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NPR journalist, producer and commentator Daniel Schorr died last Friday at the age of 93. His passing is no tragedy; he led a remarkably full and productive life as the last practicing member of the generation that invented television news.

By the time I arrived at my first job at CBS in 1976, Schorr was on his way out the door – felled by his refusal to reveal his sources in the leaking of the Pike Report on illegal CIA and FBI activities.

Yet this was only the last in a long series of uncomfortable moments that Schorr’s work caused for the management of CBS. His aggressive reporting on the Watergate coverup won him a place on President Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” In “Clearing the Air,” a memoir of his years at CBS, he recalled how he and the late producer Mark Harrington created a review of the events leading to Nixon’s downfall – a political obituary – intended for air on the evening of his resignation from the presidency in August 1974. CBS Chairman William S. Paley ordered that it not be shown.

If there is anything sad about Dan Schorr’s passing it is this: at a time when mainstream news is an insiders game, when everything is about access and relationship, when people who know better lob meatball after meatball or don’t ask critical questions at all, Daniel Schorr was a relentless, hard-nosed outsider and a total affliction to the powerful. He will be missed

In the hardscrabble backhills of the Missouri Ozarks, a teenage girl must track down the father whose disappearance has imperiled the lives of her mother and siblings. Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, Debra Granik’s third feature is outstanding for it’s frank depiction of rural poverty and the iron grip of methamphetamine culture.

Superbly played by Jennifer Lawrence, Ree Dolly’s quest to learn her father’s fate is made all the more difficult by the sexism, secrecy, suspicion and violence of a drug dealing family that makes the Sopranos look like Ozzie and Harriet. John Hawkes, looking as if he became a meth addict himself, also gives a fine performance as the uncle afraid to learn the truth.

Michael McDonough’s cinematography and Mark White’s production design combine to create a colorless landscape where isolation and addiction have taken a heavy toll on the inhabitants. For all of this, it is not a difficult movie to watch. What makes it compelling is the story a young woman struggling to do the right thing while yearning for a better life. “Winter’s Bone” is a tightly directed and thrilling moral drama that will have you thinking long after you’ve left the theater.

Excellent article by Peter S. Goodman in last Sunday’s “Week in Review” section of The New York Times.

Goodman has been crisscrossing the country over the last three years reporting on the impact of the recession on all kinds of people.  Things are pretty bad when former stockbrokers blame illegal immigrants for blocking their access to jobs in landscaping or cleaning toilets.

Among his most lasting impressions is the deepening alienation between ordinary Americans and once trusted institutions – Congress, the banks, the media. Money quote:

Two hundred and thirty-four years into an American experiment launched in the name of the common good, it often feels, to me on the road, as if a battle is underway for the nation’s identity, a jockeying over the values that will govern whatever follows the Great Recession.

I think he’s on to something.  Much as we’d all like to think that life will return to normal after this terrible recession, there may be no going back at all.

I have spent a lot of time trying to make sense of Chuck’s life and my relationship with him.  There were so many facets and narrative threads that mere words fail.

My own story with Chuck began at Manhattan College when our interests and schedules began to coincide. He was a brilliant student, a talented editor of the Jasper Journal, and president of our International Relations Club.

Chuck was that rare bird who could sit down and write a term paper the night before it was due and still score an A.  (This was on a mechanical typewriter, mind you; personal computers were years away.)  At model United Nations conferences, he could speak to the assembly in full paragraphs with only a few notes in front of him.

He spent his Junior year in Paris – an experience that marked him for the rest of his life.  I vividly remember the day when Bob Heaney, another friend and classmate, and I made the trip to Kennedy Airport to welcome him home.

Those college years would not be the end of our story.  Through yet another friend and classmate, Mike Gallo, we both started working as pages at CBS in the summer of 1976.  It was the year of the Bicentennial and two dramatic political conventions.  We worked hard and had the time of our lives.

For Chuck, 1976 marked the beginning of two major story lines: his life as a New Yorker and his life in the media.

As a born New Yorker and someone who took the place for granted, I was always mystified by people who came from other places to be a part of it.  Chuck reveled in New York and mined it for everything it could offer.  I’ll never forget the little apartment at 15 West 64^th Street – just walking distance from Lincoln Center.

Even when he later moved to New Jersey, finally settling in Cliffside Park, he never took his eyes off Manhattan.

1976 also brought Chuck to a crossroads: continue the study of international relations or pursue a career at CBS?  Chuck eventually chose the latter and went at it with everything he had.  Although we worked in Technical Services and the Video Tape Library, Chuck loved the people and lore of the place. He especially enjoyed the proximity to Walter Cronkite’s studio the producers and correspondents of CBS News.

But CBS was not an easy or hospitable place to work.  Around 1980, several of us decided to join the IBEW and organize the tape library.  In the events that followed, the union’s business manager, Vin Bartilucci, recognized Chuck’s gifts, hired him and launched him on a new course in life: labor law and industrial relations.

This was not accomplished easily. Chuck pursued his studies at New York Law School at night. When Vin Bartilucci was turned out of office, Chuck ended up back at CBS scheduling field crews for awhile.

It the midst of all this, Chuck met Susan Richards.  She challenged Chuck – arranged, deepened and enchanted his life.  When they married in the fall of 1984, I was their best man. I cherish the memory of all the conversations that followed.

Chuck moved into the law and negotiated several major contracts for the IBEW.  I moved into the Jesuits for a time and ultimately to St. Louis. We went our separate ways but kept in touch; I saw Chuck and Susan at least once a year.

Between the ups and downs of the last dozen or so years and the Myositis that gradually took him, some might say that his life ended tragically.

This does no justice to the person I knew as Charles Patrick McGlade.

I will remember him always as a dear friend – Irish to the core, an eternal optimist, a happy-warrior Democrat, a world citizen and a lover of justice.
He made his mistakes and he took his lumps but he was an existential fighter who never gave up.

In evidence, I offer this: on the 20,500^th day of his life in this world, he was still smiling as he took his last breath.

…that almost two years have passed since my last post.

I’ve been reworking the infrastructure of this blog for the last few weeks now.  I’ll try to do better.

I just happened to watching MSNBC this afternoon when Tom Brokaw interrupted the regular programming to announce the passing of Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and moderator of Meet the Press.

He was at work at the bureau when he collapsed suddenly. Attempts to revive him failed. He was 58 years old.

I stopped being a big fan of the Sunday morning talk shows some time ago but my wife, Janelle, never missed a broadcast of Meet the Press. On the other hand, over the years I’ve come to depend on MSNBC for its campaign coverage, especially through the ups and downs of this year’s Democratic soap opera. I strongly believe that the person who gave their efforts gravity was Tim Russert.

Who will ever forget the white dry erase board or “Florida Florida Florida?”

The coverage of American politics will not soon recover.

How very sad for his wife and son. How very sad for his father, Big Russ.

Rest in Peace.

If you don’t mind the occasional dry patch, life as a freelancer can lead you to some pretty wonderful places.

Last month I had the privilege of doing another stint as a script supervisor on the production of a demo for “Startide Rising.” Based on the first book of David Brin’s “Uplift Universe” trilogy, it tells the story of a group of humans and dolphins aboard the starship Streaker as they battle to survive and come to grips with the discovery of a long lost species.

The project is being realized by computer generated imagery artist Harikrishnan Ponnurangam. Since nearly all of the sets and effects will be added later on, the shoot took place on a green screen soundstage.

Besides working with the camera crew and the actors, I also helped map the walls and floors using little squares of white tape and tennis balls.

The project gave me the opportunity to work with Wyatt Weed, Gayle Gallagher and Bob Clark of Pirate Pictures. Jay Kelley used his state of the art Red camera to perform the cinematography. Tim Wagner lit the set and his daughter, Lanny, recorded the sound.

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Irises at the Missouri Botanical Garden last Sunday. Taken with my iPhone and scaled down in Photoshop.

For at least a week, I checked the weather every day. The night before we went, I could hardly sleep a wink out of fear that my father would change his mind.

I was ten years old and living for this day to come.

It was a Sunday, I think. Sometime in the early summer when the weather was not too hot. Through the Lincoln Tunnel (Link-it I called it) on the 61 bus. As I remember it, there were just my parents and three of my sisters – Mary, Helen and Kathleen. My younger siblings had to stay at home with my Aunt Katie.

We had no car; buses and trains were our only means of transportation. Whenever we traveled as a family, I always thought we looked like ducks and ducklings trying to cross the road safely.

At the bus terminal (the Port Authority – or Port of Authority as I thought it was called), we had to walk a long distance underground to get to the train. Down the ramp, onto the platform to catch the 7 to Flushing Meadows. The route was pretty much like the way to the home of my Aunt Annie and Uncle Jimmy in Elmhurst. For a kid growing up in New Jersey, I was pretty comfortable with the subway system.

Most of the trip was underground but I kept my attention on the windows, waiting for the moment when the train would roar out of the darkness and into the light, riding high above the busy streets.
At the end of the line, the train crept slowly into the station. The sleek new Shea Stadium on one side and the Unisphere on the other. We were finally here!

What if it was so busy we couldn’t get it? I was an anxious kid, born to worry about such things.
Although they were busy, the ticket booths moved along. $2.50 for adults and a dollar for the kids – reasonable but not cheap for a construction worker with a wife and nine kids.

I knew the layout and all the buildings by heart, having studied and re-studied the guide that came from the Sunday News. There had been numerous specials on TV. I even remember that the nuns at my grammar school let us watch President Johnson preside over the opening.

And then I saw one of the strangest sights I had ever seen: painted men in feathered costumes tethered by their ankles flew round and round at least four totem poles in some kind of native ceremony.

This was more than I could possibly have hoped for. My dreams were being realized and we had only been in the park for ten minutes!

The first place we visited was General Motors’ Futurama. To my mind it was the sleekest thing I had ever seen – a spaceship on the ground, with fins like those beautiful Chevy’s. The lines were long and it took the better part of an hour to get in. But once inside, we had a glimpse of the world 60 years in the future. People were living on the Moon! And not only that, they were living in under the sea, in deserts and the Antarctic.

At Ford’s “Magic Skyway” we rode in convertibles and toured the history of mankind from the age of the dinosaur to the world of tomorrow. On the way up to the ride, I remember seeing what appeared to be hundreds of Model T’s. It was all done with mirrors, of course, but it seemed real enough to me.
At General Electric’s “Carousel of Progress,” the audience actually moved around a core of stages on which animatronic characters demonstrated how was ever improving through the use of electrical power. At the DuPont Pavilion, “Better Living Through Chemistry,” I was amazed when a scientist shattered a rubber ball that had been immersed in liquid hydrogen.

As Catholics, failure to visit the Vatican Pavilion would have been considered a mortal sin. In fact, it was one of the most popular sites at the Fair because the Pope had loaned it Michelangelo’s “Pieta.” Once inside, visitors were shepherded onto several levels of conveyors that moved them through the viewing area. I remember that it seemed to float in a dark blue void surrounded by hundreds of candles. It was very beautiful and impressive and something I would have to tell the sisters who taught at St. Joseph’s, my grammar school.

The Fairgrounds were also a nice place simply walk around and we stopped at several other venues. I remember seeing cows and other farm animals – and lots of cheese – at the Wisconsin Pavilion As a Korea veteran, my father wanted us to see the South Korea Pavilion. Since he also knew some Masons, we also stopped at the Freemasonry Pavilion, which featured a statue of George Washington sporting an apron.

The feature that was probably best known and got the greatest number of visitors was Pepsi’s “It’s a Small World.” Like so many of the attractions at the Fair, it was built by Walt Disney and had been featured on “The Wonderful World of Disney” which aired on Sunday night’s on NBC.

By the time we got there, it was getting late. But in one of my father’s rare fits of patience, we endured the wait. We were mesmerized by the ride on the boats, cute animatronic characters and a song that took days to get out of your head.

I returned to the Fair at least two more times but nothing was as good as that day with my parents. It remains one of the most vivid memories of my childhood.

At this point in my life, the world’s troubles lay at the fringe of my notice and certainly beyond my concern. I knew that America was competing with Communists led by a man named Khruschev, that we were fighting a war against Communists in Vietnam and that there was trouble in America with the Negroes – who were probably working for the Communists.

I vividly remember the assassination of President Kennedy, although they were still trying to figure out how and why one man named Lee Harvey Oswald did it. And that was going to be pretty hard since he was killed a few days later by another man named Jack Ruby.

But we were living also in the Space Age, the Jet Age, the dawn of the Computer Age. It was a time when America’s motto seemed to be “Go! Go! Go!” A visit to the Fair imbued my mind with a belief in progress, that the treasures of the planet were inexhaustible and the future would be an uninterrupted march toward global peace and prosperity.

If I hadn’t been watching the Independent Spirit Awards on the night before this year’s Oscar ceremony, I would likely never have heard of “Starting Out in the Evening,” Andrew Wagner’s rich and beautifully realized film about the loves of an aging writer.

Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) is a once-promising artist racing against time to complete a final novel. But his life is turned upside down by his daughter, Ariel (Lilli Taylor), and a brilliant and beautiful graduate student, Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose).

On verge of her fortieth birthday, Ariel desperately wants to have a child.  She’s returned from Los Angeles to be near her father and soon rekindles an uneasy relationship with Casey (Adrian Lester), who despite his love for her has already broken her heart by his refusal to start a family.

For her part, Heather breaks into Leonard’s cloistered existence with the force of a hurricane.  In love with every word in his first two novels, she believes she can re-ignite public acclaim for his work through a critical study.

Yet despite their lengthy conversations and budding friendship, Heather can’t account for an emotional and stylistic shift that took place in the middle of his career.  She’s infatuated with the younger Leonard, not the man who secretly carries the scars of a terrible disappointment.

Based on the novel by Brian Morton, Fred Parnes’s screenplay is as emotionally true as it is intelligent.  Many years ago, I saw Frank Langella create the role of Dracula in  an acclaimed Broadway production and I’ve always enjoyed his work since then.  He’s  never been better in this film.

“Starting Out in the Evening” is about being true to the yearnings of your heart even when it means losing the people you love.  It’s also about faithfulness to one’s artistic vision, no matter where it leads you.  It’s a must see film for the artist in all of us.