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robokraft · 7 years ago

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“One-Man Bucket Brigade”

by Robert Kraft

My brother committed suicide on a rainy Saturday in December, 1990. Two decades of relentless family drama, institutions, psychiatrists, halfway houses, hopeful moments and crushing setbacks ended with a pair of impersonal phone-calls. At 5 a.m., my parents were informed that my brother's car had been discovered - lights on, trunk open, overcoat and wallet on the front seat. At 5 p.m., after an anxious, gray day of sitting by the phone, a Maryland State Trooper called with the news that my brother's body had been recovered by divers directly under the bridge he'd jumped from. And now, days later, one of the most confusing aspects of his death, and his life, has become clearer.

Two remarks by his last girlfriend - he had had several over the twenty-two years of his illness, all wonderful, devoted, loyal - clarified something for me. As my mother and I spoke with her by phone two days after the event, she described a scene that occurred a few nights before my brother tied a cinder block around each ankle and hoisted himself over the parapet of the bridge, plunging into seventy-five feet of water in an icy Maryland reservoir. She saw him laugh only infrequently, she said, but when he did, she would tell him how rare and wonderful it was to see that part of him. (She said she saw that laughter the last Tuesday he was alive, when he was being badly beaten at chess by her ten-year old son.) She told him she enjoyed his humor, and asked why she didn't see more. She said he replied, "That part of me is in storage, along with the rest of my belongings."

That remark made me realize that my brother was never unexceptional, had never lost the uncanny number of abilities that made him Phi Beta Kappa his junior year at Harvard, or captain of his high-school tennis team, or star of the school musicals, or the author of poems, stories, articles and books, or friend to dozens of interesting and unique people. It was simply that the sparkling parts of him had to be put "in storage" while he battled the fire that raged in his skull. The duty of Emotional Fire-Chief was a 24-hour a day occupation, and all the talents, the abilities, the incredible potential, simply had to be stored while the battle was waged.

In the beginning, as his younger brother, his illness was difficult to believe, and even harder to accept. To me, the possibility seemed remote that something more serious was occurring to my brother, and our family. We were all too blinded, too ambushed, by the sudden and violent onslaught of this radical condition - the experts began to recognize it as "classic, brittle, manic-depression" - to peer beyond the ever-disturbing psychotic "episodes" (as his manic highs were called) that punctuated each season. The memory of the youthful, sparkling, easy-going brother was so fresh, so recent, that this transformation would surely be temporary, and curable. Out there, in the vapor world of mental health, there had to exist some medical, or pharmacological, or spiritual solution.

However, as the years became decades, and the shock of those first post-adolescent breaks evolved into a daily struggle with the specter of impending trauma, the illness seeped into the very fiber of our family. Like mercury, however, we remained unable to grasp the essence of the difficulty. An endless parade of doctors marched through our lives, each, for that moment, bringing the promise of, if not a cure, at least a respite. Geographic experiments coincided with medical, with apartments, shared houses, and supervised communities all failing to provide anything more than a different locale for the next episode. And each break would eventually land my brother back in our childhood home, in the arms of his eternally devoted mother and father. Robert Frost's remark, "Home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in", never applied so thoroughly.

My parents were unflagging. As cheerleaders, orchestrators, hand-holders, nourishers, solution-seekers, coordinators, bankers, landlords, backbones. They were the perpetual safety net. It became a family ritual to anticipate a grandiose, hallucinatory event around holiday time, routinely followed by hospitalization and subsequent depression. The transitional period that accompanied the end of summer and the onset of fall was another annual danger zone. These crises eventually led to the same solution, a "band-aid" that was always available, until a tourniquet could be located. My brother would move back home, renew his ties to an institution near our family's house, (usually as a combination of in- and out-patient), and with some embarrassment, find a job in the community he grew up in. Eventually, he would grow strong enough to decide, often defiantly, that it was time to move out, time to find his own place, a new job, a new city. Those were hopeful, and frightening, times.

In the last few years, the prospects for a solution began to dim. The memory of the vibrant, shining, exuberant young man began to recede, replaced by images of a brooding, puffy, medicated stranger. Communication was always complicated, but as my brother entered his mid-thirties, he proceeded to distance himself even from those who cared for him the most. He continued to experiment with paths that were fraught with unreality, even for the healthiest among men. I remember when he decided to study Talmudic law (in the final years of his life, my brother explored Orthodox Judaism with varying degrees of commitment) while living in a Wellness Community in Vermont. He would describe his life as a combination of daily farm chores, followed by a walk to the town's library to sit for hours transcribing Torah passages.

Still, the family had perverse hopes that "maybe this was the solution". It had it's merits: a lovely, rural setting, a strong religious focus, a quiet protective, medically supervised environment to heal in. Yet, like dozens of previous scenarios, this one too ended in a paranoid manic crisis, followed by hospitalization.

It was at this point, just after an episode, that my brother was the most reasonable. It was as if the slope between the extreme high and the subsequent depression was gentle, and level. It was then that we could reach him, suggesting that possibly his approach toward health might have been suspect or incomplete, that maybe together we could explore yet some other alternatives. Whereas months earlier, no amount of cajoling, reasoning, or healthy discussion could convince my brother that his behavior was dangerous, in this period he would ruefully shake his head and agree. It was at that moment that my relationship with him would blossom, when our bond as brothers, and friends, was fresh and strong. For a day or two, he was my big brother again, funny, a little sad, completely human. That was when we were closest, when I loved him most.

That period in Vermont became just another footnote in the lengthening list of unsuccessful solutions. After a few weeks on suicide watch at the local clinic, he had moved back home again, made some attempts to relocate to an Orthodox Jewish community in Northern New Jersey, and eventually, after a subsequent hospitalization at Johns Hopkins, settled on a doctor and a halfway house in Baltimore. For ten months he struggled. Every morning he resisted the urge to remain in bed, opting to put on a suit and tie and keep the job a friend of my parents secured for him in a real-estate office. On weekends, he occasionally accepted invitations from old school chums, or visited the new friends he had made through the synagogue, the therapy group, the hospital. He complained that at the end of a week, he hardly had the energy on Saturday to get out of bed. We all wondered if the handful of brightly colored pills he consumed twice daily was wreaking physical havoc on his system, while it was supposedly controlling his moodswings.

There was something different about him now. Something ominous, something hopeless. Our weekly conversations routinely revolved around the emptiness he felt in his life, the fact that he felt "bankrupt", helpless, and unable to discern any possibility for a solution to his chronic condition. And he increasingly mentioned suicide, remarks I would acknowledge disapprovingly, then hastily and uncomfortably brush off. My pep talks were always the same: "Don't idealize anyone else's life, because everyone is struggling, not just you." Or, "let's look on the bright side: your job, your new friends, your invitation for the upcoming weekend that might be fun..." etc. Occasionally I found myself wondering if I should take my own advice, because it made life's complexity sound so simple and upbeat and easy. In our final conversation, I remember telling him that "the goal" was not the issue in life, but "the challenge". "We've all got to rise to the challenge", I bravely admonished. I remember the defeat in his voice when he softly replied, "I don't think I can."

His last girlfriend told me one other thing he said to her. My brother wanted to see the film "Rain Man", but after seeing the movie, he had become agitated, even teary. He told her he knew he was getting sick again, and that it was such a terrifying feeling. That was many months ago, but shortly after making that remark, he was hospitalized again, his 22nd committal in as many years.

When she relayed that story, it made me wonder. On that Friday night in December, at the end of one more painful week, with the holidays fast approaching, I wonder if he felt that fire starting again, like it had sparked and burned and smoldered and flared so many times before. After twenty- two years of fire-fighting, from February 1968 to that Friday night in 1990, the flames were beginning to creep once again. And maybe, finally, the burnt-out shell of a life just couldn't sustain one more blaze, one more alarm, one more emergency, one more rescue attempt, one more third degree burn, and the only solution was to drown the flames, literally, in the icy waters of a Maryland reservoir.

I also understood why there could be four hundred people at his funeral - all wonderful, devoted, loyal - and why he could die such a lonely man. Here were the dozens of friends that had remained faithful in sickness and in health, the people that over the years had been attracted to the parts of my brother that peeped through the clouds of anxiety and depression. But none of them, no friend, doctor, rabbi, mother, father, or brother could climb inside his skull and hoist a bucket to douse the flames. We could, and for twenty-two years, we did, provide access to the greatest supply of fire-trucks, fire fighting techniques, fire protection information - even the purest sources of water available - yet it was a one-man bucket brigade to the end. All those four hundred people could do in the end was watch the house burn down.

In the end, what remained were the memories of a life that was both full and full of pain, somber yet intricate, rich in feeling but barren of the simple pleasure of serenity, and the rarest gift of all, peace of mind. And in storage: hand-written poems, Hebrew texts, bookshelves, turtleneck sweaters, a Harvard diploma, silverware, childhood photos, an upright piano, and a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Princeton, N.J.

December 1990

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robokraft · 7 years ago

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My Summer with Man Ray

I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. My mother was a tennis teacher, and my father was a builder. Down the street from our house lived the architect who had been my father’s partner on his first housing development, David Savage, who was also a noted sculptor and painter. His wife was Naomi Savage, an accomplished and admired contemporary photographer…and the niece of the legendary Dadaist, Man Ray.

The myth of Man Ray was a central part of my growing up. Our family was very close to the Savage family (my mother was particularly close to Naomi), and my best friend throughout elementary school was their son, Michael Savage. There are photos of Michael and me sharing a crib when I was just a few weeks old, and he was 6 months. Little did I realize how profoundly this artistic household would alter my life.

Man Ray’s art was everywhere throughout their house. In Michael’s bedroom was Man’s legendary painting of a billiard table with multi-colored clouds overhead, as well as a framed sketch from Man Ray’s art school days, showing Man’s poorly-drawn rendering of a Native American warrior’s arm….corrected in the margin of the drawing by his drawing instructor.

There was a metronome with an eye on it in the living room (“Indestructible Object”), an old-fashioned iron with nails soldered to the iron’s base (“Le Cadeau”) on a bookshelf - both now in the Museum of Modern Art - and random photographs of poets and painters throughout the house…all epic works of 20th Century modernism that just happened to be by “Uncle Man.”

There were also semi-annual visits by Man Ray - the twinkly and compact artist, with his Brooklyn accent and his signature beret - and his friend, Marcel, a thin and dapper Frenchman who smoked little cigars and laughed as they sat around the pool in the Savage’s backyard. During these visits the kids were usually oblivious to “the adults”, but I was dimly aware that Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp were important guys, because their visits had a very special air to them. There is a great photo somewhere of Laurie Savage, Michael’s younger sister, hanging off a tree above Man and Marcel, as they lounged in chairs in the backyard. It was just that casual.

By the time I went to college, I was fully aware of who Man Ray was, and his subtle yet seminal influence on the history of modern art. And ironically, though I fully intended to study music in college, I received a much warmer welcome from the Art Department, where I ended up. Man Ray was a hero to my classmates, and they were amazed that I had hung out with him as a child.

As the summer break after my junior year approached– 1975 – I hatched a plan to work in Boston until July 1st , and then head off to Europe by myself. It was my sophomoric version of “On The Road: European Edition.” My plan was to burn through my Europass for a couple weeks, and then go find Man Ray in Paris. He had floated an invitation to visit “whenever you get to France”, and I intended to cash in that chip.

Naomi wrote her uncle to tell him my dates, and received a response instructing young Monsieur Kraft to arrive at his studio, “2 bis, Rue Ferou”, on the appointed day in mid-July. I imagined that I would spend the rest of my summer on the Left Bank, making tea for the Old Master, while hearing ribald stories of the Surrealists powering absinthe at Brasserie Lipp and Les Deux Magots.

For two weeks I took trains around Europe... from London to Bruges, to Vondelpark in Amsterdam where I learned the limit of my capacity for hash-laced cigarettes. Finally it was time to train to Paris’ Gare du Nord and start my summer with Man Ray.

I arrived at 2 bis Rue Ferou, a quiet street just south of the Luxembourg Gardens, on a wonderfully sunny morning. I marveled at how the street perfectly reflected the iconic Man Ray painting, “The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse”, where a shadowy woman is wheeling an object down the narrow lane, next to an ominous wall. Here I was at the front door, the ominous wall in the Surrealist masterpiece stretching along to my right.

After several rings – and a mounting sense of anxiety – an older woman answered the door. This was definitely not Juliet Man Ray (as Man’s wife called herself), who I’d also known growing up, but a housekeeper who didn’t speak English. When I told her my name, she asked me to wait at the door, and returned with a small, folded piece of paper.

It was a note from Man Ray, telling me his plans had changed. He had been invited to spend the remainder of the summer at the home of his art dealer, who had a house in St Tropez. The dealer’s name was Luciano Anselmino, and I was enthusiastically invited to come and visit. There was a phone number, no address, and Man Ray’s familiar signature.

I had no idea where St Tropez was, or how to get there, or exactly what to do once I did get there - except to call that number. There used to be a bookstore on Paris’ Left Bank called “The Village Voice”, which carried all English-language books, and I walked there to do some research.

I spent one more night in Paris, at the Hotel Solferino ($6 a night including a fresh, warm croissant and coffee in the morning) and the next morning I boarded a train to Nice. At Nice, I located the bus that would take me west on the Grand Corniche, a road known for its soaring views and perilous hairpin turns high above the blue-green Mediterranean.

Disembarking in St Tropez, I crossed to a café where a black man holding a trumpet was leaning against a wall, talking loudly on a pay-phone mounted near the door.

“I’m gonna come home and fuck you silly” he was saying in perfect English. “I’m gonna fuck you to death. You just wait. My dick is hard just thinking about you.” I assumed he thought no one could understand him, so it was remarkable to hear this romantic conversation spoken so brazenly within earshot of the café tables.

I always loved the karma of meeting an African-American musician as my first friend on the Riviera. And his call was a fitting introduction to the debauchery ahead.

After chatting and ascertaining that he was part of a touring jazz band, and that he missed his girlfriend in New Jersey terribly (I guess so!), I approached the phone and dialed the number on my folded slip of paper. An Italian answered speaking no English – then momentarily put the phone down – and finally came back - and together we ascertained where my café was, and where I should wait to be picked up.

Had I been more sophisticated, I should have known by the car that picked me up – a late model convertible Alfa Romeo driven by a young Marcello Mastroianni stunt double – that my Riviera adventure was about to level up. And after racing up the hills of St Tropez, where each perilous curve providing an increasingly fabulous view of the sparkling Mediterranean further and further down below, the house that came into view was a good indication of what lay ahead.

The driveway featured two red Ferrari’s, a black Lamborghini, and several multi-colored Vespas. The house was white on white, enormous and regal – a millionaire’s mansion with a two-story glass entryway. And stepping inside, I could see straight through the house to the sloping green lawn and distant turquoise sea, shimmering beyond the grassy backyard and shaded pool ringed with striped umbrellas.

The driver took my backpack and led me out to the pool. This was a Fellini movie in full swing, with topless women sunning on chaises, men oiling lotion on each other, tan and shirtless attendants serving drinks, and an activity occurring on a raft in the center of the water that looked uncannily and profoundly illegal. It was a bright sunny Riviera afternoon, and I had just entered Bacchus’ Personal Pool Party.

A large man - 6 feet, 250 pounds and dressed in some kind of toga - approached me, accompanied by a smaller, thinner, younger blond boy. “Ciao, Robert! Welcome! I’m Luciano! Have a hit!” The blonde boy produced a small silver vial and held it up to my nose.

I knew about cocaine, which was just becoming fashionable, but I’d never had any. Within minutes I was lit up, staring at naked breasts and a blazing Rivera sun, fully entranced by my new membership in the international jet-set.

The afternoon blended into the evening, and by dinnertime I had been high all day. After a rollicking late dinner at an enormous banquet table, with conversation (and loud, drunken arguments) in French, English, and Italian, Juliet Man Ray came up to me to say “I’ll escort you to your room now. You’re sleeping in our wing of the house.“

Juliet and Man Ray had a completely separate area of the house for their bedroom and guest room, and my room shared a little hallway with theirs. Juliet - a famous dancer in her prime - was clearly concerned about my “safety“ in this crowd (and maybe also her responsibility to my mother’s friend, Naomi, back in Princeton). She indicated not so subtly that once she and Man went to bed, I was expected to remain in their portion of the house.

After making a somewhat dramatic showing of how tired I was after a long day of travel, I bid my surrogate grandparents-cum-chaperones good night, and dutifully checked into my room. My intention was to pretend I was asleep, and once it was clear they had gone to bed, to sneak out and check out the non-stop party that had kicked back into gear around the pool. However, Night Number One transpired uneventfully, as my first evening’s plans in St Tropez were trumped by my need for some deep and much-needed sleep.

The next day was absolutely gorgeous. Luciano‘s house sat on a magnificent hill overlooking all of St. Tropez, and the beautiful sloping lawn had several wonderful sitting areas for conversation, reading, and sunbathing.

After coffee and breakfast, I wandered outside to reflect on my good fortune. I didn’t see Juliet or Man Ray anywhere, but sitting alone halfway down the hill was a woman I had noticed at dinner the night before. She was very attractive, an “older” woman who had spoken occasionally in Italian, while looking at me playfully throughout the meal. She seem to be in her mid-30’s - which to me was way above my pay-grade - so I didn’t pay much attention to her.

Spotting her sitting on the lawn, I realized she was beckoning to me to come join her in the empty chair across from where she sat. I walked over, seated myself, and said the only word in Italian I knew, “Ciao”.

In broken English, she said “give me your hand“. I extended my hand to her, and she turned it palm up to begin examining the lines in my palm and fingers. As she traced the lifelines, she murmured and looked soulfully into my eyes. After several minutes of delicate touching, she uttered the words I have long remembered, “You are a pilgrim.”

I was embarrassed, and also excited. I realized she was not only flirting with me, but having pulled her chair closer to face me for the palm reading, she had hiked up her flowing transparent white caftan, to reveal tan, shapely legs. As she leaned back in her chair to laugh, I caught the unmistakable view of a woman spreading her legs with nothing underneath. She smiled at me, knowing that I had just seen exactly what she intended to reveal.

I was 19 years old. Although I had had a few girlfriends in high school, and a couple clumsy collegiate skirmishes, I was definitely under-prepared for this moment. What was the appropriate response? Should I ask “Do you come here often? “Or “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?“ I had no game, and I had even less experience. Plus, I couldn’t speak a word of Italian, so any chance of idle, disarming chitchat was a non-starter.

After a few more heart-pounding moments of meaningful deep stares and sheepish smiles, she took my hand and led me back towards the house. The phrase that kept running through my head was, “When in Rome…”

Thus began my daytime affair with the surrealist painter, Carolrama. Avoiding the watchful gaze of Juliet Man Ray, I would steal moments to catch a sign across a swimming pool or a lunch table, and then slip back into her tiny bedroom for lessons in lovemaking.

This was not the awkward collegiate fumbling that comprised the full extent of my romantic skill-set at that moment. This was adult education, patient instruction, and sensual direction that was both surprising and tender. The most difficult part was figuring out if I should be saying something afterwards, like “Hey, thanks” or “Grazie mille, bella”. I also couldn’t figure out if all the other Italians knew what was happening, though their smiles indicated that this was not our secret alone.

At the same time, I had discovered that the dinner chef had a culinary assistant whose main purpose was to serve the meal and then do the dishes afterwards. This girl, probably all of 18 years old, was a young Sophia Loren, busting out of her waitress uniform, the buttons straining to close over an ample bosom that was often smeared with gravy or tomato-sauce dripping down her chest.

Glistening with perspiration, anxious about balancing the plates in front of the raucous diners, I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she would circle the table, serving the guests. After dinner, I would find an excuse to go into the kitchen where she would be washing dishes, and try to make conversation with her, using a combination of English and hand gestures. She refused to acknowledge my presence beyond a cursory nod of the head, because the chef - an effeminate, overbearing taskmaster - would circle through the kitchen endlessly, giving orders and expressing exasperation.

It would be several nights until I found my moment. After a particularly drunken dinner, while she was washing dishes, I came up behind her to put something in the sink and “accidentally” brush against her voluptuous backside. By now, after almost a week in the Carolrama Graduate School of Seduction, I thought I was James Bond, and I was intent upon sharing the benefits and results of my daytime trysts.

As I leaned over the sink, I detected something I didn’t expect: with the boss nowhere in sight, she pushed back against me and didn’t pull away. We stayed there for a moment too long, communicating wordlessly. It was clear that our dance had begun.

Thus began my late nights with Claudia, complete with furtive meetings after dinner, sneaking behind the house once she finished cleaning up. We would stand or crouch in the bushes near the garage, kissing and touching passionately.

I was convinced that I had a new girlfriend. She was fired by the end of the second week. I had no phone number, no last name, and nothing left but the memory of a beautiful, young, tan, Italian girl with passionate intensity and the body of a Playboy pin-up.

In the middle of all of these non-stop erotic escapades, my primary focus every day was spending the afternoons sitting with Man Ray. He was older and much more frail than my memories of him from childhood. He liked to spend the late afternoon in a chaise on the lawn, partially covered with a blanket, thumbing through art books, or shuffling the bundle of mail that arrived for him every day.

He made it clear that I was welcome to sit with him, and I made it clear that I was available anytime he wanted company. I think he found Luciano’s mania and the jet-set’s never-ending shenanigans amusing, predictable, and maybe even slightly boring.

Man Ray had already lived that life in Paris, and experienced the greatest moments of 20th-Century bacchanalia with the likes of Picasso, Dali, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and virtually every “celebrity” of the epic era between the wars (many of whom he photographed). His liaisons were legendary, including his famous affair with the courtesan, Kiki of Montparnasse, memorialized in the photograph, ”Le Violon d’Ingres”. Onto a beautifully lit photo, he drew two acoustic F-holes just above Kiki’s naked hindquarters, making her bare back look like a human cello.

In the fading afternoon light, I would sit silently with Man gazing out over the Mediterranean, listening to the distant walla of the party around the pool, and joyfully providing a particular and unique service to my favorite artist.

Each day, Man Ray would hand me a pile of mail, and ask me to read it to him. It was an outstanding collection of correspondence. Among the cards and letters were notes from the world’s most famous filmmakers, painters, gallery-owners, publishers, authors, and intellectuals. I wasn’t familiar with many of the names, but Man Ray would laughingly describe who all of these people were, and how he knew them.

It was an education in the history and cultural life of the 20th century, and also an insight into Man Ray’s wicked sense of humor. I’d finish reading some letter and tell him who had sent it, and more often than not, he’d roll his eyes, and then wink at me with an all-knowing smile, as if to say “Oy. What a pain in the ass.” Although Man Ray was an ex-pat who had made Paris his home for more than 50 years, there was still a lot of Emmanuel Radnitzky in him, the disenfranchised immigrant Jew born in Philadelphia and raised in Brooklyn.

My very favorite correspondence was a letter buried in one day’s mail with the return address clearly marked, “Tufts University.“ As a Harvard student, I was obviously aware of Tufts, the neighboring college in Medford, Massachusetts, and I was very interested to see what someone from that college would be writing to Man Ray.

Inside the envelope was a lovely handwritten note on personal stationery, sent by a young lady who introduced herself as “a sophomore in the Tufts Fine Arts Department”. She was planning to write a term-paper on Man Ray, and wondered if he wouldn’t mind inscribing his autograph on the enclosed 3 x 5 card in the envelope.

If there was ever a moment that I felt a bond between myself and the titan of Dada, it was this. We both laughed at the audacity, the innocence, and the chutzpah of the student’s request. For a moment I wondered if he would indulge the girl, and I handed him the card and the pen. He looked at me with that twinkle I knew so well, shrugged, shook his head, and said conspiratorially, “Non, merci.” Man Ray was not going to break the spell of a golden afternoon by engaging with a random request from a stranger. And I totally understood.

He was a living mystery, a legend, a spirit, and an inspiration. And above all, he was an Artist. Long before the ideas of “branding” and commodification had taken our culture hostage, Man Ray was showing his resistance to sharing himself, his identity, or his fame. That girl from Tufts must still wonder if her letter ever reached its’ intended recipient.

Within a few weeks, it became clear that the party was nearing its end. Man and Juliet were making plans to return to Paris, while Luciano Anselmino had been spending more and more time away from the house and the endless stream of house-guests, going back to Rome, (or so he said) to attend to business.

There was an afternoon where Man Ray’s chaise was empty, the scene by the pool was remarkably quiet, and the clouds of autumn had started to dot the sky. Carolrama had disappeared (without any goodbye or notice) and suddenly I felt an overwhelming urge to go back to Cambridge.

On my last night , I had a quiet dinner with just Juliet and Man Ray. Man was mostly silent, and Juliet attended to him in a motherly way. I tried to express my deepest gratitude for the summer, but I wasn’t sure if there was any way I could acknowledge the great gift I had been given.

I returned that fall to my senior year at Harvard, and upon graduation in June I moved to New York to start my career as a songwriter. On a crisp November day, after a summer trying unsuccessfully to teach music, I boarded a bus heading down Fifth Avenue, intent upon finding a real job to support myself while I pursued my lifelong aspiration to be a musician. As I disembarked at 55th Street, I noticed the Rizzoli Bookstore directly in front of my bus stop, and spontaneously decided to walk in to see if there was a position available.

I found the floor manager and must have talked convincingly, because 20 minutes later I was being interviewed for the job of book-clerk on the main floor. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned how much I loved Rizzoli Books, and as a huge fan of modern art, I found them to be invaluable. I shared that I knew a fair amount about modern art, and had even spent some time with the legendary Dadaist, Man Ray.

The manager who was interviewing me paused and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry for you. He was a great artist.” I didn’t know until that moment that Man Ray had died that morning, November 18th, 1976, at the age of 86 years old.

I got the job at Rizzoli, and believe to this day that one of the greatest artists of the modern era was somehow responsible for my good fortune, who at that moment was winking at me with an all-knowing smile.

Robert Kraft

Los Angeles

May 2018

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robokraft · 7 years ago

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“Attitude vs. Aptitude" by Robert Kraft

I started my first band in 5th grade. We performed in the cafeteria of my elementary school, rendering a version of the Beatles' "I Shoulda Known Better". While none of us could actually play our instruments, that didn't impede the gig. We held tennis rackets as guitars, miming our versions of John, Paul, and George, while a teacher spun the 45 on a little turntable just offstage.

Our "Ringo" was the coolest guy in the 5th grade, Nicky Gardio. We gave him a tambourine and put him front and center for one simple reason: he had charisma. And it didn't hurt that all the 5th grades babes dug his Beatle boots. However, Nicky was also a drag, because whatever our band decided, in the end, it was all about Nicky.

I learned a lot that day. In fact, that performance may have been my first inkling of a theory I developed over the next several decades of forming bands, then production companies, and now running the music division of a global media conglomerate. I call my theory, "Attitude vs. Aptitude".

The theory goes as follows (and as I developed it over the years, I substituted "bass player" for "Nicky Gardio".)

Occasionally you find an amazing bass player and you put him in your band for the simple reason that he sounds great. However, bass players that are good may also know they are good, and so you have to put up with some degree of ego or PITA. (“PITA” is my father's acronym for Pain In The Ass.) You rationalize that it's worth it, because of the bass player's tremendous musical APTITUDE. On the other hand, you may find a bass player who is good - not great - but who happens to be a mellow guy, or a diplomat, or fun to hang with, (or maybe he also owns a good P.A. and let's the band use it), and you keep him in the band because of his wonderful ATTITUDE. Hence, as a bandleader or a boss, when building a team, I usually evaluate each member on this simple axis.

This theory comes in handy when hiring composers to create film scores, and in those rare cases of the consistently successful composers (or bass players or accountants or roofers or center-fielders or wives) you see that BOTH attributes are actually in full effect. Truly effective composers understand the importance of "bedside manner" when collaborating on a film score. For it is not just the technical or musical expertise that one expects of our glorious first-call composers, but equally important are attributes like patience, empathy, humility and even humor. In other words, a great attitude.

The professional film composer inherits his assignment at a period of maximum stress during the production. The director is exhausted after a long shoot and a longer post, he is pissed at the studio because of all the budget fights and creative clashes, he is apoplectic about the pace of the special effects, and now he has to sit down and approve 90 minutes of original music that will be replacing his favorite temp cues that have been in the rough cut for months. Most likely, he is anxious, sleep-deprived and very cranky.

Few people outside this privileged inner circle understand the potential for hysteria during this period, and here's where ATTITUDE and APTITUDE come into play. The composer's job, his shining moment upon the stage, must reveal his exceptional abilities with both sides of the equation: patiently enduring criticism, second-guessing, multiple opinions, stunning levels of idiocy and occasional bad behavior, while writing the best music of his career next to a deafening ticking clock.

Sound like fun? Or more accurately, it sounds like a skill set that is rare to find, and deservedly well-compensated.

Watching the great composers handle inane comments from less-than-brilliant directors is a lesson in diplomacy and restraint. After previewing a brilliant cue, how should one respond to a director simply stating, "I hate it", or more likely, " I love it…but what's that sound...a horn or a drum? It really makes me sad. Can you take it out? In fact can you re-write the whole cue?"

At that moment, the mediocre composers whine, or protest, or grimace, or say, "I graduated from Juilliard, you fool. What do you know about music? And by the way, your movie sucks." (NOTE: I have never heard these words, but I have fully expected to hear them on many occasions.)

The brilliant composers with the first-class bedside manner respond with, "No problem. I can change that easily. In fact, I have a way to change it and make it better." Of course, after establishing a receptive and cooperative attitude - coupled with enough polite acquiescences - the composer may gain the power and confidence to gently defend his work, and this might even allow the director to come around to his perspective on some musical decisions. Those are the moments I love the most: when the music maestro sprinkles bread crumbs in front of the snorting beast, slowly leading it to eat right out of his hand.

The experts of film composing understand that they are hired to provide a service, to support a director or a studio's vision, and that any hint of diva-ness will only guarantee their future as the composers of nature films and afternoon specials. There are very few people that are so talented that you have to put up with constant confrontation. And those people that are that difficult better deliver a killer opening weekend, or they will be narrating those nature films and afternoon specials.

I wonder where Nicky Gardio is today. His aptitude was mediocre (he could hardly keep time on the tambourine) and his attitude was a PITA. I'd never hire him to be in my next band, because I've learned to look for that rare pairing of my two favorite attributes: a great attitude coupled with world-class aptitude. I only want to work with someone with a wonderful bedside manner.

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