Frank Beacham's Journal

When the clock struck eight on the morning of April 6, 1921 — 100 years ago today — word went out across New York City for people to put down their drinks, or at least to finish them very quickly. Prohibition had begun

When the clock struck eight on the morning of April 6, 1921 — 100 years ago today — word went out across New York City for people to put down their drinks, or at least to finish them very quickly.

Prohibition had gone into effect nationwide in January, 1920, but to further persuade New Yorkers, Gov. Nathan L. Miller had pushed through a state law that made the city police responsible for enforcing the ban on alcohol.

Police officers were given orders to use all the force behind their uniforms to "put on the lid," The Times wrote that day.

The New York Times did not sound too eager to see the city wrung dry, writing, "There would be a dearth of alcoholic refreshment all over town."

McSorley's Ale House, the oldest saloon in the city, never had any real problems staying open and serving beer.

Joseph Mitchell wrote in The New Yorker in 1943: "McSorley's was never raided; the fact that it was patronized by a number of Tammany politicians and minor police officials probably gave it immunity."

Thanks New York Times!

Above photo of McSorley’s Ale House by Bernice Abbott

Serendipity in Media — A Personal Essay

Serendipity in Media — A Personal Essay

Some observers, such as the late Neil Postman in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, believe that the attention span of humans has decreased as modern technology — especially the internet and television — has increased in volume.

Internet users, especially young ones, can move from web page to web page at astounding speed. Most now spend only seconds on the average website. So today, a major issue for modern media is how to capture and maintain a user’s attention.

Studies have shown that the neural pathways of seasoned internet users are altered as they experience heightened activity in their pre-frontal cortexes (the area of the brain that is mostly responsible for processing complex thoughts, personality expressions, decision making and social behavior).

However, this fundamental “re-wiring” of the human brain as a result of heightened internet use means that “we read faster and less thoroughly as soon as we go online,” said Nicholas Carr in his seminal Wired article from 2010.

Carr reported that it is not only the span and scope of information that is detrimental to our ability to focus, but the speed and simultaneity at which we are exposed to it.

Hyperlinks, advertisements, share buttons and cues to related content are just some of the distracting influences that drive users away from the seemingly simple act of reading and exploring, not to mention the constant pressure of open chat windows, email updates and social media connectivity.

The bottom line, Carr found, is that attention is a limited resource that must be used wisely on the internet to avoid superfluous visual pathways and exits.

Sadly, this trend subverts the very core idea that Tim Berners-Lee conceived in 1989 when he invented the World Wide Web, the internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing.

The genius of the WWW's hyperlinks was the ability for ordinary computer users to easily discover new places and ideas with a simple click of a computer mouse. The very randomness of discovery through hit and miss surfing is one of the endearing strengths of the web.

Like the best of travel — the kind where there's no preset agenda — open-minded people make personal discoveries through accident and sagacity. It's a modern version of serendipity, the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

The issue of serendipity on the internet unexpectedly evolved into a major topic of discussion a few years ago at symposium at the Media Laboratory on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Peter Sellars, a noted director of theater, opera and film, offered memorable insight on the subject.

Hundreds of years ago, Sellars said, people in search of knowledge went on personal pilgrimages for information. The process, he said, could take years. By not having the information at their fingertips, there was experience attached to the search that made the finding of the information far more meaningful.

"The actual act of finding something had value," he said. "It was a beautiful thing because when you found something it meant something."

Now, said Sellars, "we are getting all this information with no experience attached to it. Where there is no pilgrimage, the information itself is debased, devalued and dehumanized. In a sense the ratio of experience to information content is radically altered. What's irritating about the age of information is that it creates this yuppie denial of experience. We have everything at our fingertips, but we don't value anything."

The "untamed quality" of the basic internet structure appeals to Sellars because it allows the user to wander and discover information through personal experience. "To just meander is one of the pleasures of life," he noted.

To have the audience making wrong turns through the information "is exactly the point," Sellars continued. "That's where the juice is."

Today's electronic media reflects only a single point of view. "A very narrow group of people are creating this insane gridlock" on information about human experience, Sellars said. "We are aware there are many, many voices that we don't hear today at all. The CBS Evening News represents only one voice."

Thinking, creative people, Sellars said, "must break out of the official information structure" to find new ways to express important subjects that mainstream media refuses to address. "You get the feeling that huge parts of human experience are going undocumented and unrecognized," he continued.

"Aristotle wrote about the attempts to touch the totality of an experience. As human beings, we are complex, divided and multilayered. Therefore, what satisfies us is complex, multilayered and has all these built-in conflicts just as we do. How do with set up (new media) structures that show how we really feel?"

We are only a few years into the science and art of web site design. Are most new web sites simply not complex, divided and multilayered enough to sustain a demanding audience?

Or, perhaps, is it that modern audiences are not as adventurous as they'd like to believe they are — quietly preferring the comfort of simplified, shorthand information delivery over a more demanding, thoughtful exchange of ideas?

These fundamental Internet questions are still on the table and have yet to be answered.

On February 8, 1968 — 53 years ago today — white highway patrolmen killed three black college students and wounded 27 others at South Carolina State College. A state-sanctioned murder, the cover-up still continues

White highway patrolmen take aim at black college students in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Feb. 8, 1968 — 53 years ago today

Racism is a very ugly thing. It escalated in the era of Trump, usually disguised as a public safety issue against immigrants or open prejudice against countries that the president deemed inferior. It will take a long time to undo the damage.

In the 1950s and 60s, racism took another form. Jim Crow laws were openly defended in the South and those demanding civil rights for all citizens were despised, beaten and arrested.

Today, the only difference is that police and racial beatings are often caught on video made by bystanders with iPhones. Law enforcement can’t deny the video, and more and more policemen are brought to justice.

The federal government — though on-board to stop racism in the late 1960s — still played catch-up in going to court to address the many civil rights violations in every aspect of life. For years, there were glitches in civil rights enforcement all over the nation.

One of those glitches — this time over a segregated bowling alley — happened in 1968 in Orangeburg, South Carolina, a town founded on slavery 400 years ago. The Ku Klux Klan and lynchings prevailed there during the Jim Crow years. But in 1968, before Kent State, there was the Orangeburg Massacre, the first mass police shooting on a U.S. college campus.

On February 8, 1968 — 53 years ago today — white highway patrolmen killed three black college students and wounded 27 others at South Carolina State College. It was state-sanctioned murder and the cover-up still continues.

In 1968, a loophole in the Civil Rights Act passed four years earlier led to some delay in forcing All Star Bowling Lanes to admit blacks. With two black colleges in Orangeburg and nowhere else to bowl, the bowling alley became a target for civil rights advocates. The black students at the colleges wanted to bowl there and staged a demonstration.

A conservative Southern governor, wanting to appear tough to his white constituents, overreacted to the civil rights protest ordering a massive show of armed force. As emotions frayed and the situation veered out of control, nine white highway patrolmen opened gunfire onto the campus of South Carolina State College.

All the students were unarmed and in retreat from the highway patrolmen at the time of the shooting. Yet, without warning, they were shot in their backs with deadly buckshot.

Until the shooting, South Carolina was a southern state that had proudly celebrated a record of nonviolence during the turbulent civil rights years. It was all really a charade. Nonviolence in South Carolina was equated with racial harmony in a white community with a paternalistic attitude toward its poorer black citizens. Equal rights were another thing.

To help protect its “progressive” self-image on racial issues, a web of official deceptions was created by South Carolina’s young governor — Robert McNair — and his administration to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.

The state claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen at the college. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense in order to protect themselves from a attacking mob of students.

To bolster that claim and deflect responsibility from its own actions, the state hastily devised a media campaign to blame the riot on Cleveland Sellers, a young black activist working to organize area college students.

Time would prove none of it was true. At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, upon outside scrutiny, it began to unravel. Then, with his legacy threatened, McNair broke nearly forty years of silence in 2006 in an attempt to put the pieces back together.

Ignoring facts proven over the years in court cases and through the first person accounts of eyewitnesses, McNair used local media and friendly “historians” as a tool to help members of his community lie to themselves about their own history.

In the last year of his life, he deliberately fogged and distorted the story of the Orangeburg Massacre.

Ramsey Clark, who was U.S. Attorney General in 1968, knows the truth and minced no words in an interview with me about what happened there.

“They committed murder. Murder…that’s a harsh thing to say, but they did it,” said Clark. “The police lost their self control. They just started shooting. It was a slaughter. Double ought buckshot is what you use for deer. It’s meant to kill. One guy emptied his service revolver. That takes a lot of shooting. The (students) are running away. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow! My God, there’s a murderous intent there. We are lucky more weren’t killed.”

Clark told me the student deaths were caused by police criminal acts. “The provocation for the incident was an absurd, provocative display of force,” he said.

Gov. McNair responded to Orangeburg with excessive police power because that was the politically expedient thing to do in 1968, the former attorney general said.

“Fear, anger, a sense of self-righteousness to justify hating began to be seen as successful politics.” When the tactic backfired, Clark added, state officials fabricated stories that many South Carolinians believe to this day.

So, after 53 years, the story of the Orangeburg Massacre still simmers, unresolved. It is the chilling saga of the horrors of law enforcement motivated by racism and hatred — and the inability of a Southern state to admit the truth.

The central theme is “mendacity,” the web of lies a community spins in a desperate attempt to maintain it’s self-image and dignity when confronted by its own prejudice. It’s a culture where words are constantly being redefined in order that a people can more comfortably deceive themselves.

Today, racism has been dressed up and made more sophisticated by the policies of a Republican-controlled legislature that still refuses to even investigate the massacre. The sad story is after a half a century, the state of South Carolina will not admit it committed murder in the shootings at Orangeburg.

The complete story of the Orangeburg shooting is in my book, “Whitewash: A Southern Journey Through Music, Mayhem and Murder.”

Photo by Bill Barley

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Apparently prospective horse sellers in England would give old or droopy specimens a rectal dose of ginger to make them cock their tails for a younger, zippier appearance.

From there it was just a short jump to alcoholic drinks that made humans perk up. The name stuck.

Thanks Dave Wondrich, a drinks historian, from the second edition of his reconstruction of mixed drinks, “Imbibe!,” and the New York Times.

Benjamin Franklin was born 315 years ago today.

Benjamin Franklin was born 315 years ago today.

One of the founding fathers of the United States and in many ways was "the First American," Franklin was a renowned polymath. He was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat.

As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity.

As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.

Franklin facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia's fire department and a university. He earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity. He was an author and spokesman in London for several colonies and the first United States Ambassador to France.

Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment.

In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat."

To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."

Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies. With two partners, he published the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies.

He became wealthy publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was also the printer of books for the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1742 on).

Franklin's printed Moravian books (printed in German) are preserved, and can be viewed, at the Moravian Archives located in Bethlehem. Franklin visited Bethlehem many times and stayed at the Moravian Sun Inn. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society.

Franklin became a national hero in America when as agent for several colonies he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament in London repeal the unpopular Stamp Act.

An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts to secure support for the American Revolution by shipments of crucial munitions proved vital for the American war effort.

For many years, he was the British postmaster for the colonies, which enabled him to set up the first national communications network. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he freed his own slaves and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential founding fathers, have seen Franklin honored on coinage and the $100 bill; warships; the names of many towns; counties; educational institutions; corporations and countless cultural references.

In the above painting by Jason Heuser, Franklin battles Zeus for lightning

More than two million Chinese government employees alone monitor China’s Twitter-clone, Weibo, the Beijing News has reported.

Not all of these people — rather amusingly called "internet opinion analysts" — are actively censoring web content. Instead they are trawling social media for troubling entries that are indexed and collated and then passed on to a presumably smaller group of actual decision-makers.

All of these people are apparently on the government's payroll.

In July, 1981, I went to China when it first opened to Americans. In those days, there was no internet, but still plenty of censorship. In fact, a guide told me a Chinese citizen could be put in prison for possession of a Playboy magazine. (I gave him one as a parting gift, being very careful in the handoff!)

China may be more modern today, but the reigns of censorship remain tight. The internet there is monitored closely — just as in United States and most other countries. Wherever you are in the world today, be aware.

Here I pose with two Chinese censors in 1981.

Where does the word “impeachment” come from?

The term impeachment is now associated with the most powerful public officials, but the Latin word it evolved from, “impedicare” (meaning “to fetter, to fix shackles on the feet; to hinder”), evokes a prisoner.

Old French turned it into empechier, from which sprang the Middle English empechen, meaning to physically hinder something (“an impeached ship”) as well as to bring a formal accusation.

The first recorded use of impeachment in the English Parliament occurred in 1376 with the removal of Baron William Latimer. Having created other levers of accountability, Parliament held its last impeachment in 1806 and now considers the procedure obsolete.

But the term had already been written into the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin pushed for its inclusion because he feared that the alternative to the legal removal of a corrupt official would be assassination.

Congress first held an impeachment in 1797 with the trial of William Blount, which was, until now, its only impeachment inquiry concerning foreign policy.

During the recent proceedings against the corruption of Donald Trump, a new symbol appeared. It’s the emoji of a peach. It is now found everywhere, from buttons to T-shirts to coffee mugs.

Thanks New York Times!

Living in a Time of Extreme Hate

I try to avoid the nasty politics of this era. I focus on creativity and what our species can achieve at his or her best. Yet, I grew up with hate in South Carolina, have written and reported about it, studied it and seen it wear different disguises over the years. It is often hard to ignore.

Mendacity — as Tennessee Williams so perfectly described it — constantly generates new disguises and wears many masks as those who practice it try to hide it. Mendacity is and always will be a fog of lies that allows humans to try to hide what is real in their lives and avoid facing it. The facade fractures and blows up occasionally, just as it has several times during the Trump era.

As sad as it is, we must face the harsh fact that the President of United States is now an integral part of this mendacity and the key reason for the violence of our times. Any educated, objective person knows this. The president has given his sad supporters “permission” to come out into the open with their prejudices. Of course, he denies it, but the truth is there for all to see.

We are, very sadly, a split nation and will remain so as long as this psychopath holds the highest office. Many of us have broken off friendships with his known supporters. I suspect there are more divorces than we know of over this continuing hatred and the violence that it leads to.

Racism has always been ugly. A president has finally given permission to his racist supporters to take off their masks. It has happened for all to see on television. All we see is rage, insanity and violence.

Shakespeare told us about these traits many years ago. Some of us learned what he wrote. But the current lack of education and jobs, coupled with extreme poverty and ignorance, has taken a huge toll. As a country, we have to dig our way out of it or we will cease to exist as a nation. It is a major and severe challenge ahead.

I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. That’s why I find solace in the creative arts. For me, the arts are the best way to enjoy life in a time of 24/7 chaos and despair. It’s all I know to do. Each of us must deal with it in our own way. But none of us should ever accept it. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Frank Beacham

Photo by Edu Bayer

It's the Story, Stupid

Our society’s storytellers — including musicians, actors, writers, artists, photographers and the backstage people that support their work — are going to have to rethink their places in the future.

How? I have some preliminary thoughts on the question. It’s not meant to be complete by any means, but only a baseline to begin thinking about the future.

What do all artists have in common? We are storytellers — in one form or another. Through our work as “communicators,” we seek to create stories that reflect on the human condition.

Some artists provoke, others make us reflect, some soothe us with beauty while others make us laugh. It’s a real hodgepodge, but in the end it is all storytelling.

Telling stories is an essential human need. It has been with us since the beginning of time — whether painting on the walls of caves, writing on stone tablets or telling stories around a campfire.

What is constantly changing is the technology used for presenting that art. In the pandemic of 1916, people had few ways to communicate. Today, we have the internet. It is not only keeping many of us sane, but offers one of the few ways today for artists to tell their stories to the world. This is a major plus.

But let’s face the hard truth. It is going to be a long time before audiences gather again, even after venues reopen. There will be fear of infection until a vaccine is readily available. Regardless of what the government tells you, it is going to be a very difficult period ahead.

Depending on how artists use the internet will determine the ultimate success...or failure.

For writers, videographers and still photographers, little has changed in the way we distribute our work. Most of us were already using the internet. In the coming days, each of us will use our creative sensibilities to tell stories that will seek to connect with people in crisis.

For musicians, the internet landscape is most interesting. Some big name performers are blowing it — with poor production values and really bad audio and video quality in presenting their work. Viewers will put up with poor technical quality for a very short time...after that all video is judged on its quality.

Many younger, amateur musicians are using the internet far more effectively than successful musicians used to working before live audiences. A shakeup may come from this in music. Video may be the great equalizer before this pandemic is over.

Judy Collins once told me that audiences want her to tell a personal story in performances after she sings a couple of songs. This is because people want to know behind the scenes anecdotes about the music they love. For some successful musicians, perhaps there is more power in stories than songs right now.

For actors, performing on stage isn’t going to happen soon. Who’s going to pay big money to be crammed close to others in a theatre? It will be a hard sell — at least for a while.

Again, it is interesting to see actors informally on video. Many big “stars” are awkward and incredibly uninteresting when out of character. Others are charming and delightful people that we see in a totally new way.

There is an opportunity to reinvent the concept of acting as storytelling. New opportunities are open to aspiring actors during this crisis. One person performances on video may be the future for some actors. Others may find their way to communicate effectively as real people. Creative thinking is needed here.

As to behind-the-scenes workers who know audio, lighting and stagecraft, there is a growing opportunity to help creative artists set up small scale home video studios.

Streaming media is the future (at least for now) and the rules of good production have not changed.

If I were a lighting designer, I would be using small, inexpensive LED lights to create home studio packages. A lot of entertainers definitely need help with audio and out of work sound operators could help. And surely there are better set backgrounds for video from homes than bookcases and cluttered home offices.

As a community of storytelling artists, the goal always has been to tell good stories from a unique point of view. Those stories may be local, national or global. But they are the “stuff” of all human communication. The need for good stories never goes away.

Humans always adapt to new situations...as the old ways disappear. The art will never change, but the way we deliver it to people is in play. This what we should be thinking about.

Orangeburg Massacre Remains Unresolved in South Carolina After 47 Years

Racism is a very ugly thing. In the 1950s and 60s, it was far more overt than it is today. Jim Crow laws were openly defended in the South and those demanding civil rights for all citizens were despised, beaten and arrested.

The federal government — then on-board to stop racism — played catch-up in going to court to address the many violations in every aspect of life. For years, there were glitches in civil rights enforcement all over the nation.

One of those glitches happened in Orangeburg, S.C.. In 1968, a loophole in the Civil Rights Act passed four years earlier led to some delay in forcing All Star Bowling Lanes to admit blacks. With two black colleges in Orangeburg and nowhere else to bowl, the bowling alley became a target for civil rights advocates. The black students at the colleges wanted to bowl there and staged a demonstration.

All this might be forgotten today if this racist act hadn’t led to the brutal massacre of several black students by white highway patrolmen. Even worse, it all led to a cover-up of the shooting that continues today — the 47th anniversary of what is known as “The Orangeburg Massacre.”

A conservative Southern governor, wanting to appear tough to his white constituents, overreacted to the civil rights protest ordering a massive show of armed force. As emotions frayed and the situation veered out of control, nine white highway patrolmen opened gunfire onto the campus of South Carolina State College — killing three black students and wounding 27 others.

All the students were unarmed and in retreat from the highway patrolmen at the time of the shooting. Yet, without warning, they were shot in their backs with deadly buckshot.

Until the shooting, South Carolina was a southern state that had proudly celebrated a record of nonviolence during the turbulent civil rights years. It was all a façade. Nonviolence was equated with racial harmony in a white community with a paternalistic attitude toward its poorer black citizens. Equal rights were another thing.

To help protect its “progressive” self-image on racial issues, a web of official deceptions was created by South Carolina’s young governor — Robert McNair — and his administration to distort the facts and conceal the truth about what happened in Orangeburg.

The state claimed the deaths were the result of a two-way gun battle between students and lawmen at the college. The highway patrolmen insisted their shooting was done in self-defense in order to protect themselves from a attacking mob of students.

To bolster that claim and deflect responsibility from its own actions, the state hastily devised a media campaign to blame the riot on Cleveland Sellers, a young black activist working to organize area college students.

Time would prove none of it was true.

At first, the state’s cover-up worked. Later, upon outside scrutiny, it began to unravel. Then, with his legacy threatened, McNair broke nearly forty years of silence in 2006 in an attempt to put the pieces back together.

Ignoring facts proven over the years in court cases and through the first person accounts of eyewitnesses, McNair used local media and friendly “historians” as a tool to help members of his community lie to themselves about their own history. For the last year of his life, he deliberately fogged and distorted the story of the Orangeburg Massacre.

One man who knows the truth minced no words about what happened in 1968.

“They committed murder. Murder…that’s a harsh thing to say, but they did it,” said Ramsey Clark, U.S. Attorney General in 1968. “The police lost their self control. They just started shooting. It was a slaughter. Double ought buckshot is what you use for deer. It’s meant to kill. One guy emptied his service revolver. That takes a lot of shooting. The (students) are running away. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!  My God, there’s a murderous intent there. We are lucky more weren’t killed.”

Clark said the student deaths were caused by police criminal acts. “The provocation for the incident was an absurd, provocative display of force,” he said.

Gov. McNair responded to Orangeburg with excessive police power because that was the politically expedient thing to do in 1968, the former attorney general said.  

“Fear, anger, a sense of self-righteousness to justify hating began to be seen as successful politics.” When the tactic backfired, Clark added, state officials fabricated stories that many South Carolinians believe to this day.

After 47 years, the story of the Orangeburg Massacre still simmers, unresolved. It is the chilling saga of the horrors of law enforcement motivated by racism and hatred — and the inability of a Southern state to admit the truth.

The central theme is “mendacity,” the web of lies a community spins in a desperate attempt to maintain it’s self-image and dignity when confronted by its own prejudice. It’s a culture where words are constantly being redefined in order that a people can more comfortably deceive themselves.

Today, that racism still exists in South Carolina, as in other places in the country. It has been dressed up and made more sophisticated by the policies of a Republican-controlled legislature that still refuses to even investigate the massacre.

The sad story is after 47 years, the state of South Carolina will not admit it committed murder in the shootings at Orangeburg.

The complete story of the Orangeburg shooting and its cover-up is the subject of my multimedia e-book, “The Legacy of the Orangeburg Massacre.” The price is $9.99. (ISBN-9781629218762).

The book is available at Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Kindle book store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store. It can also be bought directly from the store at Vook at http://store.vook.com/ and read online there on Macintosh and PC platforms.

Photo by Bill Barley