Warren Adler's Blog, page 37
April 12, 2015
Let’s Hear it For Monica Lewinsky
I have only seen brief snippets of “The View” on television. As an older white male, I’m hardly the demographic they are looking for, but the news that Barbara Walters is eagerly pushing Monica Lewinsky to appear on “The View” as, perhaps, a regular, sounds to me like a brilliant idea. I think her presence might induce me to tune in frequently.
I confess that I know a great deal about how young women and young men were passed around like fresh goodies in the late fifties, sixties, and seventies in the nation’s capital. For seventeen years I ran an advertising agency in Washington, specializing in real estate and politics. And for ten years I accompanied my wife the editor of the Washington Dossier, to the social events hosted and attended by the powerful, the rich and the famous who ran America. I was the fly on the wall in the Washington playground.
Little did they know I was mentally taking notes for my planned oeuvre, now up to forty novels, many of them based on what I quietly observed and heard behind the scenes in Washington. Believe me, wearing both of these hats, was a Doctorate in America History, the kind of history that was once banned in Boston.
Back in the sixties, for example, my firm was charged with opening The Georgetown Inn, conceived as hoity toity version of “old world” hospitality, complete with butlers, shoes left in the corridors for shining and other amenities – a fantasy satisfied today by watching Downton Abbey.
My brief was to deliver the society, media, and political big shots for a once in a lifetime photo opportunity. In retrospect my clients got their money’s worth. The three reigning hostesses of that era, circa 1963, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Gwendolyn Cafritz, and Perle Mesta, all came with their glittering entourages. Other celebrities followed including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to whom I personally gave a tour of the new hotel, especially the Three Georges Restaurant. I’ll always remember the Duke’s quip thanking the management for naming the restaurant after his relatives.
I mention the Inn, largely because it became subrosa, a kind of hangout and private bordello for major politicos who brought their girlfriends there knowing that they would be safe under the care of my good friend and late manager of the Inn, Collins Bird. He was hardly an exception to what was happening all over town in those days. High level politicians had their mistresses. A number had their boyfriends. And they needed protective places for their hijinks.
One of the long running jokes between Collins and me was his plan to write a book about The Georgetown Inn, called The No Tell Motel. He told me he would print no more than six copies. I put in for the first one. Alas he died before his project could be consummated.
Everybody knew what was going on, including the media, and all were protective and pledged to secrecy. Exercising the venery was the Capitol pastime in those days. It was primarily a horny boys club and there was an army of available women who, heavens to Betsy, loved to party with the big shots fueled by ambition, hormones and just plain fun. Why not?
Hell, many members of Congress were away from their families during the week. But fooling around was “the” untouchable subject for mass circulation, except when it became publicly embarrassing, like the case of Wilbur Hays and Fanny Fox which became a kind of ice breaker on the subject of alcoholism and screwing around.
Because we had done such a great job with the Georgetown Inn, Bobby Baker called me one day and asked if my firm wouldn’t help him open The Carousel Motel in Ocean City. Our brief for Bobby was to bring a booze catered motorcade led by Perle Mesta and a gaggle of Senators and big time politicians for an outing at the Carousel. It got loads of publicity. In those days, Baker, who was the assistant and confidant to Lyndon Johnson through his days as majority leader of the Senate and was at that time President Kennedy’s Vice President. I loved Bobby. He was the quintessential Washington inside operator.
Later Bobby went to jail for too openly using his influence to enrich himself, another common practice in Washington in those days and perhaps, even more so, today, but he was flying high at the time of the Carousel opening. With Bobby, I gave the Johnsons a tour of the motel that day, although I found it strange that he suddenly grew apoplectic at Bobby for having our photographer show him with a drink in his hand. Good God! Hypocrisy on steroids. The Congress in those days ran on Bourbon and branch water with Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and the teetotaler Bob Kerr running the place. Drunks were everywhere including on the floor of the House and Senate.
In those days, Washington was a helluva open town. On the surface it seemed a staid conservative little village, but underneath it was everything goes, with lots of booze, after hours jazz, whore houses, and sex. As a hired hand and later a silent observer, I lived in the anonymous background and knew many of the secrets. Believe me it has given me a honeypot of stories that have since recirculated in many of my forty novels, especially in my Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series.
But I started this blog talking about Monica Lewinsky largely because the women’s stories of that time were mostly ignored and discarded. Since they were mostly raw meat living anonymously in the shadows when the particular party stopped, they disappeared into obscurity or managed to get a prime spot on the Washington merry-go-round. Some lucky ones even got a ring.
Many were, as the saying goes, thrown under the bus. Can anyone name those young women who lifted their skirts or got on their knees behind closed doors for the gratification of Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senators, Congressman, and cabinet ministers? They were the anonymous and unsung, some used, some abused. Some got what they wanted. Others filed their regrets under “unrequited love.”
Monica, to her everlasting credit, should be the designated heroine to every woman that has ever been used as a slab of flesh by a powerful man, then tossed aside humiliated and tormented by a stupid media and judgmental public. What the hell was Bill Clinton doing with her when he unzipped his fly, playing solitaire with his penis? Who was the power player in that scenario? Didn’t bubba know that the media rules had changed by the time he arrived at the top of the mountain?
Tell you the truth, I’m proud as hell of Monica who maintained her dignity under the most torturous public scolding every administered to a powerless woman. She was the quintessential rape victim told by the world that the rape was her own fault.
But then, we all know that life isn’t fair and that Bill got the pass of a lifetime. Ask any woman if they would park their shoes under his cot. I’ll bet the majority will raise their hand in eager assent. Nor it is a stretch to speculate that Monica is merely one of many. Go figure.
In many of my novels people have told me that women win. Indeed, I never thought of myself as a feminist writer, or any other ethnic or gender centric practitioner. I rarely bother myself trying to fit into labels. Or care. In fact, I once wrote a play called Libido, based upon the Clinton Lewinsky scenario. My producer, fearing reprisals by the Clintons, killed the project in abject panic. Actually all sides of that event were allowed to air their views and I think the audience would have wound up understanding them as human beings.
As for Monica, it’s about time she has her entitled moment. She wasn’t the first woman to be manipulated to drop her panties for the gratification of a powerful man. With her newfound celebrity, she got her mojo back, and has proved that she was not the valley girl airhead most of the hotshots of the world media made her out to be. Put her on “The View.” She is an American heroine.
Go Monica. Go.
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April 7, 2015
10 PERFECTLY NORMAL STRUGGLES WHEN WRITING A NOVEL (INFOGRAPHIC) featured on BookBaby
Check out the “10 PERFECTLY NORMAL STRUGGLES WHEN WRITING A NOVEL” Infographic on BookBaby!
Do you agonize over your titles? Are your friends worried about you because you don’t emerge from your office for days? Are you constantly rewriting?
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April 6, 2015
March 18, 2015
“On the Virtues of Pens, Paper & Pixels” featured on EMPTY MIRROR
featured on
“For writers of the imagination, what we fear the most is a disruption, a blockage, a sudden dam that changes the course of the river of creativity. Back in the late sixties and early seventies when technological innovation began to creep into the public consciousness, I shunned all the so-called marvels of computers when it came to my writing process.” Continue Reading
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March 12, 2015
Warren Adler’s “Hitler Returns in a New Edition” featured in THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Warren Adler’s “Hitler Returns in a New Edition” featured in THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Read the Entire Article Here
“Never has irony been more toxic than the planned reissue of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which has been prohibited from duplication in Germany since WWII. This reissue comes at the exact moment when anti-Semitism in Europe has risen to proportions not seen in decades”
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March 8, 2015
Hitler Speaks Again Through the Mein Kampf Reprinting
Never has irony been more toxic than the planned reissue of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which has been prohibited from duplication in Germany since WWII. This reissue comes at the exact moment when anti-Semitism in Europe has risen to proportions not seen in decades.
The copyright, owned by the Bavarian government who, to its credit, banned Mein Kampf’s duplication after the war, will expire in December, at which time the Bavarian government will issue a 2,000 page scholarly tome filled with footnotes, criticisms, and annotations put together by the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History. Footing the bill will be the German taxpayers.
This will open the door to other reissues of the book everywhere in Germany, and the resultant fanfare and worldwide publicity will likely be hailed by every anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Islamic terrorist group. This will reignite the smoldering pyre of combustible malevolence against Jews, a malevolence that lives like a bacterial infestation in the darkest recesses of our planet.
One can argue, of course, that this hate-drenched screed by a madman whose sick megalomania resulted in the deaths of millions, has been available for years on the Internet and stocked in bookstores throughout the world, including used editions in Germany. Only reprints had been banned. It is estimated that more than twelve million copies were published and various sources estimate that hundreds of thousands still survive in the German language.
Most of those who bore the backlash of the Nazi horror have died off and a younger generation has emerged who have no memory of the agony and pain inflicted on past generations. Indeed, the chances are that they have not been exposed to Mein Kampf and, at this stage, might have viewed it merely as an artifact of ancient history.
My concern is that the revival of Mein Kampf, burnished by the Internet and social networking, will open up a Pandora’s box, offering legitimacy and awareness to a global audience. Even now, the Internet is chockfull of relentless anti-semitic, anti-black, and pretty much anti everything that underpins democratic values and spews hate talk and propaganda emanating from extremist groups of all kinds. Indeed, ISIS has coopted many of the salient hate talk that vomits over the pages of Mein Kampf.
Calling attention to it in today’s toxic environment will surely reinforce the stereotypical malignance that Mein Kampf championed and which fueled WWII and the Holocaust.
I fear that the exposure will seduce many to discover this malignant tome and, as was once the case, buy into its deeply troubling message.
For many like myself who lived through that dark period, reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf ravings can be painful, especially his frequent harangues about “the Jew.” Two passages seem representative of this hate speak.
The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew uses every possible means to undermine the racial foundations of a subjugated people.
And this:
…the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.
Believe me, as a writer, I understand the power of words, but even so, I still find it difficult, despite the historical evidence, to get my head around the fact that such words could have fueled the Holocaust.
On the other hand, the events of contemporary history and the brutal rise of ISIS, once again validates what George Orwell wrote in his review of Mein Kampf during WWII. He wonders how Hitler was able to “put his monstrous vision across” and admits, “ it is not sufficient to answer that last question just by looking at the political and economic forces that buoyed Hitler’s rise.” Rather, he contends, “One has to grapple with the inescapable fact that there is something deeply appealing about him.”
Orwell was no slouch when it came to predictive insights. Unfortunately, for all of us, the echo of Hitler’s voice from hell is a chilling reminder that evil is a powerful, ever-present reality, and it requires that we maintain our strength, our vigilance, and our courage to prevent it from overwhelming us.
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March 3, 2015
March 2, 2015
TREADMILL eBOOK GIVEAWAY
Leave your email address in the comment section below to receive a free eBook copy of TREADMILL, Warren Adler’s newest Mystery Thriller Novel!
When a healthy diet and daily exercise are not recommended.
Jack Cooper is an unhappy man; mind, body, and spirit. In the blink of an eye, he lost his job to the economy, his mother to illness, and his wife to her secret lover. Beaten, broken, and crippled by tragedy, he has withdrawn into total isolation, maintaining the simplest of routines in order to block out his pain. Cooper’s day begins with a strenuous workout at the Bethesda Health Club—his personal oasis where his mind and body are free—and ends inside his bare apartment, where he escapes into his library of novels until he finally loses himself in sleep. Nothing more, nothing less. That is, until he meets the enigmatic Mike Parrish.
Stolen from the hospital as a newborn, and passed around from household to household, Parrish has no official identification. To the government and the world at large, he does not exist. He is an anonymous drifter, but also the first person who breaks through Cooper’s emotional confinement. Cooper finds solace in his friendship with Parrish, a man who understands his plight, and is sympathetic to his pain.
But then Parrish suddenly disappears, leaving Cooper to search for a virtually invisible man. As he looks for clues as intangible as ghosts, and chases leads as fleeting as shadows, his search leads him back to the one place he called his refuge: the Bethesda Health Club.
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THE ANATOMY OF A NOVELIST’S WORKSPACE (Infographic)
People often ask me where I write and what my workspace is like so I decided to do an “Anatomy of a Novelist’s Workspace” infographic – Enjoy!
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February 26, 2015
Warren Adler featured in THE JERUSALEM POST
“Have Jews Ever Been Safe in France” featured in THE JERUSALEM POST
Read the entire article here
“Will the French find ways to contain the already vast and still growing threat of extremist terrorism and protect the future of a free and democratic France? Or will they through political correctness and fear allow innocent citizens to fall victim to a swamp of intolerance and fanaticism? Will they pay greater attention to the protection of a dwindling Jewish population, or yield to the blatant hatred of Islamic terrorism? Like all people who love freedom and revere justice and equality, I wonder if the current display of solidarity to core democratic principles will make any difference to the twisted minds of bloodthirsty religious fanatics who seem to be growing unabated on the planet.” Continue Reading
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