WhackyNation

At the moment, a classical struggle is going on between the residents of the affluent Magnolia community and the city of Seattle over the future development of Fort Lawton, now called Discovery Park, which is adjacent to Magnolia — and both factions are missing a great opportunity for both Magnolia and the city.

Fort Lawton, once the property of the federal government, was a key facility in the Second World War. Its purpose was twofold; one was to process Army troops being trained for ground and sea duty in Alaska and the Pacific, and the other was to stand guard over the entrance to Puget Sound, with many big guns at the ready in case the enemy came by sea.

I have great memories of the old Fort. It was a training ground for me when I was assigned to it in 1942. I earned my master sergeant’s stripes there and at the Port of Embarkation and trained other troops, as well. But my most important reminiscence of the Fort was its magnificent beauty, its enormous ocean and Sound vistas, and its promise for the future when the war had run its course.

Later, as the critic-at-large of the Seattle Times, I paid a visit to the extraordinary Aspen arts, cultural, educational, and convention center, which remains to this day one of the most precious gems of the state of Colorado as it draws visitors and conventions from all parts of the U.S. and the world.

I thought immediately that, if the City of Seattle had any imagination, Fort Lawton could become “the Aspen Center of the West” and draw the same worldwide attention and marvelous reputation that Aspen has brought to Colorado. In the mid-1950s, I wrote my first column urging Seattle to consider converting the fort into another Aspen — and I wrote and spoke about the idea many times thereafter.

But now, the city, which will inherit the Fort, apparently wants no part of the “Aspen Dream” and is, instead, devoted to the idea that the precious land and all its vistas should be devoted to building housing for the homeless. Well, I, too, want to help find homes for the homeless, but the Fort Lawton site is not the place for it.

There is plenty of unused land available for construction of homeless communities on the outer edges of Seattle. The extraordinary Fort Lawton site, which is one of the most dramatic gateways to the city and the region, is crying out for a superior development that would be a boon to the entire city, state, and the Northwest.

What puzzles me is why the politicians down at Seattle’s City Hall can’t see the financial opportunities in the potential drawing card a “Seattle Aspen” would be for the city. If the arts and cultural opportunities don’t impress them, the money that would come in to the city by way of convention attendance should draw their enthusiasm.

If the politicians aren’t interested, the business leaders in the community and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce certainly should be. And, most important of all, the news media should be telling the people about the “Aspen” idea and its potential. If they did so, I have no doubt that public sentiment would force the politicians to pay attention.

Maybe the Magnolia residents who oppose the city’s plan to build housing for the homeless at the old Fort can ignite the public spark needed to make the city consider the Aspen plan.

In the 20 years I served as a critic-at-large for The Seattle Times, I was specially fond of making the rounds of the area’s many art galleries and museums, mainly because the Pacific Northwest has long been one of the most productive and imaginative art centers in the United States. It was educational, as well as culturally fulfilling, and I was enriched by my associations with many of the region’s great artists — among them Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, and others, as well as a surprisingly large and extremely active coterie of fine women artists and sculptors.

As an admirer of all the arts from the time I was a youngster, I came to know not only the names and styles of many artists but also much of the background behind their drawings, paintings, murals, and sculptures. However, I began wondering some time ago how the general public could learn to appreciate what went into each work they saw in a gallery or museum.

The most important question I asked myself was this: Since so much art work is difficult to understand and each drawing, painting, mural, or sculpture is often cloaked in mystery and erudition, how is the average person who has little or no training or background in the visual arts able, first, to judge a work’s worth, and, second, to have an inkling of what each work is meant to convey?

As a result, I came up with an idea I hope can eventually be seriously considered by all gallery and museum directors on one hand and by all serious artists on the other. The idea is this: Why don’t the directors insist that all artists write an explanation in detail of what each of their works means, what it seeks to convey, why it was created, and how it fits in with each artist’s philosophy as a creative person?

The explanations for all the works displayed should appear next to them and be plainly visible and readable to the gallery-goer or museum-goer. In addition, the explanations could be contained in the brochures or programs that usually accompany showings at galleries and museums.

Now, I can already hear the complaint that some aficionados might utter about my suggestion. The naysayers might say that great art doesn’t need an explanation or that those visiting art shows should be left to determine for themselves what the meaning may be of a drawing, painting, mural, or sculpture. The quick answer to that complaint should be, “Yes, I am willing to concede that viewers may draw a variety of different reactions to displayed art works, but that shouldn’t mean that artists shouldn’t be required to provide their own explanation of how a work came about and what the artist had in mind in creating it.”

Imagine what might happen if my idea were adopted across the nation and across other nations, as well. Appreciation of all the visual arts would be bound to increase substantially. So would the purchase of art. Attendance at gallery and museum exhibitions would skyrocket.

Would the artists themselves object to the idea? Of course not. Such a great increase in arts activity would benefit them most of all, because sales of their work would certainly double, triple, or even quadruple. Since galleries and museums benefit, as well, from sales of art or from paid admissions, they certainly would champion the idea. So, denizens of the Art World, what are you waiting for?

When the idea is a great one, I don’t mind repeating myself. And I hope you will understand and bear with me, especially on this one. It goes back to the days of the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962, which opened on April 21 and closed half a year later on October 21.

Among the earliest companies to appear at the old Opera House that year was the famed New York City Ballet. As The Seattle Times’ music critic, I was privileged to meet with the two most important members of the company the day before its first performance. They were Lincoln Kirsten, its primary benefactor and money raiser, and George Balanchine, its world famous director and choreographer.

In the process of interviewing the two men at a coffee house across the street from the Opera House, I thought I’d try one of my own ideas out on them. After asking them a series of questions about the company and its repertoire, I told them I had an important idea I’d like to try out on them, since they were two of the stars of the dance world.

As a music, drama, films, and arts critic, I said, I had the good fortune to review a great variety of talent from other lands. Among the most enjoyable performances were those by folk-dance companies of other nations — including troupes from Russia, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain, and several others from Central and South America, the Far East, and even Africa.

It was like a continuing worldwide lesson in the cultures of so many countries — including their music, their folk dances, their rhythms, and even their histories. After a few years of watching these wonderful companies perform on our American stages, I had to ask myself one day: “Where is the American folk-dance company?”

I suggested to Kirsten and Balanchine that it was amazing that, despite the wealth of folk songs and dances in American history, we still had not come up with a national company that traveled not in the 50 states alone but to all other countries around the world to show off our folk lore, just as the foreign companies have been doing for years.

Both men were impressed with the idea and told me so. Then we began suggesting the types of dances and the music that could go into an American folk-dance company’s repertoire. Of course, jazz was prominently mentioned. So were the early songs and dances of black Americans on the Southern levees, the colonial dances of early America, the songs and dances of the pioneers as they moved westward across the Mississippi, and the many suave dances and accompanying music from Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies, a la Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, for example.

After nearly an hour of trading comments about the great reservoir of songs and dances in America’s past and present, Kirsten said to me: “This is one of the greatest ideas I’ve heard in some time. Please write a letter to me and George at our New York studio and spell out the idea in detail, including how you would propose to create such a company, and we’ll get back to you with an answer.”

After the New York City Ballet concluded its World’s Fair engagement and returned home, I wrote the letter Kirsten had suggested. For reasons that have still not been explained to me, I never received the reply Kirsten had promised. It wasn’t long afterward that, first, Balanchine died, and then Kirsten. The idea, however, has not died, and I’m hoping it will soon be revived and bear fruit.

The tremendous reception North Koreans gave the concert played earlier this week in Pyongyang by one of America’s finest symphony orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, should alert the U.S. and the rest of the world to the importance of the arts and culture in the ongoing and much needed goal of bringing the world together and finding a permanent peace.

Diplomats and national political leaders have failed throughout history to achieve even a beginning to forging a peaceful world. I can say without fear of contradiction that I have been a lifelong proponent of utilizing all the arts, as well as the most prominent pro-sports figures, in that pursuit.

First, with regard to the appeal of the arts, all segments of the performing and visual arts contain a universal language everyone on the globe can understand and cherish. The New York Philharmonic was not the first American representative to use that language in charming the North Koreans, as it will in performances in Seoul, Shanghai, and Beijing.

We and all other Western Powers should consider a great increase in sharing their visual and performance arts with all other nations — as well as inviting the other nations to do the same with their artistic riches. Some exchanges have already been experienced, but there is room for a great deal more.

The exchange should be expanded particularly in the performing arts, such as appearances by the New York Philharmonic and other major musical organizations. Our share of the exchange should include our most notable jazz performers, our classical and modern ballet groups, our finest operatic groups and their lead singers, our best choirs, and all the rest.

Instead of relying upon the failed attempts of diplomats to seek peace treaties, we should concentrate much more on those universal traits all the world’s people can understand and enjoy. A Beethoven or Gershwin masterpiece needs no rhetoric to find its mark on a man or woman in North Korea, South Africa, China, India, or Brazil, etc.

I feel the same way about the instant appeal of our top-grade athletes and those of other countries. Note how many foreign athletes have recently come to the U.S. to join the ranks of pro baseball, football, basketball, and other teams. In fact, I have proposed many times the value of World Leagues in all major sports.

Why shouldn’t there be World Leagues in all the major sports so that talented athletes wouldn’t have to leave their home country to participate in those sports? The World Leagues would be in addition to our present teams in the American and National Baseball Leagues, the National and American Football Leagues, the National Basketball Association, and the leagues in other sports.

The arts and sports performers are miles apart in terms of talent and appeal, but they share one most important feature — they “speak” a language that is immediately understood by people everywhere in the world. What are we waiting for?

Stop me if you’ve heard me tell or write this story, as I have so many times, but I’m compelled to tell it again at this time of the year and on this very special day. It’s not the usual Santa Claus kind of Christmas story, but it has remained with me for a great many years, as I think it will with you, as well.

I’ll have to admit that it isn’t really a Christmas story, but it’s so closely related to what the Christmas spirit has come to mean to me — and I hope to you — that, once it is told, one will always remember it when December 25^th rolls around at the end of the year.

Quite a few years ago, in the early 1950s, in fact, I had invited Mark Tobey to lunch at a restaurant in downtown Seattle, and I told him beforehand it was for the purpose of interviewing him, a chore he didn’t really like. However, he went along without complaint because we had been good friends for several years.

Tobey, as all art aficionados in the Pacific Northwest know, was the region’s best-known artist and one who was known in arts circles worldwide, as well. Since he, like most artists I have known, was primarily a philosopher, I began by asking him about his views on such things as immortality, religion, and the soul.

I did so, not only because of his celebrated status as a Northwest artist, but also because I knew he was a lifelong member of Bahai, the international organization that celebrates a variety of religious prophets but believes none is supernatural and that a person should not become attached to any religion.

My main question went this way: Are you, as an individual in God’s Country, the Pacific Northwest, opposed to organized religions of any kind? He showed no opposition to being asked the question, took a sip of coffee, then answered:

“Oh, no, not by any measure or means. Like Voltaire, I believe that if there were no God, mankind would have had to invent him.”

When I suggested that his statement seemed to conflict with his longheld Bahai beliefs, he answered: “Not at all. Faith and religion have given the human race moral standards it must have to exist. If nothing else, they have taught humans to be kind, considerate, and polite to each other or perish from the earth.

“Isn’t that the real meaning of Christmas, Christianity, all religions, and, in fact, civilization itself?” He seemed to be perfectly at ease with his pronouncements and expressed no surprise at my questions. I wondered why he had not incorporated his feelings about the real meaning of Christmas, Christianity, religions, and civilization in his famliar “white writing” style that had made him famous.

I loved his response, because it was so typical of the man. “Oh, it’s there, Lou. You’ll find it in virtually all my paintings and drawings if you look for it. Really look hard.” With that, he put down his coffee cup and smiled broadly, as if he had caught this onetime art critic napping.

Tobey’s explanation wasn’t exactly the way I had learned to measure Christmas, religion, faith, and civilization. But I admit that Tobey’s opinion has had a great impact on my own feelings about this holy season of mankind. I wish you the best and most civilized of Christmases.

For close to 2,000 years, artists and others have shied away from attempting to depict God in detail — with the exception of a few geniuses like Michelangelo. But even he barely outlined what he considered the power and majesty of the Lord.Although He remains the most extraordinary being in the history of man, few have tried to depict Him in specific drawings or paintings, as if to do so might condemn the person trying it to eternal life in the fires of Hell.

Frankly, I don’t know why this is so. Artists are supposed to be the most imaginative and talented persons among us. Lord knows (if you’ll pardon the expression) that if anyone could come close to a plausible representation of God, it should be a dedicated artist with a soul (again, please pardon the expression).

Without trepidation, I will dare to challenge an artist somewhere or artists everywhere to try drawing or painting an accurate picture of God on this basis: Throughout our history, there has been no shortage of paintings and drawings of the son of God, Jesus Christ — not only by himself but with his mother, the Virgin Mary, or with his disciples, or in a variety of biblical scenes, principal among them Christ on the cross.

In other words, everyone seems to have a very good idea of what Christ looked like when he had grown to manhood. If we take that for granted — and I believe most people will — let me offer the proposition that, since He was the son of God, shouldn’t His father — our Lord — look a lot like him?

The Bible tells us that we are all created in the image of God. Most sons grow up to look very much like their fathers, right? Then doesn’t it make sense to say “like father, like son” in the case of Jesus and his father, our Lord in Heaven?

I will leave the entire subject to be considered seriously by all those artists who have been unwilling to take on so tremendous a subject. But I cannot leave the issue without recalling one of the most humorous stories I’ve ever heard in my lifetime — humorous, yet telling. I wish I could remember who first told the story, but I cannot. At any rate, here goes:

Little 4-year-old Sally was sitting at her table and drawing a picture, using crayons and pencils. As she pored over her task, her mother came by and asked: “What are you doing, Sally?”

“Oh, just a picture, Mom.”

“And whose picture is it, Dear?”

“It’s a picture of God, Mom.”

“But, Sally. Nobody knows what God looks like.”

Sally looked up at her Mom and said, proudly: “Well, they will now.”

Out of the mouths of babes…. If Sally could do it, why can’t full-grown, mature artists do it?

Way back in the 1970s, when I served as Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray’s cultural-affairs director, we had many successes and many failures in our four years in Olympia. But the failure I regretted most — and still do — was the inability of state agencies to adopt my program, one I called “The Arts as Therapy.”

The idea was born after I made the rounds of the state’s prisons, hospitals, and state-run retirement homes. As I outlined it to the governor, who approved it immediately, the idea was to use the arts to help disadvantaged children, prisoners, the disabled, and the elderly overcome their hopelessness and boredom and get a new lease on life.

I believed then, as I still do, that no medicine or regimen is better therapy for such people than the creative impulse — coaxing them to express themselves in painting, sculpture, music, dance, photography, and any other activity that challenges the mind and induces creative thinking and movement.

I referred at the time to a photo and art exhibit called “A Look Within” that was running at the Seattle Center’s Pacific Arts Center. Thirteen youths labeled “high risk” from low-income areas were supplied with cameras and other arts materials and coaxed to express themselves in whatever manner occurred to them.

The result demonstrated in the exhibit was often harsh, even cruel, but it was always honest and direct. Each youngster “told it as it was,” as the saying goes. Best of all, many of the youngsters showed signs of using their newfound art talent to salvage hope and foster worthwhile careers. They proved that the “Arts as Therapy” idea really works. Unfortunately, the proposal was left on the shelf after we left state government.

A corollary proposal that should have been adopted by the state was one I tried without success to have introduced by the state legislature. It was one I had already proposed to the U.S. Education of the States organization. I was Governor Ray’s representative to the group, which met regularly in Denver.

That proposal was for a national and state initiative to interest the nation’s public and private schools in establishing courses in career training. The concept grew out of my belief that thousands — no, millions — of young Americans are never encouraged to be tested to determine what their talents, skills, and likes are in all the fields of study.

One of the tragedies of modern living is the sad fact that millions of Americans work at jobs they don’t really like or for which they are not well qualified. Career training would guide them into fields that suit their innate capabilities and in which they can grow productively and happily.

I hope both the ideas expressed here will eventually become routine programs in schools across the nation.

Pardon me for barging in on your city’s plans for the future, but I feel compelled to offer some earnest advice for those metropolises that are seriously considering producing a World’s Fair. Forgive my boldness, but I think I have some important thoughts to offer Fair planners.

As a music, drama, films, and arts critic for the Seattle Times for close to 20 years, I recall the planning and production of the Seattle World’s Fair of 1962. And I also recall working seven days and seven nights a week covering the Fair’s vast arts and entertainment schedule — a tough chore, but a collection of memories I wouldn’t trade with anyone.

The Fair was made possible because of the creation years earlier of what has become Seattle’s primary jewel — the Seattle Center. The Center and eventually the Fair itself were made possible by the combined support of the arts, science, education, and sports communities, who worked together as never before.

They saw to it that the Seattle Center was developed on a high level and included an Opera House, a Playhouse, a Science Center, an Arena, a Memorial Stadium, fountains, gardens, the Coliseum, and, of course, the Space Needle, which has become the emblem of the city by the Sound.

However, when the Fair was being considered by Seattle’s business community, many of the macho types in Olympia and Seattle turned thumbs down on the arts, culture, and things of that nature, not only for the permanent Center but for the World’s Fair in 1962 itself.

Give us another Sally Rand, several skin shows, lots of sex, and things like that, they said. I specifically remember the comment of one senator, who shall go nameless to save him eternal embarrassment. He said: “Who wants to go to a World’s Fair to see art in a museum, hear classical music in a concert hall, and all that kind of boring stuff?”

You must know what actually happened at the Fair, which ran from April 21 through October 21 in 1962. Show Street, the site of the Fair’s dancing girls and burlesque comedians, was a dismal flop and was poorly attended. The skin shows at the Fair or on the outskirts of the Fair failed to draw — and were flops, as well. Even Gracie Hansen’s Folies Bergere-type show, Paradise International, barely broke even and was a waste of time.

However, the Fine Arts Pavilion, scores of art and sculpture displays, and the great music, drama, and dance events at the Opera House, the Playhouse, the Little Theater, and other stages at the Fair were great hits and drew full houses throughout the Fair. At the same time, the Science Center, another of the community’s new jewels, was the best attended attraction throughout the Fair!

So much for skin shows and legislative machos! If there is a lesson here, it is that America has grown up and no longer espouses its onetime burlesque-house appetite when it comes to the arts and entertainment. In addition, it indicates that future planning in the cities of America should be based on the people’s sincere interest in the fine arts, the best in music and dance, and a highly cultivated public I.Q.

I must admit that I was one of the luckiest persons in the news business. The best job I have ever had — and I enjoyed every one of them — was the position I held with the Seattle Times as a combination music critic, movie critic, drama critic, and arts critic for nearly 20 years in the 1950s and 1960s.

That job gave me the opportunity to meet world celebrities in all four realms, including movie stars, Broadway and London stage performers, classical and pop-music celebrities, and renowned visual artists of the U.S., Europe, and the Far East. It was truly a dream existence, and I cherished every minute of it — and never worked harder!

One of the many outstanding personalities I remember interviewing was the late Cary Grant, a movie idol of extraordinary accomplishments on the screen. One of the times I interviewed him was aboard a French pleasure ship that had docked at a Seattle port in 1955 to take on supplies and travelers.

Typically, Grant ducked interviews, but he agreed to see me because we had hit it off so well in a Hollywood studio interview a short time earlier. With him in an elegant apartment atop the ship was his wife, Betsy Drake, a film actress. They treated me as if I were a long-lost friend, and I loved every minute of it. I had had to pull strings to get aboard the vessel for the interview, but they didn’t mind my intrusion a bit.

I had read about Grant’s endeavors to upstage the press, and I really expected a cool reception. Instead, I found an unusually polite man and an actress who seemed happy to see me. Grant, the usually bold, assertive character seen on the screen, was unusually polite and, surprisingly, very shy.

Was this the suave, debonair, witty lady’s man that women and even men had come to revere? I never enjoyed an interview with a celebrity more. It was like talking to an old friend. Grant confessed he disliked signing autographs for little Daphne and posing for snapshots with the Smiths and Joneses and Browns from Podunk or anywhere else, but he said he really enjoyed the notoriety.

We talked about other denizens of the Hollywood scene. I was interested to learn that Grant called Grace Kelly, his co-star in several hit films, the most talented actress in Hollywood and Alfred Hitchcock the greatest movie director of them all. But I couldn’t get him to talk about himself.

He did admit that at one time a doctor mistakenly prescribed LSD for the actor to combat the blues. It took Grant two or three years to get over the effects of the LSD, and, as a result, he became an outspoken foe of lethal drugs. And he remained so for the duration of his life.

Another thing I liked about him was his aversion to smutty, pornographic films, books, and magazines. “If bedroom scenes are the road to success,” he told me, “then the map ought to be changed.” How could anyone help but admire a celebrity with the courage to say things like that?

Cary Grant was not only a character actor. He was an actor with character. The silver screen has never seemed to be as compelling and entertaining a medium since his death.

Paul Smith, the Typewriter artist.  Originally aired March-April of 1976 on KOIN-TV in Portland Oregon.

At-Large Reporter Ray Summers wrote and narrated. I shot, edited and selected the music.  Ray learned about Paul from a newspaper feature in the Roseburg, Oregon newspaper.  Ray and I roamed Southern Oregon for a week in February and dropped by the Roseburg nursing home one wintry morn.  We were in and out in 90 minutes, but what we captured was an amazing story on many levels.

I shot the story with a single system Frezzolini 16mm film camera.  I shot daylight Ektachrome with dichroic filters since so much daylight was coming in the windows.  I put an ECM-50 mic inside his typewriter to capture the sound.  I got the music from my personal library.

A week or two later, Assignment Editor Norm Gunning gave me a whole day to cut this piece.  I synched 4 reels of film and sound and pretaped to 2 inch tape.  By the reaction of the crew we knew we had a special piece.

I submitted the piece to the National Press Photographer Association’s 2nd quarter clip contest in 1976.  It won 1st place nationally as the best television news story.

It had been lost on 3/4″ Beta tape in my hot attic for years.  I just bought an used 3/4″ deck off EBay and recorded this story to my computer.  It suffers a bit from generation loss.  I count 3 generations: film, 2 inch tape, 3/4″ tape.  Enjoy.

Whenever the subject of America’s morals comes up — and it comes up often these days — I recall a promotional stunt pulled off by Playboy magazine, which pretends that it isn’t pornographic, as if anybody believes that. At any rate, the magazine’s major domo, Hugh Hefner, king of the pornographers, once staged a promotion in which several gorgeous co-eds were engaged to display their undraped bodies in the magazine.

Now, one would have expected back then about 20 years ago that church organizations and other groups watching the nation’s moral behavior would have exploded immediately and called Hefner a purveyor of filth, which he always has been. Instead, if you will recall, it was the feminists and their organizations, of all people, who shouted “Foul!”

This may surprise you, but I said at the time, and I still feel this way, “A pox on both their houses.” I was referring, of course, to the Hefner perverts on one side and the feminists on the other. I don’t like Playboy’s sleazy approach to morals and nudity, but I think even less of the starchy, sexploitation line of the feminists.

I’m afraid that both camps are going to give sex and the feminine figure a bad name. Adam and Eve didn’t know a good thing when they had it, so they donned fig leaves and invented pornography, so to speak. Then the moralists forced the great Michelangelo to cover up vital parts in his masterpieces.

The glorious feminine body, ennobled by the world’s legitimate, earnest artists through the ages, has actually been rendered pornographic by the puritans, who insist on hiding it with leaves, loin cloths, and stuff like that. I suppose one might say that “intent” is the key word in this discussion.

Mention sex or the glory of the undraped human figure in life or in art, and somebody is bound to break out in a giggle or start shaking his or her head as if saying “No, No.” Why do we get giddy or look affronted when the subject of sex or naked figures comes up?

Playboy has always been giddy, and it handles sex and nudity like a giggling teen-ager, for all its pretensions of sophistication. But the feminists, on the other hand, would have us believe that sex and nudity are dirty or sexist and that we are offending all women in the world by talking about their bodies or what should be the most beautiful occasion in the world, sex between two people who love each other.

Now that I think about it, I have to say that I’m deeply grateful that feminists, Hefner’s Playboy, or the do-gooders in our midst don’t run America’s museums or art galleries — or, in fact, the nation’s publishing houses. Imagine what a great setback the visual arts would sustain if they did.

As for all those beautiful co-eds who made the mistake of posing for Hefner and his perverted staffers, I wish they had decided to pose for something more significant than Playboy. However, I have to admit that even a foul display in Playboy would be somewhat better than accepting the professional feminists’ view that men and women are the same.

As the French would say on the subject about men and women, “Vive le difference!”

I’ve been an incurable football nut almost since birth, but even I have the feeling that the annual shindig called the National Football League draft is terribly overdone as entertainment, despite the valiant efforts of the league and the various owners to make it seem like the rebirth of old-time vaudeville.

After all, what on earth is so exciting about watching an annual supermarket for excessively high priced human beef? Why in the world don’t we get that hysterical, say, over drafting talent in many other walks of life. Let’s say, grand opera, for instance. I can just hear the announcer at a Grand Opera “draft” now:

“And now, folks, please give me your undivided attention. Here is the announcement we’ve all been waiting for. Speight Jenkins, general manager of the Seattle Opera Company, will step up to the microphone and announce his first pick from among the tenors.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the opera world, it gives me the greatest pleasure to report that our first draft choice is Mario Lungbuster, lyric tenor from the Cincinnati Conservatory! Mr. Lungbuster, will you please come up here to the microphone so I can introduce you properly.”

Can you hear the audience cheering and shouting “Bravo! at the top of the operatic registers?)

The announcer returns for a moment: “Mr. Jenkins! Mr. Jenkins! Will you please answer a few questions for our TV and radio audiences? You can? Good! OK. Here’s one from a woman in our audience. She wants to know why you selected Mario in the very first round — and can you afford to sign him to a contract?”

Mr. Jenkins: “Well, our regular tenor is still recovering from rib fractures suffered when he tried lifting the well-built soprano from the sofa in ‘La Traviata,’ and then a day later he really aggravated the injury when he fell off his horse in ‘Aida,’ but managed to finish the opera in great pain. We need a backup dramatic tenor.

‘Mario is just the ticket. He’s short on experience, but he proved he knows how to go for the high notes without straining his, if you’ll pardon the expression, stomach muscles. Besides, he has well developed arm and back muscles so he’ll be able to hoist those overweight sopranos when they lean on him in the middle of a tearful aria. Oh, and to answer the second part of your question, we can afford to sign Mario to a long-term contract, but we may not have enough in the bank to pay for all his bills from his chiropractor.”

OK, enough already. In the same way, the symphony might use its No. 1 draft choice to replace its fumbling flutist with a Juilliard All-Star. Or, if you want to consider what the draft might do for theatrical companies, the Repertory Theater might gamble on a matinee idol who led the nation in free passes at the U.S.C. School of Drama.

Say, you know something? A culture draft might not be such a bad idea, at that, all jokes and hilarity aside. Just give me a minute, will you please? I have to make an important phone call. Dum-de dum-dum…. Hello, Seattle Opera? Would you please get me the boss, Mr. Speight Jenkins?

Protecting the rights and the work of creative people in all the arts, music, drama, and entertainment has long been a personal crusade for me — and I know for certain that I will keep on crusading in that regard as long as I live. As a lifelong writer, composer, arranger, musician, and critic in all the arts, the crusade is a natural one for me.

For example, it’s the primary reason I have often written or spoken the notion that creators in all the arts should be compensated for their work long after they have created it. Let’s say an artist has painted a masterpiece and sold it to a dealer or other buyer for a relatively small sum. Then, the work gains considerably in value as it passes from one person to another buyer.

Now, the work, which the artist sold for, say, $500, suddenly is worth $50,000 and is sold for that figure. The seller makes a handsome profit — but the original artist gains nothing, not a cent. My longtime proposal has been that, whenever such a sale ensues, a percentage of the profit, say 10 percent, should be assigned to the artist.

I realize that it is a new concept and a difficult one to execute. But if it were to be written into laws at the national and local levels, it could be accepted gradually by the public, the art world, and the legal profession. Why not? I think it is a reasonable, easily understood concept — and one that is long overdue.

I am reminded also of a related incident several years ago, In which Garth Brooks, the country-music star, stuck his chin out a mile by saying he would not permit his recordings to be sold in stores that sold used CDs — a statement that drew severe criticism from some persons, who said they would boycott Brooks’ recordings, as a result.

Instead of castigating Brooks, the critics should have been applauding him for his courage. Brooks protested the sale of used CDs in stores, because, he said, the sellers had frozen out the composers and original performers from their rightful percentage of the sale. His position: Who, better than the creator of the music, had a greater right to the profits of a recording? Why, he asked, should the merchandiser and publisher pocket all the income?

As an author and musician, I take my hat off to Brooks. Country music may not be my cup of tea — although I once used to play bluegrass fiddle — but from that moment on, I became a Brooks booster. Except for the extremely successful and wealthy authors, composers, and musicians who can afford a battery of attorneys, the vast number of creative people out there are at the mercy of the publishers and merchandisers as they scratch for payment.

Another factor pops up. It is an unfortunate commentary, but it is true that most creative people do not live long enough to see their works of art accepted and accorded the dollar value they deserve. Why shouldn’t their families and their estates receive that “10 percent” of each sale of the creator’s work?

Although I am not a country-music fan, I feel that Brooks and I are kindred spirits and devotees of the concept I have embraced all these years. The sad truth, however, is that our shared idea has not been adopted by any government at the national, state, or local level.

Why is it that demagogues like Hitler, Stalin, and other politically minded dictators insist that only the type of creative art that pleases them or their vicious credos should be permitted to exist in the world’s societies? And speaking of demagogues, I’m reminded of one, Senator Jesse Helms, whose political ideology was so far right that it was coming around from the other side.

Helms, who professed to be a conservative, was an embarrassment to true conservatives years ago when he triggered a howling dispute by proposing a measure in the U.S. Senate that would have denied federal funds to any artist or work of art the senator from North Carolina deemed to be obscene or indecent.

To say the least, Helms’ measure infuriated the arts world, as it should have. As an American citizen, he obviously had a constitutional right to damn any purported work of art as indecent, demeaning, obscene, trashy, or whatever words he might choose to apply. And, in some cases, I might have agreed with him.

But, as a senator, he had no right, constitutionally or otherwise, to get a law passed that would prevent you or me or anyone else in this world from making that decision for ourselves. Yet, that was precisely what Helms was trying to do with his misguided measure.

To be blunt about it, the senator’s amendment, which adhered to his narrow and puritanical view of art, made him an advocate of the Adolf Hitler “school of arts criticism.” The Nazi dictator, who once tried his hand at producing art work that didn’t stand the test of time, said this in 1935:

“It is not the function of art to wallow in dirt for dirt’s sake, never its task to paint men only in states of decay, to draw cretins as the symbol of motherhood, to picture hunchbacked idiots as representatives of manly strength. Art must be the handmaiden of sublimity and beauty and thus promote whatever is natural and healthy. If art does not do this, then any money spent on it is squandered.”

In other words, if Hitler or tyrants like him had had their way in the world, our museums, galleries, and homes would not have been permitted to display the works of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and hundreds of other art geniuses from the East, West, North, and South.

Imagine what a catastrophe that would have been for the Louvre and all the museums and galleries in America, France,