The Relevancy of It's A Wonderful Life

Watched It's a Wonderful Life in an old theatre in Chicago last night. Do it every year, but this year was different. The audience always participates which is something we digital creatures don't really get. But the participation this year had the resonance of our time. When Potter would appear on the screen everyone would hiss and boo. And when Clarence appeared everyone jingled their bells. But it was the scenes with George Bailey that were different this year. This year, people listened like their houses depended on it.

Take the scene after George's fathers death. George tells the board of the The Building and Loan to do what they want but they should keep it open so people don't have to crawl to Potter. And then Potter insults Georges father and this brings the heart if not the speech of the movie....iis it too much to ask for people to have a few walls and a roof over their head, well my father didn't think so, but to you people are a cattle... The audience was so silent you could hear a pin drop and at the end of his speech people stood up and cheered!

Then there were the scenes during The Great Depression. George struggles to keep The Building and Loan open and uses his own money. An eerie silence came into the theatre, people watching people from sixty years before struggling with the fear they were going to lose everything. When the Building and Loan didn't close and George mades his famous papa dollar and mama dollar proclamation, again, people cheered and clapped.

And then of course at the end when George is going to kill himself and is rescued by his friends. Frank Capras view of life comes through and George is toasted by his friends as the richest man in town, the people in the audience cried and sang along to Auld Lang Syne. And then we filed out and I watched people emerge with smiles on thier faces. Good Cheer and Christmas of course. But maybe hope...that  somewhere there still is  a place where we can be saved by the people who love us.

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Palin Tell All Author Speaks Out of Both Sides of his Mouth

You cant'  have your cake and eat it too. But if you are Frank Bailey you will try. The aide who wrote the tell all book Blind Allegiance is having it both ways and maybe that is a hallmark of the new crop of I worked with a celebrity now I will rat them out genre. Bailey popped up on Lawrence O'Donnell and spoke with great contrition of the way he smeared good people at Palins direction and how his book is an apology for all the bad things he's done and also he got one hell of an advance. The last part mumbled of course. O'Donnell was very nice because Frank was bashing Palin and saying all the things we know about Sarah, egotistical, dictatorial, venal, vain, greedy, etc etc. His answers were coached and canned. Good PR screamed at us as he painted himself as the reformed conservative who has seen the light. By the end he outDonalled Lawrence O'Donnell.

Then I caught him on the Sean Hannity show on Fox. A different man. He spoke of Sarah's falling from the concept of smaller government and how she really wasn't a good conservative and had actually grown government in Alaska. Hmmmmm. Him speak with forked tongue. But Sean Hannity whom I am no fan of actually went after him. You wrote this book for the money. You betrayed Sarah. You are the worst kind of person. Someone who keeps all his emails for publication. Sean ripped him a new you know what what. Poor Frank looked like someone had stuck a pin in his PR coached persona. You could almost see the book publicist telling him, now when you go on Fox talk about how Sarah grew government and how she was not really a true conservative. But Hannity wasn't buying any of it.

Frank looked pretty bad by the end. He looked like a loser whom some agent had packaged into a book with some emails and gossip and then photoshopped him onto the front of a book with Palin. Which Hannity pointed out is exactly what the cover consisted of. Frank slinked off the Fox set off to another show. You can just see the publicist tweaking his pitch. Now lets use a little big government and a little redistributionism with a twinge of Beckian Tea Party nuance. Right.....

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Rocket Man will blast off this summer

TO MY BIG BROTHER GEORGE

AND so it goes. The final line of It's A Wonderful LIfe. I always watch that movie and I appreciate the line. But, really what does it mean? George has no money. He is in debt. His life insurance policy is all he has. As Henry Potter, the villain says, "You're worth more dead than alive George."
So, what does his brother Harry mean by that final toast? Surely, he speaks of the riches of a well lived life. George has many friends and is loved and this is finally what gives him his wealth. I wonder how many people think of wealth in those terms. I would say we have to redefine wealth. I have come up with a new criteria. Now that I have a family and I see the sands of time slipping away, I think we have all been swindled into thinking what true wealth is. This is my criteria for wealth:

When was the last time you came home early from work?When was the last time you didn't go into work to spend it with your family?When was the last time you called up a friend and did something with them for no reason at all?When was the last time you spent the entire day with your family doing nothing?When was the last time you slept in?When was the last time you took a walk? When was the last time you curled up with a good book?When was the last time you turned off your cell phone or beeper?When was the last time you planned to do absolutely nothing?When was the last time you didn't try and fill all your time with workWhen was the last time you did something with your son or your daughter?When was the last time you watched a sunset? A sunrise? When was the last time you looked at the stars?When was the last time you walked through the woods?When was the last time you didn't read the newspaper or get on the Internet and didn't care what was happening in the world?When was the last time you remembered what it was to be a kid again?When was the last time you went to a coffeehouse with a book?When was the last time you had a party and didn't' give a damn about the cost or what it did to your house?"When was the last time you read poetry?

Well, you get the picture. I have come to view wealth a whole lot differently. I saw a man the other day in front of his million dollar vacation home on a beautiful lake. His son was out on the dock. The man came out and swept the dock while his son watched. When he was done, the man went back into the house. I wondered if that man knows that one day his son won't be there at the end of the dock. So I guess that's what Harry Bailey was saying in the end. He was toasting his brother who didn't have any money but had all the things that money simply can't buy. Time. Money can't buy time and that is precious.
So I say it to loud and clear, here's to George, truly, the richest man in town. Amen.

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