Apr 2020
I did not coin the title of this piece I am now writing.
In fact, I don't know who did. But I use it anyway for
two reasons: first, it is for me one of the most beautiful,
poetic phrases I have ever read; and second, it is the
title of one Johnny Mathis' most alluring love songs he
ever recorded. I grew up with Johnny Mathis. I fell in
love under his musical spell, as I'm sure millions of
other teenagers did in the 1950s.
As you no doubt know by now, Johnny Mathis is gay,
but I did know that growing up, and today, unless you're
a bigot like Trump, it does not matter in any sense. Actually,
looking back, I think the young, gay man, who is also black,
who helped millions of young Americans fall in love, is the
perfect joke against the pervasive racism that the imbecile
in the Oval Office has fostered, and therefore is one of our
nation's greatest ironies.
Someone once asked me "Tod, do you have any hobbies?"
I thought for a few moments and then said "Yes, I do. My
hobby is collecting beauty--beautiful moments, beautiful
music, beautiful acts of kindness." I have collected the
beauty of Johnny Mathis's singular singing gift almost my
entire life. His voice, in my opinion, is the finest, male or
female, I have ever heard during my life. Right up there
with Mathis is Art Garfunkel and his singing of BRIDGE
OVER TROUBLED WATER, which, I believe, will be
considered forever as the pop musical equivalent of Bee-
thovem's Ninth Symphony. (Garfunkel was two years
ahead of me at Columbia, but I never met him.) But Mathis'
song were romantic, whereas Garfunkel's immortal hit was
exquisite.
In 1954, the Warren Supreme Court unanimoulsy overturned
"Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896) and thereby rendered illegal se-
gregation, but look where we are today: naked racist rhetoric
from the morally ugly Trump that has given millions of other
American racists tacit permission to come out of hiding to spew
their filth across the entire country (remember Charlottesville and
the comments of the chief racist in the White House the morning
after?).
Johnny Mathis, as you know, coincided with Martin Luther King's
rise (1955) to lead the Civil Rights Movement and, as no doubt King
realized at that very moment that every next step he took literally
could be his last, which became true when a single rifle bullet struck
King in the head as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, April 4, 1968.
Both these men were heoric, albeit in somewhat different ways.
Mathis eventually owned his gayness and kept recording his beautiful
songs, and King, knowing he eventually would be murdered, kept true
to his moral values. Mathis is alive today, as are the truths of which
King spoke and gave his life for.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
In fact, I don't know who did. But I use it anyway for
two reasons: first, it is for me one of the most beautiful,
poetic phrases I have ever read; and second, it is the
title of one Johnny Mathis' most alluring love songs he
ever recorded. I grew up with Johnny Mathis. I fell in
love under his musical spell, as I'm sure millions of
other teenagers did in the 1950s.
As you no doubt know by now, Johnny Mathis is gay,
but I did know that growing up, and today, unless you're
a bigot like Trump, it does not matter in any sense. Actually,
looking back, I think the young, gay man, who is also black,
who helped millions of young Americans fall in love, is the
perfect joke against the pervasive racism that the imbecile
in the Oval Office has fostered, and therefore is one of our
nation's greatest ironies.
Someone once asked me "Tod, do you have any hobbies?"
I thought for a few moments and then said "Yes, I do. My
hobby is collecting beauty--beautiful moments, beautiful
music, beautiful acts of kindness." I have collected the
beauty of Johnny Mathis's singular singing gift almost my
entire life. His voice, in my opinion, is the finest, male or
female, I have ever heard during my life. Right up there
with Mathis is Art Garfunkel and his singing of BRIDGE
OVER TROUBLED WATER, which, I believe, will be
considered forever as the pop musical equivalent of Bee-
thovem's Ninth Symphony. (Garfunkel was two years
ahead of me at Columbia, but I never met him.) But Mathis'
song were romantic, whereas Garfunkel's immortal hit was
exquisite.
In 1954, the Warren Supreme Court unanimoulsy overturned
"Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896) and thereby rendered illegal se-
gregation, but look where we are today: naked racist rhetoric
from the morally ugly Trump that has given millions of other
American racists tacit permission to come out of hiding to spew
their filth across the entire country (remember Charlottesville and
the comments of the chief racist in the White House the morning
after?).
Johnny Mathis, as you know, coincided with Martin Luther King's
rise (1955) to lead the Civil Rights Movement and, as no doubt King
realized at that very moment that every next step he took literally
could be his last, which became true when a single rifle bullet struck
King in the head as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, April 4, 1968.
Both these men were heoric, albeit in somewhat different ways.
Mathis eventually owned his gayness and kept recording his beautiful
songs, and King, knowing he eventually would be murdered, kept true
to his moral values. Mathis is alive today, as are the truths of which
King spoke and gave his life for.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graaduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet, a novelist, and a human-rights advpcate his entire adult life.
