Of Bears and Penguins

New York Tavern, and Lady Gaga

My least favorite story as a kid, though I recall reading it often, and always with the same sense of disappointment, was “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

There were no talking animals. Not even elves. Just people, wicked, mean, and stupid people – how could the emperor and all his court be so taken in by those original dirty rotten scoundrels. Reading it was like watching someone’s most embarrassing moment unfold, and equally as painful. Which of course is the point – the child is the only one in the kingdom who remains pure enough of heart to tell the truth, the poor child, with neither power nor name, with nothing to lose or gain who points out what is obvious while those who should have been wiser promote the harmful lie. Ahh, a morality tale.

One of my favorite students was a little boy whose name meant King, but who was largely ill-cared for. My co-worker, who was his homeroom teacher, kept a drawer of clean uniform clothes for him; I kept school supplies. After trying unsuccessfully to reach his mother for months with no success, we both sat through a social services meeting and listened to her lie about King having clean clothes and school supplies at home. We’d seen him and his siblings everyday, the truth had spoken steadily to us.

He had a lot to grieve for, but he was resilient and the most truthful child I taught – I never saw him lie, even to save himself or his friends. He was as honest as Gatsby’s Nick.

King worked hard to be good in my classroom, and I promised him that if he stayed on Green all day, I would call his parents to say how well he’d done. He did, and I did. There was no answer at his Mom’s and no answering machine. So we called his Dad, King and his friend were standing right by my desk. We had turned on the speakerphone. The rings gave way to a message – an entire hip-hop song that presumably his father identified with. As the song played, King shook his head, his buddy shook his head in solidarity and unobtrusively patted King’s back.

King gave him a look that said, “Can you believe that mess?” and his buddy sighed and nodded his head in a way that said, “I know, man, I know.”

“Man, that’s just stupid,” King said to me. “He should grow up.”

The emperor, said the child King, has no clothes.

I was shocked by both boys’ ability to see it through the excess to the truth, and it gave me a tiny flicker of hope.

This morning I heard two seemingly unrelated news briefs.

From NPR about a New York Tavern:

The owner of O'Casey's Tavern in Midtown Manhattan will unveil on Thanksgiving what he says is the nation's first 100-proof turkey. The bird will be infused with fruit-flavored and 100-proof vodka for three days before roasting. The meat will have hints of peach, raspberry, cherry and apple. The gravy also will be laced with liquor.

And this one from CNN’s coverage of the American Music Awards:

The most unusual performance may have been by Lady Gaga, who used a microphone stand to break into a large glass box to get to a piano that started burning as she played

If I hadn’t heard these two pieces from those two sources, I would have thought they were from The Onion.

Now let’s remember to be kinder than necessary, cause everyone’s fighting a battle. It’s been a tough year for businesses everywhere, the owner of O’Caseys is pulling a Barnumesque stunt to bring in business. No worse, and certainly no better, than any other thousand and one circus acts that have gone before and will come after.

Still, what if the excess is indicative of something else, some rot in our culture that would take a perfectly tasty-on-its-own bird, treat it to a frighteningly Las Vegas style booze binge, take what will already be its liquor soaked broth and lace it with yet more liquor. It rather debases the poor turkey.

And Lady Gaga, well I know that her music is embraced and adulated by many, but if you have to violently smash a box to play a burning piano (with terrible posture I might add – no piano teacher would stand for crossed legs at the bench), well what’s really the point – the music, or the excess?

Musicians are not universally well known for their charming behavior, but while Mozart may have been a womanizing, ill-behaved nincompoop, I don’t recall hearing about that time he played the Royal Court of Vienna, and before tickling the keys cast his candelabra into the instrument – it would have distracted from the music.

But the turkey, and the music isn’t really the point in these instances, it’s the excess that’s meant to grab, inflame, entice or revolt.

Frankly the video of Lady Gaga’s performance is a little frightening, masked dancers in flesh toned costumes manage to look like bird-like dinosaurs – and not nice herbivores either. This creepy effect is exacerbated by the lyrics which kick off with what elementary school teachers would call nonsense syllables (Oooh, roma, gaga) and lead up to I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it’s free… and continues to I want your psycho…Baby your sick.

Winning, no? Pardon me if I don’t swoon. It gives me an icky feeling in my stomach – this isn’t worthy of commendation, it’s low, it’s base and crude, it demeans, it does not add dignity to anything or anyone – The Emperor has no clothes!

So what is it that makes so many of us, myself included, parties to the ruses, the illusions of the Emperor, of the Wizard (who is that finally unmasks the ruler of Oz as a little man behind the curtain – why a clear eyed child), of the Circus Ringmaster.

I don’t know, but I find it troubling. Excess in food used to be confined to thinks like the Terducken – a chicken, stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey – silly and excessive, certainly, a little like your odd great-uncle who’s a little too familiar with the bourbon, but destructive or harmful? Not particularly.

Excess in music, well let’s not forget that it was as recently as 1964 that The Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan show with their long hair! and their shocking lyrics: Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you; Remember I’ll always be true. And then while I’m away, I’ll write home everyday, and I’ll send all my loving to you.

Let’s not forget that this tour was precipitated by their chart-topping single, I want to hold your hand that included the lyrics, Oh please, say to me, you’ll let me be your man, oh please say to me, you’ll let me hold your hand.

It’s a bit sweeter than “I want your disease.” It’s positively quaint. Still, it only took 45 years to get from promises of being true to Lady Gaga. I think we might need a lot of clear-eyed children for the next 45 years who will be able to call the kingdom to its senses with unabashed truth in the face of unmitigated, even dangerous display.