Three and a third decades ago I received word that I was going to go to Air Force pilot training. Not just any Pilot Training base, but Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls Texas. If I made it through, there was a pretty good chance that I’d get a fighter. This was pretty much a home run super dream of mine since forever. Coincident with my selection notification was the release of a film called Top Gun. The pop culture sensation starred Tom Cruise and was directed by Tony Scott and Joseph Kosinski. Wow! This was looking even better! Attractive women, volleyball, a Ninja Motorcycle and a chance to shoot down MiGs! Alas, that was the Navy and a Hollywood fantasy. But never fear, Maverick is back again for the nearing sixty crowd, yes I’m a year older than TC.The trailer just hit the inter webs.
Some three years later I found myself in the Eiffel region of West Germany, yes there used to be an east and west, stationed at Bitburg Airbase. I’d gotten my F-15, but all the promises of Top Gun were strangely........unfulfilled. I’d just finished reading Men from Earth, at least partially written by Buzz Aldrin, the second guy on the moon. This was celebrating the Twentieth anniversary of the moon landing. A few days later, word passed through the squadron that Buzz was passing through and would be visiting his old squadron, now mine, briefly on a Saturday morning. I dutifully showed, shook his hand, met his wife, got his autograph on my book and we looked at some of the squadron photos that were on the wall. It was early on a Saturday and I imagine most of the squadron was sleeping off a hangover so only a few of us showed up. I think that was fine with Buzz since as an old fighter pilot himself he picked the time. He apparently just wanted some quiet space to see the old digs with his wife. Buzz turned out to be a little “out there” but I guess we all are in our own way. Apparently he still has the way with women. I was talking to a Flight Attendant recently who had the occasion to run into Buzz and was all hot for him. “My God he’s probably ninety I thought and a weirdo to boot”, she was like 35 or so and very attractive. Oh well, I guess Top Gun came true for some.
Now to some twenty-first century history. Until this moment that I’ll describe, I’d never really been “floored” or “blown away” by anything really. I was in New York City a little over five years ago
with my oldest daughter. She is a big Broadway fan and I agreed to take her to see whatever she wished. She chose the play If Then, starring Idena Menzel at the Richard Rogers theater. This was the last show in previews, I believe it opened officially the following night. Amazingly we got great seats. Having never been to a broadway show I was pretty much overwhelmed with the quality of everything, from the orchestra pit to the costumes to the performers. In the final number Ms. Mendel performs a moving climatic solo. I was probably ten meters away from her when this happened, Ms Mendel’s stare into the audience uncomfortably close to my eyes. Her final notes marked the end of the performance. The place erupted in a massive ovation. I was frozen, mesmerized by the performance of Ms Mendel. My daughter snapped me out of it, since I was the only person in the theater not standing, to render the appropriate appreciation to the cast and crew. I’m glad I did not meet the Broadway star, since she could have told me to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge or in front of a moving subway train and I would have gladly obliged. Famous stage singers can have that effect. Giuseppina Grassini, a famous nineteenth century Italian opera singer captured the heart of a young Napoleon during his first Italian campaign in the late 1790s. Twenty years later she did the same to Napoleon’s nemesis Lord Wellington at the age of forty-seven.
Idena Menzel at the 2014 Tonys.
Grassini
Great anecdotes, Steve! You strike me as much more grounded, in a good way, than either Tom Cruise or Buzz Aldrin. (Thought you were also maybe going to bring up John Travolta, who mangled Idina Menzel's name so preposterously.)
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering, though, if you can sharpen the Lockean/essentialist takeaway just a bit. What do you see as the important implications for your (our?) identity, that over a lifetime we have experiences that often confound but sometimes fulfill our dreams and expectations? And what does it say about male identity, that women (and women stage singers) can cast such mesmerizing spells?
In answer to the first question, it was pretty much a childhood dream to fly jets. In retrospect, I was pretty lucky in both time and space as well as physical condition to achieve this. I didn’t give much thought to it at the time but in the population of humans of my age I had an incredible advantage. Nonetheless it was still hard work and certainly not inevitable. I should have been a little more grateful at the time. What wasn’t advertised was the “normative” behavior expected of a fighter pilot. In order to fit in and advance every profession has an ideal type. A fighter pilot in the late 20th century would make a good study for Dr Tarver in White male Uber macho alcohol abusing misogynistic stereotypes. It was cool and normal at the time but pretty juvenile in retrospect. These types of behaviors are hard to see at the time when you are immersed in them let alone critique them. Part of my issue with the Broadway show I watched with my daughter was its “woke” themes. By intermission I decided to let go and enjoy, I was in one of the cosmopolitan capitals of the world and I needed to just let the play flow over me and enjoy the excellence of the performance. Another critical factor that night was the place I was sitting. I was very close to the performers. The angle where I was sitting corresponded exactly to where Ms Menzel was programmed to stare as she sorta sang to her dead husband, hence for a large portion of her final number it appeared that she was looking directly at me. I’ve seen other performances since, none at such an intimate distance. Historically, women’s power was exclusively in their ability to influence men in appearance and speech and such. Perhaps the forms of some of the arts still reflect this to a certain degree. As far as my classical male identity, part of it is still climbing down from the juvenile antics of my youth. I’m sure someone like Dr Tarver(sorry to keep bringing her up but this seems to be her specialty)would find elements of my story to confirm a traditional white male bias in the way I viewed the song and Ms Menzel. This may be true, but I think another generation or two may have to pass before a heterosexual male is not moved by a Grassini or a Menzel.
ReplyDeleteI hope the time never comes when a heterosexual male is not allowed to be "moved"... and when such reactions aren't automatically derided as sexist.
DeleteThere may be a glimmer of backlash beginning against the excesses of #MeToo. For instance, Jane Mayer's Al Franken essay in the current New Yorker:
"...A remarkable number of Franken’s Senate colleagues have regrets about their own roles in his fall. Seven current and former U.S. senators who demanded Franken’s resignation in 2017 told me that they’d been wrong to do so. Such admissions are unusual in an institution whose members rarely concede mistakes..." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken
I don't know if Franken deserves rehabilitation, or Garrison Keillor, or Tom Ashbrook... I do know too many people were too quick to lump such people with Harvey Weinstein, and to deny anything like due process to the accused. The pendulum will swing back, I'm sure.