QUARANTINE BLOG # 256

December 11, 2020

Seated across the aisle from Paul, Perry, and Della – the table on the judge’s left – are members of the opposition: the prosecutor, D.A. Hamilton Burger, and his police inspector, Lt. Arthur Tragg.

Hamilton Burger first appears in chapter 10 of Erle Stanley Gardner’s 1935 novel, The Case of the Counterfeit Eye.  Burger is one of literature’s least successful district attorneys, and critics have suggested that he must have been the most incompetent lawyer in history, although his record against defense attorneys other than Mason is unknown.  Burger’s cases inevitably involved prosecuting the wrong person, who was defended by Mason, who in the end, revealed the true criminal through a series of tactics that Burger characterized as courtroom tricks.  Burger’s bag of tricks was comparatively empty, chiefly comprising indignant exclamations of, “Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial!”

Here is another clip where Perry Mason uses the 3-I’s to totally stop Hamilton Burger’s cross examination of Della Street.

A journalist asked William Talman how he felt about Burger losing to Mason week after week.  Talman said, “Burger doesn’t lose.  How can a district attorney lose when he fails to convict an innocent person?  Unlike a fist or gun fight, in court you can have a winner without having a loser.  As a matter of fact, Burger in a good many instances has joined Mason in action against unethical attorneys, lying witnesses, or any one else obstructing justice.  Like any real-life district attorney, justice is Burger’s main interest.”

Six weeks before he died of lung cancer, William Talman starred in an anti-cigarette commercial.

Lieutenant Arthur Tragg, a police homicide detective and lead police official on the series, was played by Ray Collins. 

Ray Collins began his acting career on the stage with 900 roles in his repertoire.  He became one of the most successful actors in the developing field of radio drama.  A friend and associate of Orson Welles for many years, Collins went to Hollywood with the Mercury Theatre company and made his feature-film debut in Citizen Kane (perennially ranked as one of the top motion pictures of all time), as Jim W. Gettys, Kane’s political rival for the post of Governor of New York (Spoiler Alert: “Rosebud” was a sled).

Collins (on the left) in a scene from Citizen Kane.

In October 1963, Collins filmed his last Perry Mason episode, The Case of the Capering Camera, which broadcast on January 16, 1964.  Although clearly Collins would not return to work on the series, his name appeared in the opening title sequence through the eighth season, which ended in May 1965.  Executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson was aware that Collins watched the show every week and did not wish to discourage him.

Side Bar Your Honor: In similar fashion, Ellen Corby who played Esther “Grandma” Walton on The Waltons, had a stroke and was not in the show for most of one season.  She said she watched the show every week to see if she’d been written out – Grandma dying.  The fact that she wasn’t was an encouragement, and aided her in her recovery.

The last episode of the Perry Mason series was “The Case of the Final Fadeout” in which Erle Stanley Gardner played the judge.  Many of the actors in this episode were members of the production crew of the series, given a chance to say their good-byes.  The final line of the final show belongs to Perry: “Now it seems to me the place to start is at the beginning.”

Erle Stanley Gardner

👉  Back to the jukebox and back to the 80s with a couple of high energy “girl groups.”

I remember when “I'm So Excited” came on the car radio, we’d turn the volume up, roll the windows down and sing along with June, Bonnie, and Anita – the Pointer Sisters.  They achieved mainstream success during the 1970s and 1980s.  Spanning over four decades, their repertoire has included such diverse genres as pop, disco, jazz, electronic music, bebop, blues, soul, funk, dance, country, and rock.  The Pointer Sisters won three Grammy Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.  

It’s ironic that a singing group from Philadelphia, Sister Sledge, produced a hit – “We Are Family” – that became the theme song for the 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates.  

The Pirates were 9 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies when one night in June, “We Are Family” played over the speaker system at Three Rivers Stadium, and Willie Stargell said to Dave Parker, “You like that song?”  The Cobra said, “Yeah.”  Pops said, “We’re going to make that the team song.  Later Willie said, “It was kind of an inspirational thing of how people can live.  We can do it together.”  By early August the Pirates had climbed into first place in the National League East.  The Bucs swept the Reds in the National League Championship series 3-0, and “The Family” became the first team to come back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 3.

👉  Before we close, a comic panel for the season from Family Circus:

👉  Second Friday in Advent

Baffled by Abundance

“But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified.  But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”  Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.  And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:49-52).

Earlier in this text, Jesus has just performed his great drama of abundance.  He took the loaves and the fish.  He blessed them, he broke them, and he gave them.  He did his four big defining verbs: “he took, he blessed, he broke, he gave.”  There was enough bread for 5,000 men and 12 baskets of surplus.  Loaves abound!

But then, as Mark likes to say, “immediately,” they were in a boat with an adverse wind; they were straining at the oars against the wind.  He came toward them – this agent of abundance – in the middle of the storm.  He walked atop the waters, right on the surface of surly chaos.  He is the ruler of the chaos that jeopardized them.  He surprised them and scared them, because he was not where they expected him to be.  They never expected him to glide over chaos.  They did not expect to see him amid the storm.  They surely did not expect to see him amid chaos that had, until he showed, seemed so threatening.

“Immediately,” he spoke to them.  He said, “Have courage!”  It is I; do not fear.  He spoke the classic assurance of calm, the one Isaiah spoke to the exiles, the one the angels spoke to the shepherds at the birth, the one the angel will speak at the empty Easter tomb, the one every parent speaks in the midst of a child’s nightmare: “Do not be afraid.  I am right here.”  Do not fear; it is I.  I am in the midst of the storm; I who tamed hunger can manage chaos.

Mark adds a verse to explain why the disciples were terrified, why they lacked confidence in him, and why they did not discern his transformative power.  They could not understand about the loaves, twelve baskets surplus wrought out of five loaves and a few fish.  They could not understand that the lord of abundance had changed everything.  And they could not understand because their hearts were hard or dull or obtuse or blind.  They were not about to engage in the new reality in front of them.

Well, here is the news.  God’s spirit is at work on heart transplants!  God’s spirit is at work on you and me and all of us, in many ways, relieving us of old hearts that have become too hard to function properly.  The God who can produce surplus bread and still storms is the God who can make new our primal organ of humanness.  Who would have thought that out of stony hearts there might come peace?

We confess that we are inured to chaos, O God.  We are well accustomed to fear and scarcity, and so we do not easily discern your transformative power.  Make our  hardened hearts supple once again, so that we might be prepared to celebrate the lord of abundance.  Amen.

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