Billie Holiday and Her Dog's Steak

A few days ago, on San Francisco Chronicle, I saw a photograph by Herman Leonard of Billie Holiday making steak for her beastly huge dog. I became instantly angry, though I was not sure what the sense the photographer was trying to convey – exposing the absurdity or celebrating the glamor? I read carefully and saw a story like this:

A woman answered the door wearing a house dress and an apron. "First I thought, 'This is the maid,' " says photographer Herman Leonard. "She said, 'Excuse me, but I've got to feed the dog.' She had a steak in the frying pan, and she was cooking the steak for the dog."

The woman was Billie Holiday, one of the greatest voices of modern times.

Click.

The scene was sealed forever on film by Leonard, now 86, who captured the odd, intimate moments in the lives of jazz greats. In the last half of the 20th century, he documented the most fertile period in jazz history; the Smithsonian has more than 130 Leonard photographs.

My suspicion was confirmed. An intimate moment? Yes, sure. However great Billie Holiday was, I cannot help but feeling uneasy by such indulgence, and disgusted by the celebratory tone of the adoring writer of the article and Chronicle editor. The picture was taken in 1949. Did any American think about how many meals that steak could buy for the poor third-world people? How could Americans waste so much precious food while other people were dying of malnutrition? We all are human and have our weaknesses. But celebrating them?

Remembering a Pop Icon

The sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson was both a shock and expected. He is a controversial figure for sure, even his importance in pop music development was not without debate. Yet for a time, he was the face of America.

In the early nineties, when I was taking English classes for teaching assistants (TA) at the University of Toledo (Ohio), my mostly-Chinese fellow TAs shocked and dismayed my American teacher, by telling her that the only American musicians we could easily call to mind were Michael Jackson and Madonna. Of course, we also knew Lionel Richie (due to his hugely popular Say You, Say Me) and Paul Simon (courtesy of the movie The Graduate). We knew nothing about Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, or Bruce Springsteen.

We knew America through Madonna's bust and Michael Jackson's crotch. To the outside world, those crass yet truly iconic postures were what American "culture" was about, like it or not. Michael Jackson was a deeply flawed tragic figure. We knew nothing about his being a child star, his dark skin and Afro. We knew him as a freakish sexy animal, which was an act of rebellion in itself.

Of course, over the years, we, the new immigrants, learned more about America, and started to appreciate its complexity. Yet, who can replace the faces of Michael or Madonna? Ansel Adams, Richard Serra, Susan Sontag, John Updike, Renée Fleming, or Deborah Voigt? I think not.

For better or worse, Michael Jackson is America, and, for many, America is Michael Jackson.

One song I am sure that I knew then, and still does not sound dated is Billie Jean (YouTube Video).