Monthly Archives: March 2016

For the last few years Kay and I have had the opportunities to travel to places we’ve dreamed about for years but been unable to afford. A relative on Kay’s side of the family has been generous with monetary Christmas gifts, and we have chosen to use that gift to fund travel. We booked two weeks for a France excursion with daytrips into Switzerland and Spain as we moved around the country. When we started booking our B&B’s, we discussed driving north to Brussels from Paris for a couple of days, but opted to go south instead. Then the terrorists struck in Brussels. It never occurred to us that we should cancel our trip. I recently heard a statistic that stated you are seven times more likely to die from being hit by a falling object than by a terrorist.

Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” With that in mind, I watched the film “Trumbo” about screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, who was caught up in the exposing of members of the Communist Party during a period in American history known as “the red scare.” This registered party was as legitimate and legal a political entity as the Republican and Democratic parties. About the same time the Dixiecrats (a splinter from the Democratic Party which gave us the likes of Senator Strom Thurmond) was also formed on the sole platform of segregation and state’s rights; these folks still seemed eager to fight the Civil War that was settled over a hundred years before and had claimed the lives of over 600,000 American citizens before the powers that be stopped the madness. But in 1948, nobody in Congress seemed to think that the members of the Dixiecrats were worthy of Senate Committee hearings.

The Communist infiltrators that were secretly taking over our government in the late 1940’s into the 1950’s were hauled before Congressional tribunals for the main purpose of allowing the likes of Senators Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon to show the country they were earning their paychecks by protecting our vulnerable nation from the communist infestation. The only people during that time who actually went to jail were primarily Hollywood screenwriters who had chosen to exercise their right to free speech and assembly by joining the Communist Party. These people never broke any laws. Then in 1954, the Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure McCarthy for his over-reaching “red scare” tactics, one of the few Senators ever to be disciplined in such a fashion. Three years later he died in disgrace from the effects of alcoholism. And twenty years after these Senate hearings, Nixon gave us Watergate.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of doing a production of Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible” for Nashville Repertory Theatre. Miller wrote the play during the time of the “red-scare” Senate hearings and set the story during the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693. Some of the religious leaders of the time were attempting to weed out those people who did not hold to their strict understanding and interpretation of Scripture or the general religious teachings and doctrines of current scholarship at the time. I played Governor Danforth, one of those ordained ministers appointed to purify the flock from the dreaded witches. Danforth and the other judicial powers did more than just hold a few hearings. They executed those people who failed the bona fide tests of being religiously devout. Fear was then and is now a terrible tool to wield in determining an acceptable level of one’s piety.

In an article in Scientific American entitled “Factoring Fear: What Scares Us and Why,” Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University states, “Since our brains are programmed to be similar in structure, we can assume that what I experience when I’m threatened is something similar to what you experience.” Fear even affects different species in similar ways. LeDoux continues with “We come into the world knowing how to be afraid…noting that the brains of rats and humans respond in similar ways to threats, even though the threat itself might be completely different.”

What I assume from this statement is that when faced with an external life-threatening danger the rat and I will mostly likely scurry away to the nearest hiding place. But the difference comes when exposed to hate-speech and fear-mongering. A rat will continue to blithely eat his cheese while listening to the dire and spurious warnings of Joseph McCarthy while some humans will believe that America is being taken over by Communists. I recommend watching Norman Jewison’s film, “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” for a humorous look at our easy-to-fool human nature.

What else we have in common with our furry friend is the mob-mentality. In the same article, Michael Lewis, director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. states, “The behavior of people around us may influence our responses to threatening situations. We learn to become fearful through experience with the fear event, or learning from those people around us like our parents, our siblings, our colleagues.” Lewis goes on to say, “Fear has a certain contagious feature to it, so the fear in others can elicit fear in ourselves. It’s conditioning, like Pavlov and the salivating dog.”

Since I have broken the socially unacceptable rule of allowing the subjects of politics and religion to creep into this commentary, let me state that I am both political (I vote) and religious (I embrace the Christian faith). Granted that although there are a plethora of knuckleheads in both arenas who love to frighten us, they do not keep me from voting and praying.

In “Henry VI, Part 1,” Joan of Arc says in Act 5, “Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.” I’m not sure exactly what Shakespeare meant with that line, but one possible meaning might be that fear when not elicited by a life-threatening danger invariably leads to dysfunctional choices and destructive consequences. Once Ms. Arc finished leading her own crusade, she ended up burned at the stake after falling out of favor with the political and religious leaders. Poor girl just could not get a break.

The most often spoken admonition in Scripture, or any of its close derivatives, is the phrase, “Do not be afraid.” The words are used hundreds of times. It was obvious then as now that we humans are naturally prone to fear, and it was God’s desire for us not to be afraid. So as songwriter Pete Townshend of The Who suggests in the song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” do not be afraid of politicians, religious fanatics, terrorists, (and even the random object falling from the sky), who would use verbal or violent fear stratagems to scare us into hiding places, or worse, force us to live under their power. As for Kay and I, it was full speed ahead to France.

In honor of my friend, Scot Copeland, who shuffled off his mortal coil on this day a year ago, I am re-posting this remembrance. He has left a hole in the hearts of many across this land, and while his work will be celebrated on into the future, it is the heart of the man that we cherish and hold dear. God bless you, B.A. 3, and Rene, and Josh and Ben.

Back in 1951 some friends of Groucho Marx pressured him to join the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills. He never participated in any of the club’s activities, and after his short-lived membership, he wrote a letter of resignation to the president of the club. The president responded immediately with his own letter asking for an explanation for his abrupt and unexpected departure, and Groucho promptly wrote back: “Because I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.”

In his lifetime, Scot Copeland was given awards and memberships to many organizations, but there was a little known club to which he belonged that was so exclusive it had only three members: the Bad Ass Club. Its origins began years ago through an unusual set of events.

In the summer of 1999 after her first year of college, my oldest daughter, Kristin, had a suitor she had dated at college pay a visit to the farm. He had expressed his affections, and Kristin entertained the notion that this relationship had potential. But after a couple of days of close quarters, Kristin knew this was a dead end street and put the poor boy on the plane in tears at the end of his stay. She was a bit melancholy after returning from the airport, and so Kay and I decided we would take her out to dinner and cheer her up. Kristin and I got into the car, I in the driver’s seat and Kristin scooting into the back seat, and we waited in the driveway for Kay to join us. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw my daughter’s downcast eyes.

“Honey, I know it’s tough but you did the right thing. I’m proud of you,” I said, but my vote of confidence in her judgment on ending this romance received a tepid, “Yeah. Thanks, Dad.” So I tried the big-picture approach.

“So Kid, when you are imagining the guy you would fall in love with and see as a lifetime partner, what kind of guy would he be?”

She was quiet for a moment, the sound of the idling car engine filling the silence, and then she responded.

“I want a Bad Ass like you, Daddy.” And she paused briefly before adding. “…and Robert Kiefer.”

My heart swelled with pride. Even if it wasn’t true, the fact that she believed it and stated it was enough. I wanted to be sure of the veracity of what she said and looked into the rearview mirror once again. She bore a solemn countenance; this was no joke; this was no flattery; this was her thoughtful response to an honest question.

Of course I called Kiefer with the good news, and like me, his heart did back flips when he heard he had been one of the chosen few. For a while we went around with puffed chests and a “Sons of Anarchy” swagger, proud of our exclusive membership in the Bad Ass Club until time and gravity began to ding and dent our façades. It wasn’t long before we extended membership privileges to Mr. Copeland who did not hesitate accepting the invitation.

The three of us mistakenly thought that the quality of membership was to spend time in secret locations sipping expensive whiskey, swearing, eating red meat, swearing, smoking cigars, swearing, and reshaping the world to our specifications and with much better lighting. And did I mention swearing, blue language spoken with our “outside” voices (thus the reason for secret meetings), mainly because all three of us were going deaf with age. We simply referred to one another as Bad Ass One, Two, and Three, Scot being B.A. 3 only because he was the club’s youngest member.

It came as a shock to Kristin that Kiefer and I had, on our own, inducted Scot into the club without her knowledge or permission. We had done this after one of the shows we worked on together as the three of us stood in a circle, arm-in-arm just laughing and enjoying one another for no other reason than that we were all past sixty years of age, had been artists all our lives, and just By-God, loved each other. Sometime after this ménage a trois (French for “household of three”) of Bad Ass manliness backstage at NCT, Kristin informed me that Scot was not an “official” member until she said so. Duly noted, thus Scot was put on temporary probation until the Queen extended him her scepter. Scot’s dragon tattoo gave him a leg-up—Kristin herself the canvass of such colorful artwork—but still he had to be interviewed.

Fast forward to the end of February, 2015, at the funeral of my dear mother, Bernie Arnold. Scot came to the church straight from rehearsal. I pulled him out of the receiving line for a little one-on-one. Bad Ass 2 (Kiefer) had yet to arrive. When Kristin saw us standing off to the side, she came straight over and began the interview process. For her, a Bad Ass had very specific qualities. In her words, a Bad Ass is “someone who is a defender of the people he loves, loyal to the end, doesn’t mince words, doesn’t play it safe, loves and fights with equal passion, knows himself and doesn’t compromise to fit any mold. When a Bad Ass loves you, nothing else compares.” For Kristin, a Bad Ass was someone who was not just a character or could play a character, but someone with character. It did not take Kristin long to size up the man. After a few minutes with Scot, she turned to me and said, “He’s in.”

On the morning after Scot shuffled off his mortal coil, I called B.A. 2 and said, “We’re down one member.” We both sighed and wept.

In the coming days, stories and remembrances of Scot Copeland will flood in from far and wide. He is worthy of all the praise he has and shall receive. He was a man who displaced air, who defied the ephemeral nature of theatre to create stunning works of beauty, a pirate in good standing, a seer of dragons, a man who improved all the lives he touched, a Bad Ass to his core and worthy of my daughter’s definition, and an irreplaceable husband to Rene and father to Josh and Ben. His sudden exit has made a hole in all our hearts, and what gets me is that he offered no explanation for his departure and asked no one’s permission.

Why could this not be just another tech rehearsal where we would hear Scot say, “Hold please,” and we all go back to our first positions for another chance to get it right? Unfortunately, life is not a rehearsal. So love well as did my Bad Ass friend, Scot Copeland.

B.A. 3, the light is always on. Drop by anytime.