Quotes that Say Something


"Please, dad, get down and look. I think there's some kind of monster under my bed."

Life when seen in close-up often seems tragic, but in wide-angle it often seems comic. -- Charlie Chaplin

"And when the cloudbursts thunder in your ear, you shout, but no one's there to hear. And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes, I'll see you on the dark side of the moon." -- Roger Waters, "Brain Damage"


Apr 19, 2012

Dick Clark: The Second Act Was Not Kind

"There are no second acts in American lives."

                                               --  F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby


It is a fact that Francis Scott Fitzgerald, having reveled in the spotlight of American literary fame thanks to his book about Jay Gatsby and other fictional contributions, died as an indigent of sorts at age 44 in the fantasy nightmare of old-time Hollywood. His all-consuming alcohol habit actually swallowed him up. By the Christmas season of 1940, Fitzgerald was gone. No second act. He did not live long enough for it.

You may not like this idea, but it's on my mind.

Sadly, Dick Clark who was born in 1929 (82 years ago) and became famous as a disc jockey, TV persona, and "America's oldest teenager," has now shuffled off the American stage too. Perhaps, if you are of a certain age, and if you had a handy b-&-w television in your house (or at a friend's place) during after-school hours weekdays, you remember Dick Clark making his mark in our shared pop culture with the program American Bandstand -- in this way:



Kitschy and cool it was. Dig that crazy beat, the white bucks, and the rockin' kids from Philly front and center: taking awesome star turns on the dance floor, moondoggies.

Or perhaps you remember Mr. Clark in this most regrettable way -- during his wretched second act, sporting a pained visage, hampered by a critical speech-impairment from a stroke, showing up in recent years on his wholly-owned, formerly clever, and annual New Year's Eve television extravaganza:


Not kitschy and not cool. In fact, it all reeks of a year-end countdown to soullessness. Ryan Seacrest, the heir apparent to Mr. Clark on American commercial radio and television, strains a little too hard to be hospitable and obvious, subconsciously mirroring Clark's stressful diction and demeanor. The innocent-looking Philly kids and those way cool white bucks on Fabian's famous  rockstar hooves are literally out of the picture. How did we get to this point? Not the sweet '50s teenagers but some slickened New Kids (or NKOTB for a jawbreaker of a musical acronym) are making the scene. Ke$sha -- a new but not improved "Barbie lives" project with that awful neon lipstick and dyed hair -- is close to truly speechless at the living spectacle unfolding. Looking into the face of pummelled human brokenness and suffering, even through a square TV monitor, will do that to a young person like her.

Look again. The crowd on Times Square NYC is buzzing and swaying with excitement, yet far removed, exiled, from anything and everything that's perched up on that static, outdoors ABC sound-set; and that perennial preener, Jenny McCarthy (a genuine "Jenny on the block" in this case), purloining time from her low-demand sitcom guest jobs on Two and a Half Men and other insipid shows -- kept toasty warm by her furs, blonde hair extensions, and silicone trusses -- works harder, more racously and more stridently, than even the rising idol Seacrest, as if she has something (could it be the memory of Dick Clark reading his script painfully aloud a few minutes before?) to overcome. Is that colorful logo for Toyz R Us on the backdrop building, behind them all, just a cynical product placement by that company -- or did someone in the Dick Clark Productions corps spot the chance for a spot-on, post-modern metaphor and joke?

Having suffered the awful slings and arrows of great misfortune, at least one massive stroke, yet not at all ready to shuffle off this mortal coil (look, not every run of the mill blogger can dredge up timely allusions to Shakespeare's Hamlet with such ease), Dick Clark pushed onward. And on and . . . on. I will forever recall the reaction of shock and sadness that a close friend and pop-music lover gasped out, like recoil of a rifle, on December 31, 2009, when Mr. Clark came into focus after an 'on-the-air' toss to him from the ever-buoyant, sparkly Mr. Seacrest. What a reminder that was of those cracks and fissures, and painful wrinkles, that have appeared in our cultural veneer since those hallowed afternoons listening to the saxophone swing of American Bandstand's theme and watching the apparently naive and unworldly Philly kids coupling up metaphorically there before our eyes. No, Dick Clark was not destined to have a successful second act.



Veneer. I guess that's what it was. Time rolls on, in fact it rocks and rolls on. There is no genuine turning back, as some still claim. Veneers wear away and all polished surfaces eventually tarnish, even finest woods go bad. Dick Clark, oh what a veneer he wrought from the raw material with which he was gifted. He had a great act, as did his perky audiences. To his last day, he was wildly rich $$$ materially and economically. Making money and creature comforts, and adulation from fans, were not the problems. Yet something kept him pushing on, . . . a spiritual void, a need to be seen and heard, whatever, and he chose to appear again on Rockin' Eve after Rockin' Eve.

Viewers looked on -- aghast at the symbol of what he/we have become, or maybe not, and yet sweetly sentimental for what once was and appears to be no more. Fitzgerald was right about there (in truth) being no second acts in American life. With his last breath, Dick Clark felt his heart break. Alas, even Gatsby the Great's favored existence hit some rough patches, then came apart. 

Maybe the real lesson here is to strive constantly for an authentic first act, all the way, without apologies or personal excuses. And then -- who knows what?


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