AND HERE'S TO MRS. ROBINSON: 50TH ANNIVERSARY
(WARNING: SOME READERS MAY FIND SOME PASSAGES TO BE DISTURBING)
"And here's to you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus Loves You more than you will know.....whoa whoa whoa"
At the end of May in 1968 I went into the kitchen, sat down and ate my breakfast before heading off to school hearing those words over and over again.
Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" was a hit song, at the top of charts, being played on the radio in my kitchen and radios everywhere.
It connected with me where I was, a child eight years old, with 'dee dee's' and 'dah, dah's', the 'hey' hey, hey' and "coo-coo-cachoo" mixed in with the rest of the lyrics.
A phrase like "Jesus Loves You" had some connection to me, having experienced the summer Bible School's and some Sunday School visits as well. I would eventually grow into a very good Pharisee and hypocrite with that phrase.
Having the song and its lyrics drilled into me, the indoctrination by radio versus hearing it as part of "The Graduate" was probably key to my enjoying the song today.
If I had come across it in the context of the movie and its plot line with an older woman undressing and seducing a younger man I would have been startled and shocked. As it was I would see the movie years later on television a number ot times.
The year before I had been in a movie theater watching a James Bond movie (only 7 years old) and seeing Sean Connery unzipping a woman's dress. It got my attention. The notion of female flesh being exposed was disturbing to my psyche..
Unfortunately the year before when I was six years old, an older female decided to deliberately expose herself to me and undress me and 'rub me the wrong way'. I sure didn't know the "facts of life" yet. The light bulb would go off in my head reading a book about sex when I was 11 years old.
Thinking about what was done to me and what happened in "The Graduate" it all seems so insane and as the song says.......
"We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files. We'd like to help you learn to help yourself. Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes. Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home..."
In those times when this song was written, those considered insane or crazy or mentally ill etc. etc. were institutionalized. In fact people considered as such were warehoused by the many thousands across the country.
A network of "state hospitals" were spread out across my state of Pennsylvania. Seeing one of those places just from the outside of its buildings with the filth and squalor......... Courts would rule that most of those living in such places should be released and they were en masse in the 1980's.
We live with such people and the consequences of their twisted mindsets today. I accept that and the best I can do is to live a sane and sober life myself so I can be an example and be helpful to the 'crazy people' among me.
"God bless you please Mrs. Robinson, Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey...."
A few years ago in Northern Ireland "life imitated art" when a prominent politician, Iris Robinson, who was nearly 60 years old had an affair with a man some 40 years younger than her.
Iris Robinson identified as a Christian big time and was a member of a Pentecostal church who defended traditional values in her public political life .
"Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes. Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes. It's a little secret, just the Robinsons's affair, most of all you've got to hide it from the kids..."
When a family member discovered the matter, she attempted suicide and when the BBC decided to bring the whole affair out into the open she resigned from her political posts and went to a psychiatric clinic for nine months of treatment.
While that story was a very public one how many more such stories go on here there and everywhere some revealed to the public and some not so public, involving religious conservative people and others not so conservative and or religious.
And we have had such stories since the Beginning. Heck, there's lust in the Good Book like David and Bathsheba, the rape of Tamar and so on.
My own religious hypocrisy is what comes out foremost in my mind. I was wrong. God certainly wasn't although I would suggest strongly that the hypocrisy of religious people helps inspire more non-belief than anything else I see out there.
I would rather be angry a bit with myself and seeking my own sanity and sobriety in thoughts, words and deeds than dare I say it live out the life of a 'religious drunk' slinging the arrows at the "apostates" or "idolators" or "sinners" etc. etc. etc. while my own heart was wrong.
Everyone regardless of religious or sexual identity is a wrong doer in the Good Book, like the campaigning to be former President Jimmy Carter told "Playboy" in 1976: "In my heart I have lusted after women."
In the end my pride, vanity and use of "the Lord's name in vain" would do nothing to address the impact of that dark moment of sexual violation when I was six years old.
There's more to the song like this......
"....Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon going to the candidates debate laugh about it shout about it when you've got to choose every way you look at it you lose...."
Didn't understand that line as a child. I had to live a life in and around politics to finally understand the deep truth here. I utterly believe that 99 and 44/100 percent of politicians are corrupt and do the bidding of money from the business and banking elites locally, nationally, internationally and not the bidding of "We the People".
There are no differences between the 'Party of Six" and the "Half Dozen Party" at the end of the day.
Is there a difference between a "RePUTZican " and a "SCHMUCKocrat"?
If I want to be a drunk living in fear and resentment of one of those parties so much that I choose to vote for the other when the differences are not there as the propaganda says, I choose to be a fool
"Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo. What's that you say Mrs. Robinson,, Joltin Joe has left and gone away...."
I read a lot of books when I was a child in the late 1960's-early 1970's including ones about baseball.
The story of Joe DiMaggio and his record breaking 1941 hitting streak stands out in the sport of baseball.
I also recall Joe DiMaggio showing up when his ex-wife (and a pretty crazy person herself IMHO) Marilyn Monroe was buried in 1962. Seeing that scene always reminded me of whatever issues DiMaggio had in that marriage he was living life in that moment with class. God Bless the memory of Joe DiMaggio and the right things he chose to do.
And there it is, a song that weaves life into it and has my life weaved into it, the key to a good hit song.
A song more powerful than ever 50 years later.
Link below with some pictures from "The Graduate" in the early part beware.....
MRS. ROBINSON WITH LYRICS
