Letter from the Road #8

“In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words…..we cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another.” Richard Nixon, January 20, 1969

On the Road Again

After a 4 week break split between Florida and New York, I was itching to get back on the road. Arriving in LAX at the end of last last week, I was greeted with my first obstacle, a very flat tire. Consequently, I spent the balance of the day and the next morning waiting for emergency services, locating a dealership that had my specific tire in stock and could get the flat tire replaced quickly. This inconvenience shortened my first stop, visiting my sister in Santa Barbara.

The Santa Barbara area, appropriately nicknamed America’s Riviera, has a perfect mediterranean climate and convivial social environment. But, the last 18 months have been challenging for residents. My sister was evacuated 7 times due to deadly fires and mud slides. Her home was surrounded by 5 feet of mud, completely destroying her landscaping and seriously damaging the exterior of her home. Others experienced worse. The area has yet to return to its previous self. Two years ago, I spent 4 months in Santa Barbara evaluating it as a place to settle. Her drama partly persuaded me to remain on the east coast. However, returning last week, only stirred my emotions once again wondering if I belonged there. Ahhhh, choices. We want it all, but at the end of the day, we must choose something and leaving something else behind. I think I’ll continue to wrestle with this even though I made a good decision to remain on the east coast.

Speaking of thinking about leaving something behind, my car had yet another issue. The sensor controlling the engine cooling fan was not working properly resulting in the cooling fan operating on full throttle all the time. I whimsically wondered if the good people of Gallop, NM were sending me a message and taking delight in my automobile challenges. You may be interested to know my commentary on my overnight stay in Gallop generated a lot of discussion, I am told that many felt I was far too apologetic and should have not felt I was insensitive. Some went as far as to say, “if you’ve got it, flaunt it." I don’t know what the right answer is. I will offer that I remember growing up in Napoleon, Ohio, where the leading citizens, fully capable of driving expensive cars, displayed restraint and drove more modest vehicles and were careful in other ways not to flaunt their success. We respected them for their humility and discretion and admired them for their success. Authentic role models, indeed. Brand management as trumpeted on social media today has contributed to our societal insensitivity. Damn, I dislike what social media is doing to us.

The second half of my trip across America should be a lot of fun and hold for some great experiences if the last week is any indication of what lies ahead. Generally, I’ll be traveling the Northern route back until I hit the Mississippi River. I’ll make a turn south before turning east for the final leg. Anticipated highlights include the Grand Canyon, several national parks across the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rushmore, 5 presidential libraries, Mark Twain’s Mississippi and the Gulf states. That’s a lot. Your scribe will do his best to be informative, provocative and brief. You be the judge. So let’s get going.

City of Angels - or is it?

After Santa Barbara, I headed back to Los Angeles to rendezvous with my friend Lydia. Lydia is a plain spoken, highly disciplined, and talented make up artist honored by her peers with an Emmy for her work on Westworld. Thoughtfully, she organized a private tour of Paramount Studios for us. The tour included several active studios. We walked through Dr. Phil’s set learning that he films 3 shows per day. His wife is in the audience for everyone of his shows, sitting in the same reserved seat for each taping. At the close of his show, he walks to where his wife is seated and escorts her out. Our tour guide, an entry level page, explained he does this to convey his enduring love for his wife and a teaching moment showcasing the importance of outward expression of feelings. Sweet, but I still wanted to puke and wondered what he was hiding. The stage set has 400 lights beating down from the ceiling creating unbearable heat. When the show is taping, the temperature is set at 54 degrees to offset the heat from the spotlights. We also walked through the set for Frankie and Grace. The attention to detail in designing the set was impressive. The set can be deconstructed in modules and reassembled as required.

The Paramount facility evolves each year as it both creates and adopts new technologies, yet the core infrastructure remains relevant. A case in point is the large sunken parking surrounded by a wall and is easily transformed into a large body of water. Both the Ten Commandments and Titanic filmed important scenes here including the parting of the Red Sea and the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. It’s worth noting that the depiction of the parting of the Red Sea was achieved by way of an ingenious, though tedious. film editing innovation and not the result of clever fluid mechanics.

Having never really thought about it before, I came away impressed by the unseen business process that stands behind and enables creative ideas and scripts to become reality. One of these processes, makeup, is orchestrated by my host. It was clear to me that day that Lydia was revered. Wherever we went throughout the studio grounds, set staff recognized her and greeted her affectionately and with genuine respect.

Lydia said something quite profound during our outing. Paraphrasing, “you can predict with near certainty those that will not succeed. They are the ones that are star struct.” It’s an industry that certainly has had its moral challenges. Leaders making demands because they can and followers to weak or compromised to be objective. Hollywood is not alone but serves to illustrate the moral lapse. Stars and the star struct come and go, but the infrastructure mastered by genuine individuals insure a Paramount survives. Can the same be said about our government? My visit to the Nixon Library may provide some insight.

Before visiting the Nixon Library, I had one more stop in LA. I am a real fan of the Hammer Museum. Founded by Armand Hammer, the long time head of Occidental Petroleum. Armand Hammer began importing pencils to the Soviet Union in 1924 and parlayed that into a relationship with every Soviet era leader. Rumored to be a spy working both sides, he had an apartment in Moscow. Interestingly, he was one of the early and larger contributors to the Nixon Library. Arney Hammer is his grandson. The museum is off Wiltshire Boulevard and house Hammer’s personal collection of mostly early impressionist art. In addition, the museum stages an ever changing array of controversial work that, more often than not, challenges your sensibilities. I make it a point to stop in every time I visit Los Angeles. The works of Sarah Lucas are on display currently. Highly sexual and vivid, I’m uncomfortable sharing my thoughts out of respect for your sensibilities nor am looking to make a purchase. I will go as far as to say I was repulsed by this exhibit. My emotions were triggered. Exactly what art should do.........sometimes.

Nixon Now More Than Ever

Full disclosure, I took a year off of college to run the young voters program in Wisconsin for Nixon’s reelection campaign. Yes, I was a paid staffer for CREEP (Committee for the Reelection of the President.) Visiting President Nixon’s library brought back a lot of memories. I wondered if it was going to be a whitewash of his presidency. The library is located in the western Los Angeles suburb Yorba Linda. Once a farming community, it is now a pleasant middle class town. The library doesn’t sit prominently on a college campus or choice location in a capital city. Rather it sits on an ordinary street corner in a residential neighborhood. Noting the lack of pretension, I was encouraged the experience would be worthwhile.

Flawed and brilliant are the adjectives that most appropriately describe Richard Nixon. The library treated both sides to his personality fairly and completely. Envisioning a world with a fully engaged China, he created a pathway. Recognizing America’s looming ecological challenges, he established the EPA. Los Angeles cleaner air is a direct beneficiary. Knowing greed could siphon corporation’s budget dollars for safety, he established OSHA. Realizing local governments could most efficiently address a myriad of social ills, he promoted substantial grants in aid for state governments. He was the first President to address the Russian people and lead the first arms reduction program. Nixon extended the Title 7 and 8 legislation and appointed more women to government positions. His achievements rivaled Lyndon Johnson, another flawed giant. All this and more are displayed at the Nixon Library.

Equally important, Watergate and the challenges of withdrawing from Viet Nam were honestly displayed. The undoing of his presidency is charted on a wall size timeline. As testament to the honest portrayal of events, the 18 1/2 minute gap from the recording system was prominently featured. You can even listen to the recording and are directed to the 3 points of eraser. All the players are identified and the role they played. It was as if it was just yesterday as the library brought back to life Deep Throat, John Dean, Chuck Colson, Jeb MacGreagor and John Mitchell. No whitewashing of Watergate. It was clear from the presentations depicting the 9 months leading up to Nixon’s resignation that he allowed paranoia to pervert his thinking. It was equally clear there were individuals around Nixon who lacked firm character and were blinded by their proximity to power. I think my make up artist friend pegged it.

Keeping this in mind, Nixon inherited a sorry mess in Vietnam. Deployed troops reached 550,000. There were daily marches against the war, and other more violent occurrences such as Kent State and the bombing of the army math research center at the University of Wisconsin. The credibility gap, credited to Robert McNamara had mislead the American people on the true status of the war. We began to lose our trust in government and this extended into Nixon’s term fueled by a new set of moral lapses. Nixon’s desire for “peace with honor” only prolonged the war effort and intensified feelings. "Like it or leave it” simplicity only aggravated polarization. In addition, the nation was on fire over civil rights. We had a flawed leader, compromised by Watergate, who lacked the moral certitude to lift us.

My visit to the Nixon Library was timely because in many ways we are at the same juncture today. Nixon saw his flaws in the end. He had a deep understanding of who we are and what the Presidency represented to both our citizens and citizens of other nations. To his credit he resigned. Interestingly, the film introducing the Nixon Library opened with his resignation speech. Succeeding him was Gerald Ford. No one would have choreographed him for the role of healing the nation. Yet, this plain spoken, genuine, amiable, and fundamentally good man did just that. Jimmy Carter followed. Incredibly decent, he completed the healing, paving the way for an era of economic, innovation and social expansion. No correlation is exact, but I think of the quotation from Richard Nixon’s Inaugural that opened this Letter is as relevant today as it was then. We have it within us to heal. We’ve done it before. The good news is It seems each period of strife precedes an era of astonishing accomplishments.

Finally I must admit something. To this day, I have a soft spot for Richard Nixon. He became one of the most consequential ex-presidents leading Bill Clinton to declare it was time to end evaluating Nixon solely on Watergate but to evaluate him on the whole of his life. Nixon was a resilient man who overcame incredible odds, often self inflicted, to find ways to contribute to America’s well being. Most of all he was a patriot and understood what being a patriot required. Simply, putting national interests ahead of your own. Mr. Trump, when you’re in Los Angels next, stop by the Nixon Library, there is an important lesson waiting for you.