This has been a brutal summer for fans of On the Waterfront. First came the news of co-star Karl Malden’s death on July 1. Then yesterday,  August 5, word came down that the movie’s screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, had left this mortal plane to  join Malden at the great commissary in the sky.

But then it’s always been difficult for Waterfront fans. What other classic film – outside the collected works of Leni Reifenstahl – is so tainted by historical context and suspect creative intent that it forces viewers into the awkward position of denouncing its message and its messengers even while praising its form? When Waterfront was released in 1954 its goals were so shameless – an apologia for Schulberg, director Elia Kazan, and co-star Lee J. Cobb, all of whom had named names at the notorious HUAC hearings – as to be almost laughable.  But in the end, the artistry behind all that self-justification was enough to make even the most stubborn moralists bow their heads in respect – to the work if not to the men behind it. Say what you will; On the Waterfront makes a compelling (and sublimely acted) case for squealing.

Poor Schulberg. Here you’ve got one of the great American novelists of the 20th century and one of the best screenwriters from anywhere ever, and you simply cannot pay tribute to the man on the occasion of his death without mentioning the fact that he is one of history’s great stool-pigeons. His name, like Kazan’s, has become synonymous with disloyalty.

It all started with his struggles with the Communist Party (which he had joined in 1936) and the Party’s struggles with him. Back then being in the Communist Party meant something; members were expected to perform duties for the cause. So when Schulberg went to Party leaders in 1941 to ask permission to skip his assignments so he could have more time to work on the novel that would become the great What Makes Sammy Run, those leaders told him he would only be granted such an exception if the novel clearly extolled the virtues of their ideology. An artist first and a zealot second, Schulberg balked at the idea, and the Party balked at his refusal. They found him disloyal to the movement; he found them disloyal to the artistic ambitions of one of their own.

So the Communist Party, which he loved, kicked him out because they didn’t like the book he was writing (too ideologically impure); the Hollywood elite he had been born into didn’t like the book he wrote (too slanderous); and the book itself featured all manner of characters stepping all over their so-called friends (not to mention their union brothers and sisters) to get what they wanted, loyalty be damned entirely. Schulberg’s bitterness was starting to show. Then came the HUAC hearings, at which the writer got his revenge on his formers brothers on the left by giving them up one by one. He ratted out former friends, many of whom, including Ring Lardner, Herbert Bibberman, and Lester Cole, would be found guilty of contempt as members of the Hollywood Ten, sent to prison, and blacklisted from the movie business. Then he wrote Waterfront, which, for all its grace and intelligence, is really little more than a justification for a rat. Schulberg’s script may make the bad guys worse (Hollywood Communists becoming ruthless shipyard gangsters) and the good guys better (Hollywood screenwriters and directors looking to save their own skin become a beaten-down but decent boxer looking for a little justice for his murdered friends), but the transparency of those shifts just serves to accentuate how desperate he and Kazan were to win the PR game and shift calumny off of their ratting and onto those they ratted on. Loyalty to friends and country and even art got lost in the rush to maintain careers, reputations, and righteous defiance.

Maybe, in the end, Shulberg’s greatest sin was simple myopia, that he couldn’t see past the narrow scope of his time to realize that, like all things, the Communist scares of the early-Fifties would eventually pass away and all (alleged) sins of ideology would be forgiven. Unfortunately, what can never be forgiven is disloyalty in the face of difficulty, and from the day Schulberg testified until the day he died, unapologetic and unrepentent, he was never free from the disdain of his peers in the movie business. From 1941 until his death, disloyalty was the watchword of Budd Schulberg’s life, the cause of all his troubles but also the source of all his creativity. As a writer he was able to spin the issue that haunted him into gold, and the world loved him for it. As a man, however, loyalty was the ideal against which he would always be measured, and today, less than 24 hours after his death, even while it mourns his passing, the world still finds Budd Schulberg wanting.

Why True Love, Financial Success, and Inner Peace Have Eluded Me Thus Far; or Hamlet’s Ghost; or Doctor! Doctor! I Can Walk!
A musical play in one act written at the request of the editor of M_____  W_____ then quickly and quietly rejected

(A bar in Austin, Texas. A YOUNG MAN and SIGMUND FREUD sit on opposite sides of a small table. A checkerboard sits between them; they are mid-game. FREUD is drinking scotch out of a tumbler; the YOUNG MAN is drinking red wine out of a bottle. A CHORUS of male singers sits at various tables and on stools at the bar. A small band plays a sweet, sad song. FREUD is ruddy and handsome; the YOUNG MAN, meanwhile, is handsome and ruddy. They are both drunk, as is the author of this play. We join them mid-conversation.)

FREUD: And yet you still have not told me why you think your life has turned out so … unexceptional.

YOUNG MAN (Taking a long swig of his drink): I think you’re missing my point. (He lights a cigarette and takes a long drag.) The simple fact is, doctor, I am a contrarian. And that’s all there is to it. (He takes another drink.) Wow, it’s good to get that off my chest after all these years. (He moves a checker.) King me!

FREUD: (He lights up a cigar and “kings” the YOUNG MAN’s checker.) I’m not sure I understand.

YOUNG MAN: No? Okay. Here’s an example: When I lived in New York, surrounded by all those millions of ambitious people running about being productive, I couldn’t do a thing. I felt paralyzed. It’s like the city was a train, and I had to jump off and stand on the side of the tracks, thumbing my nose as it went by. I had to, see? I can’t say why, exactly.

FREUD: Hmmm …

YOUNG MAN: So then I came to Austin, a city famous for being full of people without ambition, and everywhere I looked there were thousands of people lining up to do nothing: to swim, to hike, to ride bicycles, to play acoustic guitars, to drink margaritas in the afternoon  – in the afternoon, doctor! On weekdays no less! Thousands of people … enjoying life! And I saw them and I saw how happy they were, and straight away I went out and forced myself to be ambitious and busy and productive. Not because I wanted to, because I had to. It’s like there’s a voice inside me all the time saying, “Do the opposite! Do the opposite!” (He drinks and puffs on a cigarette.) Is that normal?

FREUD (Stroking his beard): Well …

YOUNG MAN: I also have a paralyzing fear of floral curtains. But only on Tuesdays. Is that normal?

FREUD: Hmmm ….

YOUNG MAN: Give it to me straight, doc. I can take it.

FREUD: It’s difficult to say. (He moves a checker.) King me. (The YOUNG MAN leans forward and stares at the board.) Here’s one that never gets old: Tell me about your mother.

(Suddenly soused and overcome with rage, the YOUNG MAN jumps to his feet and violently swats the checkerboard off the table. Checkers go flying everywhere.)

YOUNG MAN : My mother?!! King you?!! Difficult to say?!! You son of a bitch!! My mother is a saint and to hell with you for asking!

FREUD: Okay then, tell me about your father.

YOUNG MAN (Cheerfully): Oh, well that’s a different story…

(The YOUNG MAN jumps onto his chair and points at a chalk board men from the CHORUS have rolled onstage and upon which is taped the picture of a middle-aged man. This is the YOUNG MAN’s father. The band begins to play a bright and upbeat tune. The CHORUS gathers around him and each member bobs his heads along to the music.)

YOUNG MAN (Putting on a straw hat and a red vest and speaking rapid-fire like a traveling salesman while the music builds in the background): Step this way folks and I’ll tell you about my father, the world’s heavyweight champion of damned stubborn contrarians. All his life he was the smartest guy around. All his life he was the one who could do anything, could be anything, could go anywhere. Everybody said so. But my father – dear old Dad! – he showed them all (by god, he did!) … by doing nothing, being nothing, and going nowhere! Clever boy! Yes, sir!

CHORUS: Yes, sir!

YOUNG MAN: My father had his own way of doing things, see, and he couldn’t understand why a man like him with a brain like his and ideas like those should be forced to accommodate himself to the middling expectations of the world! So he didn’t. And since he was never able to reconcile his dreams with the demands of other people – oh, boy! ….

CHORUS: Oh, boy!

YOUNG MAN: … my father’s dreams were deferred until it was too late!

CHORUS (Feigning sympathy): Awww!

(The band begins to play a march. The YOUNG MAN sings along briskly as if reciting a memorized lesson in school, or a military oath.)

“Dear Old Dad”

YOUNG MAN (singing):

My father whistled “The British Grenadiers” better than any man since or ‘fore.
When he died he was found on the ground on his side just one foot from the bathroom door.
He was five foot ten with a devious grin but a heart that had limited store.
What more can you say at the end of the day when your father dies lonely and poor? Hey!

(The YOUNG MAN sits down again and drinks a great gulp of whiskey. He lights a cigarette and leans back in his chair. The straw hat and vest have mysteriously disappeared. The band returns to its dirge.)

YOUNG MAN (Speaking): It’s funny. Two days after my father died, my sisters and I had to go to his tiny apartment and rummage through thousands of file folders filled with scribbled notes, to-do lists, papers, documents, and bills because we had to find the one that had his life insurance policy in it. And when I finally found that morbid folder, do you know what that son of a bitch had written on the tab for us to find after he was dead?

FREUD: What?

YOUNG MAN: “The Last Hurrah.” That’s what he’d named it. “The Last Hurrah.” Tell me, doctor: What exactly is a son supposed to learn from a father who writes things like that? Except that everything is ridiculous and there’s no point to anything we do? (He drinks again.) True love? Financial success? Inner peace? Why bother? I’m fine as I am. Really. I’m hereby resigning myself to physics and biology.

FREUD: I see. (He strokes his beard thoughtfully for a moment and then looks at the YOUNG MAN) May I tell you a story? I think you’ll find it instructive.

YOUNG MAN: I doubt that very much, but, by all means, go ahead.

(FREUD leaps out of his chair directly onto the bar, as if by magic. The band begins to play an upbeat Eastern European dance number, more klezmer than mizurka. FREUD stomps around the stage. The CHORUS dances behind him in a line.)

“The Good Doctor’s Warning”

FREUD (singing):

In Vienna 1893
A student of philosophy
Stroked his beard and challenged me
To map the human soul.

“The soul,” he claimed, “Cannot be seen
Through superegos, ids, or dreams
But only by philosophic means.”
And oh, the boy was droll.

CHORUS (Their arms raised high to heaven):

And oh, the boy was droll!!!

FREUD:

He thought he knew the answers to
The questions plaguing me and you,
And this at only 22;
The lad was quite precocious.

Questions like Why are we here?
And Why is “far” the thing not near?
And Why is death a thing to fear
When we know not where it throws us?

CHORUS (Going through the motions of tossing a large ball or a small animal):

When we know not where it throws us!!!

FREUD:

He claimed to know the root of things,
Said he was wise as Hebrew kings,
And made phrenological mutterings
‘bout gifted family crania.

And then this man went on to say
He could theorize thus all day.
But I diagnosed him right away:
Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-a!

(The CHORUS jumps upstage to do a jig.)

CHORUS:

Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaaa!!!!
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaa!!!
Cha! Cha! Cha!

(The CHORUS steps back again into a line behind FREUD.)

FREUD:

He believed that nature put birds here
To provide sweet music for his ear
And came to see the midnight clear
As born out of his musing.

He could not love and would not love
Though God himself from up above
Showed him beauty like the dove;
Only himself he found amusing.

CHORUS:

Only himself he found amusing!!!

(They dance a Viennese waltz. The YOUNG MAN dances as well, drunkenly, from his position sitting at the table. Then FREUD turns toward the YOUNG MAN and points at him accusingly.)

FREUD:

And you, sir, are the same as he,
That student of philosophy.
Your self’s the only thing you see;
You think you’re up above!

An unrepentant narcissist,
A self-reflexive solipsist,
Drowning in self in-ter-est,
Incapable of love!

CHORUS:

Incapable of Love!!! So sad!! So sad!! So very saaaaaaddddd!!!!

(The YOUNG MAN stands up from his chair, indignant, and takes menacing steps toward FREUD, who recedes back downstage in fear.)

“A Genial Retort“

YOUNG MAN:

That’s not true; I see it all,
From physics to the Wailing Wall.
And I’ve returned at least six calls
From friends who were in need.

It’s not that love is not for me;
It’s only that I fail to see
The need to love eternally.
I do it with more speed.

CHORUS:

He does it with more speed!!

YOUNG MAN:

The problem, Doc, I think, is you,
Who condemns without conceding to
The fact that he’s Narcissus too.
You don’t know who you are.

I love I, and who can blame?
Not I, says I, nor does it shame
A man like me to worship me,
My favorite by far.

CHORUS:

His favorite by far!!!

(Again, the CHORUS begins to jig.)

Acute me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaaa!!!!
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Me-ga-lo-ma-ni-aaaaaa!!!
Cha! Cha! Cha!

(The YOUNG MAN spins wildly with his hands on his hips as the CHORUS repeats this phrase and dances up a storm around him and FREUD vanishes into a hole in the stage. Slowly the CHORUS starts to disappear into the shadows as the music fades away, leaving the YOUNG MAN alone on a dark and silent stage.)

YOUNG MAN (reciting to the audience, as a chorus closes a Shakespeare tragedy, yet out of breath):

An Empty Epilogue

Here I stand, I fear it’s true
Just one more solipsistic Jew,

Believed predestined for the skies
In the world’s discerning eyes;

Yet one who fails to see the point
In pointless life, so out of joint.

A man who knows he could be great
But now who’s off to masturbate.

Tra la la! Tra la la! Tra la la!

(Exit)

In death, pop singer Michael Jackson becomes all things to all people

The media circus over the death of Michael Jackson crept its way into every corner of the national consciousness this week, leaving no stone uncast and no angle uninvestigated (memorial services, suicidal fans, career retrospectives, sordid family history, legal battles, the curious response of the singer’s Dickensian father, pharmacological flim-flammery) and no media outlet untouched. Even the alt-weekly newspapers – bastions of unpopular interests – couldn’t avoid the gravitational pull of the death of the King of Pop.

They also couldn’t resist the common temptation to cast the death of such a famous public figure in the light of whatever impulse or fascination governs their own intellectual, psychological, or emotional lives. Writers are just like other people, and for whatever reason, when a person of such uncommon stature, of such absurd worldwide popularity, as Michael Jackson dies, that person’s death very quickly goes from being a story about them to being an outlet for us.

Take, for example, the eulogy piece written by essayist Greg Tate for this week’s Village Voice, “Michael Jackson: The Man in Our Mirror.” In it Tate, author of Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking From Black Culture, waxes philosophical, self-important, and heavily racial, more often at the expense of Jackson that in tribute to him. Say what you will about Jackson – that he was the leader of one of the great R&B groups of the sixties, that he was one of the best pop singers the world ever produced, that he broke sales records, that he ate breakfast, that he could dance better than any 10 professional dancers put together, that he was beloved the world over and then over again – but it strikes me as both delusional and completely outside the point to say he was “one of the great storytellers and soothsayers of the last 100 years.” You can love “Billie Jean” all you want, but the man who wrote it and sang it and danced around to it wasn’t a holy man; he was just a pop singer, which really should be enough. By all means, give thanks and praise for the man’s voice – which, at its best, could be as airy as Al Green’s and as rhythmically surgical as James Brown’s – but you lose me when you start talking about it as a “field-holler scream.”

Born to extrapolate, wrapped up in his own concerns, and happy to use the events of recent days as an excuse to talk about them, Tate bemoans the lack of “the unmistakable presence of some kind of spiritual genius” in Black American culture, “the sense that something other than or even more than human is speaking through whatever fragile mortal vessel is burdened with repping for the divine, the magical, the supernatural, the ancestral …” He hears this voice of the Orishas in the music of Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, and, ostensibly, Michael Jackson, but not anywhere in young black America, meaning, I guess, that Ghostface Killah, Li’l Wayne, Alicia Keys, TV on the Radio, and countless other more current African-American musical talents are just in it for the money.

Gripe all you want about the insubstantial music of today’s youth (older people have been doing so for generations’ now, and they were definitely doing it when Michael Jackson was at the peak of his fame), and swear up and down that Thriller and Off the Wall belong in the pantheon of great recorded music (though I don’t buy it; I always found Jackson to be more of a performer that a creator of great songs), but please try and refrain from talking about Michael Jackson as “the real missing link: the ‘bridge of sighs’ between the Way We Were and What We’ve Become in what Nelson George has astutely dubbed the “Post-Soul Era.” And maybe you shouldn’t speculate too much on whether the guy who invented the Moon Walk and sang “Say, Say, Say” with goofball Paul McCartney was “capable and culpable of having staged his own pedophilic race-war revival of” the role of “one of the most secretly angry Black race-men on the planet.”

I’m not even sure I know what that means, except that it has something to do with all the legal murmurings about male children at the Neverland Ranch and that it says a lot more about the concerns, worries, fears, passions, hopes, and interests of Greg Tate than it does about Michael Jackson.

Jackson was a lot of things; I’m not sure “race warrior” was one of them.