The Mona Lisa Room

Mona Lisa…the lady with the Mystic Smile…. 

So says the lyric from the Nat King Cole hit circa 1950.  I’ll bet it helped bring Mr. da Vinci’s masterpiece to the attention of pop music fans who otherwise wouldn’t know.   I thought the writers had a pretty nice idea, perhaps did a nice service to the art world.

In 1962 a flotilla of ships came across the Atlantic from France, one of them carrying the priceless painting for its first and only visit to the USA.  It would be displayed in Washington DC, followed by a well-publicized week in New York City.  

I knew zero about art or Nat King Cole at the time, so this big cultural event was my introduction to “Lisa del Giocondo of Florence.”  The newspapers provided a tiny black & white photo of her, along with coverage of people of people waiting for hours to see her, standing in lines that ran ten blocks away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Fine art had no priority in the Lynch household however, and there wasn’t even the slightest discussion of making the trip to the city.   My father was a hardworking, slightly taciturn fellow, of very blue collar roots.  He valued his off-days, and he wasn’t about to waste one on a fifteen-second look on this rather plain-looking (his words) woman from 400 years ago.  Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, bah humbug.

Fast-forward forty some-odd years, and here I am in Paris for the first time, specifically – on this particular day – in the Louvre.   I’m well aware that somewhere in this gigantic building the sweet little Italian lady waits.   At this point in my life I’ve sung the Nat King Cole lyric over 200 times, laughed at spoofs of the iconic painting, even titled my blog after da Vinci in a fit of silly wordplay.

Now approaching the Mona Lisa Room of the Louvre, and remembering the frenzy in New York City forty years prior, I expected something less than a spiritual experience.  I pictured a large group of camera-clicking tourists like me.

Surprise surprise.  There they all were, pressing against a four-foot barricade, each one maneuvering for their “Here I Am With The Mona Lisa”  photos.   It was a bustling, happy gathering, punctuated by the constant flashing of digital cameras.

The Mona Lisa is surprisingly small, compared to the other great works in the Louvre – only 2 feet by 3 feet – seemingly out of proportion with its fame.  To use a baseball analogy, it felt like walking into Yankee Stadium for the first time and finding a Little League field.

As if I know how big the Mona Lisa ought to be!  At this point I still can’t even grasp why it’s so great. Yeah I read about the Mystic Smile, even sung about it 200 times right?  But to clueless folks like me it’s just a weird smile.  Hey, maybe da Vinci was just having a bad week.

And the eyes.  I managed to chat with an art aficionado – a resident of Paris – who truly loved the painting, and has scrutinized it many times over the years at the Louvre.  Viewed close  up,  one could move a few feet to the left or right, and feel oneself “followed” by the eyes.

But it’s different now, the old man said.  With the six-foot barricade distance, the artificial wall that looks like a room partition,  and the bulletproof glass cover, the new Mona Lisa Room (2005) has compromised the viewing experience.  The “following eyes” don’t follow so much. The beautiful brushstrokes are not so accessible.  

Along with ever-increasing fame and value in a media-charged world, there is ever-increasing fear and caution.  And with good reason.  If someone is crazy enough to slam a hammer into Michelangelo’s Pieta (this incident in 1972), the time has come for extra protection and distance for the Mona Lisa.  

Somehow I’m reminded of the early, soulful wailing of  Elvis, followed by Gold Records, bad movies, impersonators, bodyguards, the bombastic Vegas “Elvis” experience of the early 1970s…

…something original and brilliant, some originally joyful experience for the viewer, some unique “lovely work of art” as the song goes…

…is converted to – well, something rather different.  As a mostly ignorant tourist joining the throng in the Mona Lisa Room,  I’m part of this pesky little problem – my own silly smile in the foreground of  a digital photo,  and the lady’s Mystic Smile in the background.

Well actually, not quite that bad.  In fact, I did NOT pose in front of the Mona Lisa.  Instead, I photographed the mob surrounding her.  That was it – one photo. And  I’m pretty happy with the shot, as it seems to capture the experience very well.

Whatever anybody thinks of this “Most Famous Painting In the World”,  I suppose we should be thankful that we have it at all.  It has escaped harm from Nazis, thieves, vandals, and some  very dicey preservation procedures over the centuries.   It seems to be in good, skillful, loving hands,  and hopefully it will always be so.

Maybe one of these years I’ll actually “get it”, so to speak, and really understand what the fuss is all about. In the meantime, the Nat King Cole recording is still one of my favorites, perhaps a masterpiece in its own little way.

The Boy Who Cried Rapture

It was 11PM, May 21, a beautiful springtime Saturday night in a rural town called Honesdale, Pennsylvania. I was in a convenience store, over by the magazines and newspapers, when the headline hit me, jumping off the front page of the New York Daily News, in huge block print.

“BUY THIS PAPER!” it screamed out. Below this, in smaller print, it said “This may be your last chance!” It was an over-the top, bellylaugh style of humor, rather unusual for the front page of this venerable old tabloid. Picking the paper up, I was directed to Page 3, where I perused the details of the latest “End of the World” scare.

Skimming thorough the article I noticed that the deadline for “The End” was 6:00 PM. This deadline had passed five hours prior, seemingly without incident in the little town of Honesdale. And it was reasonable to assume that nothing Apocalyptic had occurred anywhere else either. In light of this, the sarcastic front page seemed even more self-satisfied, more mocking, as it was clear that the Doomsday people had goofed again.

The “believers” were indeed an easy target now, and for a moment I actually felt bad for them. I marveled at the Bible’s capability of skewing people’s thinking. I didn’t personally know anyone who had bought into this latest scare, but it was well publicized in the weeks leading up to May 21, enough for lighthearted banter among the nonbelievers.

The Daily News article focused on an 89-year old TV evangelist named Harold Camping, who was the instigator of this latest End of The World Campaign. I’d seen him on his Cable TV show once. He was soft spoken and pedantic, with a seemingly unassailable knowledge of the Book of Revelations.

Mr. Camping had been adamant about something called “The Rapture”, which I researched the next day. It was quite impressive. We’re not talking about an asteroid smashing the earth to pieces. In fact, the predicted “End of the World” is a 2-part process, starting with the separation of the good folks from the bad folks.

When the “Rapture” happens, 200,000,000 million souls -- about 3% of the world’s population these days -- will immediately ascend to heaven. They will literally vaporize into their spiritual essences, leaving behind their clothes, shoes, eyeglasses and Timex watches for the scavengers and the Salvation Army. It would certainly be the end of earthly life for these righteous people, a beautiful and painless transition, perhaps with lovely cloud formations and John Williams orchestral music as a backdrop.

The rest of us - the other 97% - would go through 5 months of war, famine,  disease, financial collapse, natural disasters, further global warming, $9.00 gasoline, and a new “Rocky” movie, just to name a few things. These awful events, called Tribulations, would culminate on October 21, with an honest-to-goodness End Of The World Event of some kind.

Agnostic heathen that I am, I would certainly be excluded from the 200 million Chosen People of the Rapture That Will Happen One of These Years. The “believers” fully expect that they will be included in the elite 3%. They assume themselves to be part of the highest, most virtuous tier of humanity.

This is awfully arrogant, and it gives the rest of us the right to mock them, thumb our noses at them, print funny newspaper headlines about them, put bananas in their tailpipes, throw eggs at them on Halloween.

And maybe they won’t care. They had each other for moral support as the May 21 “Last Day” approached; they now have each other’s moral support in the embarrassing aftermath.

I wonder if any of these people really put their money where their mouths are.    The news article said nothing of people giving up their soon-to-be unneeded jobs, homes, cars, and gym memberships. It would seem that the believers were hedging their bets on what would happen on May 21.

As well they should. There’s a long list of failed Rapture Predictions -- some 44 over the past 150 years.  Given this history, it's a wonder that anyone takes it seriously.  

But they most certainly do;  for better or worse,  we can pretty much count on more Doomsday preachers like Mr. Camping down the road,  with a flock of followers who love the idea of a glorious Divine End to this nasty planet.

Disappointed Rapture-ites were interviewed this morning, and they said that the Biblical predictions must be correct, however it was human miscalculation that set the incorrect date and the false alarm. After hiding for almost two days, Mr. Camping has re-surfaced, admitting to a mistake. It’s Strike Two for him, his previous mis-prediction occurring in 1994.

He now claims that both the Rapture AND the Tribulations will occur on October 21, exactly five months after the failed May 21 date.   Who knows,  perhaps by that time he'll meet his Maker the old-fashioned way.  He's 89 after all, and sounding loonier all the time.   If I were the Lord, I’d get rid of this guy and find someone who can get “The Date” right, for once and for all.

National FUT Day

Recently I did a glowing write-up on a phenomenon called National Pi Day.  My focus was the mathematical details of Pi,  and Pi Day’s potential as the most celebrated day in the month of March.

I made reference to a community of “Numberheads”  or  “Math Geeks”,  implying that they’ve done an effective job in promoting their Day. 

But I suspect that – in the beginning – the whole thing was the idea of one inspired person.  I haven’t researched it yet,  but hopefully I’ll locate this person.  And it’ll be my honor to interview this person and feature him / her on these pages.

As it happens,  a long time ago I knew such an inspired person.  At the tender age of 13 he made a noble effort at creating a new National Day.

His name was Barry Fitzsimmons, one of the more rebellious types in the Freshman class at Bishop Reilly High School.  He had an axe to grind with just about everybody and everything,  a 1964 Rebel Without a Cause. 

One of his peeves was being cooped up in Room 207 with the same dorky Catholic kids all day long. He'd already had enough of this in Catholic grade school,  and he thought High School would entail the more “grown-up” freedom and variety of moving around from room to room, class to class,  in the course of the day.

Not so for the Freshmen at Reilly High.  The powers-that-be divided the new students into groups of 30,  according to some mysterious scholastic criteria.  Each group had the same subjects (most of which Barry hated) with the same teachers (most of which Barry also hated).   Every hour a new teacher would turn up in the same old room (which Barry also hated). 

One day Barry walked into Room 207 at 8:30 AM,  which was way earlier than normal for him.  He had a big paper bag full of neckties,  which he’d apparently found somewhere in his attic.  Each tie – in the style of some awful bygone era of Americana,  was very wide and ridiculously gaudy,  with yellows and oranges and reds splashed shamelessly on backgrounds of green and brown.  In an early 60s era of skinny ties,  these monstrosities deserved the name “FUT”.

 “FUT” was an acronym for “Fat Ugly Tie”

Barry got to work feverishly, pretty much ordering everybody to wear one of the ties.   He said it was National FUT Day,  and his enthusiasm was contagious.

I went along with it easily,  taking off my regular tie and putting on my FUT.  The dress code at Reilly was jacket and tie (which Barry hated of course),  so switching to FUT mode was easy. 

Everybody was FUTted  by the time the English teacher walked in at 9:00.   It took a minute or two for him to lose his focus on the day’s lesson,  suddenly beholding a sea of FUTs and 30 grinning faces.  He took it in stride,  smiled a lot during the lesson,  perhaps had his best laugh of the week.

The algebra teacher was rather dour,  rolled his eyes at the FUTs,  called it idiotic and went on with the equations of the day.  One by one the teachers came in, with varied reactions to the new National Holiday.  

Barry had his day in the sun,  responsible for a day's worth of good clean fun.   He collected the FUTs after the last class, and they were never seen again.

To no one’s surprise, Barry opted not to continue his education at Reilly High, disappearing after Freshman Year.  I thought it would have been pretty funny if he returned  the next year, on the anniversary of the first National FUT day,  with enough FUTs for the entire student body. 

But it wasn’t meant to be,  and the idea obviously never caught on.  It was nonetheless a triumph for a 13-year old kid with a ton of angst and a funny idea.  As Barry said at the time – “No Ifs or Buts,  Today we wear FUTs.”

The Ballad of Joe DeMaestri

He was going to retire in ‘59
When he got a phone call around Christmastime
Asked if he’d like to extend his career
With a different team for two more years
Off to New York in a 7- player trade
To a field where so many heroes have played
To wear the stripes of the legendary Yanks
That night the Lord got a prayer of thanks
From Joe DeMaestri

For a dozen years Joe paid his dues
With lousy teams that just loved to lose
The Saint Louis Browns and the Kansas City A’s
Used up the best of Joe’s playing days
Even at his best he was only OK
And on a bad team he played every day
But the Yankee lineup was second to none
So the days as a starter were over and done
For Joe DeMaestri

Even in his prime Joe couldn’t compete
With Mickey and Yogi and Roger and Clete
So he warmed the bench and swallowed his pride
Two years as a sub, never whined or cried
And when the team scored, Joe led the cheers
And the Yanks scored plenty in those two years
The Yanks won it all in ‘61
And the guy on the team who had the most fun
Was Joe DeMaestri

He then called it quits, but returned in the spring
To step on the field for his World Series Ring
He deserved it as much as the more famous names
Even if he played just a handful of games
He’s 83 now, and he’s doing just fine
One of the rooms of his house is a shrine
To the wonderful time he spent with the Yanks
And at night the Lord still gets a prayer of thanks
From Joe DeMaestri
　

National Pi Day

March has always been a curious month, in my estimation. The saying goes that March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”, but I don’t know anybody who really believes it. The first day of spring is March 21, but the trees don’t turn green around here until April.

So March provides 31 days of meandering between semi-spring and plain old winter. “March Madness” is strictly for basketball fans. And after a lifetime of shamrocks and jigs I can’t get too excited about Saint Patrick’s Day.

Just when I was giving up on looking forward to anything this month, I became aware of a new, up-and-coming Celebration Day in March. Nothing religious, ethnic, sports or season-related. This holiday comes from an unlikely place -- the pure, tidy, lofty world of mathematics.

March 14 is National Pi Day, and I’m not talking apples, chocolate cream, or lemon meringue.

“Pi” is a mathematical term, specifically --- 22/7.

If you go ahead and divide 7 into 22, you find that it is approximately 3.14 --- thus the choice of March 14 -- (3/14 -- get it?) as the day to honor Pi.

So what is so important about 22/7 ? Glad you asked. A long time ago -- as far back as ancient Egypt -- mathematicians were trying to find a number that exactly described the relationship between the diameter (distance across) a circle, and the circumference (distance AROUND) the same circle.

To this day they haven’t found it yet -- the decimal places stretch out to infinity. But for all practical purposes, 22/7 and its abbreviated decimal equivalent -- 3.14 -- work just fine.

Some of you highly idle people may have wondered how much tubing is required for a standard Hula Hoop. Sure, you can get a tape measure and position it around the hoop. But there’s a much cooler way to figure it out.

If you measure straight ACROSS the hoop from one side to the other, and then multiply by 22/7.…Voila ! You have the exact distance around, which is called the circumference.

If the distance across the hula hoop was 35 inches, you’d multiply that times 22/7 -- and you’d get a nice even 110 inches of Hula Hoop tubing! I’ll admit it’s pretty hard to find a practical use for this info, unless you happen to be a manufacturer of Hula Hoop tubing.

But bear with me. The other great “Pi” equation is --

r  times r  times  22/7

(which is r times itself, times 22/7)

So what the heck is  r ?

If you put your finger in the middle of a circle…….say for instance a dish……the distance from your finger to the EDGE is called “r”

If that distance was 4 inches, you would multiply 4 times 4 times 22/7, which works out to roughly 50 square inches -- the AREA of the dish.

This info, substituting feet for inches, will be very helpful to you when purchasing circular real estate, although circular real estate is not too popular just yet.

If you’re still reading this essay, you’re very patient -- patient enough to consider one more thing about Pi.

As said before, 22/7 is only a good approximation of Pi, as is the decimal 3.14 -- mathematicians using computers have worked out the value of Pi to over a MILLION decimal places. In the case of a standard Hula Hoop, this would carry the accuracy way into the atomic and subatomic level.

This weird “insolvability” apparently adds to the allure of Pi (or 22/7) (or 3.1428571 etc) in the math geek universe. In fact I’ll bet there’s many other such beloved math terms, and the Numberheads would just love to load the calendar with their arcane jargon if they could.

But fear not. They’ve been very lucky with this Pi thing and they know it. They’re not going to get pushy. For National Pi Day to gain popularity is a bit of a miracle, and a shot in the arm for a month that’s weary of leprechauns and slam dunks.

A final thought, for what it’s worth: Consider the standard 14-inch pizza. The "r" is 7 inches. Multiplying 7 times 7 times 22/7 you get an area of exactly 154 square inches. Isn’t that a cool thing to know?

How Uncouth of You

The kids in the 4^th and 5^th grade were excited, as they filed out of their humdrum classrooms. They were all heading toward the big auditorium for some kind of special event. Perhaps a nice movie? A play ? Maybe some seminar. It almost didn’t matter -- it was just great to get out of those classrooms.

By one o’clock all 300 students -- 6 classrooms-worth -- were settled in the fold-up chairs in the old auditorium, barely able to contain their excitement for whatever was about to happen. The principal of the school, Sister Charlotte, dressed in the old black and white habit of the Sisters of Mercy circa 1962, made a brief announcement of the “educational” nature of the show, making it clear that any talking in the audience was strictly forbidden.

The curtain went up, and a “big kid” named Jim -- from the 6^th grade -- was pacing back and forth on the stage. Jim was a little taller than most sixth-graders, and had a booming voice, which made him perfect for the role he was playing. From his neck hung a large white sign, with the word “VERB” written in big block letters.

“Go!”
“Stay!”
“Run!”
“Kick!”
“Decorate!”
“Drink!”
“Study!”

Out came the verbs -- slowly, ponderously, loudly, and monotonously. Some of the kids in the audience already knew what the point was, and already sensed that other actors would soon be appearing.
Sure enough, another 6^th-grade boy appeared, few inches shorter than “VERB”, and this new character’s sign identified him as “ADVERB”.  He started adding words to those spoken by “VERB”, for a dialogue that sounded like a call-and-response.

“Go!”
“Away”
“Read!”
“Carefully”
“Eat”
“Slowly”
“Come!”
“Here”

Verb and Adverb seemed pretty happy with their little routine, their little simple sentences. But clearly something was incomplete here, and Verb and Adverb were too full of themselves to notice.

Slowly advancing toward them, with their arms folded in contempt, were a pair of 6^th-grade girls. The casting director of this play was seemingly using sexual tension (such as it was in 6^th grade) to help set up the sides in the upcoming argument.

One girl -- “NOUN” -- was clearly taller than the other, whose sign said “ADJECTIVE”,  and this pair was every bit as confidant as Verb and Adverb.

The taller girl, who would be active in politics later on in life and give many a speech, was on the stage to let Verb know the World Did Not Revolve Around Him.  How silly -- short sentences like “Eat slowly” and “Push Hard”…..

….as if nothing else was needed !!

What about “Eat YOUR SANDWICH slowly” or “Push THE WAGON hard” ??

“Where would we be without nouns and adjectives?” Noun scoffed. She pointed her finger at Verb and suggested that he get off his high horse.

Verb gave some begrudging recognition to Noun, admitting that words like “Church” and “pencil” and “dog” and “baseball” were useful. At Noun’s insistence, he even gave Adjective a pat on the back, admitting that words like “red” and “green” and tall” and “beautiful” and “smooth” were also useful.

He then crossed his arms and said that he -- “VERB” -- was,  nonetheless -- the most important of the eight parts of speech, on the grounds that -- technically -- no sentence is considered “complete” without a verb. As he had demonstrated before, “Go!” was a sentence all by itself.

“Hurrah” shouted Adverb, seemingly sucking up to Verb. He then gave a boisterous description of his importance -- the Where, the How, and the “When” of his Adverbial universe.

“How Uncouth of You, Adverb,” said Adjective. She said something sarcastic about “quickly” coming from “quick”, “nicely” coming from “nice”, “carefully” coming from “careful”, etc, and made it seem that most of Adverb’s domain would not exist if not for Adjective.

The four young thespians battled away for a few more minutes. Somewhere along the way “Pronoun” was introduced, along with the subtleties of “I” and “my” and “him” and “his” and “them” and “their”. Verb and Adverb sat this one out.

Next came "Preposition".   Shorter words -- “to” - “on” - “at” - “in” requiring a shorter character. In another brilliant casting move, the part was played by a very short boy -- he seemed to be shorter than his own long “PREPOSITION” sign, which hung from his neck in an unruly way, flapping around clumsily, and interfering with his arm movement.

He seemed to be currying favor from both sides,  in fact he seemed to be a mediator. He had allegiance with the Noun-Pronoun-Adjective faction,  but stated -- very diplomatically -- that the phrase “go to the store” was Adverbial in character because it answered the question “go where?”.

Little "CONJUNCTION"  appeared next, a very short girl representing “and” - “or” etc --another comical mismatch of a short person and a long sign. She was treated with sympathy, since her existence -- like the word “or” -- completely depended on two other words in need of a simple "link" word.  At one point she stood there meekly holding hands with Noun and Pronoun on either side, as if she was about to fall on her face.

The best part of the show was when the eighth part of speech --”INTERJECTION” rushed out onto the stage in a frenzy. As it happened, the girl playing the part was very excitable in real life, and would prove to be downright loony and argumentative in a few years, a poster child for Ritalin.

But in this production she was perfect -- wide-eyed and animated, shouting out “OH!” and “WOW!“ and “WHEEE” and other such choice interjections. In real life, she would soon learn some nastier interjections which would get her in hot water with these nuns.

The show ended with the eight parts of speech friendly, in harmony, as they actually are in this remarkable English language. Each young actor and actress took a bow, with Noun and Verb getting the final and most important applause.

Jim eventually went to a high school called Cathedral, known at the time as a prep school for the priesthood. I don’t know if he actually became a priest, but one might think his self-righteous performance as Verb seemed to be good preparation. Virginia, the girl who played Noun, got highly involved in the Liberal Democratic Party in the 60s and 70s and her shrill voice was heard at many a political gathering.

Donna, who played Adjective, blossomed into an awfully pretty and shapely girl by the time eighth grade came around. She was a little taller than me at that point, and reportedly already had a boyfriend in 11^th grade. I tried to get on her good side, with little success. I was a bit a of class clown, which turned her off.  As she told me onstage two years before, I was a little too Uncouth.

Piano Bar with Steve Lynch

It was a ship called the Maasdam -- of the Holland America Line, doing cruises from Montreal to Boston via the St. Lawrence River, and back. It was a modest piano bar -- 15 years old, which is very old for a cruise ship. The Yamaha piano was a weird Raspberry color, which I could never picture in anybody's living room.

I brought along my Canon camcorder, hopefully to get good promotional footage, and I handed it one night to a competent-looking fellow, instructing him to get a balance of audience footage and pianoman footage.

He did me one better -- he got extensive footage of Filipino bartender Ray -- who was quite the flamboyant sort (note that the word "flaming" comes from the word "flamboyant") and his performance during "YMCA" was classic.

An hour of footage was done on this night, and I edited it down to this ten-minute montage, for Youtube and for promo.

The Hercules

Back in the mid-1980s I was living in the Los Angeles area, writing songs, taking a couple of classes at a local music school, and playing keyboards at wedding receptions, Christmas parties, and other such “one-nighters”.

One of the venues I frequently found myself at was the Queen Mary. This venerable old cruise ship, having been retired from service in 1967, had made its last voyage to the Long Beach Harbor, on the south side of the L. A. area. It was permanently docked and converted to a hotel and special event center, with many rooms for parties.

On one particular night in late 1983 I was playing with a little trio at a Christmas party somewhere on the Queen Mary, for a bunch of bigwigs of some corporation. At one point a rather important-looking fellow came up and asked to use the microphone.

His announcement was to this effect -- “Ladies and gentlemen - as you may or may not know, the Queen Mary will soon have a companion here in Long Beach Harbor. Just off this ship and a few hundred yards down the wharf, Howard Hughes’ legendary Spruce Goose airplane has been re-assembled inside a huge geodesic dome. The exhibit officially opens next week, but our group has been specially invited to take a walk - right now - off this ship and over to the Spruce Goose for a sneak preview.”

Was there anybody in that room more excited than me ? The Spruce Goose had not been seen in public since 1947. I was well aware of it, but hadn’t heard about this new exhibit.

I’d been a Hughes-aphile of sorts for many years. When I was a kid he was famous for a) being the richest man in the world and b) being utterly reclusive. Nobody understood why he was avoiding the public eye, but he had become a punchline on the Johnny Carson Show.

In 1972 an author took a chance and wrote a phony “autobiography” of “the reclusive billionaire”, assuming that Hughes was actually dead and wouldn’t step out to refute anything.

But just before the book hit the stores, Hughes DID emerge, on the phone at least, with scientific instruments confirming that it was Hughes’ voice. And he sounded sane. He denied any connection with the con artist author. It was a headline story, with the author facing a jail term, and the publisher highly embarrassed. Hughes disappeared again after this incident, in fact became more reclusive than ever.

In 1974-75-76 I was living in Las Vegas, working at the Frontier and Desert Inn hotel-casinos, which made me, technically, an employee of Howard Hughes. However, while I was in Vegas, he passed away, in March 1976, on a plane en route to the USA from Acapulco. This was a big news story everywhere, but especially in Vegas, where he had huge holdings.

And it seemed appropriate that he pass away on a plane, since aviation had been the greatest passion of his life, as a record-breaking pilot, as a designer of airplanes, and as the owner of TWA, one of the giants of the airline industry in his day.

The gigantic Flying Boat nicknamed the “Spruce Goose” was commissioned during World War II, when America’s troop transport ships were getting a lot of trouble from German subs.

Hughes took a large chunk of government money to develop a Flying Boat that would help win the war. But by 1945 America had won the war, and Hughes still had not completed the Flying Boat, which he called the “Hercules”.

Somehow it was necessary for the Big Plane to be made of WOOD on the outside, rather than aluminum. The media -- always trying to be clever -- came up with the “Spruce Goose” nickname, which Hughes hated.

A Congressional Committee accused him of taking government money to build a big useless plane that couldn’t fly. To which Hughes said --


"The Hercules was a monumental undertaking.  It is the largest aircraft ever built.  It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field.  That's more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this thing.  I have my reputation all rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it's a failure I'll probably leave this country and never come back.  And I mean it"

Hughes never had to leave the country. A few weeks later, on November 2, 1947, he made good on his claim that The Hercules would fly.

Sitting at the controls himself, he did some taxiing in Long Beach Harbor, the Hercules churning through the water at over 100 mph. Finally, he went full throttle, and the Great Flying Boat, with its wingspan of over 300 feet, lifted 70 feet above the water, for a brief 30-second flight, covering about a mile.

There were skeptics that said the plane was shaky and unwieldy, and never could have transported 750 troops across the Atlantic, this being the entire goal of the Flying Boat Project. And in fact, the Hercules never flew again, for reasons known only to Hughes. He was a mysterious, brilliant, quirky man, not given to explaining himself to people, especially as he got older.

And in his last years, he was eccentric to the point of madness, with other people running his enterprises, and a handful of personal aides attending to his irrational quirks and demands. This last part of his life was well-documented in a tell-all book written by those personal aides. I read the book a few years after I left Vegas, and it left me all the more curious about him.

As a young man he’d made up his mind to be a) the world’s richest man b) the world’s greatest aviator c) the world’s greatest filmmaker and d) the world’s greatest golfer. Well he certainly did not achieve the last two, but he certainly DID achieve the first two.

　
I stepped away from my keyboards, the drummer and guitarist stepped away from their instruments, and we walked behind this group of suited businessmen who had cleared the party room. Down the ramp, off the Queen Mary we all strolled until we found ourselves ushered into the big domed building.  The building had been empty,  and we conducted ourselves in the echo-ey ambiance as we would in a shrine,  never speaking above a whisper.

The lights were a little dim, as if to add to the spooky feeling. There it was -- the Flying Boat I’d heard about all my life, with that incredible wingspan,  and the tail higher than a five-story building.

At one point we were led through the interior of the Hercules, not far from the controls. There at the controls was a life-sized wax figure of Hughes, mustache, fedora and all, modeled after the only photo of Hughes at the controls on the day of the 30-second flight.


It was awesome, it was surreal, the immensity of the plane, the immensity of daring to make it fly. 


The exhibit, despite its appropriate location in Long Beach Harbor, was not a big moneymaker, and after a ten year run the exhibit closed. The powers-that-be disassembled the Flying Boat and shipped it 1000 miles up the Pacific coast, to a place called the Evergreen Aviation Museum, in a town called McMinnville, just 40 miles out of Portland, Oregon.

I trust that the Evergreen Aviation Museum is not depending on a financial return on the Hercules. As a unique piece of aviation history, it deserves better.

Unfortunately, Long Beach really was the more appropriate home for it -- but the marriage to the Queen Mary now seems ill-considered, a mundane marketing ploy which insulted the old ship as well as the old plane.

On two later occasions I visited the Hercules exhibit, towing along people who might share my awe. And even without the preface, without the whole history lesson about Howard Hughes, an uninitiated person will look in amazement. But of course I’ll go ahead and give the history lesson anyway, to anyone who’ll listen, not ashamed to be one of those whose imagination got captured by this way-larger-than-life plane and the way-larger-than-life man who built it.

The Hurcules at the Evergreen Aviation Museum