NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
“The Spin show with Leticia Lantern is brought to you by March Hare Brand Products. Turn to us for things you need. The Spin Show, the show that covers all points of view including yours.”
The TV is on in Lou’s big white living room. I am sitting with Albrecht Intaglio and evening light fills the clerestory windows with rich yellows and deep greens in the surrounding pignut hickories. Daisy Briscoe and Boyd Nightingale are expected too. Lou’s tells me he invited the whole Guild, but none has shown up so far.
Since Boyd is now vice chair of the Fauxmont Guild, Lou wants to get to know him better and let him share his views in discussion, watching this show together as an icebreaker. I admire him for trying to bring those with opposing views together, but feeling runs high and I have my doubts about this working out constructively. Lou is confident in what he calls ‘the spirit of Fauxmont’ insisting we can get beyond the ‘heat’ to find each other’s deeper common interests. We are watching some of Albrecht’s favorite ‘talking heads’. He thanks Lou for the opportunity to ‘educate us’.
“This week on ‘The Spin Show’ we bring you Congressman Lee Leavenworth Knox chairman of Select Committee on Aesthetic Crime. He also leads the Congressional CUPA caucus. That’s CUPA, the movement to Clean Up America.”
“Congressman you have said it is time for a frank public discussion about politics, the economy and CUPA. Welcome to the Spin Show. What is the first thing you would like to say to America tonight?”
“Leticia, it’s a pleasure to be back on your show. I believe in a free market for free Americans. That is what I stand for. Another thing, we on the Committee on Aesthetic Crime want to thank our supporters. With your growing support we can eliminate the scourge of Modern Art that is polluting our museums, and young people’s minds.”
“Congressman your opponents are asking, how free are we going to be, living with the unregulated power of huge multinational companies? Isn’t profit going to be more important to them than our country?”
“March Hare Products proudly sponsors the Spin Show for the new millennium. Stay tuned to the Spin Show and see where Leticia will shine her light,” says the male voice before Leticia can acknowledge the Congressman’s remarks. Now we see a merry-go-round slowly turning, to the tune of Yankee Doodle played on a fairground organ. The carousel displays March Hare kitchenware rising and falling in place of carved wooden horses. A friendly animated hare is depicted dancing with a casserole as it moves up and down on its pole decorated in red white and blue windings that spiral up its length.
Lou invites us to help ourselves to iced tea in tall glasses on the side-board. The spin show is back by the time I sit down again.
“Leticia let me add one more point to my opening remarks. How many of you out there know of the plan to take down the Washington Monument? How many of you have heard of the artist Tarantula who is leading this insidious attack on our values in the nation’s Capitol?”
“Congressman those are important questions, and we shall get back to them, but what about the economy?”
Yes Leticia, let me say this, even though we have had a financial crisis, more people have more goods and services all over the world than ever before in history. I want to see that go on.”
“Don’t you think the worst of the bank failures might have been averted with regulation and better enforcement?”
“More from Congressman Lee Leavenworth Knox after the break,” says the friendly male voice-over with his bright emphasis on the word ‘more’.
Hank Dumpty stops on the threshold and leans against the door post listening, apparently unready to join he group. He shifts his weight and hen remarks that there must be some regulation by government to keep companies within bounds. “I can cite historical facts to demonstrate that necessity and …” Albrecht breaks in “The facts don’t matter big guy. You’ve got to tell people something they can believe, or better yet something they want to believe. Just keep it simple.”
Lou looks up from the couch across from Albrecht. “People want to believe all kinds of crazy things, have you no respect for truth?”
“The truth is what happens when America acts.”
Hank is no longer leaning. He steps into the room, “No no no, not for this American, this is about facts not acts. I am talking about the basis forreasonable discussion and argument.”
Lou is squeezing his jaw between thumb and forefinger looking more and more grotesque as his lips part bunching under his nose and his cheeks are stretched and distorted. He suddenly let go and mutters “Get real Albrecht, that’s nonsense.”
“Hey big guy, we make our own reality. Listen, politics is emotional, not factual. You need that emotional rush to get attention and make it happen. We’ve got to stoke those big emotions”
“Albrecht, my name is Hank, not ‘Big Guy’.”
“Touché, Hank!”
I ask Albrecht if he is interested in reasonable argument but he goes on.
“Timing is everything, who cares about argument.”
“I do. That’s how disagreements are worked out.”
“Fred, this isn’t a country of professors. America extends way beyond the faculty room.” He sits up, and lifts and spreads out his arms bending his elbows out gradually and finally opening his hands and spreading his fingers all in one slow flowing motion. “It’s a nation of free people.” He brings his arms back down and pumps his fists out back and forth out in front of his chest.” You have to keep up the momentum, get them so angry they’ll get up and vote.” He leans forward with his hands on his knees. “You know what voter turnout is?”
Lou is squinting. He releases both palms pressing against his cheeks. “I know it’s low. 60% is regarded as high.”
“Right and you can’t advance liberty’s agenda without votes.”
“Liberty’s agenda?”
“The agenda for a free America with free markets and free people.”
Hank is pacing near the entrance looking at the floor. “Lou I don’t have much time for TV as you know. It is not the best source of information and this isn’t my kind of show anyway.”
“Wait Hank! Don’t leave yet. Aren’t you proud to be a free American?”
“Yes Albrecht I am.” Hank pauses, looks up at Albrecht, without anger. “I don’t think you have any respect for that freedom whatever.”
“Listen Hank, the source is the thing. If we can discredit the negative socialist sources, no one will care what they say … you know what Hank? All you do is attack the personality.”
“Not me. Don’t include me in that. I don’t want any part of it.”
“You’re falling behind the power curve Hank. Wake up to America and join the party celebrating freedom.”
“I don’t hear anything to celebrate here”
“Look its all personality now. Don’t you see? Personality and celebrity, show biz and politics are merging!”
“Albrecht you seem to be saying you want to distract people with celebrity away from the substance of sensible policy.”
“There’s nothing sensible about it Lou. For one thing nobody’s going to listen to a lot of abstract intellectual theorizing. Also I am telling you, government regulation is always after the fact. It is bound to be a drag on the market.”
“There’s got to be some basic rules and enforcement from outside the system. We learned that from the great depression.”
Albrecht ignores Hank’s remark and shouts enthusiastically, pointing to Lou’s huge TV screen. “Listen to the man!”
We have been so intent on our own discussion that our attention has moved from the screen to ourselves. Albrecht brings us back to the image on the screen. Congressman Knox, still as a bust carved in stone, is sitting opposite Leticia Lantern in her red blouse, red lips, gleaming teeth and pearls around her elegant neck.
“You can’t second guess it. A free market makes its own rules.”
“Thank you Congressman. We will be right back” says Leticia.
An animated hare dashes across the screen towards the carousel. As the fairground music grows louder he leaps doing a summersault in mid air and lands, sitting on a flat cheese grater. A ski resort appears with chalets of Swiss cheese, and a yodeling voice sounding over distant cowbells. The hare rides his cheese grater like a bobsled down a mountain of grated white cheese coming to a stop in a modern kitchen. He gets off the cheese grater, and stands up in front of a stainless steel refrigerator smiling with his whiskers askew. He bends down and picks it up with a paw on each side, and taps the base on the floor to get loose cheese off. Then hands the ‘sled’ to a happy blonde girl making macaroni cheese with her mother, all to the tune of Yankee Doodle on the fairground organ. “March Hare has the right tool at the right time” says the joyful male voice-over. The hare stands aside smiling, while mother and child put the macaroni in the oven and look up from their work, to smile at us too. Leticia is back.
“Congressman, haven’t recent events shown unregulated markets tend towards meltdown?”
“History is full of meltdowns Leticia. We are still here, aren’t we, better off than ever?”
Hank speaks up “Yes after many belated government interventions.”
“Yeah Hank, socialism always comes back to cause more trouble.”
Lou has folded his hands behind his head. “The social cost is too high to have another meltdown now.”
Albrecht is talking over the Congressman’s voice on TV. “Lou, you’ve just got to see that is the inevitable cost of doing business. There’s always going to be a lot of people who don’t make it. That’s the free enterprise system. More people are more prosperous now than ever in history.”
“Hanky!” shouts Daisy Briscoe walking in, arms out stretched with multiple thin brass bracelets rattling along their length. She embraces Hank with one arm around his neck as he spreads his huge left hand across her long back. She holds her bowler hat in the other hand extending straight out beyond Hank’s shoulder. Her shopping list flops down over the band nearly falling out. Boyd greets Albrecht with a mock military salute. Lou gets up to greet his new guests and offer them tea. “Sorry we’re late Lou. Have we missed that horrible TV show, I hope?”
“Daisy you have missed an educational opportunity.” “Oh I know that’s what Boyd said Lou, but TV is not my idea of education.”
“You are in good time. The show is ending.”
“Catch the Spin Show Friday nights and if you miss that see us Saturday mornings. Use March Hare products to cook something up for yourself.”
