Capital Centre was a wonderful place to see concerts

This used to be a country where things were built to last.

When Abe Pollin built the Capital Centre in 1973 and moved his Baltimore Bullets basketball team to Washington, they played in the most modern arena in the country. The Capital Centre was the first indoor arena to have the sort of telescreen for replays that is now found almost everywhere.

Before the decade was out, Washington played in the NBA finals three times, with the Bullets winning their only championship in 1978. By 1976, Washington had a hockey team as well, leaving the Cap Centre an extremely busy venue.

The other thing Pollin did was give Washington a big-time concert venue, and for 30 years, nearly all the big national tours played there.

It's funny. In my memory, I felt like I went to a dozen concerts there, but when I looked at a list the other day, I realized I only saw eight concerts there from 1974-81. They were eight pretty incredible shows, though. The first show might have been the best. Bob Dylan and the Band in January 1974, the first time Dylan had toured in six or seven years.

Dylan and The Band, 1974

That was the tour, as I recall, when the idea of people lighting matches for an encore first took hold. I remember so much about that concert, especially the feeling that Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" was maybe the most beautiful song I had ever heard.

Of those eight concerts, I attended all but one with the same person. We were engaged in 1974, married in 1975 and falling apart by the seventh concert in the fall of '79.

The Eagles, 1979

We saw Crosby Stills Nash & Young in the summer of 1974, the Beach Boys/Chicago show and Loggins and Messina in 1975, Electric Light Orchestra in 1978 and Billy Joel in 1979 before winding everything up with the Eagles in the fall of '79. We separated for good three months later.

I think I saw a few ballgames there after that, but there was only one more concert for me at Capital Centre, the only one I saw with a different date. We saw the Rolling Stones in December 1981, nine years after I saw the same group at RFK Stadium on July 4, 1972.

By the end of the century, the brand-new arena wasn't so new anymore, and by 2002 it was torn down to be replaced by some massive retail development. Washington's indoor sports teams play downtown these days, at a newer, even more futuristic building.

My last concert at the Capital Centre was more than half a lifetime ago. The last really big-time concert I saw was in 1985, when I went with co-workers to see Bruce Springsteen in St. Louis.

Great memories, at least as long as my memory holds up.

If you're lucky, sometimes the beauty just blows you away

With all the actors and actresses we know, there are roles in which we can envision them and others we can never imagine them playing.

A perfect example:

Hugh Grant, cannibal

Hugh Grant as the chieftain of a tribe of cannibals in what used to be Hawaii.

Now that's entertainment.

To be fair, the cannibal is only one of six roles Grant plays in the amazing "Cloud Atlas," the Wachowski's 2012 film that didn't really find an audience but may end up being better remembered than any of the popular films of the same time.

"Cloud Atlas" is based on a novel by David Mitchell and it tells six stories in six different settings over a period of nearly 500 years.

All the stories relate to the others, and one simple act of kindness in the first story resonates down through the centuries. Grant isn't the star. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving all play a variety of roles, and others including Susan Sarandon are all over the narrative as well.

Hanks has a marvelous time of it, playing the heavy in the first story, an amazingly lowbrow writer with a unique way of treating critics in another and a confused everyman in the final, dystopian story.

South Korean actress Doona Bae is transcendent as a clone who dares to be an individual and winds up as the focus of a new religion. When she says, "Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future," she basically gives us the point of Mitchell's story.

Then there is the dark side of life, and something that passes for a philosophy among the predators of the world.

"There is only one rule that binds all people, one governing principle that define's every relationship on God's green earth: The meek are meat, and the strong do eat."

As much as some people want to believe that's how the world works, it doesn't have to be. When the protagonist in the first story tells his angry father-in-law that he will devote his life to good works, the angry response is that he will never be more than a single drop in a limitless ocean. His response is to ask "What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?"

I have been watching movies for more than 50 years, and there are very few anymore that really surprise me. So many of today's films are remakes, sequels or rehashes of stories told time and again that all you can really do is appreciate good craftsmanship.

But once in a long while, something really unique comes along, something that takes you to a place you've never been before. I watched "Cloud Atlas" for the first time Saturday and watched it again today. It absolutely blows me away; I can't remember the last time I saw something so wonderful.

I was very happy to see that my favorite of all film critics, Roger Ebert, had the opportunity to view and review "Cloud Atlas" before he died. It wasn't that I needed him to help me understand the film, but I certainly was happy to see that he thought it was every bit as wonderful as I did."

From Ebert:

"But, oh, what a film this is! And what a demonstration of the magical, dreamlike qualities of the cinema. And what an opportunity for the actors. And what a leap by the directors, who free themselves from the chains of narrative continuity. And then the wisdom of the old man staring into the flames makes perfect sense."

Some songs bring back memories of more than just people

When Stephen King writes about the '60s, he rarely fails to mention how much the music mattered.

In "Hearts in Atlantis," which was basically a book about the '60s, he referred to the music as the "fabled automatic," and said that all these years later, it never fails to lift his spirits. King is two years older than I am, so he had the first two years of his twenties in that frenetic decade. I turned 20 just three weeks before the '60s ended.

Add in my late blooming socially and in some ways, the '70s were really more significant to me. But there are songs from both decades that not only remind me of the time but of a very specific place.

An example:

Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" was popular in late 1972, and whenever I hear it, it's as if I'm sitting in the back seat of Chris Gullotta's station wagon heading to Georgetown. We were double-dating. I was with a girl named Kathy Ward that I went out with two of three times; his date was the girl I married 2 1/2 years later.

"Dancing Queen" was a worldwide hit for Abba in 1977, and when I hear it, I'm in a bowling alley in Vienna, Austria, where I bowled in an American league while we were living there.

The Beach Boys' "I Get Around" evokes a memory for me of being on my way to the store to buy my first pair of white Levis in the summer of 1965.

With a few other songs, it isn't even the original version that brings out the memories. In 1971 and 1972, my friends Chris Worth and Chris Gullotta were going out two or three nights a week to a great club just off Connecticut Avenue called The Montage. The house band, the Eye, did great covers of a lot of songs, and when I hear "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" or "Witchy Woman," it's their covers and that club I remember.

Sadly, that was one of the first casualties of construction when they started building the Metro.

These aren't the songs that meant the most to me, the ones various girlfriends and wives and I considered "our songs." Those are different and will always be important to me.

But it's the songs like the ones mentioned above that are my "fabled automatics" and always will be.

One decision nice, but the one that really matters was wrong

There will be plenty of people who will tell you the two decisions handed down by the Supreme Court this week -- on voting rights and same-sex marriage -- at least got the one right that will have the biggest effect on people's lives.

After all, everybody knows that discrimination against minorities ended a long time ago in this country.

Right?

If only it were true. There have been so many examples of Republicans trying to make it more difficult for minorities to vote in recent years that taking away weapons to fight against that seems very politically motivated.

It's the last thing the Supreme Court needs after so many bizarre decisions in recent years -- Bush v. Gore, Citizens United and others -- have made the court look politically motivated.

Yes, it's nice that the court basically said that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act was something Congress had no business passing, and certainly millions of Americans will be happy that the question of same-sex marriage will be left to the states.

But once again, we get distracted by lesser issues while the question of who really runs the country keeps shifting more and more toward corporations. It certainly appears as if an effort is being made to keep the Republican Party as strong as possible for as long as possible despite demographics that show the GOP is fading away.

In fact, it may be that the last gasp of the Republican Party will be in the Supreme Court. That's why the next vacancy -- particularly if it's one of the so-called conservative seats -- might be the moral equivalent of nuclear war.

These people will not go quietly.

After all, it was their most recent nominee who told us that "Corporations are people too, my friend."

Ten seasons of 'Smallville' told a really good story

I have watched a lot of television shows on DVD, but most of the ones I really like haven't lasted too many seasons.

"Studio 60" only lasted one year and "Sports Night" just two. There have been others that have lasted three, five and even seven years, but I hadn't ever watched one that was on longer than that.

Until "Smallville."

Yes, it had its shortcomings. I think one critic referred to it as "Superboy meets Dawson's Creek," and yes, there were lots of beautiful teenagers with high-powered libidos, and who knew that Metropolis was really Kansas City?

I'm not sure anyone expected it to last 10 full seasons, but we watched Clark Kent grow from awkward ninth grader to a young man on the verge of being super.

The fascinating thing about the story is that the creators weren't afraid to take the original Superboy story, told in hundreds of comic books, and throw out parts of it.

Certainly the biggest change came in the fact that we never heard him called Superboy. In fact, Clark doesn't go public until the seventh or eighth season of the show, and he never actually flies or wears the famous red and blue suit until the series finale.

One of the most fascinating changes is that Clark Kent and Lex Luthor start out as close friends, both living in Smallville, Kansas. But Lex is so obsessed with his own destiny that he eventually becomes Clark's greatest enemy.

Not everything always made sense, and it certainly slipped over into soap operadom too many times. But if there is one thing the series proved, it's that the best stories are always about the best characters, and Superman has always been an iconic American character.

Even as a Kansas farmboy.

A little variety in golf courses can make for a lot of fun

There's one thing difficult about living two blocks away from a golf course.

It's tough to get motivated to play anywhere except there.

When I became a member at Sun City Peachtree, where I can play 18 holes for $8 any weekday and $10 any weekend, I also was given the same status at two other clubs. Heron Bay in Locust Grove is 10 miles away and Georgia National in McDonough is 15 miles from here.

So in the last 2 1/2 years, I played Sun City several hundred times and never once made my way to either of the other two.

Until Thursday.

Thursday I went out to play nine holes, but the course was jammed. So I drove over to Heron Bay and played nine holes. It was enjoyable enough that Friday I went back and played 18.

I was lucky enough to be the first one out after a tournament, so I was able to zip through 18 holes in less than 2 1/2 hours.

It's a very different course than I'm accustomed to playing. Heron Bay has so many bunkers that by the time I reached the back nine I was expecting to see camels.

My second times out, I played the front nine pretty well, shooting a 43. The back nine was tougher and I was tired on a hot, muggy day, and I only shot 50. Still, 93 the first time around on a new, tougher course wasn't really horrible.

I'll try it again. Ten miles isn't that far to drive for a little variety.

I may even drive over to McDonough and try the other one.

Freedom is a great concept, but it doesn't always work

A lot of people have been complaining that government keeps encroaching on our freedoms. They say we're heading toward a totalitarian state.

The problem is far more complex than most people seem to believe, though.

The real problem is that we have more freedom than we can handle.

When the Founding Fathers put together our government, someone asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government it would be. "A republic, if you can keep it," Franklin reportedly said.

But how do you keep a republic when 20 percent of adults are functionally illiterate and another 20 percent aren't even literate enough to balance a checkbook or read a prescription? When 65 percent of adults proudly say they haven't read a book since finishing high school?

You see, along with freedom comes responsibility. I have quoted the late great H.L. Mencken time and again about his 1922 essay in which he said the American republic would not last another 100 years. Mencken cited ignorance and greed as the two factors that would cause our downfall.

Ignorance is by far the bigger problem. I don't have any problem with anyone who decided not to vote for Barack Obama, but anybody who claims he wasn't born in this country or that he's secretly a Muslim loses my respect.

The more ignorant voters are, the easier it is to sell them on ridiculous ideas like tax cuts for the rich helping everyone. In 2002, when President Dubya Bush was pushing massive tax cuts that reserved 48 percent of its benefits for the top 1 percent, Gallup did a fascinating survey. Seventeen percent of those polled thought they were part of the top 1 percent and another 25 percent thought they would be someday.

Of course, you can't require intelligence tests for voting. For one thing, there isn't any test that could be devised that wouldn't discriminate against someone. We live in a country where people are educated more to follow the rules than to challenge them. A country where more people could identify Honey Boo Boo or the Kardashians than members of the president's cabinet.

But what does all this have to do with too much freedom?

Well, surprisingly, the people and entities that inform us are not required by any sort of laws to tell us the truth. Obviously some issues are matters of opinion and without absolute truth, but there are other things that are proven facts and we ought to be able to accept them.

But whether it's a cable news channel, a squawk radio commentator or someone writing on the Internet, anyone can lie with impunity and probably never have it come back to haunt them. And if someone is considered a public figure, it's possible to say all sorts of vile things about them and never have to pay a price.

Back during Bill Clinton's first term, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was hawking a truly disgusting film called "The Clinton Chronicles" in which the president was accused of dealing cocaine and killing dozens of people while he was governor of Arkansas.

Of course, Falwell took it in the shorts himself in the '80s when Larry Flynt ran a fairly distasteful parody in his "Hustler" magazine in which Falwell was accused of losing his virginity in an outhouse with his mother.

Too much freedom?

Maybe, but you certainly have to ask yourself if we're a better country because we're free to read almost anything anyone wants to write. Particularly in the case of the Internet, where it is so easy for people to remain anonymous, people who live far beyond the pale -- child molesters, for example -- are able to communicate with others like them. There's no possible way that sort of freedom makes us a better country.

Franklin was right.

It's a republic, but I think we may be on the verge of losing it.

We need to get smarter -- and maybe a little less greedy too.