Sanders hits many issues in memoir
“In the raging battle between the president and the media, I often felt like I was on the front lines in noman’s land,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders writes in her memoir, “Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House,” which comes out Tuesday.
“In one of my first briefings in my new role, I noted that I was the first mom to ever hold the job of White House press secretary, and said to my daughter, Scarlett, ‘Don’t listen to the critics. Fulfill your potential, because in America you still can.’”
“Speaking for Myself ” details how Sanders came to heed her own advice when “nothing was off-limits to the angriest Trump haters: my character, my weight and appearance, even my fitness to be a mother.”
Sanders briefly mentions several issues that roiled the United States during her time in the Trump administration: health care, the travel ban, race relations, mass shootings and family separation.
Here is what readers will learn from “Speaking for Myself ”: • Humiliation takes a toll Sanders describes how she felt when she was mocked by comedian Michelle Wolf at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and again the following summer, when she was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia. (In the six pages she devotes to this episode, Sanders never provides context for the ousting, which occurred amid a national reckoning about the ethics of separating children from their parents at the border.)
Sanders also writes about examples of repudiation closer to home. Her husband was kicked out of his fantasy football league “not because he worked for President Trump but because I did.” One morning, as Sanders walked her 3-year-old to class, another mother told her she was an awful human being and spat on the windshield of her car.
“The hardest part of my job was realizing that my kids might not be safe anymore,” she writes. She stopped sending her children to birthday parties and became the first person in her role to receive Secret Service protection.
uptempo ones.
Though the songs were crafted before the pandemic and summer of protests, he feels they seem right for our time now. Many urge unity and respect.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways — these songs were written before any sort of hint of the political climate and the pandemic climate that people are going through right now,” he said. “But yet somehow we finish it and it sort of fitted right. It’s a time when people need a little consciousness. People need a little uplift.”
The new album sees Ocean reuniting with producer Barry Eastmond, who first teamed up with him as keyboardist on “Caribbean Queen.” Eastwood would go on to produce and help write many Ocean hits, including “When the Going Gets Tough” and “Love Zone.” Eastmond calls Ocean “probably the most honest artist I’ve ever worked with.”
“It’s all from a place of love,” Eastmond said. “It’s all from his heart and ‘We have to do better. But we can’t do it in a destructive way. We have to do it in a peaceful, loving way.’ In all his songs, he’s talking straight from the heart.”
Born in Trinidad, Ocean’s love of music came early, fed by his musician father. Local calypso led to getting hooked on Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke.
Ocean’s family relocated to England, where young Billy got turned on by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Then came Motown — The Supremes and Marvin Gaye — and James Brown and Otis Redding.
“I was absorbing it like crazy,” he said. “And so what comes out now is really what went in, to be honest with you.”
Two musicians became his north star, both named Bob — Dylan and Marley. They showed Ocean a way to add positivity and social consciousness to his music.
“For me, to make music that can sort of make people think and instill a bit of consciousness in them, fine. That’s great. That’s what we’re here to do,” he said.
Beginning with “Caribbean Queen” in 1984, he topped music charts for years, earning a Grammy, and had hits such as “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going,” “Loverboy,” “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” and “Suddenly.”
He said his lyrics have gotten wiser as he has.
“It’s a lot more mature, a lot more mature lyrically to, say, like ‘Caribbean Queen,’ for example. I’m older, so I just feel that I should be little bit more responsible” he said.
“I see things around me — some good, some bad — and try and make them topical and write them in a way that is inoffensive to people, but at the same time, still make people think.”
He plans to tour again, hoping to hit stages in 2021 highlighting “One World” to a world that needs to heal in more ways than one.
“The Lord has given me an outlet and that outlet is music.” he said. “It’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s a struggle. But after the struggle and you come up with something that’s good, it’s so rewarding.”