I’m pleased to see I got as far as I did with the blog plans
I outlined last December here and here.
But I want to clarify what I plan to continue pursuing, and what I don’t, and
what is in a sort of “development limbo” and may still eventually see the light
of day, blog-wise.
For an explanation of the codes “JCP” and “RVT” (which imply
that an alternative or fuller version of the relevant theme may appear in the
coded package), see early in this entry.
1. The GLG story: Its
limited aim, somewhat like episodes I-III of Star Wars [JCP]
Fortunately, I was able to at least meet minimal expectations for my “Dollars
& sense” and “Running with the bulls” series. Work-situation stories always
provide a lot of substance, but they start to get tough to finish, on this or
my other blog. The reasons for this vary. In the case of Jason Aronson, the
story was so old (20 years), and the type of work was so atypical of me in the
past 20 years, that it took me some work—with the nature of this winter not
helping entirely—to flesh out the story, and iron out the kinks. Fortunately, I
have a fair amount of hard-copy evidence to go with this.
The “Running with the bulls” series, ending up not on a New
Jersey firm but on the New York firm AM Medica, was good because—while I lacked
a certain amount of hard-copy evidence—the memories of a crazy stint, like a
crazy vacation, allowed me to pursue the story with some gusto and more fun
than the Jason Aronson. As it happened, my time on it got stretched out—which ironically
can help a series when the lengthy process allows details and nuances to filter
in that flesh out the story usefully.
The GLG story is
difficult in a couple ways: while I have hard-copy evidence (and earlier versions
of the story, including on this blog), and while the sheer
bizarreness of the situation behind it impels me to want to write it—and sheer
emotional investment is a key spur to doing a good blog entry—there is
something a little forbidding about it for me at the moment.
Let me note what the GLG story will NOT entail. Although this story would bring me, in simple
historical terms, to the very threshold of talking about my experience with the
medical-promo firm CommonHealth as it occurred within 2007-10 (which tends to
be significantly different in character from my experience with it of 2001-06),
I want to hold off on discussing that firm, except for a small but important
way in rounding off the GLG story. As to detailing my experience with
CommonHealth—which I’ve done on this blog already—there certainly remain some
stories, but importantly I am holding off on delivering stories on this firm,
including the last *(Part 6)* of my “What in the Name of Medicine?” series, because there
are other avenues I am dealing with this, which are pending and more
appropriate than a blog entry or two.
The GLG story
will basically conclude (1) with what happened between me and it alone in 2007;
and (2) with some looks at a number of medical-promo firms it had as clients,
with my saying just enough about these latter to explain what happened with GLG
in 2006-07 (and in one way, in early 2007 CommonHealth was downright constructive
with me regarding how GLG started foundering).
The limitedness of the GLG story is, in a sense, explainable
with a Star Wars analogy (not that I
am a fan of that movie series). You could consider the overall collection of my
medical-promo stories that deal with the years of 2007-10 to be like episodes
IV through VI in Star Wars (starting,
on the movie side of the analogy, with what originally was the first Star Wars movie [1977], followed by The Empire Strikes Back [1980] and Return of the Jedi [1983]). My GLG story, which more or less covers
experience from 2004 to 2007 (while an additional brief look back to my
dealings with Horizon Graphics, starting as long ago as 1994, is relevant), will be like episodes I through III. In
marching up to what happened in 2007, my account will be like seeing Anakin
Skywalker earn his dark stripes as he becomes Darth Vader, donning the helmet
and the James Earl Jones voice—you know, populating his early career with stuff
like the Checkers speech and the loss of the governor’s race in California in
1962, but without an association with Jar-Jar Binks (sorry to mix metaphors).
If you understand that the GLG story has this rigidly
enforced terminus, then you need not
worry whether I open a back door onto what I already have taken a tour through
in a way that may be more than enough for some readers. Meanwhile, I think
my GLG story is very valid, because—in revisiting something I already made a
chronicle of, for those who could use it (in days, 2007, when it didn’t seem
necessary to do this sort of thing yet)—reexamining it today for details (or
possibilities) that I didn’t appreciate in 2007, and simply taking an approach
of sheer curiosity and intrigue, could make for an edifying “war story” that is
good for you as well as for me.
But it will take me
some time to get into this. In a way it will be like chewing on a brick to
get it into “digestible” shape for you.
2. Things put on
indefinite hold, or to be (re)turned to eventually
The “Hillary” story
I had started talking about a projected entry tentatively
titled “A tonic for when you’re ginned:
The tale of ‘Hillary’ and the house fire,” which was noted within this entry. Pretty quickly I became reserved about delving into
this. This topic came up in my plans as ancillary to the Kate Brex sub-series I
did, which was part of the larger Democrats Part 7 sub-series on my other blog
(“Missives from the Jersey Mountain Bear”). The Hillary story “in my archives” is
actually related to the set of anecdotes in my manuscript A College Try that Courted Trouble, and yet it was such (given the
problems of others that inspired it) that it had (after some years of gestation)
become pretty much eliminated from that package (as a product to be offered in
any sort of published form), though the Hillary story was not to be permanently
kept from “other eyes.”
The reason why the Hillary story became tempting to talk
about in relation to Kate is that Kate actually had a number of things to say
about the pseudonymous Hillary, though these came up in 2004, two years after
she saw Hillary in person when Kate covered a meeting of the NDMDA group in
Sussex County for a feature story that was eventually published in The New Jersey Herald in June 2002. I appreciated
Kate’s 2004 comments about Hillary in reviewing my old notes again.
Of all the women I helped extensively who came to the NDMDA rap
meetings, Hillary was probably the most off-putting. Those I’ve pseudonymed
Cheryl and Betty were more worthy of helping, and they did more to invite this;
and my experience with them from October 2002 to about November 2003 certainly
invited a lengthy treatment in a memoir I later wrote. But Hillary—who I dealt
with primarily within the period from about January 2002 to about May 2002—was
an odd duck even in NDMDA terms. She turned up at the lecture meeting in early
June 2002 that Kate Brex covered, which lecture Kate wrote on in her news
article. Kate incidentally witnessed enough about Hillary at the lecture
meeting that, in 2004, she talked with me about her observations at some
length. At the time, I was a little skeptical of her takes on (some) details,
but when I reviewed notes on her comments in late 2013, I felt this area was
worth a revisit.
Quite apart from what Kate was directly familiar with, Hillary
was also involved in a house fire in later 2002, regarding which I talked to
her (Hillary) on the phone in December 2002, which was the last time I ever
spoke to her. There are other aspects of her overall story (to the limited
extent I was aware of her doings) that make for a gripping sort of overall
anecdote. Also, what made her especially “piquant” is that she inspired
comments by others, including from Jean, the longtime leader of the NDMDA group
in Sussex County (through fall 2002), who shared with me her concerns (in spring
2002) about Hillary’s possibly pursuing an extramarital affair with a male in
the group (which indeed she did—and don’t worry, Hillary and her husband of the
time eventually got divorced). [Important additions 3/3/14, 3/6/14: To give some perspective here, Hillary was about 38, while I was about 41 (the average age of the most frequent attendees there in 2002, and hence those most apt to be trustees for the group, was about 50), while the man Hillary had the affair with was about 30. Further, Hillary's touch was not subtle: she spoke in hard, angry terms about her issues with her husband, and in the close wake of this (though with an effort at being clandestine, leaving various group members in the dark about it), she pursued her affair with the younger man with as much resolve as lack of good taste. Also, to show how little a local health-care professional--who also happened to be popular among various of the group's attendees in their private consultations with her--had a grasp on things in this group: the psychiatrist I've pseudonymed Letty Greenstein, who gave a lecture to the group in June 2002, but by no means ran the group--nor was she ever a "professional advisor" for us, a professional liaison that NDMDA/DBSA groups tend to have--once said to me in a routine private consultation, when I briefly described the Hillary situation, that I was showing "guilt" in being apt to talk about the matter (while clearly I was not a party to the affair instigated by Hillary). If you review all I say in this subsection, you should agree that anyone who would say I was exhibiting "guilt" in talking about the Hillary situation was naive indeed, if not also showing a severe lack of common sense about what could go on with these groups, to say nothing of any sort of professional "responsibility" Dr. G might have exercised. By the way, Dr. Greenstein was never in a capacity to be a private doctor to Hillary, as far as I know.]
Then—adding to what prodigious complications came from
Hillary—certain people in the Sussex County NDMDA constellation, in spring
2003, would make such a massive issue out of how I had (in 2002) discussed
Hillary outside the group—which, as I noted, Jean had initiated with me (on
good grounds)—that this issue became the basis for a major plank in the
positions from which I was forced from running the group (and stiffed
money-wise) in May-June 2003. As you can see, on a number of counts (and from very
different angles), there was a lot of “drama” that arose because of Hillary,
and you (the reader new to this) could well be curious about her, for very
valid reasons.
And in this regard, as well as in certain other (isolated)
situations, Hillary indirectly represented how ridiculous these patient-run
support groups could get sometimes (far from being—as they tended to be defined
and under normal circumstances—anything quite professionally run).
In fact, I find from an Internet search that Hillary appears
to be living again in Great Britain, where she came from. (Her accent when she
was with the NDMDA group in 2002 was an odd blend of a British accent and a
little California accent; she had lived in California just previously.) So, in
effect, I wouldn’t be hurting her prospects much in talking about her (I don’t
know whether she’s working at a paid job or not).
The stuff that Kate had to say about her in 2004—which I
became appreciative of again in late 2013—showed that Hillary, who was not a
terribly floridly behaved person (she
had that British reserve, along with whatever else), could stir strong
responses in all sorts of others (and sometimes others in their responses to
her could clash among themselves over her). And I think Kate, who was well
familiarized with how people tended to behave, or should behave, in support
groups had her own good perspective for measuring Hillary’s behavior in June
2002.
All this said—and I’ve said more than I expected to—I hold off on the full Hillary story, because, though you might find it quite
interesting, it is not something I want (in
its details) to tailor to this blog, with the attendant risks, at this time.
The Kate story
In December, I got into the thicket of my memories and
e-mail quotes from Kate Brex as I proceeded with my Dems series. If this “detour”
struck you as a little excessive, no wonder, but it wasn’t for bad-faith
reasons. I had started to look at Mark Hartmann’s story, which I found was a
key piece in the Sussex Dems jigsaw-puzzle history of 1999-2005 or so. This
inevitably led to a consideration of the less-than-stellar managing editor Dave
Brown. And this, as I considered the history, made me turn to Kate Brex.
Initially, in telling what story I had on her, I was
concerned about how (assuming she was alive and could see my blog) she might
respond to my blog history about her. When I found she had passed on, this
struck me like a jolt. And then I tried to round off the story—the process of
which became murky and disturbing indeed—by determining what was worth
revealing, and what not, in light of her being deceased (which included paying
some “respect” to her awful experience of the lawsuit she was mired in in
2003-04). One thing that gave me a solid handle on this story is that, with my having
experienced Dave Brown directly myself (in fall 2001), I could put faith in
what she had reported to me as her problems with him that reflected his considerable
lack of professionalism.
The last entry in the mini-series on Kate, subpart Z (which
is posted, on my other blog), I have had qualms about, and I have considered
revisiting it for several weeks now. I don’t think there’s any rush on that.
One of the tricks with the Kate story is related to, or similar to, my “editorially
dealing with” Kate’s “part” in the Hillary story: Kate’s comments of 2003 and
2004 were complex and demanding in their own right at the time, while she
didn’t quite seek help from me as other people had (following general
NDMDA-type parameters) in 2002 and 2003 (so there was a certain aloofness and “not-needy-ness”
in her, which I’ve already addressed in the sub-series on her). But in reviewing
her communications about 10 years later, I found there to be an interesting
challenge, almost an art, to reading through our exchanges and deciding what
comments of hers I would put stock in and what put less stock in.
A general reason why I felt it worthwhile to unfold the Kate
story is that, on a general level, when
someone has confided the mess of things in you that she did me, you look back
and wonder, Could she have been better served? Not just by me, but by her
attorneys? By her former employer? By anyone else? You feel almost as if
you were witness to a vicious street mugging, and you did the best you could at
the time, and you moved on with your life, as she did hers; and then looking at
old records of that event, you consider in awe what happened here, and wonder
if anyone, including yourself, might have helped her better.
That is why, for one thing, it simply wasn’t my only option just to keep quiet about it—quite
apart from whatever “political points” modern onlookers might have seen me
seeking to score in presenting the story (and actually, I was not expressly
seeking to discredit The New Jersey
Herald as it functions today, for political reasons or otherwise).
Important: if I
edit or change the Kate story, it wouldn’t be to add more subparts, or to do major changes.
3. The last Democrats
Part 7 entry
Yes, I still owe you one last installment of the Dems series,
subpart G, probably to appear on my
other blog. I never thought I wouldn’t do
this. It will definitely be more compact than the Mark Hartmann and Kate
mini-series—it should be one entry, if a bit long. And it will basically be a
positive story, not a delving into
“dark murk” as with the Kate situation.
4. The Vernon Township
“radium dirt” story [JCP? RVT?]
I’ve mentioned this topic (a 1986 set of anecdotes and
analysis) a couple times before, the last time near the start of this late December entry. Very recently, in The New York Times (February 25, 2014, p. A20), there was a
semi-story/semi-column headlined “In Plan to Dump Contaminated Soil, Classic
New Jersey Politics Emerge”—about a recent situation near the Rahway River,
toward central New Jersey. I don’t know anything more about this than what this
article says, but my own 1986 story isn’t really meant to be filed under the
conception of “classic New Jersey politics,” because (in part) the radium-soil
plan in 1986 was unilaterally proposed by the state’s Department of
Environmental Protection (and actually, they were ready to start trucking
waste) on a naïve assumption that local residents wouldn’t object. This matter
didn’t involve multiple parties behind the dumping plan, variously on the political
side and with a private contractor, the way the 2014 story seems to.
My 1986 story will be of historical
interest, partly because the fear concerning radioactive substances that was
involved then resonated with Cold War concerns (among resultant public rhetoric,
there was reference to communism; and the Chernobyl disaster, which of course
entailed radioactive contamination in the U.S.S.R., had happened just a few
months before). The story does involve, among other parties, Victor Marotta,
who was township mayor at the time, and he was at the start of his political
career that would take him to election to a county freeholder position a year
or two later.
He is currently township mayor again, and I am not seeking
to make any comment one way or the other about a current issue regarding a township
ordinance that was passed to increase his pay (under the mayor/council form of
government here) from $30,000 to $70,000 annually, which is subject to a drive
to put the matter into a referendum on the ballot in November. Relevant to my
projected story, Marotta in 1986 did appear in the news as a leader in the face
of the radium-soil proposal; and years later, he showed strong leadership in
such township matters as a zoning issue concerning the microwave-stations firm
MicroNet in 1991.
My 1986 story will look at how what may have been crucial to
the reversal of the soil-dumping plan in Vernon Township wasn’t actions within
the township so much as actions
across the state border in Warwick, N.Y., where parties—members of the public,
the municipal government, etc.—feared contamination of their aquifer. Thus the
Warwick parties pursued court action, including a motion for an injunction (to
stop the dumping plan) in state Supreme Court, located in Manhattan. I believe
it was Warwick actions that really had the decisive legal effect, but I need to
research this further.
(To make clear on
terms: In New York State, what is the trial-level court and is equivalent
to what is called “Superior Court” in New Jersey is called “Supreme Court.” In
both states, there is an appellate level [within the state court system] immediately
above these. Then, in New York State, there is no higher court level than
appellate on the state level, but as needed, cases are appealed there to the federal court level; meanwhile, in New
Jersey, there is the higher level of the state
Supreme Court.)
I don’t expect my “radium soil” story to be ready until late this year.
5. The “Alan L.”
mini-series [RVT]
I feel this mini-series will happen, and I certainly have certain
narrative ideas bubbling in my head with enthusiasm. (Following is the
tentative mini-series title, seen in this introductory entry: “Memories of freshman year in
college: Alan L., a presuming “social arbiter” with a voice like a mafioso’s.”)
It seems to make sense to have this mini-series somehow fall under the banner
of my “GWU Days” mini-series, which
I did a post for last year (with this April 2013 entry).
But I am taking my time getting into this mini-series, and
it may start once spring is “busting out all over.” By the way, this year is
the 30th anniversary of my college graduation, so I don’t know if
that fact will somehow tie into—or somehow shape—this series or not.
6. 1970s films—and a
look at the 1980s
What it seems should be fun—and in some sense usually is,
for me at least—is my set of entries
under the banner “Patchouli and B.O.:
Entries reflecting on the 1970s.” And indeed, I have a clot of movie
reviews in the works to present under this banner. One film in particular, from
1977, I viewed this winter (it took an unusual effort to get a copy through a
library system), and I wrote up some substantive stuff on it—and it, to me, is
one excellent measure of the 1970s, as it took its own unsparing look at the
extent of self-indulgence that the young could get into in those days, and it also
reflected the moral dismay that “older generations” could have to this.
Also, in some sense this film echoed the very real
experience I had (as an isolated, alienated
youth) of the later part of that decade: a sort of debauchery among peers that
seemed to blossom around you, like the colored smoke in Apocalypse Now, but with your dismay at this (something along the
lines of the sentiments of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”)
flowing out along with it, and yet with your not seeming to see any real
resolution in sight.
The problem for me is that the 1977 film in question—which
was a Paramount offering that got big press coverage at the time, and earned
one of its actresses an award nomination—features some “blue” elements (meaning
sexual, not “depression-related”), so it will take me some work to see exactly
how I present my review, though I went at the lengthy initial draft with good
morale and creativity.
Sidebar: The “theme key”—what is
it? I also will post a “theme
key” entry—a new sort of helping set of notes—that will provide some
framework within which to navigate a discussion of this 1977 film (and, as it
happens, one or two other films). In short, I want to provide some way for
(younger) readers to piece through a story that is constructed with an
elaborate complex of assumptions, some of which may be foreign or troubling;
and I want to provide a way to dissect these without seeming to endorse any of
the more unfriendly assumptions that are tangled up in the story.
For instance, in December I had
wanted to do a review of the recent Silver
Linings Playbook (2012), but I posted an entry on my other blog that serves as a sort of “theme key” for that film. I still am slow to
finish the review on Silver Linings,
because I feel yet another “theme key” is needed for it—which is on a matter that
is different from what is concerning about the 1977 film just noted.
Of course, I have numerous other movie reviews in the works,
most from 1970s films (generally meaning that some fun is ahead), that might
make me look—in terms of busy-ness—like John Lennon composing a ton of songs in Rishikesh during The
Beatles’ retreat there (to get concerted classes in Transcendental Meditation)
in winter/spring 1968. You know, Dr. Winston O’Boogie himself (End note), letting his beard grow in a
carefree way, and the living conditions seedy in the bungalows of the
Maharishi’s ashram, monkeys hanging around for a handout and insects a little
too big. (No, I didn’t recently grow a beard—or
deal with monkeys.)
But in the midst of my overall sideline of “old movies”
viewing—not that this is all I do all day—it occurred to me that a look back at
1980s culture might be worthwhile,
too. This because it seems there is a
1980s nostalgia among American middle-class youths now—or, perhaps better
to say, young audiences who were not alive or sophisticatedly conscious at the
time are “taken with” 1980s premises and styles, as if the period was—I don’t
know—“groovy” in its own way, containing a “je
ne sais quoi worth emulating,” like the 1960s were for some and the 1970s
were for others who became more adult-style aware later.
So, since I went to college in the 1980s (and have more-fun
memories of the 1980s than of the 1970s), I could take a retrospective swing
through ’80s culture. The Breakfast Club,
anyone? A sketch of the Iran-contra affair? A music-time glance at Michael
Jackson’s album Thriller? The
possibilities bubble up like Smurfs through your air vents.
I’ve also toyed with a possible mini-series subhead for
1980s comments. How about: “Howard Jones’ hair: A revisiting of 1980s pop (and political) culture”? (I mean
his 1985 hair.) [Update 3/27/14: This series heading has been changed to "Morning Becomes Reagan: A revisiting of 1980s pop (and political) culture."]
Note: Both my
1970s and 1980s film-review series will run concurrently.
End note.
“Dr. Winston O’Boogie” is one of the playful aliases Lennon
put in the liner notes for his 1974 album Walls
and Bridges.
