My Dinner with Dick (Nixon)

He was this close!  

Minus the hand gesture and the helicopter

This is a story about me and Dick.

 No, it has nothing to do with sex.  Not directly anyway.

It is rather a story about me and former President of the United States Richard M. Nixon and the evening we had dinner together at a restaurant in Philadelphia in the mid 198o's. Those of you who regularly watch Fox News can stop salivating.  I didn't get to meet the man, share ripostes, or lovingly wipe his chin of butter sauce, although I was close enough to profoundly admire his bridgework.

I am somewhat of an autograph hound.  That is, I am interested in celebrities (at least those born before 1970) and possessed of a keen desire to feel in some way connected to them. Unfortunately I am not overly blessed with THE GUTS TO APPROACH THEM!  And therein lies the tale.

"That's Richard Nixon!" said my date Elise as a familiar foursome walked into the restaurant in which we were seated in the midst of our second date that evening.  Looking up, I recognized the former President of the United States, his wife Pat, his daughter Julie, and her husband David Eisenhower being led to a table not 15 feet from us. 

"Let's get his autograph!"  Elise cried. "C'mon, Perry let's go!"

"No, no, no, no!" I shot back. "He's a crook and cheat and we don't want or need his autograph!" I said firmly, lying my ass off --- not about Mr. Nixon ---but about my reason for keeping said ass planted securely in my restaurant seat.

"Perry,  he is a major world leader of the twentieth century!"

"Ellen, he's probably surrounded by secret service men. We'll be grabbed and whisked away for exhaustive interrogation by two sadistic cops straight out of central casting!  Trust me, they won't let anyone get near him!"

Now I've used this excuse many times before, including the time I failed to pursue the autograph of Rupert G, the guy who runs the deli next to The David Letterman Show. But it seemed to quiet down Elise, who thereupon settled into her French Onion Soup and our dinner conversation, the former hopefully a bit warmer than the latter.

An hour and a half later as we received the check and Mr. Nixon and his entourage rose to leave, two sweet little blond girls, about four and six years old respectively, ran up to the former President and asked for his autograph.

They were not grabbed. 

They were not whisked away for exhaustive interrogation by two sadistic cops straight out of central casting.

They didn't even look like Republicans.

Mr. Nixon flashed his jowly smile so broadly it appeared he was about to shoot his arms into the air and make the patented victory sign so often dispensed during his Presidency.  He seemed truly delighted, almost as if he now felt vindicated at long last in the eyes of history, his fellow man, and the two little girls, for whom he graciously signed autographs. They beamed with happiness.

My dinner date was not beaming so happily.

"Well, Elise," I stammered, "it ... uh ... looks like maybe we ...um .... did squander a bit of an opportunity here."

"That's not the only opportunity you've squandered here, buster!" she said.

And that's the story about my dinner with Dick.  And though I didn't actually get to meet the 37th President of the United States,  I do have this to say about him: 

Damn you, Richard Nixon! 

On that particular evening, you really were a crook!

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A shorter version of this piece was published in the Broad Street Review under the title Foiled by Tricky Dick.   And I was.

Visiting Day from the NSA

Got any Pop-Tarts, Perry?

I must admit to conflicting feelings about the NSA Scandal involving the government snooping on the telephone and electronic media records of millions of Americans. On one hand, I value the right to privacy and am concerned about potential infringements of that right.  On the other hand, I appreciate the efforts of anyone trying to keep me from being blown up.

Then there's the matter of  Edward Snowden.  Here's a guy who feels it's necessary to violate the primacy of highly confidential information in the name of democracy.  Isn't that exactly what the National Security Agency feels as well?  So what's the difference between the NSA and Snowden, aside from Snowden's incredibly self-aggrandizing attitude?

That said, I was kind of surprised when I stumbled into my kitchen yesterday morning and  was promptly handed a bagel by an officious looking man in a dark gray business suit. 

"Morning, Mr. Block.  I know you don't like butter or cream cheese, so your bagel's lightly schmeared with strawberry jam, just the way you prefer it."

"Thank you very kindly.  Who the fuck are you?!"

"Agent Leonard Dawes of the National Security Agency.  We've been monitoring your electronic communications for quite some time, Mr. Block."

"So that's why I always hear sneezing whenever I post on Facebook."

"That's Agent Carruthers.  Got to get him to start using a handkerchief."

"But why are you here? Why don't you just monitor my phone calls, like you do with everyone else?"

"We do, but there's only so much you can learn from heavy breathing."

"But I'm not a radical!"

"Oh, no? We have it on good authority that you participated in numerous peace marches in the late 60's and early 70's."

"But that was only to try to meet chicks and score dope!  I was about as political as The Brady Bunch!"

"Funny you should say that since we're also monitoring Greg Brady; all those flowery shirts, he had to be up to something!  Besides we also have it on good authority you voted for McGovern."

"He was running against Nixon!  I would have voted for Cheech and Chong against Nixon! Well, maybe only Chong if I'd have known Cheech was going to co-star in Nash Bridges."

"We've also been monitoring your blog, Mr. Block."

"Thank God, at last somebody reads it!"

"Oh heavens no, we don't read it!  We just check from time to time to see if anybody does."

"Well, how do I go about living with the man in the gray flannel suit in the same room as my major appliances?"

"Just ignore me, act like there's nobody here."

"That's kind of tough with a tennis racket, golf clubs,  and matching three piece set of Louis Vuitton luggage in my living room. Say, would you like some Coco-Puffs, Agent Dawes?"  

"Mr. Block, you shouldn't eat that sugary crap. Saps the strength for radical acts." 

"Not only that, but my dentist wants me to give up Coca-Cola!"

"That is tough, Mr. Block!  With you going through such trauma, think I'll let you slide and clear out."

"Thank you, Agent Dawes."

"Mr. Block, one bit of advice?"

"Yes, Agent Dawes?"

"Don't leave Twitter!"

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What Do You Give the Superhero Who Has Everything?

In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night

Scarlett Johansson is my Ex-Delight.... 

What do you give the Superhero Who Has Everything?

 In the case of Green Lantern, it’s a big budget 3D mega-movie promising to be one of this summer’s biggest blockbusters and starring Scarlett Johansson’s ex-husband,  a man whose any one orgasm with his former wife would probably serve to satisfy the sexual needs of the entire male population of a pretty good sized Midwestern city.

Talk about having everything!

But you’d also have to give the guy in the form-fitting green stretch top and black leotards a Kryptonite-like vulnerability to go along with the awesome capabilities of the power ring he wields. Because Green Lantern is the one superhero actually more powerful than Superman because with his mighty power ring, he could make a Superman!

Superheroes are as omnipresent these days as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s progeny. The array of mythic men and women who’ve been portrayed on stage, screen, and all but enacted live in your living room include Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Green Hornet, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Watchmen, Catwoman --- draw deep breath! --- Supergirl, Captain America, the Phantom, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Spirit, the Crow, and Spin Cycle, whose superpower is the uncanny ability to locate missing socks from the dryer. (OK, so I made up Spin Cycle!)

What a far cry from the way it was when I was a super-starved superhero-loving small fry in the Fifties!

Back then superheroes were thought of as strictly kid’s stuff, something you’d magically grow out of as soon as you hit puberty and began to think of Lois Lane not as Superman’s wise-cracking girl friend but as the secluded narrow country road to which you fantasized you’d one day squire off Nicole Halaylos!

The only contact an adult was supposed to have with a superhero flick was the flickering cognizance that he was sitting through one when his 11 year old woke him up to go get the popcorn.

If a superhero movie or TV show got made at all back in that day, the best level star it could muster would be some blandly handsome actor whose greatest claim to fame was having been briefly elevated to the rank of playing Ronald Reagan’s rubbed-out-in-the-first-reel best buddy, the dialogue would have all the depth and conviction of a phone number written on the back of a match book cover, and it would have all been shot on a budget equal to or less than Beaver Cleaver’s annual allowance.

Mostly we kids had to content ourselves with the Adventures of Superman. But although the show did feature George Reeves, the best actor ever to play the Man of Steel, the Adventures of Superman in truth was about as exciting as a Vice-President Richard M. Nixon pin-up calendar.

Week after week, the most malevolent villain Adventures of Superman presented was a bald, weasily, Damon Runyoneque actor named Ben Weldon whose plans for world domination didn’t extend much beyond knocking over the corner Fanny Farmer outlet and making off with the nonpareils. Aside from its passable main effect of Superman flying, other special effects were largely limited to the Man of Steel showing off his super speed by standing in place and saying to the bad guys “want to see it again?”

And that’s why, Gen X and Y’ers, you never see a big budget A-movie superhero flick any earlier than the late 70’s. Why do you think Humphrey Bogart, the greatest tough guy of all time, never played Batman? “You know, Robin, this could be the shtart of a beautiful friendship” does have a certain ring to it, but not to mainstream movie audiences of the 1940’s and 50’s.

Jimmy Stewart would have made a wonderful “aw shucks, turning that lump ‘a coal into a diamond weren’t nuthin'” kind of Superman, but then every Christmas we’d have all been forced to endure:

“Clarence, I don’t know how you know these things.  But tell me, what became of Lois?”

“You're not going to like it, Clark!”

“It’s all right, Clarence.  Just as long as she isn’t an old maid who never married who’s about to close up the library.  Anything but that!”

“What the hell would be wrong with that, you 1940’s superhero chauvinist pig!  No, Clark, she’s Lex Luther’s mistress, she’s about to close up his zipper!”

Would Katherine Hepburn have made a great Wonder Woman? Actually it’s a better question if Wonder Woman, invisible plane and all, would have been up to playing Kate!

But all these attitudes, all these inhibitions, all these limitations --- everything --- changed when the kids of the fifties and sixties grew up and somehow didn’t grow out of superheroes. And now we once super-starved superhero-loving small fry are superhero-saturated!

Even so, I think I might yet check out the Superhero That Has Everything when he opens this summer. Even now, I get a small thrill every time I realize that what would have been so untenable and unthinkable to movie moguls and audiences not so long ago is daily happenstance today.

And as for Green Lantern’s vulnerability? For those of you amongst the great unwashed who know not, it’s the color “yellow.” That’s right; the greatest power in the universe can’t handle the color of bananas.

Hey, even I’m not afraid of bananas!

Scarlett, call me!!!

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