tells us he loves surprises but he may not like the one that’s in store for him – maybe it will be Rosie O’Donnell in Steve Bannon drag? Wouldn’t that be a surprise?

I’m inclined to believe the end won’t involve any of the shiny objects we are looking at now. Like the surprise that brought down Gatsby, it’s likely to be a “black swan” that rises out of the “swamp” he created. Most likely it will be that kind of surprise – like George Wilson’s murder of Jay Gatsby.

“He had come to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did now know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the public rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, that that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning–

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

(Nick Carraway, the narrator, reflecting on Gatsby’s dream at the end of the novel)

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Categories : Books, Fashion/Lifestyle, Film/Television, Politics, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 8, 2017

· 3 Comments

New Sheriff. New Posse. New Rules…

“What we are witnessing now is the birth of a new political order.”

(Steve Bannon to the Washington Post )

Before Twitter. Before Facebook. Before cable news. Before the worldwide web. Before the “information age,” we had newspapers, national magazines, broadcast television, mainstream AM/FM radio, public libraries, and a relatively simple roadmap that informed our vision of world events as we engaged in heated but civil discourse on all matters political and religious.

In 1965, as a law student at the University of California, Berkeley, I wrote a statement, signed by many of my classmates, in support of the Free Speech Movement. The FSM was tearing the campus apart and drawing national attention. Last week, 52 years later, the campus was again the scene of riots and destruction. As before, it was based on the right of students to listen to a controversial speaker advocating a set of unpopular views. We were observing another Berkeley-esque challenge to the First Amendment.

If you followed news of the “riots, you know that the speaker asserting his First Amendment rights was a right wing provocateur from Breitbart News. This is an important piece of the puzzle that we are struggling to piece together in the opening days of the Trump presidency.

The first step in deciphering the puzzle is understanding the concept of agent provocateur. This old fashioned, French, compound noun conjures up dark thrillers from the past like Orson Welles’ The Third Man and Alfred Hitchcock’s 39 Steps and Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent.

But, agent provocateurs are not just characters in old films and classic fiction. They are active in our current political life. Do the names Julia Hahn, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and Milo Yiannopoulis ring a bell with you?

Yiannopoulis’ may sound familiar, because it was his invitation to speak that was the precipitating cause of the recent Berkeley riots and earlier ones at the University of Washington. The Berkeley appearance was cancelled at the last minute when a group of protesters, led by 100-150 black clad, hooded, anarchists arrived on the scene where they lit fires, broke windows, and caused havoc at the Student Union near UC’s Sather Gate. The original protest, which began peacefully, was meant to draw attention to the white supremacist, anti-Semitic, rhetoric of the Breitbart News editor and his support of President Donald Trump, but he and the anarchist demonstrators were able to turn the tables. Suddenly the media focus was on the protesters for not honoring American First Amendment values. Another example of the disruption strategy at work and an example of an agent provocateur in action.

An agent provocateur is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act. An agent provocateur may be acting out of their own sense of duty or may be employed by the police or other entity to discredit or harm another group (such as a peaceful protest or demonstration) by provoking them to commit a crime, thereby undermining the protest or demonstration as a whole. (Wikipedia)

Berkeley is a textbook case for decoding how an agent provocateur functions. The Berkeley College Republican organizers knew full well that Mr. Yiannopoulis’ speech would draw a large protest and likely some violence. They were aware that any violence would reflect badly on the protesters rather than on the white supremacist rants of the speaker, a classic instance in which the provocateur entices others to commit acts that will discredit the actors. A political organization or government often uses agents provocateurs against political opponents.

I have never been a conspiracy theorist (except perhaps in the disappearance of George W. Bush’s military service records), but I am becoming one in the early days of the Trump presidency. It’s fair to say that I was appalled at the Trump campaign and devastated by the election results though I wasn’t a Clinton advocate. And, while it’s true that I was aghast at the outcome I still didn’t fear for the future of the republic. That has now changed. Only ten days into the new administration I believe our democracy is in peril. And… Trump is not the culprit. He’s the dupe.

I won’t taunt you with a narrative about Trump’s lack of qualifications for the presidency. Suffice it to say that I have no respect for his intelligence or his putative love for America. His words confirm only that he craves adoration and is deeply troubled by the fact that despite his election to the presidency he is still regarded unfavorably by the majority of Americans. Did he think adoration came with the office?

It is increasingly clear to me that Donald J. Trump is simply a sidebar to the conspiracy I see unfolding. The central character is former Navy officer, Harvard MBA, Goldman Sachs banker, movie producer, media executive and Machiavellian manipulator.

Stephen Bannon is that character, the person most responsible for the Trump victory. The great mystery is how he was able to insinuate himself into the campaign hierarchy and rise to the position of chief strategist? It’s not clear how the two men got to know each other. On the surface they seem unlikely allies – the flamboyant, self-promoting, real estate developer and the behind the scenes alt-right manipulator – but as early as 2015, while chairman of Breitbart News, and long before the campaign gained real momentum, there was evidence of Bannon’s interest in the campaign. In August of 2015, in an email to a Breitbart colleague he asserted “I’m Trump’s campaign manager.” When asked if she could forward the email, he asked her not to though the email was later made public. It wasn’t until a year later in August of 2016 that he officially associated himself with the campaign and his role more public.

So what’s the conspiracy? Here it is… with supporting evidence. Bannon is an alt-right nationalist. It can be argued that he’s also a white supremacist, anti-Semite, wife beating misogynist (see the reports on his 1997 divorce), but all of that may be incidental to his bigger plan to destabilize and realign America in the world.

Bannon is, in his very black heart, (see Saturday Night Live spoofs of him as the Angel of Death) above all things an anti-globalist. According to The Guardian he thinks America,

“is engaged in a pitched struggle against threats from within and without. It is a battle that will last years, and requires iron resolve and steely determination. If the free press, a bastion of democratic self-governance, does not grasp these elusive truths, then it should “keep its mouth shut”, he says.

Bannon is not the president’s servant. The president is his tool. For years, Bannon cast about for the proper vehicle to carry the fight forward. Sarah Palin, Rick Perry –they were considered possible material. Now in Donald Trump he has found adequate if imperfect stuff. Both are workaholics. Both share a protectionist mindset. Both are combative.

But Bannon, in contrast to the president, is not easily distracted. He is intelligent, articulate, focused in his ideology and dedicated to the struggle. And he has now been catapulted by an undisciplined president to the inner precincts of the National Security Council and its principals’ committee, assuming a position senior to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.”

Since the inauguration and Trump’s “American carnage” address, the train has left the station and is gathering speed. The players (administration, Cabinet nominees and their departments, Congress and the electorate) are reeling and off balance in their effort to understand its vector and/or destination.

The earliest administration moves were predictable, like the “repeal and replace” rhetoric of Obamacare and the Executive Order to enable construction of The Wall. But, the second weekend we were bedazzled by the most alarming and unpredictable act – the EO banning immigration, canceling visas, and sending legitimate visa holders home after traveling to America..

The immigration ban, it turns out, was secretly drafted by recruits from the Department of Justice who were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (probably a violation of their obligations under the Constitutional separation of powers), and without the consultation or review by the departments most affected, Defense and Homeland Security. All this is common knowledge – the behind the scenes manipulation, the duplicity, the contrarian views of America – which should be enough to conjure up a conspiracy – but there is more.

Since ascending to the role as Chief Strategist and Assistant to the President, Bannon has also elevated himself to unprecedented position as a member of the principals’ committee of the National Security Council while at the same time engineering demotions for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence, all apparently without Trump’s knowledge of the plan and causing him upset when he learned of it on TV. This is reality television at its zenith.

In addition to other assertive acts, he is solidifing his position by adding staff members who share his anti-globalist, fringe views. Earlier in this article I asked if the names Stephen Miller, Julia Hahn, and Sebastian Gorka, rang a bell with you? They should though they’re not household names.

During the transition following the election, Stephen Miller, a young Trump campaign aide was added as a Senior White House Counselor, and in late January Julia Hahn and Sebastian Gorka were added as Deputy White House Counselors. All three additions support Bannon on the national security side of the house. Both Hahn and Gorka were with him at Breitbart News.

But, who are these people and why do they reinforce my conspiracy case? Consider the following: Stephen Miller is a 31-year-old Duke University graduate and former communications director for Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, soon to be confirmed as Attorney General (but formerly denied a District Court judgeship because of racist remarks and failure to enforce civil rights laws as a prosecutor).

At Duke, Miller was a member of the Duke Conservative Union, a political group that included his friend Richard B. Spencer, the white supremacist, who recently celebrated Trump’s victory with a Nazi-like rally that included raised arm salutes and cries of Hail Trump.

It was Stephen Miller, along with Bann0n, who crafted Trump’s “American carnage” inauguration speech and was called on to defend the immigration ban to media sources in shirt sleeves from the snowy White House lawn. Joe Scarborough, the former Congressman and current host of Morning Joe on MSNBC accused Miller the following morning of being on a “power trip.” I see a larger picture that involves Bannon and his posse from Breitbart News as a alt-right cabal whose intentions are more consequential than the acquisition of personal power.

As a consolidating chess move the Chief Strategist also brought over Julia Hahn and Sebastian Gorka from Breitbart to reinforce his position as the administration’s national security expert and elevating himself above Mike Flynn, James Mattis, John Kelly, and the other NSC operatives.

Julia Hahn, is the “other” Jew in the Trump White House. As a right-wing commentator at Breitbart, early in the presidential campaign she accused Paul Ryan of “a month’s long campaign to elect Hillary Clinton” (Salon.com). It’s not clear what her responsibilities as Deputy Counselor will be but her co-worker at Breitbart, Sebastian Gorka, might provide some clues.

Gorka was born in London of Hungarian parents. He attended the University of London and has a graduate degree from Budapest University. He didn’t actually become an American citizen until 2012. His Wikipedia page states that he is a“national security professional specializing in irregular warfare including counterintelligence and counterinsurgency.” The write up claims he has served as lecturer on national security at several institutions – none of them well known – including Marine Corps University. As a former Marine I’d never heard of MCU and my research revealed an institution only marginally related to the Marine Corps.

Armed, so to speak, with his dubious academic credentials, Gorka was arrested in January 2016 at Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington DC for attempting to board an airplane with a 9mm handgun in his luggage. Don’t be surprised when I tell you that last week (February 3, 2017) at his sentencing hearing the case was dismissed. Are we surprised? After all, a naturalized immigrant with a handgun boarding a US airliner should be granted all the rights and privileges afforded other immigrants attempting to board flights with 9mm handguns. Right? WTF?

So, Bannon and his posse (Miller, Hahn, and Gorka) are now firmly ensconced as Chief Strategist, SeniorCounselors, and Counselors in the White House of the 45^th President of the United States. Four anti-globalist, right-wing, ideologues embedded in the West Wing and currently cranking out Executive Orders for the President without consultation, for the most part, with the departments most closely aligned with their subject matter.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I can’t help but see this as an unfolding conspiracy using the newly inaugurated, dimwitted, egomaniacal President of the United States as a tool to destabilize the country and establish a new world order?

Watch closely, as I will, to the events of the next few hours, days, weeks and months. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments for and against the temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking implementation of the travel ban. A decision is expected tomorrow. It’s not the ultimate test; that will come later at the Supreme Court level, but it will signal which way the winds are blowing for the Bannon/Trump/Breitbart posse.

Breitbart Headlines

Categories : Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· February 1, 2017

· 4 Comments

Tears in Heaven…

M.C. Escher’s lithograph, Convex and Concave, 1955

In Franz Kafka’s short story Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, the traveling salesman, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The rest of the story deals with his attempt manage his new condition and explain it to his family.

In The Trial, Kafka’s Joseph K finds himself mysteriously on trial for no discernable reason.“Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” Traduce is an arcane, seldom used verb, that means “to tell lies about someone so as to damage their reputation.” It should be in current usage, for sure.

The narrator goes on, “Who could these men be? What were they talking about? What authority could they represent? K lived in a country with a legal constitution, there was universal peace, all the laws were in force; who dared seize him in his own dwelling? He had always been inclined to take things easily, to believe in the worst only when the worst happened, to take no care for the morrow, even when the outlook was threatening.”

Since the Presidential election the American landscape has become Kafkaesque. We are living in an America where we are either Gregor Samsa or Joseph K. We are squishable insects or bewildered non-persons to our own government. On November 9, 2016 Americans awoke to an absurdist landscape that has been harder to accept with each passing day. We play by the rules but the rules change. We ask for clarification and are ignored. We challenge the rules and are met with derision. What’s next?

I never intended to write a political blog, but I’m tired of screaming at the TV. We all have a responsibility to speak out when we find ourselves in a threatening, absurdist, Gregor Samsa world. Keep your head on straight. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. Take on the bullies.

As a freelance, self-employed person I can order my day any way I wish. I try to be disciplined and keep things in perspective but it’s hard. I can ignore the lure of email and Facebook; it will always be there so I avoid the temptation as much as possible and only go there once or twice a day. News discipline is harder. When the spigot is on full blast all day – tweets, news briefings, confirmation hearings, Executive Orders, hirings, firings, and angry outbursts – the pull is magnetic. I try to stay in my lane and avoid distractions but find myself lifting the flap and peeking under the circus tent more often than my good sense tells me is advisable. I don’t want to miss the colossal train wreck when it happens.

Marilynn and I had dinner with friends last weekend and the weekend before. Good friends. Smart, engaged, people from a variety of vocations and backgrounds. Two doctors. A journalist. A Gates Foundation operative. A non-profit CEO. A headhunter. A management consultant. All we could talk about was the chaos, chutzpah, and fuck-you quality of the Executive Orders pouring out of the White House since the inauguration. In spite of the enormous women’s march the day after the inauguration, the spontaneous worldwide demonstrations in opposition to his presidency, and the public outrage at the immigration ban last weekend, nothing seems to have deterred the relentless assault on fairness and We the People government.

Is it any wonder that George Orwell’s 1984 has risen to #1 on the Amazon best seller list? In a “post-truth” world of “alternative facts,” it makes perfect sense that a dystopian novel where the government espouses the principle that “whatever the Party says is truth is truth” has become required reading.

I want a “safe word,” a no-fly zone, an injunction, a cease-fire, to regain my balance, but it’s clear that Bannon’s White House strategy is based on creating chaos in order to hide the duplicity of his underlying plan to destabilize American democracy. This about says it all.

I want to return to my little bubble, where I rise in the morning, grind the beans to make my perfect latte, scan the NY Times while watching Morning Joe, go to work in my office writing about films or food, take a break to play the guitar, write some more, take another break to play tennis or ride my bike, write some more, and then make a fresh pasta and salad dinner with Marilynn before finishing the day with a movie or play – in or out.

That’s inside the bubble, but “disruption” is the rule and it’s on speed dial now. I have a hard time staying inside that bubble. There are too many things happening too fast and they’re hard to follow. I try to maintain my routine but find myself lifting the flap and peeking out.

The cynic in me thinks that Bannon and Trump won’t care if the immigration ban is overturned. The goal was disruption and that’s already been achieved. The pieces have already been scattered. Some of these EO’s will probably fail but some will stick and they will have changed the game.

It’s clear there are conflicts and competing power centers in the White House. It looks like Bannon is winning, but I wonder about Jared Kushner, Donald’s son-in-law. How is he feeling these days? He’s supposed to have The Donald’s ear and be a modulating influence (if such a thing is possible). I wonder if, as an Orthodox Jew, he is troubled by the timing of the big news stories of the past two weeks. It seems they’ve been breaking on Friday night when he and Ivanka are observing Shabbat? In addition to the immigration ban, did he notice last Friday that there was no mention of anti-Semitism or the Jews in the White House statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six-million dead – omitted intentionally, according to a White House spokesperson.

Bannon is shrewd. Trump is in his pocket. Jared and Ivanka are observing Shabbat. Only two cabinet secretaries have been confirmed. Why not shoot the lights out?

I hadn’t given it a lot of thought until now, but the song I’m learning these days is Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven. Simple strum and simple chords but excruciatingly sad words.

“Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees. Time can break your heart, have you begging please, begging please.

Tears in Heaven

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong and carry on
‘Cause I know I don’t belong here in heaven.

Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven?
I’ll find my way through night and day
‘Cause I know I just can’t stay here in heaven.

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees
Time can break your heart, have you begging please, begging please.

I hope this isn’t an omen.

Categories : Art, Film/Television, Music, Politics, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· January 25, 2017

· 5 Comments

Changing Times…

This morning I saw a Facebook post from my friend Pete. He was writing from a swim meet in Brunei. Now how exotic is that? A middle school swim meet in Brunei? I used to think it was a stretch to drive my son to West Yellowstone for a XC camp.

The genie is really out of the bottle; live globally, play locally. Pete lives in Bangkok. He’s married to a lovely Thai woman and they have a 12-year-old daughter who swims. Brunei? It’s not Spokane, Pocatello, or West Yellowstone but there was a team competition there last weekend that drew 7 teams, including hers.

Pete’s message got me thinking about how much things have changed. We’re obviously older, but even so there’s a new normal here. Places that used to be exotic are “vacation” destinations and there’s an outfitter waiting to take you there. Activities that used to be adventurous are commonplace today – whitewater kayaking, rock climbing, backcountry skiing, kiteboarding – and there are route maps, apps, cell phones and GPS to support them. I called Marilynn from the summit of the Grand Teton to tell her I was OK. Back in the day, the nearest phone was a four hour walk to Dornan’s General Store in Moose, Wyoming.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve scaled back on the adventures, nothing extreme these days – no jumping into Corbett’s Couloir at Jackson Hole, no riding Porcupine Rim in Moab, or climbing down a rock face to reach “Hidden Beach” on Kauai. Nowadays the pleasure comes from finding an moderate pitch of untracked powder, an isolated beach, or a tree-lined one-lane road at sunset, and even these things are harder to find. I remember when hardly anyone skied the uncut stuff, or camped “sauvage” on a beach in Puerto Rico, or hauled a bike over the ocean to ride the back roads of France.

Lynn Campion caught me on the Ho Chi Minh Trail a few years ago (Sun Valley)

Old people have “bucket lists,” because most of them didn’t have a lot of adventure travels when they were young. They were studying, working, raising families, and only had two weeks vacation. Gen-X, Gen-Y, and Millennials (children of the middle and upper class) have come to adulthood with a lot more opportunity, flexibility, and money. I’ve never had a bucket list and don’t have one now. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to live my life upside down. As an airline pilot I could have been mistaken for a retired person – half the month off and free passes – and when I was working I was going to exotic places. World geography was part of my DNA. Opportunity and time were perks of the job, and it didn’t take a lot of money to chase my dreams. Living life upside down meant I didn’t have a “real” job until I was over 50, and though I ended up working until I was 75 I always enjoyed what I did.

I love the way it worked out for me, but I confess there’s a bit of envy when I realize that the big adventures are in the rear view mirror. I still like to ski and bike, but I just don’t have the legs, lungs, or mental toughness to skin up and climb for three hours, or mountain bike on a hairy-ass single track with a steep drop off. My friend, Mike Kane, died that way a few years ago and he was one of the best athletes I’ve ever known. The body changes. The balance changes. The vision changes. The reaction time changes. So it goes… literally.

I wouldn’t think of flying down 17^th Street in Santa Ana at car top level again (headlines in the Santa Ana Register) though it seemed “normal” the day it happened. I was a lot younger then. Times have changed. My airplane is in a museum, and so am I (in this picture). I still feel great, but there are no more street level jet escapades in my future.

I think I can be excused if I sometimes adventure vicariously through my children and grandchildren. They feel the same way. They ski, climb, kiteboard, skydive, sail, hike, run, surf, mountain bike, fly-fish, kayak, do Tae Kwan Do, play water polo, and star in musical theater. Multi-talented.

Brent Snorkeling at Snowbird

With his kids on the Colorado

Georgia skydiving

Doug you should follow Brent, he knows where the snow is.

Will taking notes at an avalanche clinic

Charlie with his “Birthday Brown”

Diana and Charlie on the skate track

The Price boys in the big city – Go Sounders

Benny says “Watch out Fed I’m comin'”

Lucie Plays “Select” Soccer

Our Three Hawaiian Kids – a Black Belt, an Orange Belt, and No Belt in Tae Kwan Do

Bob Dylan is my age, and he was right when he wrote The Times They Are a Changin’. That was then. Now the change is a reality. Oh, my God, Donald Trump is our President. There can’t be any more dramatic example of the change. When Dylan wrote the song JFK was President. I embrace most of the changes. I don’t want to go back to an earlier time. I believe America is still great and doesn’t need an ignorant, lying, blowhard at the helm to “make America great again” I acknowledge the changes in myself but love watching the changes in my children and grandchildren. Have fun guys and girls. I’m very proud of you and love seeing you kick ass.

Team Bernard-Price-Westerman.

Categories : Aviation, Fashion/Lifestyle, Personal/Family, Sports, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· January 20, 2017

· 10 Comments

A Bipartisan Friendship…

This is a story about friendship. My buddy, Dennis, and I have known each other for 50 years. We flew Marine fighters, Pan Am airliners, and saw the inside of a lot of bars together. He’s something of a legend among his friends, but to understand our friendship I need to tell my favorite Dennis story. He calls it the “Checkpoint Panzer” incident. I think of it as “Dennis’s Escape from Freedom Run.”

One night after work, before the Berlin Wall came down, our flight crew gathered at the Columbia Club, one of several US military clubs where Pan Am pilots had privileges. On this particular night, there was some drinking involved, a borrowed car, a dark night, and no adult supervision.

Following a round of sea stories and toasts, Dennis left the club and hopped in a borrowed Ford Taunus. The only explanation for what happened next is that his internal GPS failed him. Rather than heading for his apartment he “accidentally” drove around a detour and turned toward the Glenieke Brucke (Bridge of Spies), the East German border on the road to Potsdam. It was definitely the wrong vector.

Encountering no other traffic, Dennis decided speed would make up for other deficiencies. To compound the problem as he approached the bridge he failed to notice the red and white steel crossing barrier, an array of cement blocks, and a cluster of uniformed guards. He hit the barrier with enough speed to shear the top off the Taunus and shatter the windshield but somehow avoid decapitation.

As the car came to a stop in the middle of the bridge he found himself surrounded by armed West German guards and approaching East German Vopos with guns drawn. His good fortune was coming to rest just a few feet short of the midpoint that marks the Eastern border.

I can’t imagine what the guards were thinking unless it was to do whatever was necessary to avoid an international incident. Dennis, by then quite sober, explained to the West German guard that he was a Pan Am pilot.

Incredulous, the guard had two things to say 1) “Herr Panzer, no one has ever tried to escape into the East before,” and 2) “I certainly hope you fly better than you drive.” So, having thwarted Dennis’s “escape” to East Germany, they returned him to the safety of the American Sector, ascertained that the car was drivable, and told him it was OK to drive home… “Ja, but very slowly.” The next day he took the car to a body shop, had the roof reattached and later returned the car to its owner (another Pan Am pilot) without explaining the “severance.” And that’s only part of his legend.

If you looked at the two of us on paper you’d think oil and water. East Coast/West Coast, Red State/Blue State, private college/public university, arch-conservative/Berkeley liberal, but as I said earlier Dennis and I have known each other a long time. Lots of similarities and lots of differences but always friends. Dennis was an East Coast guy, born and raised in Yonkers. I was definitely West Coast, but we came together because we were both Marines flying the F8 Crusader in VMF-312.

VMF – 312 Crusader

There were some timeline differences too; I served my time as a Marine before Vietnam heated up and was already off active duty before America waded into it. Dennis, three years behind me and got caught at its beginning. So, while I was in law school and flying A4’s on the weekend, he was flying the F8 out of the Marine air base at Danang.

Checkout our different grooming standards in those years

The Duke at Danang 1965 Tequila Jack at El Toro 1962

Following those years in the military we started our airline careers within a year of each other. We still hadn’t met, but as single Pan Am pilots based in New York, with several mutual friends, we were destined to meet. I moved in to an Upper East Side apartment with two other Pan Am/Marine pilots and that’s where we finally met.

There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine. and because of that we manage to stay connected. In NY Dennis and I shared a few pub crawl adventures, but it wasn’t long before we took off in different directions. I transferred to San Francisco, near Berkeley where I had gone to school, while he stayed in New York for a while then moved on to Berlin, Sydney, and back to Berlin. He was busy working on the legend, and I always loved hearing of his exploits via the Marine grapevine.

Early in our careers we also acquired nicknames. During his two-year stint in Sydney Australia, Dennis met a woman who thought he looked like John Wayne and started calling him Duke. It stuck and soon he fancied himself as “The Duke of Down Under.” My nickname came under less glamourous circumstances following a late night incident in Berlin. After an evening of tequila shots and trash talk about how screwed up Pan Am management was, I missed a step leaving the bar, stumbled, and fell forward into a cement parking stanchion. Henceforth, I was TJ (Tequila Jack).

Those early years at Pan Am were the golden age of commercial aviation, and golden years for a group of young fighter pilots turned airline drivers. We savored the experience. Four day layovers in Rio, Hong Kong, Tahiti, Tokyo, and Sydney. Shorter but memorable ones in Paris, Rome, London, and Pago Pago. We were young pilots on a tear and behind the cockpit door was a cabin staffed by young women from around the globe recruited for their looks, intelligence, and language skills. For those of us who were single it was a target-rich environment.

My single life ended after a couple of Pan Am years, but Dennis continued on and building on the Warren Beatty-like legend. Pictures of him appeared on ski slopes, in hot tubs, sky diving, and pub crawling from Lake Tahoe, to Sydney, Miami, to Berlin, each with a different beautiful woman and often sporting his signature garment, a Siberian wolf overcoat – living large.

One morning, back in Berlin, I walked into the crew room where a group of pilots were discussing their investments. During a heated discussion, Dennis walked in and the group consulted him regarding his investments. He thought for moment then replied, “I don’t know much about the stock market and I don’t own any real estate, but I can tell you that I’ve invested heavily in pleasure and it’s paid great dividends.” End of discussion.

TJ in an Amsterdam pissoir (1970) Duke (and Mom) with Siberian wolf (1975)

Dennis and I bounced around the system for a few years and managed to cover a lot of the bases – New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Miami and Sydney – but eventually we ended up back in Berlin. I spent the last ten years of my airline career there, until a medical problem brought it to an end, and Dennis stayed on until he was transferred to Delta as part of the 1991 bankruptcy/merger.

While based in Berlin, Dennis met and married Jane Arnoldi aka Jane the Dane, a beautiful, stable, intelligent, London-based Pan Am flight attendant who is his anchor and the mother of their two talented daughters – Tess and Alexandra. I’ve been equally blessed with Marilynn, a childhood friend, and the six talented children we share and of whom we are enormously proud.

It’s fun recalling the early days at Pan Am and our dubious adventures, but as we aged we did settle down. It sounds misleading to say settled down; we have to acknowledge five marriages between us, but we’ve both ended up in happy long term unions. We share a love of adventure and so do our wives. A few years ago we did a week long float trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and we all still ski and bike. But more than anything we’re grateful for a 50 year friendship, for good marriages, and a job that was like no other.

Good vibes notwithstanding, we have one area of disagreement, but at this point it’s more fun than acrimonious. We are extreme opposites politically. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Berkeley liberal, and Dennis remains a unrepentent right-wing nut case. After all, while The Duke was flying sorties over North Vietnam I was writing a position paper for the law school in support of the Free Speech Movement. You got a problem with that?

My friend, The Duke of Down Under is a passionate person. He loves his family, his country, and his friends. We just happen to disagree about the future of America. I’m equally passionate – and I know I’m right – about our democracy. So, we banter and boast, posture and post, but after all the bullshit we are still friends.

Semper Fi, my friend.