Hope and Harmony

I have been away from the Manilow Network for about a week. Have I learned anything in my time away? Yes. First, I have gotten some very nice messages from people I met over there who want to stay in touch. These are the kind of people who make up the nice parts of the Network. I really and truly believe there are more of these people than the other kind. Why don’t the nice people win out? Simply because they are nice. Nice people won’t stoop as low and do the underhand stuff the crazies do. So the crazies get the upper hand.

People asked me to stay and help change the Network. While I understand what they hope to do, it goes against my personal beliefs. The crazies have rights. As much as I hate to say it, they should be allowed to express their opinions too. The problem with them is they insist that everyone share their viewpoint and they are right about everything. When they can’t back up their statements, or are disagreed with, they have only one method of rebutting; personal attacks, along the lines of saying people who don’t agree with them are not true fans. Mature discussion is out of the question. And it’s all about Barry.

That is thrown around so much – what would Barry say? I think he said it. His dream musical Harmony was about a group of musicians who were torn apart because of intolerance. Records and the career of the group were destroyed because some of the guys in the group did not go along with the popular thinking of the time and place. Harmony tells the story of talent the world was denied because of closed- mindedness. What would Barry say? Judging by the storyline of Harmony, he would be against not being able to say what you want, on the network that bears his name or anywhere. While Harmony celebrates the success of the musicians, it also gives the message of hope. Hope that this will never happen again. Yet, it is happening, on a much smaller scale, on a place with the Manilow name. That is so sad.