Pago 4
Daily Nebraskan
Friday, April 20, 1934
Proposed center
rc::--'';:::1tc:' .! !
fin l;;5
? !
I )
"IfTI"
1 y t .Vr-rrL xj
233-1 OiKAGO TB30NE
Not that there's anything wrong with Sinatra
appearing in Lincoln. Truly one of the greats still left
in the music business, his name justified the $20
ticket cost for a decent seat. No doubt, Sinatra
-would have sold out a smaller performing arts
center.
But for how many acts will students be willing to
TTTTT J1 -71 TT Pay such a hi2h ticket Price? Even the organizers of
uuuiuvv. v4 Liicib iu0n. uui it. iv iii La&t; iiicli
isn't for students
WT.cn the final attendance figures for Frank
Sinatra's show in Lincoln Wednesday come in, it will
be most interesting to see not only how many people
showed up, but the kind of people who showed up.
Sinatra's show could be a foreshadowing, if you
will, of the type of acts the proposed Performing
Arts Center will hopefully bring to Lincoln acts
that win attract the older, wealthier set, but few
students.
The NU Board of Regents announced in February
that the Lied Foundation Trust of Lc.3 Vegas, Nev.,
had given UNL a $10 million gift to help build a
performing arts center in the square block between
R and Q and 1 2th and 13th streets. The regents gave
the administration authority to receive $7 million
from the Legislature and $3 million from the NU
Foundation to match the gilt and build the center.
The center failed to get much legislative attention
this session. But UNL students and ASUN should
insist on their own evaluation of the need for a
center on the UNL campus that will cater to the
interests of the general public more than the UNL
student.
Charlene's song has reached one of the pinnacles
of pop success. Wednesday I heard a Muzak version
of it on the radio in Andy's. Now it is part of America.
You remember it recorded in 1976 for Motown
by a singer known only as Charlene (does a girl need
a last name?), "I've Never Been to Me" blandly
bombed until its re-release in 1982. Then it went to
( '"j Eric
s k -' Peterson
'.
No. 3 on the pop singles charts in the United States
and No. 1 worldwide it was especially big in
Catholic Ireland. -
Addressing herself to a "dear lady, sweet lady"
whose identity we never discover, Charlene warns of
the dangers of liberated sophistication she moved
like Harlow through Monte Carlo and showed 'em
what she had). The song includes a long spoken
monologue intended to be movingly direct but
for many listeners the part that hit home was this
one:
I've been undressed by kings
And I've seen some things
That a woman 's just not s 'posed to see. . .
Ive been to paradise, but I've never been to me.
Charlene's malaise the regret that is the sap
running through the song raises, from not having
fulfilled traditional sex roles. She speaks of missing
children she never had and longing for the husband
she never knew. Myself, I admire those who make
their choice and pay their price without whining
about it.
The real-life Charlene apparently has both cakes
and eats them with, if there were more energy in it,
what might be called gusto. She explained her suc
cess to the New Yorker and is quoted in an April 16,
1984, editorial: "My career just sort of fizzled Out. I
quit the business in 1980, got married, became a
Christian and moved to London, where I got a job as
the cleaning lady in a sweetshop, which is like a
candy store. Anyway, one day in 1932, 1 got a call
from Motown, and they said, 'Remember that song
you did about six years ago 'I've Never Been to
Me?' It's flying up the charts with a super-bullet, and
you better get back here.' . . . Now I'm about to
release a new album, 'Hit and Run Lover,' and my
career is going in a whole new direction. It's going in
a pop direction. And I've got a nev haircut it's
short. I'm very, very excited." .
The New Yorker goes on to compare her song's
comeback with the new popularity of Charles Por
tis's Dog of the South, but for me, the real interest in
Charlene's story lies in why her song took off with its
super-bullet two years ago instead of eight.
What people thought was sappy and silly in 1976
made sense to "them two years ago this was no
kitsch triumph. The values Americans hold about
relations between men and women have swung
back to the Ward and June Cleaver 1950s. The Equal
Rights Amendment was defeated by the kind of
obvious nonsense Phyllis Schlafly threw around.
The proportion of women to men in Congress or
in tenured university faculties has not increased,
but stayed low. New words like "Ms." and "chairper
son," which are perfectly natural and sensible, are
held in derision by the old boys who have power and
expansively "speak to" their piece. And a woman still
gets 59 cents for every dollar a man Intakes in this
economy. Charlene's soft advice to the American
women is the same as Ronald Reagan's get back in
that kitchen and rattle them pots and pans.
kind of cash to see performers the level of a Sinatra,
and, as one of the owners of Tommy's said, the
center will develop into "just a place where the rich
people in Lincoln can go to hear Pavarotti sing."
Tommy's will be one of the businesses plowed under
to make room for the center.
The UNL administration has made its intentions
clear, and the center's virtual slip into oblivion in the
last two months has further reduced student in
terest. Currently, the center is part of LB 11 28, with
the $7 million listed as an intent to be acted on in the
1985 legislative session. The Legislature will conduct
its own study this summer to determine the needs
for the center. They should find out that UNL
students and faculty have many other uses for $20
million than an arts center now. (
7rdV.Tri-l2ttIII
ust where is this war anyway?
I was just puzzling over why Mr. Reagan was hav
ing such trouble drumming up popular support for
his covert war in Nicaragua when the door bell rang.
It was my neighbor, Mr. Crannich, all decked out in a
forage cap, Sam Browne belt and puttees.
Arthur
ftf: ' Hopps
' - - M. M.
"I'm off to join the CIA to make the world safe for
democracy," he said, snapping off a salute.
. J clapped him on the shoulder. "Good Man, Cran
nich!" I said. "I'm glad someone's volunteering for the
president's all-out effort in Nic . . . "
"Shhh!" he hissed, glancing over his shoulder. "See
ing as how we haven't declared war on anyone, we
can't very well discuss our war plans. I simply signed
up when I saw that recruiting poster on TV which
says, 'Uncle Sam Wants You.' "
"What for?" I asked. . v. . -"
. Crannich shrugged. "Who can say?" he said. "But
while I am over somewhere fighting to make some
place free, I trust you will do your part to keep the
home fires burning." ' ..
"What can we civilians do?"
"You can start," he said, opening a folder, "by pur- -chasing
one of these $18.75 Undeclared Xfzt Ecnds
I examined it. "Does it pay undeclared interest?" I
inquired.
"How can you think of your taxes?! Crannich said
with a frown. "Don't you know there's an undeclared
war on, Mac?"
"Frankly, I can't stir up my blood lust," I admitted.
"Maybe you should hold some patriotic Undeclared
' War Bond rallies."
"We had one, but nobody came," he said. "Just
wait, though, until the president gets the covert-war
economy on a clandestine-wartime footing. Hell
expect you to plant a Secret Victory Garden."
"He can count on me," I said. "IH grow mushrooms
in the basement."
"I think it's OK to keep an unrevealed-war map
with pins on it," Crannich mused, "as long as it
doesn't depict any specific country. But dont let
anyone hang a Gold Star in the window. We wouldn't
want the enemy, whoever it may be, to think we're
up to something."
That makes sense," I agreed. "But can we gather
around the piano to drink beer and sing surreptitious-war
songs like 'It's a Long Way to Somewhere
or Other?" .
"Certainly," he said. "And toss in a couple of verses
of 'Good-by, Mama, I'm Off to an Undisclosed Desti
nation.' I think that's going to be the theme song of
Hollywood's big unannounced-war movie, The Sands
of Whatsitsface.'"
I said I could hardly wait. "But dont worry about
us, Crannich," I said. "It's you who are going forth on
The Big Adventure. Youll probably come home with
' a chestful of blank medals and an unperceived-war
bride who'll produce a passel of unexplained-war
. babies."
He chuckled modestly at that. And a lump came
: to ray throat as he went marchis i bravely off singing
"Over Where?"
But Crannich ij the exception. Between you and
me, I m not going to buy Undeclared Wr.r Bonds.J'm
going to give instead to the "Unperceivabh Society
for an Invisible Peace."
Poor Mr. Reagan. I can see now why he's having so
much difficulty. "When it comes to reusing the
nation to glorious battle," as William Tecumseh
Sherman said, "undeclared war is hell."
1984, Chronicle Publishing Co.
