About 25 years ago, a television news piece featured President Reagan in front of a large crowd merrily singing along with a band, happily clapping hands in time with the music.
The blurb was perhaps 30 or 40 seconds long, and it supposedly was a humor piece, poking fun at what clearly was to be perceived as an aging and inept President ...
For, if one looked closely, it became clear that the President (gee, what an idiot!) clearly was clapping out of time with everyone surrounding him – as best as could be seen, out of time with everyone in the huge ballroom.
Yet, if one listens closely to the audio track (which was difficult, due to the guffawing of the announcer), it became clear that several hundred people in the ballroom were clapping on the first beat of every musical measure.
Experienced performers like the musically trained Ronnie Reagan – a song-and-dance man in early Hollywood – know that the clap comes on beats 2 and 4 ... the backbeat!
So ... Ronald Reagan was comfortable enough in his own skin to clap correctly – even though he drew the ridicule of the masses, who didn’t know any better than to clap on the downbeat.
The artist/writer is a performer. He must know what’s correct and appropriate (i.e., clapping on the backbeat), and he must have the self-effacing grace and confidence to place what is correct and appropriate down on paper.
But, we are told: March to the beat of your own drummer. OK, you can do that. But know which drummer you want to make your own.
In President Reagan’s case, he was clapping to the beat of the correct drummer, though it may have been more politically correct to go along with the crowd.
But Ronald Reagan was the kind of politician who had faith that the downbeat-driven audience eventually would come around to the backbeat.
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