Educational Revaluation (Reprinted from the Newark Star Ledger, September 3, 1986): Back to School Sans Change

 

amenities - noun - a desirable or useful feature

FORUM                                                                                                        September 3, 1986

Educational revaluation

DEAR EDITOR:

As an educator, I feel compelled to comment on your recent editorial reflective of the deterioration of American education. "First Step on a Long Road." Realistically, it would not have been inappropriate to have headed your piece, "First Step on an Interminable Interstate Highway." The current problems of the American system of education are deeply rooted within our society. The ubiquitous unsatisfactory test scores are but superficial indicators of societal maladies, which may take decades to correct. However, the road to knowledge may not be so overwhelming if we contemplate two essential points.

Initially, perhaps we as Americans need to reevaluate our distorted values and focus on the importance of education although this task may be neighboring on inane considering our contemporary priorities. For starters, why is it that we overly compensate our professional athletes and starve our teachers? Under the prevailing circumstances, some teachers are worthy of receiving five million dollars over five years. Just think of the number of minds they reach and shape over that period.

After revamping our priorities, we must then proceed to reinforce the absolute necessity of education in our children. Abstain from spoiling youngsters with an overabundance of material amenities! Invent a stimulating, creative, educational environment utilizing primitive tools...As they grow older, provide youths with books to read, rather than isolating them in front of the television set. After all, teachers cannot teach if students are not receptive to learning. Educators cannot perform the impossible by unlocking a door when students alone hold the key to it. The brightest of children have always been those who are motivated to learn.

It is conceivable that the "long road" may be abbreviated immensely if we as a nation take time to ponder our values and reorder our priorities. 

-Gwyn English Nielsen, age 27, a teacher at Mother Seton Regional High School, Clark, N.J. 

Enough said. 

Sadly, even after 38 years, the aforementioned is still relevant today. 

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Indefatigable Show People and the Importance of Unions

 

indefatigable - adjective - persisting tirelessly (Google)

For four out of the seven evenings that made up the p.m. hours of last week, I had the distinct pleasure of being in the audience of four separate venues in three states. Perhaps the only thing they had in common was that all of the indefatigable performers in each worked very hard to get onto their respective stage and will continue to work very hard to stay on it. I know because I have been where they are: numerous stages. What I can tell you is this: "There are no people like show people; they smile when they are low." The ones who smile because they are genuinely happy are usually the ones a union is backing. Just in case you had no idea, there are unions that represent musicians and actors. Those who aren't members of a union can usually find more work, but they won't be protected. 

The first performance I experienced last week was that of an Elvis impersonator in a small, old-fashioned theater in a marvelously outdated, 1970s-style motel off of the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. He and his fellow musicians probably belong to a union, but sometimes it was hard to tell. The average Vegas performer makes just below $28 an hour, which isn't bad, but if the show is only an hour, it is not a healthy wage, but I am guessing the musicians who only work an hour at a time could be paid more. I was even as a non-union entertainer. I would hope that Las Vegas isn't always about lost wages. 

Although I can't be positive, AEA (Actors Equity Association) seems to care the most about its members. The second performance I saw was at the Tuacahn Center for the Arts, an outdoor amphitheater nestled in the remote red rocks surrounding St. George, Utah. Even at 9 p.m. at night, the temperature was 95 degrees. The actors and dancers of the featured show Anastasia were covered in winter clothing including furs indicative of Leningrad/St. Petersburg at the time of the Russian Revolution. Yet not one excreted a drop of sweat. I couldn't figure it out as I felt as though I were perspiring for the entire cast. Afterwards, I met with two of my friends who had leads in the musical. The first question I asked them was, "How did you two survive the heat?" Apparently Actors Equity insisted that all of its members be blanketed with ice vests beneath their clothes and provided with generous helpings of Gatorade and water in the green room. If the Union had not stepped in, there would have been casualties for sure. 

The third performance was a rock concert at the Greek Theater in Los Feliz, near Hollywood. The band was O.A.R., a little known act that had a few hits in the early 2000s. (My daughter insisted that I tag along.) Most of the musicians, I'm guessing, are in the musicians' union. Arenas like the Greek generally require that they belong. On Thursday night, all seemed well although I couldn't make out the lyrics of each song, which was more about me than the lead vocalist whose fans appeared to have no problems singing along with him. 

Finally, the last show I saw was at a comedy club. There are no unions for comics, but many join SAG/AFTRA or Equity if they are also actors. If you ask me, the audience should be offered union protection from the comedians, meaning that if you dare to sit in the front row, you will be demeaned and debased so that others may laugh not at the comics, but at you. Of course, no one offers you compensation to be bullied because it is all in good fun. (Is it?) If you don't have a strong sense of self and the ability to laugh at just about anything, don't go to a comedy club. Or do and hide in the back of the club, so you can always slink out sans notice. 

Perhaps my purpose for penning this is twofold: 1. Any and all performers deserve respect (I am not sure about all of the comedians, though) and 2. Unions, no matter what you might think, are necessary entities. 

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The Fickle Fate of Being a Recording Artist

 

fickle - adjective - changing frequently (Google)

Although I am aware that I am dating myself here, back in the dark ages (late 1960s, early 1970s) of television when channels were few yet not far between, I liked to watch "Ronan and Martin's Laugh-In," a bizarre variety show that was all about comedy. It was oftentimes silly, but creative, satirical, and quite a few names synonymous with humor (such as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin) became household fixtures because of it. The weekly award known as the "Fickle Finger of Fate" was presented to noteworthy individuals who received media attention for their dubious achievements. We could sure use it today. Right? Not much has changed, yet I digress.

As a recording artist who stands in the same room with 75.9 million music creators (Google) is a fate that is fickle, meaning that since there are so many releasing songs, no one can predict whose music will be embraced by hundreds, thousands, millions - even billions, like artists such as Taylor Swift, who won the lottery and probably has more luck than talent (or just a financier father to back her). Spotify alone reports that it drops 100,000 new songs a day. Will all of them find open ears that will stay alert and stream them more than once? Probably not. But you never know until you take the risk of releasing a heartfelt composition to the entire world.

The aforementioned numeral supports the fact that the competition is just beyond anyone's comprehension. It seems like everyone has a song or even a book to release, and it is easy to do either if you have enough money to pay the right people. But once the product is out there, you must either spend money on just the right public relations persons, or like me, spend a lot of time and a few dollars (way more than you are making) on every social media platform promoting. At the end of the day, I am fortunate to see any results at all. And critics overseas have called me "the real deal." Well, I'm not feeling that moniker, not at all. For example, I may get 2,000 streams a month on Spotify and a minuscule pay check. Imagine one record turning 2,000 times on the radio over the course of one month. Doesn't that seem to be a lot of rotations to you? It does to me, too. However, the amount is only worth a bill with a portrait of Alexander Hamilton on it. He doesn't go far. Thank Goodness I am not depending on Spotify or any of the others to pay my rent.

Still, if my one hundred fans in Brazil like what I am putting out there on Spotify, every one of them counts. If all of them enjoy what I'm doing musically, all of the money that I am investing that I may never see back is worth sacrificing, especially since I could just be changing their worlds for the better in some minute sense. I'm sure all 75.9 million music makers are thinking the same thing except I don't give a you- know-what about fame as it only creates problems, but a little more compensation wouldn't be a bad thing as I could support more charities with it. 

I hope someday the music channels will up the ante on remuneration. Until that happens, check out my tunes on your favorite streaming service, such as YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@gwynnielsen5081) or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2qiQLmWs81Zno7WFH4lLiS. My newest single "Another Woman Trying to Wear My Shoes" debuts on Friday, August 23rd. Who knows? You may be able to relate to it. 

Thanks, all! 

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Why A.I. Won't Prevail in the Future

 

prevail - verb - prove more powerful than opposing forces; be victorious (Google). 

Lately, it seems to me that "artificial intelligence" is a topic of interest for many who depend much on technology. Personally, I know that a few of my former colleagues in education are quite distressed as their students are starting to purchase various programs that can literally compose essays for them. As a former English teacher, the question that initially registers in my mind is the following: What is the point of teaching writing when students can rely on their computers to do the work for them? Or just What is the point of education at all? Maybe when Trump proposed to eliminate the Department of Education, he was just responding to the latter question. Scary, I know. 

This particular blog's case in point isn't terribly obvious. Since A.I. is all about human invention (meaning humans feed knowledge to these robots), it is terribly imperfect. From my own experience, I am finding that the A.I. I use (Siri) is terribly stupid. She is far from error free. Just when the students are thinking they can get away with gross indolence, they can't because their teachers can tell that they are using A.I. due to its ignorance of the basics. The supposed "brains" who are feeding information to artificial intelligence know nothing about English grammar because they are most likely too young, products of the contemporary educational system that frowns on the direct instruction of the A, B, C's of the written word. These modern-day geniuses, who only paid attention in science classes when they attended secondary school, aren't experts in language. Does it make sense for imperfection to perpetuate imperfection? (Does anything make sense today?) No, no, no! 

On the flip side, I am hopeful, extremely hopeful that A.I. may just fail completely to make the billionaire techno mobsters more billions. I believe this could be an accurate prediction as I have been spending time with toddlers lately, yes, little kids, who are incredibly with it, sharper than the millennial tots whom I once spent many hours observing when my own daughter was that age. I totally think that today's inchoate generation won't have to depend on A.I. in the future after all, and they may even reject it in favor of the byproducts of past inventions, like that of the Gutenbergs'. This immature group finds books (yes, physical, hardcover books) to be fascinating and fun because their brilliant parents bestowed with common sense are making a sincere effort to keep them away from technology (iPads, etc.) by taking them to public libraries. No, I'm not kidding. I work with these little ones at a public library, so there. That has got to mean something. Albeit a small test group, I am hoping that it will soon represent a large portion of the majority. 

Parents, if you are introducing your children to the rudimentary, please keep it up before we as humans disintegrate and get swept up by machines that can hardly employ brooms correctly. And demand that your kids be taught English grammar when they get to school even if the current batch of teachers must return to classrooms themselves to learn it. Your infant Einsteins deserve to have their cerebral matter stimulated from this moment on. Together in this push, we will prevail. 

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The Garden of Fruition

 

fruition - noun - state of being actual, complete

Perhaps many of you out there are looking to find fruition somehow, searching for a sense of completeness. At the risk of sounding trite, the state of being actual may be close to being within your grasp. I'll give you a hint: perhaps the wholeness you have been desiring can be found where seeds meet soil and the vegetables and fruits of life grow abundantly. Yes, perhaps what you want can be found in a garden. 

I am a gardener; however, I am not a master gardener. I am a forever-inchoate landscaper who plays by ear, goes by intuition, and listens to those who have more experience with getting their hands soiled than I have. In April, I sold my house and my vast English garden on which I had labored for over twenty years, planting flowers, perennials but also annuals, annually. I got my tanned hands dirty, my crooked fingernails outlined with black, my Walmart sneakers and torn jeans muddy in the spring, summer, and fall. I didn't mind. It was all part of the plan: to work in collaboration with Nature to create beauty. According to my friends and relations, I succeeded and have the photographs to prove it. 

Strangely enough, I don't miss my miniature Versailles in Jersey, probably because I've replaced it with a vegetable garden, not mine per se, one that belongs to others, one that is kept alive by a community of us voluntary seedsmen who toil on arid land under the heat of the sun in order to help eliminate hunger and homelessness on a boulevard called Venice in a portion of L.A. with the same name. On Thursdays, I join a former stage actor who would rather work for a nonprofit than teach the children of movie stars just because she likes to be outdoors, watching and watering and waiting, producing good food and sharing it with us volunteers and the hapless few who live in their parked cars parallel to the garden. With downturned smiles, they watch us as we till, dig, hoe, pull, and plant. Their hands are as filthy as ours, but the mire does not come from gardening. Theirs originates from the grime of poverty and/or mental illness that takes opportunity and/or psychological/medical aid, not just soap and water, to wash it away. 

I can't save the world albeit I have been trying for about 45 years now. What I can do is plant one seed at a time and harvest what grows to fruition. It just makes me feel whole. Try it. You just may wind up feeling the same way.

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The Dating Scene: Los Angeles at Present versus New York in the Past

 

snooker - verb - trap, trick, entice (Google)

Dating in any city isn't easy, especially if you happen to be a woman 65 or older, and you haven't really dated for a long time. I am talking decades here. The last time I dated for an extended period of time was back in the early 1980s when I was a roommate on someone else's lease in Manhattan. Fifty (yes, fifty) years later, I am on my own lease in a luxury apartment in Los Angeles, dating men I am meeting online as opposed to organically (meaning in bars, clubs, and parties as I once did in New York).  What has changed? Well, not too much. 

To be fair, I will focus on what is an obvious difference: technology. Five decades ago, there were no smartphones, just landlines. Unless you had an answering service (which was costly), you had to be in the right place at the right time to receive a call, i.e. in your apartment. Or if you were hard to pin down, you had to depend on your roommate to imitate what is, at present, known as voicemail. If she wasn't all that responsible, she would forget to tell you who called. If she was, she'd write you a message and snooker you intentionally (or not) by sticking the minuscule note somewhere you'd never think to look, like on the side of refrigerator as opposed to the front. Ergo, it was rare that dates were arranged via the technology of the day. Well then, how were they planned? Usually at the location where the initial meeting took place or via unusual, creative circumstances. For example, I once enticed a date by posting my phone number in the window of my office skyscraper. I couldn't help but notice a very handsome salesman who had an office directly across the street on the same floor as mine. I waited until he looked directly over at me before I posted it in very large letters. He copied the number, called me, and we arranged a meeting. As I recall, we saw each other quite steadily for about six months before we broke it off, but not before I spent time with him at his Park Avenue apartment and his family's house in the Hamptons. Sweet. 

What remains the same? Men in general. Which makes perfect sense because human nature doesn't change over time, just technology. The sameness is particularly pronounced in both New York and L.A. At present as in the past, most urban men prefer not to commit to anything resembling a relationship if they can absolutely help it. What they deem to be perfect love is more or less what my mother (1917-1999) called "sex and sandwiches," casual sex and conversation sans much else. To be fair, most are willing to take you out to at least two dinners and spend a few bills as opposed to treating you to a roast beef on marble rye at Yummy's (L.A.) or Zabar's (N.Y.) before they make an attempt at seduction. Rather big of them, I'd say, or perhaps not, if you get my drift, ladies :). 

Okay, okay, I do seem a bit cynical as I am sure that there are citified women out there who are just like men in this respect. I can't help it if I keep meeting men like the aforementioned. This is a personal essay after all. Don't forget that I am limiting my critique to men in cities where trite expressions like "I'll be done in a New York minute" are coined for a reason. The urban populace tends to be impatient. Sexual satisfaction must come within the first three dates if you want to grasp anyone's loyal attention. You must have watched at least one episode of Sex and the City. Right? 

The bottom line is that I refuse to throw up the white flag of surrender. (In my city, no one would notice it anyway.) I figure by the time I am 75, most men of the same age in L.A. (where I reside) won't be as adept at sex as they once were, so they might have to rely solely on their sense of humor, talent, and/or intelligence to secure companionship. I think I can wait ten years as there is no safer sex than sincere affection in the way of hand holding and hugging :). No snookering will be necessary.

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"Spirit" in the Sky: A Critique of Commercial Airlines

 

penchant - n. - a strong or habitual liking for something or tendency to do something (Google).

In the sixties, seventies, and early eighties, I used to have a penchant for traveling via commercial airlines, the key word here being "used." After flying to L.A. from New York, L.A. to Portland, L.A. to Boston via Philadelphia, L.A. to Vegas, and L.A. to Ft. Lauderdale via Houston in under four months, admitting to being "spent" would be an understatement. I am exhausted, not from adventuring forth, but from the means by which I adventured: the airlines themselves. Ugh.

To be fair, not all of the commercial airlines are half bad. It is also necessary to take into consideration that I fly "steerage," what the liners refer to as "basic economy," the lowest common denominator of options. To be entitled to the reduced fare of basic economy, you must take only one carry-on that has to be stowed under the seat in front of you and must agree to join the crammed occupants inhabiting stiff, straight-backed, third-class seats on the jet in the way, way back. As bad luck would have it, I usually find myself in row 30, right in front of an ever-flushing john, surrounded by screaming infants in considerable distress, much to the dismay of their parents, who are apathetic to the comfort of their fellow passengers. When I find myself in this unfavorable position, "You only get what you pay for" tends to reverberate through my head. Ugh.

But I digress. In case you don't already know, Delta is about the best corporation in the sky. Even if I do find myself where I don't want to be, sometimes I might have a row to myself in addition to complimentary beverages, a snack in a small package, and movies projected on the headrest of the seat in front of me. Although overworked, the flight attendants are generally industrious and agreeable. 

On the other hand, American and United can both be problematic. The former tends to emphasize the extremes of classism by dividing the cabin into thirds: first (upper class), business (middle class), and coach (lower class), making those relegated to steerage think they are mutually stuck in a third-class berth on Titanic. The last time I flew American, one of the flight attendants mysteriously disappeared, causing a delay of about an hour. The company's excuse? The euphemistic, "Oh, there was a scheduling conflict." Yet murmuring through the crowd was the probable rumor: "The flight attendant forgot something in the ladies' room and went back for it, never to be seen again." For whatever reason, the latter, United, usually experiences delays, especially from their hub of Newark. Ugh. 

By far the worst airline I've encountered is yup, you guessed it: Spirit. Like People Express before them, Spirit believes in customer service for a price. They nickel and dime you for everything. It is flying at the bare minimum, no frills whatsoever. Actually, I'm surprised the passengers don't have to sit on the meagerly carpeted floor. And if you are unfortunate enough to be caught on the runway for over an hour in the middle of the night due to a corporate scheduling error regarding gate availability, the flight attendants (who do pretty much nothing because there is nothing for them to do) won't even offer the incensed passengers any free leftovers from the barely touched, pay-per-portion refreshment cart. No kidding. Yet they smile and laugh just to convince you they own what was formerly known as "the ole college spirit," living up to their employer's name: Spirit. Ugh. 

In summary, traveling economically via commercial airlines these days is not for the weak at heart. You have to be tough and tenacious. Take it from an experienced, yet frugal flyer who has gone up in biplanes, a stunt plane, and even a balloon. If you have the money, spend it flying first class on Delta. Although you will probably still have to wait in line somewhere in the airport, at least you'll be able to relax in comfort once you are on board. No "ugh's" in sight. 

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