"Still Barking"

It was only Wednesday of last week that one of my dearest friends had successful quadruple bypass surgery. He returned home from the hospital on Tuesday, and is going about the business of recovery.

I spoke to him last night as I was leaving to go to the theater and dinner and he told me that he was going to give his reconstructed heart the ultimate test later in the day and I blurted out "are you nuts, having sex so soon could kill you" and he replied that he was going to do something far more stressful, which was to watch the presidents state of the union speech.

As I am in my "re-run" period as far as my writing is concerned, what follows was written almost 3 1/2 years ago.

Barking at the Wrong Tree

I know it's hard for anyone to believe that I actually visited with a psychiatrist back in New York, over thirty-five years ago. Was I crazy? Probably not. Was I significantly neurotic? Most certainly, yes. My psychiatrist, Eve Kron (long deceased), was an older French, Jewish, Freudian analyst. After several visits, he said to me, "Norman, this is your problem. You are barking at the wrong tree. When you are angry with a cab driver, you are actually angry at your father and yelling at the cab driver because you are not able to yell at your father." I of course took great exception to this, and it took several years and many thousands of dollars to find out that Dr. Kron was indeed correct. In so many areas, I was "barking at the wrong tree."

In the early 70's, I worked at Screen Gems International with my two closest business associates and friends, Herb Lazarus and Ken Page. Each April we were compelled by business necessity to attend a sales market in the city of Cannes, on the French Riviera. The market itself was held in an inadequate structure and the facilities available to us were totally inadequate for our purposes. While we continued to rent space at the Palais, we did rent a salon at the nearby Carlton hotel and had a cassette recorder sent in from London. We held our "higher priority" screening at the Carlton.

On the last day of the market, Ken, Herb, and I were invited to visit with the owner and director of the market, Bernard Chevry. He was upset that our screening in the hotel was taking people away from the Palais (which it was) and asked why we did it. We advised him that our regular space was inadequate and he quickly agreed that we could have his administrative space in the building. A far superior space to what we were using. All was forgiven, hugging and kissing ensued, and we were prepared to leave, going away happy. We got to the door when Chevry, not happy with his "win" said, "And by the way, if you break your agreement, I'm prepared to have you banned from the city of Cannes." Needless to say, this did not sit too well with any of us and we decided to not attend the next year's market. This of course caused a major stir in the industry. Now after all of this, the point of this saga:

I was of course contacted by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc. and asked, "Why aren't you guys attending the market in Cannes?" One day I was on the phone answering the question with Herb Lazarus at the doorway of my office. I went through my usual routine of "We're a major television company, we have people and offices all over the world. We believe in seeing our clients in their countries and in their offices." In the middle of all this, Herb, in a monstrous stage whisper said, "Why don't you tell him the real reason?"

The truth is "real reasons" are rarely given. This brings me to "our upcoming war" which seems to be moving forward with increasing intensity.

We are now and have been for many, many years, a nation of buzzwords and slogans. We've had, "Better living through chemistry", "The Pepsi Generation", and "Rinso white", among many others. Politically, we were fighting "Nazi aggression", the Viet-cong, the Cold War, "Communist conspiracies", and I especially love the campaign conducted by Attorney General Palmer. The "putting away" of people whom he deemed to be Communists and Bolsheviks. For most of the 20th century our enemies were reasonably well defined as nations or political groups that did not meet our approval.

Good news! The 21st century has brought us the "axis of evil", "terrorists", "9/11", "weapons of mass destruction", and many more. Recent weeks have allowed our President and his senior staff to glom onto any and all of these labels when vilifying Iraq and its leadership, particularly Sadaam Hussein. Certainly Sadaam is not a "good guy" and in fact he gives the appearance of being a "bad guy", and I do expect that he has been a "bad guy" for a very long time even when he was a "good guy", as he was fighting against the former "bad guys", the Iranians.

Dr. Kron would say of Bush and his associates that they were certainly "barking at the wrong tree". Herb Lazarus would say, "What's the real reason you guys are after Iraq?" It's interesting to note that minor issues like the economy, unemployment, corporate corruption, and terrorism have slid, to a great extent, into the background. Are the motives political? Are we after Iraq's huge untapped oil reserves? As a Bronx, New York, electrical engineer in the media business my entire professional life, the whole situation doesn't look right or sound right, but then again what do I know about politics.

Norman Horowitz

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