A boat's-eye view of Chicago

One of the best parts of my commute is my 10-minute Chicago Water Taxi ride from Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago to SmithBucklin’s offices at 401 N. Michigan Avenue. Sadly, the boat shuts down tomorrow, Nov. 11, until the spring. Here are five things I’ll miss about my daily boat ride:

1. It beats a 25-minute walk — I can find other ways to get my daily exercise.
2. At $2 per trip, ($1.60 per ride with a 10-ride ticket) the boat is way cheaper than a cab.
3. You often meet interesting people on the boat and nobody ever seems to be in a bad mood.
4. The boat ride energizes me in the morning and de-stresses me after a long day at work.
5. The trip provides stunning views of the beautiful Chicago skyline, like the picture I snapped today with my Blackberry.

My take? The Chicago Water Taxi is one of the best things about Chicago. It’s going to be a long winter…

I'm wild about my new Kindle

The Amazon Kindle may be one of the best birthday presents I’ve received. Here’s why.

1. You can use it to surf the Internet at 3G speeds for free (it’s much faster than my BlackBerry 8900 on the T-Mobile network)
2. The display is easy on the eyes — I can read materials for hours
3. Amazon lets you download two chapters of any book to let you decide in advance if the book is worth buying and subscribe to news portals and blogs for free for 14 days
4. It’s easy to increase and decrease the text size in any document
5. The text-to-speech function works great, allowing you to listen to books on tape or any of the materials you download through the Kindle store

My take? Although I initially had doubts, the Kindle is one of the coolest toys I’ve owned. It’s become an indispensable part of my daily four-hour commute to work.

John Tyler is called the “Accidental President.” He’s the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first Vice President to succeed a President who died in office?”

 After reading Edward Crapol’s biography of America’s tenth President, I believe Tyler deserves to be called the “Manipulative President.” Nothing he did seemed to happen by chance.

• While he was campaigning with William Henry Harrison, he fully expected Old Tippecanoe to die while he was in office and schemed with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster to assume the presidency, even though this contingency was not spelled out by the US Constitution.
• Tyler pushed for the annexation of the Lone Star Republic (Texas) to further his pro-slavery agenda.
• He is the only President to become a traitor to his country (by joining the Confederacy during the Civil War).

Tyler’s successful gambit to become President is worth more than a chapter of his biography, because this set the precedent for future Vice Presidents to assume the executive office following the death of a President. (Apparently, Al Haig was not aware of this fact when President Ronald Reagon was shot by John Hinckley, Jr.)

Under the right story teller, Tyler’s tale could read like an epic American melodrama. Unfortunately, Crapol’s biography is a series of bland, occasionally apologetic, and sometimes contradictory, essays about the Tyler presidency.

The deeper I got into this book, the less I liked Tyler and the more frustrated I became with the author.

I’ve read many books about people I don’t necessarily admire (Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson and John Wilkes-Booth come to mind). While I don’t lump Tyler with those monsters, the authors of those books took the time to get inside the minds of their subjects. Crapol spends very little time writing about Tyler’s two wives or their children. We never understand the thinking that influenced Tyler’s decisions. We never learn what happens to his family after the Civil War.

Conveniently, Tyler died in early 1862, so he never had his day of reckoning for deserting the Union. A biography that had the potential to become a poignant study of one of the champions of the Old South instead reads like a boring grad school term paper on yet another Jeffersonian president.

My Take? The Accidental President can’t be the definitive biography of John Tyler. I am open to recommendations.

Although Harrison’s presidency was a non-event, his biography, “Old Tippecanoe” by Freeman Cleaves is anything but boring.

Unlike many dull historical tomes, Cleaves biography of America’s ninth president reads like an adventure novel, with detailed, action-packed accounts of Harrison’s battles with the Tecumseh-led American Indian Confederation at the Battle of Tippecanoe and the Britsh during the War of 1812.

Although the War of 1812 receives very little attention in our history books, Harrison emerges as a real American hero. Working closely with Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry, Old Tippecanoe led the Northwest Army to major victories over the British, culminating at the Battle of the Thames in Canada (near present-day Toronto).

One of the book’s most engaging stories is the massacre at the Raisin River, south of  Detroit. As Harrison’s army moves north to recapture the Motor City from the British, General James Winchester ignores Harrison’s orders and attacks a British/Indian army (led by Major General Henry Procter now teamed with Tecumseh).  After an initial surprise victory, Winchester’s regiment suffers huge losses and surrenders to Procter. Five hundred men are taken prisoner, scalped alive and beheaded by Tecumseh’s men. Their heads are placed on picket fences surrounding Detroit, terrorizing the town and shocking even Procter’s troops.

“Remember the Raisin” becomes a rallying cry for Harrison’s forces and helps propel them to victories in Canada through 1813. Frustrated by a lack of support from President James Madison, Harrison abruptly resigns from the army in 1814 and America’s progress in Canada quickly grinds to a halt. The fact that Harrison wasn’t given permission to lead an all-out assault on the British only points to Madison’s incompetence as president and his administration’s lack of commitment to winning the war.

After the War of 1812, Harrison served terms in the Senate and Congress and served as minister plenipotenciary to Colombia in 1828. Throughout his political life, Harrison was forced to defend his actions and honor (that’s politics for you). As a politician, Harrison had a fairly bland resume until he defeated Martin Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election. Both of the previously reviewed biographies of Andrew Jackson “American Lion” and Martin Van Buren provide interesting perspectives on this stormy chapter of American politics.  Unfortunately, by the time Harrison takes office, he’s 68 years old and in bad health.

Prophetically, his wife Anna may have summed up Harrison’s victory the best when she said, “I wish that my husband’s friends had left him where he is, happy and contented in retirement.”

To Cleaves’ credit, he spends one single chapter on Harrison’s presidency. That’s good, because the rest of the book reads like an action novel — it’s one of the most exciting presidential biographies I’ve read to date.

My take … If you liked Jon Meacham’s portrayal of Andrew Jackson, “American Lion,” then you probably will devour “Old Tippecanoe.”

The Doves

Whenever I think of the Doves, I’m reminded of an event I attended back in 2001.  The “Lost Souls” CD had just been released and I was driving back from a benefit for starving Cambodian children when the song, “Rise” blasted out of my car speakers. I don’t know if it was the emotion of the event, the alcohol or simply the majesty of the song, but tears began streaming down my checks as I cranked up the volume.

I think of that night every time I hear that song.

Fast-forward to 2009. The Doves are headlining at the Vic Theater in Chicago and my buddy Dennis Collins and I have great seats in the first balcony with an unobstructed view of the band. I am testing out Baby Blue  ETY•Plugs™ (ER•20 High Fidelity Earplugs) from a cool Chicago company called Etymotic Research. I’ve already witnessed one great performance from this band (back in 2003 at the Vic to support “The Last Broadcast”), so my expectations are extremely high.

The Earplugs are comfortable but will they work? I’ve seen the band four times and since the Doves tend to be bassy and somewhat distorted live, I am shocked by how well the earplugs reduce noise and clean up the sound. It’s like listening to the Doves on a great stereo.

But alas, the earplugs also reveal something I didn’t expect — they’re not a great musicians. Throughout the show, drummer Andy Williams was playing at a different tempo than the rest of the band. Jez Williams’ vocals clearly were being piped in on certain songs (because he certainly wasn’t hitting the high notes on any of the songs) and I’m not sure who was playing several of Jimi Goodwin’s solos.

Was it the earplugs, the Doves or me?

Fortunately, the rabid crowd didn’t seem to care as the lads cranked out prime cuts from all of four of their CDs, including their latest, “Kingdom of Rust.” Highlights included “Jetstream,” “The Outsiders” and “10:03″ off the new LP but the showstoppers were “Black and White Town” and the closing encore, “Here it Comes.”

The Doves seemed genuinely surprised and affected by the reaction from the Chicago crowd and did their best to deliver a solid performance. My conclusion after the show was that they really are more of a studio band, even though their music should sound great live.

This may be the last time I see the Doves but it won’t be the last time I use the Baby Blues — they were awesome.

W. C. Fields

While thumbing through the biography section at my local library, I stumbled upon a relatively new biography of Fields that claims to set the record straight on many of the myths about this great comic.

Man on the Flying Trapeze by Simon Louvish is a thoroughly researched book . Yet, not only is it surprisingly dull but also is one of the most sloppily written biographies I’ve read. Cities like Cincinnati are continually misspelled throughout the book and Fields’ name is butchered more than once. When I see this many typos in print, I begin to wonder if the author got the facts right, too.

Louvish spends most of the book focusing on Fields’ early days on the vaudeville circuit, where he honed his skills as a juggler and comedian. I was surprised to learn of his dislike for illusionist Harry Houdini and his fondness for actor and humorist Will Rogers, but ultimately, I never felt like I got to know the man himself. We learn about his failed marriage  yet we never really understand the causes or why he ignored his wife and children (both legitimate and illegitimate) throughout his life. The author paints Fields as a self-centered lout who had some strange notions life and continually tries to give you the ”story behind the story.”  Unfortunately, I often found the “real story” a lot less engaging than the “facts” I thought I knew.

Fortunately, for hardcore fans, the book contains plenty of snippets of dialog from his movie and stage scripts to make you laugh out loud. I would have preferred to see more emphasis on his movie classics. For a decade beginning in the early 1930s, Fields released a string of movies that still hold up, beginning with You’re Telling Me, You Can’t Cheat and Honest Man, It’s a Gift, Poppy and  Man on the Flying Trapeze , and his biggest successes, My Little Chickadee and The Bank Dick.

Rather than spend your time trying to get to know William Claude Dukenfield through these dreary 480+ pages, I suggest simply watching his movies to experience the genius of this funny, funny man. Here are five video snippets to get you started:

• Fields kicks Baby LeRoy in “The Old Fashioned Way” ,
• Teaching the boys to smoke in “The Bank Dick“,
• Serving jail time in “Man on the Flying Trapeze“,
• The famous car wreck segments 1 and 2 from “If I Had a Million”, and
• Trying to sleep in “It’s a Gift“

My take … in the case of W. C. Fields, his art is definitely more amusing than his life.

A protege of both Andrew Jackson and Aaron Burr, Van Buren was the consumate politician, building coalitions among the north and south and enjoying a reputation as a teflon man until he was done in by the country’s first depression a few months after succeeding Andrew Jackson as president in 1837.  Are you paying attention Barrack Obama?

Considered one of the fathers of the modern Democratic Party, Van Buren’s biography is chock full of interesting anecdotes and is worth checking out if you are planning on reading American Lion or Nancy Isenberg’s wonderful portrayal of Aaron Burr, “Fallen Founder.”

One of my favorite stories describes a chance meeting in Rochester, Illinois in 1842 between Van Buren and Abraham Lincoln. Van Buren toured the country after the conclusion of his presidency and shared a stage with Lincoln one evening. According to Widmar, the  two swapped an endless supply of stories, each following the other in rapid succession.Van Buren later claimed he had never “spent so agreeable a night in my life.”

Lincoln apparently never forgot this night, as well. After Van Buren died in 1862, Lincoln wrote a gracious statement about the ex-president and honored him with a 13-gun salute at dawn. A single gun was fired every half hour until sunset, when 34 guns were fired.

If you have any interest in learning about the namesake of Seinfeld’s “Van Buren Boys,” this book is a good place to start.

Meacham’s profile of America’s seventh President starts out with a bang. Jackson’s elected President and his wife, Rachel, dies five days later. Next, we learn of Jackson’s childhood in Waxhaw, S.C., and the brutality he witnessed first-hand at age 14 when he and his brother Robert are captured by British soldiers during the Revolutary War. (I wonder if Robert Rodat used Jackson as a model when he wrote the script for The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger.)

The action keeps up through the Battle of New Orleans and various battles against Indian tribes in the south and west.  But things comes to a screeching halt once Jackson is elected President in 1828. The action is replaced by politics, and Old Hickory’s inability to assemble a cohesive cabinet during his first term.

By the time his second term concludes, I was tired of reading about Jackson’s battles to defend the honor of Margaret Eaton, wife of Secretary of War Henry Eaton, his constant efforts to maintain a family atmosphere at the White House and his numerous bouts with depression and ill health.

Long-time rival John Quincy Adams accused Jackson of being “so ravenous of notoriety that he craves the sympathy for sickness as a portion of his glory, willing even to talk of his ‘chronic diarrhoea’.”  I’m not sure if Jackson was a hypochondriac but he certainly ruled the White House with an iron fist and stayed very true to his beliefs, regardless of their political correctness. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that George W. Bush studied Jackson’s presidency very closely during his eight-year term.

Overall, this is a good but not great book. Kudos to Meacham for listing brief bios of the central characters to open this book. This is a technique I’d like to see in other biographies and history books.

Read American Lion in tandem with Paul Nagel’s biography of Adams to get a great perspective on this volatile period in American history (see separate review).

• Overexpansion of credit during the pre-war years
• The collapse of the export market
• Low prices of imports, which forced American manufacturers to close
• Financial instability resulting from both the excessive expansion of state banking and the unsound policies of the Second Bank of the United States and
• Widespread unemployment

From all sides, Americans were urged to work harder and spend less — a rule considered applicable to Federal agencies as well as private citizens. The depression had a direct impact on the government in that it produced a decline in revenues, which were largely derived from the (decrease) in customs duties. There was also a marked decrease in the income from the sale of real estate, for many purchasers now defaulted.

It was in connection with the falling government receipts that the President referred to the general economic distress in his annual address to the nation. After commenting on the great number of bankruptcies, which he attributed to the rapid contraction of credit and to the scarcity of money, as well as the lack of confidence on the part of the business community, he turned to the specific problem created by the numerous failures among manufacturers. . .

Sound familiar? This depression occurred during President James Monroe’s first term in office and was the most interesting passage from Harry Ammon’s book, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When David McCullough’s best-selling book, John Adams, was published a few years ago, I owned the book for a year before I finally began reading it. Once I did, I was astounded by the accomplishments of America’s second president.

While Adams was a brilliant thinker and prolific writer (like his son, John Quincy), he was regarded as a maverick by his political peers. His flabby demeanor and gruff personality were stark contrasts to Washington’s regal qualities and Jefferson’s aristocratic and refined persona.

Although Adams played a major role in developing the Declaration of Independence, he left the chore of writing the document to Jefferson. Adams may have had the vision but Jefferson had the quill. Once the document was presented to the Continental Congress, Jefferson received the acclaim and was only too happy to take the credit.

McCullough’s book gives an honest account of Adams’ life, which was reflected in HBO’s excellent mini-series starring Paul Giamatti. I recommend reading the book first before viewing the DVD.

As a public relations professional, there is much to be learned from John Adams’ story. How many companies with great product ideas have struggled to sell them simply because they couldn’t clearly articulate their product’s features and benefits? How many service providers get so caught up in talking about their methodologies that potential customers have no idea of what the company does or why they should hire them?

Although this will come across as shameless self-promotion, I’m positive Adams would have benefitted from working with a good publicist during his political career. Despite his genius, Adams was often vilified by the news media for his Federalist views. This was due in no small part to a whisper campaign that his former friend, Thomas Jefferson, launched against him during the Adams presidency.

After he was out of office, Adams tried to defend his reputation by writing a series of editorials for Boston newspapers, but by this time, he was dismissed by the public as a doddering old fool.

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. After Adams’ wife, Abigail, died, he patched things up with Jefferson and the two started writing a string of letters to set the record straight. Many of these letters are considered national treasures.

In a final twist of irony, both patriots died hours apart on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution. John Adams’ final words were, “Thomas Jefferson lives.” Jefferson, on the other hand, left no doubt of how he wanted to be viewed by future generations. His epitaph reads, “Author of the Declaration of Independence.”

Even in death, Jefferson knew how to get in the last word.