By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Darth’s Death
Darth Vader died Sept. 9. Or maybe the day before, I don’t know. Actor James Earl Jones, who played the Dark Force villain in “Star Wars” movies, was 93. There was no cause given.
Too bad he missed the next night’s presidential debate. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went at it with words, not light sabers. Who “won” depends on which side one thinks is Dark, which Light.
Jones, per his obit, was born in a shack in Arkabutla, Miss., on Jan. 17, 1931, by the light of an oil lamp. His mother brought him at age six to her parents’ farm in Dublin, Mich. between Manistee and Cadillac. His grandparents raised him there.
Traumatized by the disruption, Jones looked back in his autobiography, he started stuttering, Afraid to speak for years, he became a virtual mute till a high school teacher made him read aloud one of his poems to the class.So a star was born.
Jones went on to win a drama degree from the University of Michigan, where he played four years of basketball. After a two-year Army hitch, he resumed acting for Manistee’s Ramsdell Theater, then reunited with his father in New York City.
From there, Jones played not just Darth; he was voice of Musafa in the “Lion King” and played Terence Mann in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.” The line “Build it and they will come” from that film still rings for those who watched it.
Trump and Harris displayed different types of vocal prowess in their premier and, now it appears, only face-to-face confrontation. No Darth-like labored breathing between shotgun sound bites; both were on the clock to pack in every punch they could.
It brought to some minds the 1980 title tilt between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Reaga, an affable former actor, was comfortable on his home turf in front of cameras.
“Are we better now than we were four years ago?” he asked, leading with a left jab. Ex-Georgia peanut farmer Carter dodged straight into his rival’s right. “There you go again,” Reagan countered, suggesting and he and voters had heard Carter’s ineffective shtik too many times before.
Back to movies. “No … I am your father,” Jones-née-Vader” revealed to his son-turned nemesis Luke Skywalker in that year’s “Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back.”
In 1983’s “Episode 6: Return of the Jedi,” Darth, dying, warns. Luke, “You don’t know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my master.”
Do Trump and Harris have a master or mistress? Who?
Spinning reels 44 years ahead, had Jones lived to prompt Trump and Harris before last week’s debate,, picture what Forces they might have unleashed on each other and We the People”:
“I am your father,” Donald would bait Kamala.
“Yeah: I’m your mo-ther,” she might bark back, like in a 1920s through ‘70s Borsch Belt skit.
When talk turned to Haitians eating dogs in Ohio, I thought of Jeffrey Dahmer fleeing that state’s university to prey on boys in Milwaukee till apprehended. The horror, the horror.
South of the border, eating dogs is legal; Fidos roast on spits in Tijuana windows. There is hunger everywhere, Haiti no exception. Legal U.S. citizen Dahmer was a different kind of alien, one from humanity. Where do despair’s depths end?
Harris, 59, smiled almost maternally when “Daddy” Trump brought that up. In “Debate 1: Age Strikes Back” almost three months earlier, Trump, 78, looked on as Joe Biden, 80, fell into lapses many feared were coming.
Three months nearer Election Day now Dems, who felt doomed under Joe, look refreshed. Sure, Harris will make mistakes; she is human. Still, in that spotlight she came off fresher, more nimble and empathetic than her elder did.
Both hopefuls forecast gloom and doom should the other win but Happy days will be here again post Nov. 5 should enough voters see the light.
We the near-Senile have an edge having lived through so many forecast world ends — Y2K, 9-11 … that turned out not so. We remember “Apocalypse Now” (1976) started with “The End,” The Doors’ ultimate song of dread but it went on anyway. Now, where did we leave our glasses …?
Can we last a day without media — mea culpa — trumpeting “Trump swears retribution on “Childless Cat Lady” Taylor Swift? Nor one bemused by how today’s pop charts’ Queen of Tarts can sway votes? You bet.
Dog Star Sirius (pronounced “serious”) still is the brightest star in our night skies. Jones’ light has not dimmed either.
Together, let’s make America great again.going back to the years our favorite films — “Wizard of Oz” (1939)? “Casablanca” (1942)? .. — were made. America was then and will always be.
James Earl Jones, R.I.P.
