Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
This book traces the story of our first truly self-made President whose storytelling gifts and debating skills made him a natural politician. He won the nomination in 1860 over three men who were better known and generally thought to be far more qualified. Lincoln made an incredibly brave choice of picking those staunch political rivals to populate his cabinet and the relationship each had to the president and each other is studied here.

It has been said that wartime leadership is a necessary component of a great Presidency. No one had a harder task than to govern during the fractious war between the states. Lincoln was far from perfect, as evidenced by his first several choices of men to lead the Union Army. It wasn’t until he appointed Grant that he found someone with as much determination as himself to finish the job of defeating the Confederate forces. Nevertheless, he stands as our greatest President because he didn’t have a vindictive bone in his body and knew how to bring out the best in people around him. This book should be mandatory reading to anyone aspiring to the Presidency — or maybe just anyone dreaming of a better one.

–Sean Coakley

I went to see Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio on Broadway expecting a witty portrayal of the industry in which I’ve worked for six years, and I was not disappointed. However, as the play is set in 1987, I didn’t expect it to make such a profound statement about today’s political and cultural climate.

The decision to resurrect Talk Radio in 2007, twenty years after its debut, is an inspired one. The modern day version, set in a post-Reagan-era Cleveland, stars Liev Schreiber as the egomaniacal late night talk show host Barry Champlain, who struggles to hold it together on-air on the night he learns a major media corporation is interested in syndicating his show for national broadcast.

For the entire two hour production, Champlain monopolizes the stage as he sits virtually alone at his mic (besides a few supporting characters, which frankly are not needed). He’s pissed off at America, but on this night, no one wants to talk about it. Much to his vexation, the callers range from the deranged (Chet, a neo-Nazi threatening death to the Jewish host) to the hopeless (Lynn, a sixteen-year-old left pregnant by an older man). Even with references to the Iran-Contra affair, and Champlain’s recurring avowal that “this country is going to pieces,” no one will bite.

It is Champlain’s wrathful responses to the callers that drive his show, and the play. No one escapes Champlain’s contempt. (To an African American caller: “I love black people, I think everyone should own one.” To Bob the paraplegic: “Gotta run! I know you can’t, but we can!”) He is sick and tired of the stupidity around him, scornful of those callers who keep him in work, and equal parts narcissistic and self-loathing.

The very nature of Champlain’s show – reality entertainment – serves as a vehicle for Bogosian’s derision of the triviality and self-absorption of American culture. Twenty years on, the circus that takes the stories of the pathetic and parades them as entertainment has only grown. Watching how dismal reality entertainment was in 1987 only compounds the wretchedness of its enormous success today.

Moreover, the scorching tirades of Champlain as he unleashes his fury and disappointment at America onto his listeners serves as a sobering reminder of just how little political progress we’ve made, if any. Two decades have passed, and we’re angry about the same things as Bogosian’s character. There’s another Bush in the Oval office. We’re fighting the same fight in the Gulf with no end in sight. One listener whines that Iran is all she hears about, and it’s hard to recall a day that Iran didn’t make the front page. Whether it’s reality shows or the war in Iraq, we don’t ever seem to learn our lesson.
Rather than dating his work, Bogosian’s choice to present the reprise version of Talk Radio in the context of its original era only enhances the cultural message; if Champlain was pissed then, he’d be outraged now.

–Julia Clarke

“It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that. I know. But lately I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”–Tony Soprano, The Sopranos, Episode 1

Nine years have passed since we first watched Dr. Melfi nod sagely as Tony Soprano lamented the glory days of a bygone era. You didn’t have to be a mobster to know how he felt. My generation grew up hearing that everything was better in the ‘60s: drugs were healthier, rock ‘n roll was louder, love was free. And we missed it. We’ve all heard that Granny Smith apples don’t taste the way they used to. I like to think that none of this is really true, and prefer to call it “nostalgic depression.” But, this notion pervades many aspects of our culture, including our professional lives.

Take the music industry. It’s pretty tough to talk to anyone who’s been in the business for a few years without coming ‘round to a story about the golden days. Which, of course, I missed. It seems the music industry actually has a lot more in common with our favorite mob boss than you might imagine.
No, Mr. Spitzer, I’m not talking about whacking programmers who don’t play our records. It’s just the buzz these days is that it’s over for us. You can’t pick up a trade anymore without reading that the dearth of new music technology is going to obliterate the traditional music industry structure. Labels and terrestrial radio are made to sound antiquated and tragically ridiculous, as though it might be okay to laugh if they were accidentally shot on a quail hunting trip. If you believe what you read anyway, the music industry might as well be a balding middle-aged man, standing barefoot in his robe as he watches his beloved flock of ducks flying away from him, wondering: “What the hell happened?”

I won’t deny that there are big changes afoot in our musical bubble. Tower Records is gone. Eliot Spitzer won’t go away. Satellite radio happened. iPods came into our lives. MySpace introduced a new way to check out music. It’s enough to make you go and lie on Dr Melfi’s couch. Or maybe even smash her glass coffee table.

Maybe it is the end of the industry as we know it, but as Michael Stipe once said, I feel fine. Mostly because I don’t believe that the best is ever past. Just as Tony is the glue that holds everything together in his world, music is our glue. With more music out there than ever before, and more ways to access it, we should be celebrating the ever-multiplying possibilities that lie before us. There are issues to tackle, but that’s only a real problem if we run out of ideas. Fortunately for us, ideas and innovations are all around us, if we’re willing to pay attention. And to change. So don’t tell your kids and your younger peers that things were better in the old days. Instead, ask them what would be better if their generations were in charge now. Then steal their ideas!

Of course, had Dr. Melfi told Tony all of this, we wouldn’t have had nine years of some of the best television in history. We have seven episodes left to look forward to. Clear your Sunday night schedule. Stock up on red wine and Havanas. Place your bets on who’ll sleep with the fishes, and whether Tony will sleep with Dr Melfi.

When it’s all over, we can sigh and shake our heads and say: “They don’t make television like that anymore.”

–Julia Clarke