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The Eternal Return

2010-10-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

I have been reading poetry and writing poetry and dreaming poetry. Falling asleep with iambic pentameter fragments swirling around in my brain... There is an outside possibility that I am a poet.

But only an outside possibility. Nothing is certain.

I am being urged by my workshop leader to go the POD (Publish on Demand) route as a way of getting launched as an honest-to-God for-realsies author. Imagine that! Thrills me! Scares me to death!

Scares me to death, kiddies. Really does.

The temptation to say Ah, Who are you kidding?, plant myself on the sofa and lose myself in the syndicated adventures of Rob and Laura and George and Ouisie is tremendous. I've waited too long, I worry, I've nothing that noteworthy to say anyway, I brood. Who'd read me? Who'd buy me? Who'd care if I ever published or didn't? And anyway there's this great Bette Davis movie coming on and it's becoming a favorite; it's strange and atmospheric and I think I like it even better than The Letter. I've just blanked on the title but in it she plays a wretch of a witch named Stanley whose reckless willfulness ruins the lives of just about everyone in her orbit.

Stanley. Love that. And Bette makes it work.

So I could just sit back and watch that again. Or wait about ten minutes and catch The Dick Van Dyke Show.

What is it Bette was famed for saying? If you know your Bette Davis you know where I'm going with this, I'm sure.

"No guts, no glory".

Pretty sure it was Bette...

My Name Was Barbra, Too

2010-03-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

Poor things; December since last we visited. Did you think I'd forgotten, abandoned you?

As I write I am listening to selections from Barbra Streisand's My Name Is Barbra, Two...Too? album, the sublime sequel, if that's the correct description, to her wonderful My Name Is Barbra album, which was, I think, the companion lp to the first of her storied sixties television specials--

Or actually, no, I may have the sequence slightly wrong. The black and white television special My Name Is Barbra may have been launched by the success of Streisand's record album of the same name, with the lp My Name Is Barbra Two...Too? the immediate follow-up to the TV special since it featured some of its tunes. (The Second Hand Rose medley in Bergdorf Goodmans department store.)

I was only 8 at the time of all this, understand, and the only television program I remember from that year was the Rogers and Hammerstein musical special, Cinderella, the color version starring the wide-eyed and winsome Lesley Ann Warren in the title role. If I squint I can see my skinny 8 year old self in summer culottes wandering my Aunt Mary and Uncle Larry's sprawling Blackstone Street apartment singing "A Lovely Night", channeling Lesley Ann swooning from that magical meeting with His Royal Highness, Stuart Damon.

But in just a few years it would be Streisand's "Where Is The Wonder" and "Second Hand Rose" I would be singing around the house, mine and everyone else's and I never really looked back. I loved the yearning and brass of that big, big voice.

More later. Not too much later. I promise.

Brava Meredith Baxter!! (Your Membership Kit Should Arrive Shortly)

2009-12-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Just watched the online Today show interview clip in which Meredith Baxter, best known as Elyse Keaton, the mom on the popular '80s sitcom Family Ties, came out to Matt Lauer. It was terrific. Watching her, and watching Lauer draw her out with such sensitivity and skill, was a genuine treat; I smiled all the way through it.

It was twice the treat, in fact, because as I was hurriedly putting myself together for work this morning I slowed to watch the shot of Lauer, standing outside the studio with Meredith Viera and Al Roker, giving the teaser for the upcoming interview with Baxter in which he hinted at her decision to share a "secret".

"Gay!" I thought immediately, then laughed at my presumption. Ah, Lorraine, you think everybody's gay. I grabbed the remote, clicked off the set, grabbed up my coat and bag, and went out the door and into my day, not giving it another thought.

Then I came home, turned on my pc, opened up my browser and--gasp!-- there was the "coming out" story on my homepage with Baxter's picture beside it!

Sweeeet!! :0)

I thought Baxter was very classy, didn't you?--forthright about her anxieties over such a public disclosure of her private life (Um, yeeeah, do celebrities really have those anymore? Did they ever?) and candid about her reasons for doing so (A looming tabloid disclosure *sigh*). She was also warmly funny relating how she'd earlier come out to her five grown kids--her eldest "smart-aleck" son cheekily told her he already knew--and her step-dad, Emmy-winning writer-producer Alan Manings ("Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "One Day At A Time", "Good Times", et al) who in reply to her nervous announcement that she was dating women said something along the lines of "Really? So am I!"

Baxter told Lauer that she'd also come out to her Family Ties family, Michael Gross who played husband, Steven, and the "kids", Justine Bateman, Tina Yothers and of course Michael J. Fox. (Oh yeah, and I suppose I should include Brian Bonsall, who played the adorable 1986 edition to the Keaton household, Andrew). Happily, according to Baxter, both her real and fictional families, as well as her friends, have been supportive and loving. I'm delighted for her, and for all of them.

But especially for her.

Some LGBT people may take issue with the awkward timing of Meredith Baxter's announcement--it is unfortunate that it took the threat of a tabloid "outing" to convince Baxter to acknowledge her queerness, and personally I hate the idea of anyone, famous or not, coming out under duress--but good on her for deciding to tell her life story her own way rather than leaving it to a supermarket gossip rag to do the deed.

Though I have nothing but admiration for LGBT people who come out young, especially those with public profiles--more of that, please-- in some ways I most admire late-in-life gays who finally stand up and step forward. I speak from painful experience when I say here that the longer you avoid telling what you know to be The Truth, the more convinced you can become that speaking out will be the cataclysmic end of everything, and the harder it can get ever to find the words and the courage to do it.

All that said, watching Baxter's coming out today is for me a bittersweet thing; I so wish the profile of African-American LGBTs was higher, by which I mean, existent. How much longer will we all have to wait to have the pleasure of watching similar Big Reveals from the likes of... oh, pick anybody. Seriously, go ahead--pick anyone. If we're really expected to believe, as we approach the second decade of the 21st Century, that all of today's black entertainers and persons of note--be they tv stars, movie stars, R&B, hip-hop and pop stars, athletes, journalists, politicos, reality-show divas or various and sundry other media movers and shakers--are all heterosexual, why not assume they're all gay as well? Holds about the same amount of logic.

Wait, you're saying, what about--? Yeah, I know... I know about African-American LGBT luminaries such as singer Johnny Mathis, dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones and writers Alice Walker and Jewelle Gomez, to name a few... but more importantly I wonder how many other Americans, black or white, can say the same? Because that I'm aware, I've never known any of them to sit with a Matt Lauer, a Barbara Walters or an Oprah Winfrey on national television and talk plainly about the experience of being lesbian or gay or bisexual. (If I've missed something, speak up--I'd like nothing better than to be contradicted on this point!) And it needs to be said that far too often when the celebrated likes of James Baldwin or Bessie Smith or Lorraine Hansberry or Malcolm X are profiled for Black History Month, their non-heterosexuality is either downplayed to a footnote or airbrushed entirely out of the bio.

Which leaves me feeling... less than celebratory.

Bleh (Sunday Morning Pages)

2009-11-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

Sunday. Sinday. Sin day.
(Sin-Day? What in heaven's name made me think of that?)

Restless today and vaguely... bleh. Went for a pleasant walk this morning--absolutely beautiful autumn day, perfect for strolling--but feel like I didn't get as much out of it as I should have somehow. Would I still be out and about if this were Hyde Park rather than Bronzeville? Possibly. All those evocative, familiar streets and beckoning bookstores and cafes, the lakefront, the parks. I miss the walkabouts of my younger days--so much restless energy. Wish I'd begun writing back then, too. Didn't know then I had it in me, I guess. Nobody knows anything when they're young. Nothing.

I should return Michael's call. He left a message requesting assistance from his "computer expert", meaning of course me, but I am not an expert at all, just a bit more comfortable with modern electronics than he, hopeless Luddite that he is. Mike reminds me of my mother in the way he just assumes I can rescue him whenever he's confronted with something he doesn't understand. It never dawns on either of them that I might be as baffled as they and not exactly eager to demonstrate that.

Why am I so irritable? It's the first of a nice little 3 day vacation (almost forgot I put down Tuesday as a vacation day, though I still have Tuesday night's workshop to attend) but I can't work up much enthusiasm about it. Maybe that's why I'm dragging my feet about calling Mike back. I don't feel like talking, and I don't feel like talking about why I don't feel like talking. Even a non-conversation with Michael, where we begin by acknowledging we need to keep it short, can run on for a solid two hours before someone's phone dies and we finally hang it up.

The writing is going... (pause)... okay. It could be better. I want it to be better. I want to write every day something good, something wonderful, not this doodling crap where I can go for pages not really saying anything. What forces combine to create a Baldwin? a (Toni) Morrison? a Dickens? an Oates? Why can't I be as prolific as any of them?

Because they're special that's why. Gifted. Touched by the Divine. I am neither special, nor gifted (though I might be touched). I am just okay. And only that when I work at it.

Okay. Pity party is over. Time to get back to working at it.

Lizzie

2009-09-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

Lizzie has now been consigned to memory. I miss her terribly.

This morning Mom and I took her to Hyde Park Animal Clinic where Tom Wake--a good guy who manages to combine kindness and sensitivity with brisk efficiency--performed the euthanasia services.

Did she know this moment was coming? It sure seemed that way; getting her out of the house was really rough. The clever scenario I’d envisioned for tricking her into her carrier—placing it outside the front door the night before with the expectation of maneuvering her inside the thing this morning after she followed me into the hallway—quickly fell apart when she went into hiding instead. The diabetes meant she was always ravenously hungry and thirsty, yet this time she refused to budge at either the sound of kibble being poured into her silver dish or the sight of a little 2% milk in her orange saucer, as though she sensed something sinister was afoot. I wound up having to corner her under my mother’s desk and muscle her into her carrier, she snarling and spitting every step of the way.

Me feeling like a traitor.

At the clinic Dr. Wake‘s assistant carefully held her on a towel-covered examining table while Tom gently but surely injected her leg with a clear solution that made her unconscious then stopped her heart. At Tom’s urging I stroked her head and spoke softly to her, hoping my loving voice and touch were the last things she experienced as she faded. It was all over so quickly—she didn’t pant or struggle or moan—and I could swear I saw the light go out of her beautiful marble eyes. Her pink tongue protruded a little. Then she was gone.

One especially heartbreaking little moment: as Tom was administering the injection my mother tried to gently rub Lizzie’s extended paw and with her remaining strength Lizzie pulled away from her. I cringed inwardly at this; even seconds from death she would not allow Mom to befriend her. Mom didn’t comment or react, but it must have hurt. She’d tried so hard these last five years to win Lizzie over but Lizzie would have none of it. For a fleeting moment I was actually angry at the cat.

I am going to miss her so. I know I sound like one of those pathetic cat ladies everyone rolls their eyes about, but she was my baby and almost human in her irrepressible playfulness, compelling need for attention and affection, inquisitive nature, epic silliness, and occasions of hissing, paw-swatting cantankerousness. From the moment I first met her, a live-wiry 11 month-old calico in my neighbor's living room, she was truly a character, interrupting her wrestling match with a Kermit toy to bound over and leap into my lap, paws pressed against my chest, performing a whisker-tickling examination of my chin, lips, hands and knuckles, before deciding I was hers. I brought her home that very day (My neighbor had to move and couldn't take her with him) and watched her take over the place, as I knew she would.

I will miss her chirping, burbling greetings, her soft mewlings for her breakfast and supper, her sudden mischievous grabs at my passing feet, and the trick she developed (until finally she became too sick to balance herself safely) of sitting up on her haunches and begging like a dog, knowing I would melt at the sight and give her whatever she was after—usually a saucer of milk, her favorite treat.

Where she learned that gesture I will never know, but then, she was an amazingly smart animal. Whoever said cats can’t be trained has been seriously misinformed; I was always teaching Lizzie new things, often without my realizing I was doing it.

I will miss our hallway hockey games, whapping and sliding back and forth to each other aluminum foil balls, plastic milk jug rings and anything else that would roll or bounce or skip. I will miss hide and seek around the living room furniture, and her snooping shopping bag inspections of incoming groceries. I will miss her frantic little “hurry up!” meows whenever she’d hear my key in the door and her affectionate nuzzles and winds around my legs when I came in and knelt down to tickle her ears and properly say hello.

I have gotten through the rest of this day and this evening by pretending Lizzie is lazily snoozing somewhere in the house out of sight, a contented, fuzzy, tri-colored ball—it’s just too painful right now to admit that she's gone and I will never see her again. I will miss her every day, for a very long time. The house will feel this way for a very long while, strange and still and unnaturally quiet.

For Barbara; And Especially For Lynn

2009-08-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

I am going to do three things very soon, as soon as I am able: I am going to purchase two books--Barbara Sher's It's Not Too Late If You Start Right Now and E. Lynn Harris's What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.

I loved these books--I don't think it's just the mood I'm in. I have just this week finished library copies of each and have decided both should be in my home, near my desk, somewhere close by. Even if they mostly only sit on a shelf, I'd feel better if they were always within easy reach for those times when I'm down, discouraged and unsure of myself and the validity of my dreams. Both in their way are inspiring reads, though I ended Lynn Harris's beautiful, deeply moving memoir with the sad awareness that, due to his sudden death last month (heart disease?), I'll never have the chance to meet or correspond with this wonderful man. I know he's gone and still I want to write to him right now, just to tell him how much his willingness to share his struggles as a black gay man trying to make his way in the world means to me.

Barbara Sher however is alive and presumably kicking at this writing, and at the close of It's Not Too Late included contact information and encouraged her readers to let her know if her words were helpful and in what ways. I have forever missed my opportunity with the generous and life-affirming Mr. Harris; I will try not to with the witty and wise Ms. Sher. Even if she is unable to reply, I would want to let her know that her book made me completely reconsider what I thought I understood about middle age and second life dreams.

The third thing is I am going to join that Neighborhood Writing Alliance group I've spent three years watching wistfully from a distance. It's free, my work hours have changed so there are at present no scheduling conflicts, they meet within walking distance of home, and the new workshop begins next month. Looks like I'm all out of excuses.

If I get to choose my first writing assignment, I know exactly what it will be. Maybe I'll call it Letter To Lynn.

If not... I'll write it anyway.

My Cat Is Sick And I'm Not Feeling Too Good Either

2009-08-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

24 August 2009
Monday Mid-Morning

I’m doing it again.

Waiting for someone to give me permission to do what I know needs to be done without anyone having to tell me.

Specifically, it’s about my cat. It’s time to have her euthanized. I know it even if my mother doesn’t (and really, she might). Lizzie is diabetic and her disease is being exhibited in all kinds of heartbreaking and exasperating ways, from the constant thirst that has her harassing me for milk nearly every time I walk into the kitchen let alone open the refrigerator door, to her opting to lie down in front of her water dish, her chin propped on the edge of her bowl, as she drinks and pauses, drinks and pauses, drinks and pauses. She’s always hungry as well, though it doesn’t seem to matter how often or how much I feed her; her appetite is never sated. She wakes me as early as 3:30am, pleading for the first in a series of feedings, though so far I’m able to hold off until at least 4 or 4:30am.

Then there are her deteriorating elimination habits.

For months now she’s been having trouble keeping both urine and fecal matter insider her litter box, the urine leaking or spraying out of the box chiefly because of the way she angles her body when she steps inside it to pee, flooding the floors and sometimes soaking the wall, bathroom rug and anything else nearby. She’s also pooping outside her box. Regularly. Sometimes on the bathroom rugs but most often on the living room carpeting, usually—though, to our horror, not always—in the early morning hours while we’re still asleep. This even though I have stepped up the care and cleaning of her cat box—which means I’m cleaning the damn thing religiously and still having to clean up after her elsewhere.

Her coat is another area of concern. It badly needs detangling—again—and she probably could benefit from another bath. She will not allow me to comb out even the smallest of tangles, though she does like my “’grooming” her with wadded up soft plastic newspaper sleeves and petting her in the evenings after “we’ve” emptied the trash (she always follows me into the hallway and sits patiently, waiting for my return from the garbage chute). In these bonding moments I have detected what feel suspiciously like tumors here and there on her body; some time ago I began to notice her apparent discomfort whenever she’d try to roll over on her side.
Lizzie also hides a lot now, crawling under my bed even when I’m home and in the room with her. That’s worrisome because I’ve learned that hiding is something many animals do to protect themselves when they’re scared, ill or in pain. She also vomits more often than I’m sure is normal.

Somehow none of this registers with my mother, or barely does. She seems especially unaware of how frequently the cat is peeing and pooping elsewhere probably because I am almost always the one cleaning up the mess, often before she’s seen any evidence of it. Mom is unaware of the tumors, if that’s what they are, because Lizzie resists all my mother’s efforts at physical affection, and she doesn’t notice the hiding behavior because it happens in my bedroom rather than hers and because she’s become accustomed to the cat’s disappearances when I’m not at home and its preference for my company when I am. We’ve talked about the diabetes and she has seen the ramping up of appetite and thirst, but she has (apparently) acclimated herself to that reality such that its larger meaning—the animal is seriously ill and will not get better—doesn’t fully register with her anymore, if it ever did. I don't think she really wants to know.

As before, with another beloved pet some 14 years earlier, it’s becoming clear to me that the burden of deciding the time to end things will fall to me; Mom cannot and will not say goodbye on her own. Her inability to do that comes from heartfelt affection for Lizzie, yes, but also because the animal has come to represent something else to Mom, something more than just a pet. It’s almost like she and I are a couple in a faltering marriage—I know how bizarre that reads but that’s how it feels—and the cat is the child that has been keeping us together. I don’t want to trivialize or ignore my mother’s feelings, but neither do I want to be ruled by them. Dealing with this animal’s problems is becoming stressful; this is a quality of life issue for me, too. I can’t leave the decision to her—she doesn’t want to know.

All that said, what do I do and when do I do it?

My mother says we shouldn’t have Lizzie euthanized until we’re sure she’s in pain, but the problem with that logic is at least twofold: first, when would someone as generally unobservant as my mother notice when that particular threshold had been reached, especially given the cat’s tendency to hide? And second, how much silent suffering should the cat have to endure before finally Mom could bring herself to agree that she should not be allowed to suffer anymore?

The last vet visit was back in March of this year. That was when Dr. W. laid it all out for me, after Lizzie’s blood and urine lab tests came back. He suggested daily insulin shots would likely help Lizzie’s symptoms and buy her more time, but the realities of the treatment and ongoing costs make that an unworkable solution. Euthanasia was all that was left and though I felt terrible for even thinking it, I was tempted right then and there to say to Tom, “Let’s just do this and get it over with.” Had I still been living alone, I probably would have.

But I’m not, and this living arrangement with my mother has complicated things. I know she wants to believe this is “our” cat and thus “our” decision to make though in her heart she must know the cat is really mine. This is as true now as it was 11 years ago when, after making it brutally clear to my mother that there would be no more pets, period, I did a guilt stricken about-face and brought Lizzie home to the Hyde Park apartment we shared. Though Mom became quite fond of Lizzie, she was content to let me be the pet mother, the one who actually tended to its needs, from keeping the icky litter box clean to ferrying it back and forth for check-ups, grooming and yearly shots; Mom loved the pleasure of the animal's company but not, particularly, the nitty-gritty of its care. Not surprising, it was with me the cat most strongly bonded and when, after another few years, my mother and I parted company and I decided to take Lizzie with me, Mom gave no argument.

But a few years later my financial fortunes changed for the worse and we all moved in together again (Lizzie surprising us both with her steadfast refusal to accept my mother’s determined attempts at getting reacquainted), and… here we are, faced with this, or rather me faced with this.

Faced with doing what I know needs to be done without anyone having to tell me to do it.

More Queerty

2009-08-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

I wandered into a Queerty.com thread again, and felt compelled to post this in response to a fierce and freewheeling debate--which as far as I could tell was entirely male--involving the suggestion of homophobic behavior and/or attitude from NBA legend Shaq O'Neal and actor Demetri Martin during their recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Full disclosure: I did not catch that particular Tonight Show or even watch the posted clip of it. However, through the exchanges between the commenters I understood that Martin, who in the new movie Taking Woodstock plays a real-life gay man who was instrumental in the creation of the iconic 1969 music festival, talked to Conan about having to kiss a guy in the film. Apparently O'Neal then slid away from Martin as if to express repulsion at the idea of two men kissing; that, or mock fear that Martin would try to kiss him.

In response to this, some commenters went after O'Neal, others insisted Shaq was unfairly taking the brunt of the criticism over the episode and charged racism, and still others generally opined that there was plenty of blame to go around, expressing annoyance at (presumably) straight actors who sign on to play gay characters and then moan to the press about how "challenging" such roles are, and also at Conan O'Brien, who must have something of a history of homophobic joking around in his comedy. (I guess. I'm not particularly a Conan fan, so I can't say for sure.) Even Taking Woodstock director Ang Lee came in for an angry scolding for not casting gay actors in his movies' main roles... Anyway the commenting back and forth over this, and other issues it led to, was so heated, with so many good points getting mixed in with a lot of sneering, testosterone-fueled zingers, that I couldn't resist joining in (though, admittedly, I rattled on rather longer than I should have for forums like this):

We ARE all essentially on the same side here, aren't we? Or at least most of us? It's kind of hard to tell what with all the shouting, name-calling and insult-slinging. (You're a pretty lively group, lol.) Several thoughts came to me as I read all the back and forth of these comments; hope y'all don't mind my sharing a few...

1) I know it's Shaq's appearance on Conan--sorry, The Tonight Show--that kicked off the raging debate, but somehow my thoughts wandered to Magic Johnson's appearance on Arsenio Hall's show nearly twenty years ago, after he had tested positive for HIV and announced his immediate retirement from basketball. In answer to the rumors that he was gay, Magic told Arsenio he was not, saying "...I'm a long way from that." Arsenio smiled and the studio audience exploded with cheers. I wanted to throw up, I was so disgusted with Johnson. It was his tone, the way he said what he did, that got to me. I remember thinking: Fuck you, Magic. Is it really necessary to play to all the bigots out there? You can't find a way to say the words "It's not true" without the insulting insinuation?

Admittedly, this is not the same as the Shaq controversies, but it came floating back to me anyway.

2) The victimhood issue-- as a black lesbian entering her fifth decade, I can kind of speak to that. A lot depends on how and where you grew up, of course, but if you are a member of a group that has historically suffered serious and significant discrimination--some of it irritating in its subtlety, some of it scarily overt--over-sensitivity becomes a kind of occupational hazard, especially if you're a member of both tribes and find yourself constantly having to deal with one tribe's dissing the other.

I have been to queer events where mine was the only face of color and the freeze-out (especially from the guys; not sure why) was such that I couldn't bear to stay in the room. I have also found myself at noisy odds with black family, neighbors and coworkers (especially the women--don't ask) who frankly found the gay stuff "unnecessary" and even "disgusting"-- even as they insisted that they personally had "no problem" with gay people. (Riiiight...)

3) And as to Ang Lee, and the issue of straight actors playing gay roles... sigh. Are we sure we're in command of all the facts about this? I'm not convinced a gay actor, out or not, could have brought more nuance and heartbreak to the role of Ennis Del Mar than did Heath Ledger, though, yes, it did get increasingly annoying watching one entertainment reporter after the next "sympathetically" prompt Ledger about how "uncomfortable"-- read: having to kiss and simulate-fuck Jake Gyllenhaal--the role must have been to, um, play. (And excuse me, but just how was that so damn hard really? I'm a dyke--I'm not blind or dead.)

On the other hand, how many talented, hunky gay actors felt safe taking on such a role? How many of them worried that doors would softly close around them and they'd never be seriously considered for an action or straight romantic lead role ever, or ever again? How many might actually have been eager to play Ennis or Jack but were warned away by their (closeted?) agents, managers, and publicists? Do we know who was on Mr. Lee's short list for the main characters of all his queer-themed films, and who turned him down for the reasons just mentioned?

Again, reading your arguments about this, my thoughts turned to another time and place: I recalled reading about the difficulty Alfred Hitchcock encountered when trying to cast for his film "Rope," the movie loosely based on the 1920s Leopold-Loeb murder case (Think it was Arthur Laurent's autobio that detailed this). Hitchcock had wanted Cary Grant in the professor role, and the beautiful and exciting newcomer Montgomery Clift in the role of one of the murderous young men.

Alas. Neither Grant nor Clift, both gay, would go near the roles. Both were aware of the famous case that inspired the story, and may have known the real-life protagonists had been lovers--though of course that's only hinted at in the 1948 film-- and were apparently afraid the homoerotic subtext would mean trouble for them. (Grant's character was also originally envisioned as a former lover of one of the young men.) I think it was handsome Farley Granger--quite good (and, ironically, also gay)--who took the role meant for Clift. And it was stalwart, straight as a stick James Stewart who played the young killers' ex-teacher, a piece of casting which changed the entire tone of the film. Stewart brought moral umbrage, but not much else, to the proceedings, seeming to have no clue what was really going on.

My point is that, as much as we might like to think so after all this time, not all that much has significantly changed for young hottie actors (especially males) in Hollywood. They are still told to keep their heads down and play it "safe" if they want a chance at a Serious, Big-Ticket Career in showbiz (or for that matter, team sports), and the status quo remains largely intact. Unfortunately.

PS: I sincerely apologize for the length of this comment, guys. Stepping off the soapbox now.

Yeah. A tad long. But I feel better, how 'bout the rest of you?

Charles Perez and The Continuing Facts of Life

2009-08-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Just read a story on Queerty.com (posted five days ago) about the saga of Charles Perez, who was first demoted to weekend anchor and later fired outright from his anchorman gig at Miami's ABC affiliate WPLG for, it is strongly suspected, the crime of Delivering The News While Openly Gay. Perez is fighting back, having lodged a complaint of discrimination; the case is pending with the Equal Opportunity Board. I was interested, as always, in the comments posted by readers; one of them really grabbed my attention, opining:

"You shouldn't be discriminated against for being gay, but you shouldn't bring the fact that you are gay to the workplace overtly (emphasis mine) either. "

I read that one twice, shaking my head, which was flooding with memories of workplaces past. I decided to register with Queerty, just so I could respond to that particular comment--which had to have been made by an extremely young and naive, or willfully obtuse, person. This is, in the main, what I posted in response:

Excuse me, please?? That statement completely ignores the fact--the FACT--that hetero workers think nothing of bringing the fact of THEIR sexual orientation into the workplace, "overtly" or otherwise, every single day!

I've been a working adult for nearly 3 decades now. In every office or workspace where I have been employed, straight fellow employees have proudly displayed on their cubicle walls and desks all manner of evidence of their personal lives, especially scads of photos of their kids and spouses or significant others. The marrieds come to work each day grousing--sometimes jokingly, sometimes not--about life with their Better Half, the singletons come in with glowing details about last night's hot rendezvous and an eagerly anticipated weekend getaway with the latest object of their affection... unless, that is, they come in bemoaning the latest loser they felt compelled to endure on the previous evening's travesty of a date.

Either way, you can't get away from the information overload--don't get me started on what happens with the approach of St. Valentine's Day--and given how much of their lives working people spend on the job, it's really not surprising.

And as for dealings with "the public" (which presumably would include customers and clients)-- just how is a gay person supposed to respond when "the public" brings up personal matters, chatting about their own family and/or love life--and then asking you about yours? People do that you know, and even in these post-Ellen, post-Will & Grace, post-Queer As Folks times, straight people have an annoying tendency to assume that everyone in the room is hetero like them.

What do you do if you're not hetero like them? Are we really expected to lie? Why should we have to? Why are the rules still different for some?

Perhaps I should have included as post script: Can you hear me, Mr. "Change We Can Believe In"?

And Debutante of the Year 1944 at Age 15

2009-08-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Her Films:

1941 Citizen Kane............................................... Orson Welles

1942 The Magnificent Ambersons................... Orson Welles

1943 Shadow of a Doubt................................... Alfred Hitchcock

1944 Laura................................................... Otto Preminger
Les Enfants du Paradis............................ Marcel Carne

1946 My Darling Clementine............................ John Ford
The Big Sleep............................................ Howard Hawks

1947 Black Narcissus......................................... Michael Powell
The Paradine Case.................................... Alfred Hitchcock

1948 Letter from an Unknown Woman.......... Max Ophuls

1949 Madame Bovary....................................... Vincente Minnelli
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon...................... John Ford

1950 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman........ Albert Lewin

To Whom It Might Possibly Concern

2009-08-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

August 17, 2009
Monday

Folks,

Having been unceremoniously dumped into a "fee-based" technical support system without my prior knowledge or consent--this after having been placed on hold several times by a customer service rep who plainly had no idea how to help me with my problems--my disappointment with the "___ _______ ___ Experience" is now complete.

Therefore please find enclosed your ___ kit returned, and at my expense, I might add. Henceforth I'll look elsewhere for a ___ service that is truly both affordable and easy to install and use.

It's too bad, really.

Initially I was excited about ___'s (finally!) offering a ___ service, especially since the monthly cost seemed reasonable and, unlike ___, I could look forward to the benefit of ___ without the annoyance of being locked into a yearlong contract. Additionally, as an ___ customer, I could try the _________ ___ service for two months free (per the original sign-up offer); I decided to send for the ___ kit.

Then it arrived-- my _____ ______ confirmation arrived a bit later--and my headaches began.

I was less than pleased to discover (as I own an earlier model _______without a ___ ____) I would have to go out and purchase a ___ or ______ ____ in order to make the hook-up work; I did so nevertheless, deciding with the help of a salesperson to purchase a ___. I followed the directions of the accompanying manual carefully, installed the ___ ____, hooked up the ___ kit (using the blue ___ _____), inserted the ___ set-up CD-ROM into the drive, and... the first screen of the ___ set-up wizard warned that the ___ could not be detected. Something was wrong.

I uninstalled everything and tried again; still no connection. Baffled, I called ___'s tech support hot-line seeking help. I spoke to a very nice customer support person who tried to walk me through a manual installation of the ___ so that the ___ system would recognize it; no success. Finally, this individual suggested that the _______ ____ might be easier for the ___ set-up system to detect.

Accordingly, I returned the ___ to the store from which I'd purchased it, exchanging it for Microsoft's _______ ____. I read the installation and set-up manual carefully, following its instructions with its CD-ROM. I hooked up the ___ again (this time using the red _______ _____), inserting the set-up CD-ROM again, aaaand.... once again the set-up wizard's first screen warned that the ____ could not be detected.

Something was wrong. Again.

Again, I backed out of everything, again I shut down my ________, unhooked the power cord from my ________, re-read the set-up manual(s), and re-installed the ____ (this time in a different available ____), replaced the cover of my ________, and attempted the set-up again.

Again, no luck.

Frustrated, I called ___'s tech support again, and once again I encountered an amiable support person who seemed baffled by my installation problems, suggesting I try this and that, to no avail. He placed me on hold to briefly assist another support person nearby; he came back, he asked me more questions, made more suggestions, and placed me on hold again.

He returned again, and hemmed and hawed, obviously uncertain of what to tell me; he asked me to hold again. I held. And held.

Next thing I knew I was listening to an automated voice "welcoming" me to ___'s "fee-based technical support service." This was the last straw.

So, here is your ___ back. Whatever benefits there may have been to using this thing are simply not worth the (considerable) aggravation of trying to set it up and get it going.

Late in the year last year, I ended my service with ___. By that time I'd experienced little glitches and inconveniences with that service just annoying enough to compel me to quit it when the contract finally ended. If absolutely nothing else, I did not want to be locked into another yearlong commitment.

Well. One thing I can say about their ___ that cannot be said about your ___: if you signal interest in their ___ service, they take the trouble to find out what sort of equipment you're using so they can then determine what kind of ___ ________ ___to send, and everything you'd need is included when it arrives, including a compatible ________ or ___ ____. You don't find yourself having to pony up even more cash (you may not have right now) to make it all work.

May I trust it's safe to assume I will NOT be charged for this vexing misadventure? I never made it to the trial period, after all, let alone past it.

Thank (almost said something else) You,

The Disgusted Miss M.

I'm Not Saying It Happened Like That. I'm Just Saying It COULD Have Happened Like That, Etc.

2009-07-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

MichaelMichaelMichaelJacksonJacksonJackson. Everywhere you look, everything you hear. Wall to wall coverage of his massive memorial service in L.A. yesterday, I mean Tuesday, and my coworkers can't stop speculating his "true" cause of death. On a power walk the other morning I encountered a couple walking in the opposite direction; the woman smiled and pointed to my Sansa and mouthed Michael Jackson? I shook my head and smiled back.

Madonna. Don't Tell Me.

Her smile wobbled as they passed me.

Jackson's 11 year old daughter Paris broke down in tears as she remembered her dad. I know this because the image of her surrounded by a sea of comforting Jackson aunts and uncles is on the cover of all of yesterday's daily newspapers and leading off all the news and infotainment shows. Did they encourage Paris to speak or did she insist on doing so? Maybe they shouldn't have let her--she was obviously overwhelmed by grief and she's only a child after all.

My mother has decided that Michael Jackson could not possibly have molested any of those kids. She's given it a lot of thought and come to the conclusion that it was an extortionist plot, complete with racist overtones, hatched by the father of Jackson's accuser.

Right. Of course. I pointed out to her that more than one boy came forward with charges of sexual molestation (or inappropriate contact, or whatever you feel more comfortable calling it); were all the parents in on this shakedown?

She thought a moment. "Yes," she said.

Okay, that last part I made up. I did remind her that Jackson and his legal team had to contend with more than one accuser, and she quickly concurred, but then continued talking about it as though Michael Jackson's downfall was all the fault not of his own actions or poor judgement but of one boy, possibly a malicious, manipulative boy, possibly an innocent who was being stage-managed by a resentful, greedy dad who might even have described Michael to his son as a nigger.

I sighed, remembering how the OJ trial had (briefly) divided the family; here we go again. "I'm not convinced of that particular scenario, Mom..."

"I know, but--"

"I mean, come on now. You've pretty much convinced yourself that's how it happened and you don't really know that. You like that explanation because you liked Michael Jackson and get misty-eyed at memories of him as a little boy. You'd rather not believe him capa--"

"I know it. I know it! I've had that talk with myself, asked myself if I wasn't just believing what I wanted to believe... I'm not saying it happened that way--I'm saying it could have happened that way! You don't realize, honey--there are people in this world who will do things like that, especially, you know, when a celebrity is involved..."

She went on like that for awhile longer, building steam, and eventually I gave up trying to interject. I knew that attempting to point out the irrationality of her central argument would only lead to an emotional quarrel that neither of us wanted and would in any case move neither of us from our firmly held positions. Besides, could I say for sure she was wrong? Money and unexpected proximity to a superstar celeb can bring out the worst in all kinds of people; maybe my mother's assertion is essentially correct and poor Michael got busted for trusting the wrong people.

May-be.

Thing is, if in strict fairness I have to concede that she could conceivably be right in her suspicions about Michael's accusers, it stands to reason that she should be prepared to do likewise and allow for the possibility, however painful to contemplate, that it was Michael Jackson's behavior that was predatory--not the boy(s) and not the parent(s)--but she can't (quite) bring herself to do that.

"--and all that money! That little nigga can afford to give up some of that money, it ain't gonna hurt him!--I'm just saying it could have gone down like that! And--you know what, too?--those sleepovers--Michael was probably just trying to recreate something from his childhood, you know? From the days when the Jacksons weren't rich and he and his brothers were sleeping two and three in a bed and maybe used to horseplay and tease each other? I've really thought about this, Lorraine, and I'm pretty sure that's what was going on. Maybe things got out of hand somehow and the boy misunderstood Michael's intentions, or maybe he knew Michael didn't mean any harm but he told his family about it, and next thing you know--"

Yeah, Mom. But it is also possible that something happened between Michael and his young guest that absolutely should not have, but not with everybody who made the complaints. Maybe upon hearing of the first molestation accusation some of the parents, shocked by the charges, allowed guilt, disgust, hysteria (and the scent of settlement money in the air) drive their actions, convincing their kids to say things went on that didn't happen to them but did happen to somebody else.

It is also possible that Michael Jackson betrayed, in the most unforgivable way, the starry-eyed trust of countless youngsters over an unknown period of years while managers, handlers, staff, security, perhaps even certain family and friends, nervously looked the other way, praying to Jehovah that their worst suspicions were wrong.

Not saying it went down that way. Just saying it is possible and wondering if we (the fans generally, the black community particularly) will ever allow ourselves the freedom to merely speculate, let alone investigate.

"--and, I mean, yes it's true Michael obviously had a dark side--I really feel he needed help that he never got. All those cosmetic surgeries, and his skin--you know they say Joe Jackson used to say terrible things to Michael about his looks when he was young, make fun of his nose and his teenage skin--somebody should have gotten him some help so that maybe he wouldn't have felt the need to change himself so drastically--"

Okay, that I definitely agreed with. Michael needed help he never got. It was fascinating and disturbing watching his face morph first into an eerie approximation of Diana Ross circa 1980, then into a Eurasian drag queen and then... not... really... sure anymore. Bad Kabuki theater?

Given his many cosmetic surgeries, I've never known what to make of Jackson's assertion that his bizarre color transformation was the result not of relentless self-bleaching gone haywire but rather of treatment for vitiligo, a disease that makes skin lose its pigmentation in patches, by causes still not fully known. I'm not disputing Jackson's claim, but I have read that Joe, the Jackson patriarch, was a strict and forbidding taskmaster who ruled his household with an iron fist--just this week one of the morning news shows paying tribute to Michael's musical legacy reported Jackson senior used to monitor his sons' rehearsals with a belt in his hand--and was indeed cruel in his comments to MJ about his appearance. I have also read that Michael was so traumatized by life with his father that the surgeries were really a determined attempt to eradicate all traces of Joe Jackson in his features; furthermore, I've read that once MJ decided he wanted to become a father himself he was determined the mother should be white, the better to replace, or at least "dilute," the Jackson genetic trait.

I don't of course have any way of knowing for sure how much of any of that is true. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised. The Jacksons were steeped in the public consciousness for a long, long time; when you're that famous certain things about you--sometimes waft-y, indefinable things--eventually surface whether you wish them to or not. Even when nothing is confirmed by the celebrity or his spokesperson you begin to sense things simply by watching him or her over the years. You read, and watch, interviews carefully, paying close attention to what is not said as much as what is. You glance at tabloid headlines, hate yourself for taking such trash one ounce seriously, and read them anyway as you wait at the check-out line; you watch to see which scandalous allegation develops legs and gets picked up by the "respectable" periodicals. You keep a sharp eye out for that eyebrow-raising Barbara or Oprah confessional.

"...Poor Michael. They need to just leave him alone now, let the boy rest in peace. That's what killed him, probably, carrying the stress from all that stuff..."

Probably, Mom. That or the drugs.

To Michael, On Independence Day

2009-07-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

Mike,

Weird that just after I hung up the phone with you last week I heard the news about Michael Jackson. What a shocker, huh?

And yet, somehow not really, when you consider what a carnival of turmoil his life had become. My mother was stunned speechless when I told her all the cable news channels were reporting he had passed—all these years later she still thought of Michael Jackson as the button cute centerpiece of the Jackson Five, as though on some level unable or unwilling to comprehend or accept that Jackson had grown up and his life had become a great deal more complicated in the intervening years. Like a lot of fans, I go back a long way with Michael Jackson; remembering him with the Jackson Five is remembering my childhood; recalling the release of event records like Off The Wall and, of course, Thriller, the monster smash that ate popular music, is like looking at snapshots of myself (and Joe, and you) taking our first uncertain steps into our adult years.

Do you remember when Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five came out back in ’69 and it was reported that she’d “discovered” the group and brought them to the attention of Berry Gordy, who signed them to the fabled Motown on the spot? That was PR bullshit of course; Diana Ross did no such thing. A number of other people helped the Jacksons in the early days; if anything it was the celebrated likes of Sam and Dave, Gladys Knight, Bobby Taylor and others who were most instrumental in getting Gordy to see the Jacksons’ immense potential.

Whatever—they were phenomenal. I’ll always remember the thrill of their performances, the close harmonies, Michael and Jermaine’s delightful call and response singing and, best of all, those electrifying, precision dance moves. Bubblegum soul. That was the memorably affectionate description of their musical style. The Jackson Five really were something new, something that had never before happened to African-American kids like us, the first black teen idols.

Maybe I should cap that: The Jackson Five Were the First Black Teen Idols. I was so proud of that, and of them. I loved their music, bought every new record the minute they hit the stores, semi-patiently taught the song lyrics to classmates. (Remember when it was imperative to know the latest Jackson Five songs?) And like my classmates I understood intuitively their importance to American culture generally and to Black America particularly; the Jackson Five were to popular music what Ali was to sports and Sidney Poitier to the movies: the supermen among us whose supreme talents not only lifted us up but also reached across racial divides. You knew that somewhere white kids were also watching Michael and his brothers on The Hollywood Palace and The Ed Sullivan Show, leaping off their parents’ couches to sing and dance along to the infectious beats of I Want You Back, The Love You Save and ABC, right along with us. Somehow, you just knew.

More importantly though, they were ours. Who cared whether the white kids liked them or not? Let the Tiger Beat teeny-bopper suburban girls shriek and swoon over the Dondi-eyed Donny and his Osmond brothers—we had the Jackson Five!

I remember in my moody adolescence barricading myself in my tiny closet of a bedroom, playing Maybe Tomorrow, Lookin’ Through The Windows and Never Can Say Goodbye over and over again on the disco ball shaped record player my mom gave me for my 13th birthday, haunted by the bittersweet lyrics and the yearning ache and keening wails in Michael’s young voice. There was a head shot of him on the record sleeve for the 45 single Ben—or maybe it was Rockin’ Robin or Little Bitty Pretty One—anyway, he is bright-eyed with a full-lipped grin, a newsboy cap is perched at a cocky angle on his Afro. For a long time, this was my favorite picture of him. I would play the record and gaze at Michael grinning back at me, wondering what in that very moment he was doing, thinking, feeling. Time inched forward, and Michael and his brothers got a little older, his voice deepened, and his face grew spotty, plagued like mine by aggravating flare-ups of teenage acne. I’d read somewhere that away from the stage Michael could be very shy, especially when meeting new people; I imagined the acne making it that much harder for him to endure being sought after and looked at, and I was sympathetic, knowing just how he felt.

Other pictures of Michael Jackson appear in my mind’s eye: Michael formerly dressed and in snazzy, pinched-looking shoes playing basketball on the court of the family’s new California home; Michael just a few years older, sweet-faced yet slightly ill at ease, sandwiched between the glamorous likes of Liza, Halston and Jackie O at some typically over-the-top Studio 54 shindig; a darkly handsome and tuxedoed Michael in front of a brick background on the Off The Wall album cover. Where did the time go? He seemed with effortless ease to evolve from cuddly child prodigy to precociously assured solo star to superstar powerhouse, the new young master of the realms of R&B and Pop.

Remember the Motown 25th anniversary special in 1983? Owned it! Didn’t he?! The medley routine with the brothers was as rousing as expected, Michael now as tall and lean as big brother Jackie. But when those first thumping strains of Billie Jean began—that funky, spooky base line—and he unleashed that blazing, landmark performance of moonwalk and attitude—Michael Jackson exploded onto a whole new entertainment plateau (if not creating it right on the spot) and became a New Age Astaire. It was breathtaking.

It was also, in a way I still can’t fully explain, the beginning of the end of my sense of connection to Michael, that feeling like he was one of us and I knew him. It wasn’t just your usual he-belongs-to-the-ages-now mingle of pride, awe and resignation. Okay, it was that, but it was something else also. By the time of Thriller’s release he was beginning to change in ways I didn’t understand; the seemingly never-ceasing process of altering his appearance had begun, along with the perhaps inevitable retreat behind layers and layers of lawyers and lackeys. It was also the start of whispers and snickers and less than flattering press scrutiny and speculation.

As time wore on I still loved Michael’s music—well, most of it, most of the time. And nothing could touch my Jackson Five memories. But about the rest—the mirror glasses, the thinned-out lips and narrowing nose, the weirdly childlike “Peter Pan” persona, the quasi-military uniforms—I have to confess I had become as skeptical--not really the right word, but I can't think of the right word; I never could--as everyone else. I was older now too, and beginning to observe Michael Jackson with an attitude of detachment, and with more critical eyes. Though I tried not to be as judgmental—or mean—as some, or at least not overly so, chalking up Jackson’s increasing strangeness to the vagaries of artistic temperament, every once in awhile I glimpsed something that made me wonder just what was going on with the “Gloved One.” Did Michael Jackson really live in a different universe or did he just expect the rest of us to think so and ask no questions?

Take the Emmanuel Lewis thing.

Now—there. I’m not even sure what I mean by that, exactly, but if you remember any or all those images of the two of them at a mid-eighties (’84? ’86?) Grammy Awards show—where reportedly they’d met for the very first time—you must have at least an idea where I’m going with this.

I mean, think back: there’s the then twenty-something Michael Jackson at the height of his fame and in all his glitter-gloved splendor, and there’s Emmanuel Lewis, the then—forgive me—pint-sized star of the popular Webster TV series. In all the photos of the two I have ever seen, Jackson is holding Lewis firmly in his lap or carrying him around on his hip as though he’s handling, I don’t know, his own child, or a baby brother, or a little Jackson cousin. The two only met, mind you, yet Jackson apparently thought nothing of literally picking up and carrying this moon-faced adolescent boy around for the benefit of the cameras, and maybe for the duration of the evening.

And remember, Emmanuel Lewis was an adolescent—though he looked every bit the cherubic tot he played on Webster he was in fact a showbiz veteran of 12, a fascinating peculiarity, similar to that of fellow actor Gary Coleman, that had been reported in a number of interviews—and how many 12 year old boys do you know who would want to be publicly carried about like an infant, no matter how they looked? Shouldn’t that have occurred to Michael Jackson? Shouldn’t it have mattered to him even, you know, a little bit? Age aside, there is such a thing as boundaries after all; respecting another’s personal space is more than a notion, or should be. Was Emmanuel Lewis such a bedazzled fan of Jackson’s that the indignity of being treated like a living toy simply didn’t register that magical night? Or was he too intimidated to object?

And by the way, what, I’ve always wondered, did Brooke Shields, Jackson’s supposed main squeeze at the time, make of it? There she is by his side, smiling her wide, beautiful, camera-ready, actress-model smile—what would you say that smile concealed? Unease? Consternation? Embarrassment? Was she even a little creeped out by the spectacle of Emmanuel Lewis as Jackson’s personal pet? Or was she as obtuse as her celebrated pretend-boyfriend? (Eventually Shields revealed in an interview that she ended the relationship with Jackson because she began to realize there would never be any there there; even after communicating that she was ready for things to go to the next level, apparently the romance never went further than chaste kisses.)

To this day I don’t know if any reporter or news publication or broadcast of note commented back then, in any kind of raised-eyebrow way, on that Webster-Jackson public cuddle. I didn’t go looking for snark. But whatever anyone else made of it, whoever did or didn’t say anything about it, for me it was unavoidably a brow furrowing, what the f**k is he thinking moment.

Then in '93 those shocking, sickening accusations of child molestation that began to unravel him--and I was shocked as everyone else, Mike. Shocked and dismayed—oh, Lord, no—not this! Not him! This was unreal, unbelievable! Michael Jackson? A child molester? It's a shakedown, it's a total misunderstanding! I didn't believe it!

And... yet…

There again, I don’t know how to finish that thought. You can be shocked by something but yet not really surprised, do you know what I mean? He was always surrounded by all those damned kids. And, beyond the customary phalanx of security forces, there never seemed to be any other adults in attendance; just all these shining, poignantly young faces gazing at Michael Jackson in adoration, thronging around him. You looked at images like that, youngsters everywhere, in magazines, in newspapers, on your television screen, and you couldn’t help feeling a tad uneasy. Where were the parents? Where in the hell was a parent?

Come to think of it, where were Emmanuel Lewis’s parents that Grammy night?

From the start, there were many people who simply refused to believe that any part of those nasty allegations could possibly be true. I admit I was tempted to join the Denial Brigade, at times longing to, at times even nodding my head in mute semi-agreement at the outrage and denunciations aimed, not at Jackson, but squarely at his young accusers and/or their parents.

This made me very uncomfortable as I’m sure it did you. Blaming the victim is always a revolting business, but who exactly were the victims? Were Jackson’s accusers the youngsters who had traveled and lived and played with him at his Neverland Ranch or the now furious parent-guardians kept at a distance during all that time?

And what about those parents, by the way? What on earth were they thinking in the first place, handing their precious children over to a stranger, no matter how famous, and leaving them with him without their at least occasional supervision? Where was their sense of responsibility?

I know--this was Michael, and they thought they knew him, could trust him. Everybody thinks that about celebrities; they come to us through the magic of movies, magazines, music, television (especially) and, increasingly, the 'Net--and we're seduced into believing that we know who they are. But even when convinced, as many obviously were, that they could trust Jackson completely, what did they know about the other people—the security, staff, assorted hangers-on—surrounding him? The parents who came forward, or were even just tempted to, with charges of abuse--how much of that fury was inverted embarrassment and guilt for having been so stupidly negligent with their children in the first place? How credible were they—and how many were truly credible? When a celebrity scandal, especially one involving a star of the magnitude of a Michael Jackson, explodes into the news, all sorts of slippery, unsavory types come from out of nowhere, looking for a payday, 15 minutes of face time, something. Things got so ugly so quickly.

On the other hand, I remember thinking uneasily there's something to this. Somewhere. Somehow.

There were so many kids around Michael Jackson, and of the ones who participated in the sleepovers a significant number seemed to have been very young (and pretty) boys, with Jackson alone calling the shots and the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, whoever, conveniently “disappeared”—was it possible he behaved in an inappropriate way with any one of those boys? Several of them? Many? And how “inappropriate” did things get? It was awful to contemplate—this was Michael Jackson! Your mind didn’t want to go there! But he didn’t help himself with the things he eventually admitted to doing--or allowing--and then tried to defend, so that the more Jackson protested his innocence, the more impatient, and finally disgusted, I got with him.

I know I keep coming back to this, but there's no getting away from it: he surrounded himself with underage kids--overwhelmingly, underage male kids--and took them with him when he toured and brought them back for extended stays at his ranch. He did this on the condition that parents and all other adult guardians—some, probably many, of whom were themselves long time MJ fans who would have been delighted to accompany their lucky youngsters to anything involving Michael—stay away, reportedly resorting to what could only be perceived as varying levels of bribery to ensure their cooperation in that request.

Most damning, he allowed these kids to sleep with him in his bedroom, an inner sanctum he reportedly protected with the installation of an elaborate motion sensor alarm system that would sound some kind of warning whenever anyone approached the door and reached for the knob, giving Jackson time to—well, what, exactly? Throw on a robe? Pull up his pants? Cover the kid? I know, that's ugly—but that’s how it looked! Could he really not see that that’s how it looked?? (And if this were anyone other than Michael Jackson we were talking about by the way, if, say, it was Donny Osmond-- would we be tiptoeing around the subject like this?)

And it’s not as if there was at that time a Special Lady on the premises, for appearances sake if for no other reason. Indeed it seemed not have occurred to Jackson that he should have that kind of cover (not that I mean to be offering any sort of playbook for pedophiles here). He was Michael Jackson, King of Pop, after all. Who would dare to question his actions? Besides the long since departed Ms. Shields, the most visible women making what I couldn’t avoid thinking of as Guest Appearances in Jackson’s life seemed to be stunning but aging icons of another era such as Sophia Loren—I think MJ was photographed squiring her to some glam function, once or twice—and, most notably, Elizabeth Taylor, who was actually a Jackson BFF. (The choice of La Liz is in itself ironically revealing—Monty Clift, James Dean, Rock Hudson, et al., anyone? And as for the gorgeous Sophia—two words: Cary Grant.) I’ll bet you if Marilyn Monroe was still alive and halfway decent-looking Jackson would have made sure to be seen attending some soiree with her, too. It’s that classic closet impulse toward over-compensation: Not only am I perfectly normal, but just look who I can attract! Quite the stud, wouldn’t you say?

It was stupid-ridiculous, Mike. If Michael Jackson wasn’t guilty of improper conduct with a minor, then he was at the very least the biggest fucking fool on the planet. How could he be so reckless? How could he place himself in such an exquisitely dangerous position? Didn’t it ever dawn on him what could happen if only a few of the details emerged, how things might appear, however innocent it all was?

But how innocent was it actually? There was MJ in that jaw-dropping Martin Bashir interview conceding that, yes, he did allow kids, many kids in fact, to sleep with him, not just in his bedroom but in his bed, sometimes with him, yes--but we can all take his word for it that it was completely honorable and above board, nothing remotely improper ever happened. We can believe this because he loves children, all children, all the little children of the world, and because, well, look he’s Michael Jackson, and he says so. End of discussion, okay?

What! WTF????!!

Do you remember that? What did you think? Myself, I sat there slack-jawed, thinking: that’s it, he’s done.

Yeah, I remember—the fall-out from that interview was so devastating for Michael Jackson that another, alternate version was released by him and his personal cameraman (Take Two: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See, also known as “the rebuttal interview”) showing interviewer Bashir being much more positive in his remarks toward and coverage of Jackson, as well as other omitted or additional interviews that were, of course, complimentary to Jackson. I suppose you could make the argument—and plenty of folks have—that the footage in the rebuttal version negates the former, or at least makes a case for doubting the whole concept of journalistic integrity. Especially seen back to back, the contrasting interviews probably do make Bashir seem disingenuous, if not Machiavellian, just another ambitious reporter ready in a heartbeat to sell out a famous, albeit naively trusting, subject to make his own name--or so the Michael loyalists sneer. I say "probably" because I don't remember ever having watched Take Two and, truthfully, I have no plans to do so now. Given the opportunity I don't particularly want to see the original again either. Too depressing, especially now.

I’ll leave it to you and others to argue Martin Bashir’s merits, or lack thereof, as a journalist. But even allowing for Bashir’s methods or intentions, there is no getting away from the fact—the fact, Mike—of Michael Jackson’s catalogue of bizarre behavior, and most seriously his (alleged) troubling impulses towards certain adolescent kids and fatal inability to comprehend that certain societal rules apply to him, too. Regardless. Regardless of his intentions, regardless of his probably very genuine love for his young fans (including the most heartrendingly vulnerable of them, the cancer sufferers whose miseries, reportedly, were eased by their Neverland visits), regardless of his kindness and generosity to his friends and family members, regardless of his global fame and (once) great wealth, and even regardless of his superlative gifts and indisputable legend as one of the most iconic, and beloved, entertainers of our time.

Happy 4th; call me when you get this,
L

Travails of a Windmill Girl

2009-07-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

July. Already.

Pride month has come and gone in a sudden flash, much like last year, come to think on it. Like last year and the year before. I should have done more.

Something would have been more.

*Sigh*

This is an awful movie: Secrets of a Windmill Girl, a little sixties British film I'd never seen before or even heard of, released nevertheless to DVD in 2005 by Salvation Films, from their "Sex-A-Go Go Collection" it says on the disc. O-kaaay. That kind of thing is usually right up my alley--obscure, arty, lost-gem type pictures from another era--but this has been mostly a time-waster. Too bad. Ingrid Bergman once got up, grabbed her coat, and walked right out of the middle of a film. Apparently her exit was noticed and not at all appreciated; asked later to explain herself she replied simply, "I haven't got time to waste." Brava, Ingrid. You were smarter than me. (On so many levels, but we'll discuss all that another time.) I stuck it out with Secrets of a Windmill Girl 'til the balmy, bitter end. Beside, you can't snatch up your coat and haughtily walk out on your DVD player--you'd look silly.

I was doubly disappointed with Secrets of a Windmill Girl because the wonderful Pauline Collins is touted as its star, she of Shirley Valentine (awards and accolades for both stage and film versions), Upstairs, Downstairs, and--most memorably for me--the delightful 1974 Britcom, No, Honestly opposite real-life husband and frequent acting partner John Alderton. Collins played Clara, the spritely, sweetly exasperating Gracie to Alderton's wisecracking George.

Secrets of a Windmill Girl was actually Miss Collins's film debut but it will never rank as one of her better efforts (thank goodness). The acting is amateurish, the dialogue is stilted at best and the production values are, um, minimal--it's washed-out looking and the pace sort of plods along. The movie is based on a real-life (1931 to 1964, officially) London burlesque theatre famous for remaining open for business even at the height of the Blitz during WWII but seems mostly an excuse to show lots of girlie flesh and that's its only real draw, not that I have a problem with that. Some of the Windmill's former dancers are featured, which is kind of enjoyable, that and the look of late sixties London: the cars, the quaint streets and shops, and the actress-dancers' towering beehive hairdos and Cleopatra eye make-up.

The movie opens with the sudden, violent death of one Miss Pat Lord in a car crash following a drunken night on the town with what appears to be her latest Mr. Right Now. Collins plays Pat, a pretty, tart-mouthed, bright-eyed brunette with a burning ambition to go places; the place she settles her sights on--following a brief stint at a shoe store where she sneeringly shoots down the amorous hopes of her old-enough-to-know-better employer--is the famed Windmill Theatre where open auditions are being held for dancers, or for leggy, pretty girls who can move reasonably well, at least. She drags her shy blonde best friend Linda along and, though neither are properly dressed for a dance audition (or dance all that well, frankly), they are both accepted, Pat immediately, Linda thanks to Pat's cheeky insistence.

But I'm getting ahead of myself; after the crash a policeman tracks down Linda, now working as a singer in a tony West End club, to identify Pat's body and provide some background on the late Miss Lord. Thus begins Linda's narration of the life and "secrets" of her vivacious, hard-living former friend. We see them briefly as middle year schoolgirls (looking suspiciously like extras from the set of the way superior The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), then as teenage sixth-formers giddily trashing their schoolbooks on graduation day, then as roommates swiftly trading in the workaday world for a chance at the Big Time as Windmill Girls.

Thereafter there are a lot of scenes of Pat, Linda and the other Windmill ladies in various stages of undress onstage and backstage, and posing together in various "newsreel" accounts of various public relations tours. They party, gossip and engage in a catfight or two, usually instigated by the arrogant, boastful Pat who for a time snags a wealthy producer-gentlemen friend who promises her West End glory he never quite delivers on. Pat's abrasiveness wears on Linda as well and they gradually drift apart. In case you care there were Windmill Boys too; here and there we glimpse male dancers, comics and musicians but they're pretty much backdrop--this movie is about cheesecake not beefcake.

If you want to see a better and more entertaining movie about London's Windmill Theatre and its denizens, check out Judi Dench (and Bob Hoskins) in the 2005 movie Mrs. Henderson Presents, directed by Stephen Frears.

Looks awful out this morning. Gray and threatening. I really should have gone for an early morning walk--my day just seems to start better whenever I do--but kept putting it off, afraid the skies would open and halfway to the park I'd get drenched. Instead I've settled into watch Collins and company and feel restless as hell and annoyed with myself. Carpe Diem pro Deo! I know I know! Do something! But what already? Recently my union told the Mayor to take his proposals and go &*@#!# himself (or words to that effect) and now I'm scared to spend ten cents never mind ten dollars in case this time next month I'm on the bread lines (again). Makes me nostalgiac for the days when I was a kid. When I was a teenager I didn't let the weather or much else stop me from going where I wanted to go and doing what I wanted to do, broke or not.
Not completely true. Other things did stop me. Not the weather.

I've got it! You know what this movie, Secrets of a Windmill Girl really is? It's the dark side of Ann Marie's quest for fame! Do you see it? It's...

That Girl In Hell!

That Poor Girl!

That Girl Gone Wild!

Okay, your turn.

TweetTweet

2009-06-07T13:18:00.001-07:00

Payday. I remember when that used to mean something. Sort of mean something.

I now tweet. I am not altogether sure why. It remains to be seen if any of the friends and family members I've invited to join me at Twitter will show up (what..? you don't love me anymore?) and I don't know how chattily "intimate" I really want to get with strangers. At the moment I have a few Twitter followers but what does that mean really? Who are they and what's their interest in the arch haiku scribblings of Little Me?

I am looking about me as I type and thinking with a sigh that it's time to do a bit more spring cleaning. More than a bit. Awhile back I read a book (okay, I read part of a chapter of a book) on feng shui, and I'm thinking now it did make its point about how psychologically oppressive clutter can be, and also how the placement of furniture can make a room more inviting or make it a place you find yourself wanting to avoid. It's about Chi, the energy that, according to feng shui philosophy, permeates everything in and around us. I do not have a smooth Chi flow. There's too much stuff in the rooms I live in, blocking the kind of vibrant energy--Sheng Chi--that makes fresh thinking and a more creative life possible.

And look at all these books overflowing the bookcases--do I really want or need them? All of them? Am I going to be reading again the ones I read twice long ago? Will I ever get around to reading the ones I bought years ago that have been sitting collecting dust? Who am I trying to impress by hanging on to them? They should go. Most of them should go.

On the other hand...

I've always felt more than a little queasy about getting rid of books. Books aren't old clothes or old shoes or broken toys, after all. A really good read can open worlds previously unknown to you or console and uplift you in ways even people and pets can't. You shouldn't be careless or cavalier with books like that, you'll wind up regretting it. There are books I've boxed and donated away that I later wished I'd kept; I wish especially that I hadn't given away (or sold)books I'd bought when I was just getting into my teens and easing into my twenties. I'd love to take a look at them now to glimpse what I was into and curious about at that time of my life. Did I jot any precious little notes to myself in the margins of the pages? Did I write my name and the date and place of purchase on the inside cover?

But you know, then again...

There's something to be said for knowing when to move on and let things go. You can hang on to a thing, even a book, past the point that's it healthy or necessary to do so. Sometimes taking a deep breath and just getting on with it has a cleansing effect. And--mostly by accident, admittedly--I've discovered that sometimes letting possessions go can be a boon to someone else who needs them more.

For example, just before and shortly after moving into this apartment I boxed a fairly large collection of books, including some queer-centric bios, novels and self-help stuff, sending many of them to my building's common floor reading room. Later I had second thoughts about a few of the titles I'd given away and decided to retrieve them, only to find in my search that all of the LGBT themed books--every single one of them--had disappeared. There were maintenance and cowboy-booted construction guys all over the place during this period, as the building was being rehabbed top to (no jokes, please) bottom, and as I'd walk through the place I'd observe many of these guys trying, in some often crude form or fashion, to out-macho one another.

Well, you know how it is. Heteros generally like to assume that everyone around them is just like them, but one of the first and most gratifying lessons you learn when you're queer is that that's just so much horseshit. If you're "different" so is someone else in this room, on this floor, in this building. That's the law of averages, honey.

At first I was disappointed, even upset, to realize that my gay books had vanished; briefly I toyed with the idea of putting up flyers imploring their return, but I reconsidered. Even if I could have gotten them back, maybe it was better not to, better for someone else. Somewhere in that collection of sweaty, strutting, power tool wielding dudes beat the heart(s) of a fierce Pride queen (Alright, that's an obnoxious stereotype, but you get what I'm saying) who maybe hadn't the confidence or courage to purchase those titles (even online) but needed them nonetheless. And really, what was I doing with The Gay Kama-Sutra?

How do you tweet all that?

That Father

2009-06-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is crazy-making.

Okay, look--I liked this show a lot in its original run when I was a grammar-schooler, and I continued to like it in reruns during my growing up years, and here, deep in Middle-Age Land, as I watch a Season One DVD on my desktop, I find I still like it. A lot. That Girl (both the Girl and the show) still has real appeal. I still love the popping, vibrant colors, Ann Marie’s kicky sixties wardrobe (Oh, God, I wanted that girl’s closet!), the truly wonderful exterior shots of a vanished New York, Harry Geller’s (or was it Dominic Frontiere’s?) spritely-sweet and evocative incidental music—especially Earle Hagen’s now iconic opening theme and its seasonal variations--and even the charming innocence of Ann and her boyfriend Don’s improbably chaste romance.

But her dad. Lew. Lew Marie. Criminey, what an obnoxious ass!

On the commentary track for “What Are Your Intentions?”—along with the crisp, beautiful audio and video transfer, the great pleasure of classic movies and television series in DVD format are the bonus features, especially the cast and crew commentaries—Marlo Thomas and series co-creator Bill Persky discuss with great amusement their memories of the making of the show and the episode’s storyline about overprotective fathers. The two laugh heartily at Lew Marie’s sarcastic distrust and endless jibes at Donald, comparing aspects of Lew's behavior to Thomas’s real-life dad, Danny Thomas (Make Room For Daddy) and Persky himself with his own young daughters. This was how dads were, they recalled fondly, back in the era when dads were really involved in their kids’ lives.

Um, okay.

As I consider it, Lew Marie’s ferocious desire to guard his only daughter’s health and well-being, by which of course I mean her virginity, is understandable given she’d insisted on leaving home to make her own way in the world at a time when daughters generally didn’t do such things, and he and the Mrs. didn’t know this Don Hollinger guy very well.

What isn’t so understandable to me is Mr. Marie’s continuing abrasiveness toward Donald as time (and the series) went on. After all, this was the man his daughter loved and would eventually marry (in the series finale). Couldn’t he have given his daughter’s judgment the benefit of the doubt? Couldn’t he have respected her feelings enough to reign in his worries and stifle his impulse to pick apart Donald? What was that about, anyway? First Mr. Marie is upset at the prospect of his lovely and naive young daughter leaving home to move to the big bad city and live and work in it alone; then he’s pissed off because she’s found herself a handsome, successful, good-hearted guy who’s every bit as loving and protective of her as he is. I mean, what is that?

And what’s up with Ann allowing her father to be so disrespectful and so relentlessly, well, mean, to her man? Sure, she’s young and her dad’s authority still has some sway, but as she would (gently, pleadingly, and more than once) point out to him, she’s not a child anymore and it’s really not okay for him to treat her like one. So why did she so often let him? Why didn’t concern for Donald’s feelings compel Ann to object more forcefully to Lew’s insensitivity? ("Oh, Daddy...") Did Marlo let Danny get away with that shit?

I meant everything I just said. I’ve always thought Lew Marie (played with pugnacious gusto by character actor Lew Parker) was an abrasive jerk to every male above the age of 12 who ever smiled at his daughter, most particularly the man she adored, and it really bugged me.

But can I tell you something else? Right alongside my annoyance I’ve always felt a twinge of jealousy of Ann Marie; more than a twinge, as finally I became Ann’s age and was faced with navigating a world of make-believe and machismo. I mean, just imagine. Imagine having a father for whom you are the center of the universe, who loves and fears for you so much that he’s willing, with no apologies and above your objections, to step over the line time and time again to safeguard your health and well-being.

And, okay, your virginity.

Sunday Purgatory, Volume One

2009-05-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

Do you want to know what I wrote in one of my notebooks the other day?

Almost walked to the park today but it looked like rain, the kind that can go on for hours, the kind that drenches you cold. Maybe later if the sun comes out.

That was it, kids. That was all. Isn't that the most boring, nothing drivel you've ever wasted a moment reading in your life? I mean, what was the point? Why did I bother?

Look, I know what I'm supposed to be writing in these notebooks, but it's too often an exercise in tedium so screw that. I'm going to scribble whatever the hell I want to even if doing so is counter-productive to my learning to be a "real" writer, whatever that is. Fuck. So frustrating anyway. In bed, in that twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, on the toilet, on the walk to work, shopping for produce, shelving books--I get all these intense stream-of-consciousness thoughts in my head that I know I should be putting on the page, but in the moment it's just not possible to do that. Even if I could, somehow the very act of reaching for a pen and grabbing for a notebook alters something, changes the mood and the moment, interrupts the psychic flow. I can't explain. As I grab it and try to get it down it dissipates, or comes out all stiff and artificial, not like it was in my head at all. Maddening. For a while now I've thought I should be investing in a mini-recorder so that I could just transcribe everything later, but again I feel like my hyper-awareness that my ruminating is being recorded "for posterity" will simply ruin everything; again I'll get all self-conscious and edit and censor myself right out of any original or interesting commentary.

So what would you do?

Right.

Maybe I'll just go back to watching television. On my computer.

Streaming Consciousness

2009-05-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

Just caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. Amazed--and a tad disconcerted--at how much (sans makeup) I resemble my brother when he was a teenager. A really sullen teenager.

Glad I got off my ass and got out and power-walked this morning. Such a be-you-tiful day too; sunny, warm, cool and breezy. Got all the way to the tennis court in the park before finally turning around and heading back to shower, breakfast and watch Frasier (the "I.Q." episode, then the one guest starring the fabulous Christine Baranski as the Dr. Laura-like radio shrink from hell.) Nothing like a civilized start to your day!

Shopping later:

fresh strawberries
bananas
maybe watermelon if sweet and not too damned expensive
check out the cherries--only if they're firm and sweet
green tea
vine tomatoes
white potatoes, red onions, green pepper, celery, etc for potato salad
chips? shouldn't. probably will. undecided.
a nice dessert of some kind. maybe ice cream, or I'll make a pie (fat chance)
and I'm sorry, but I want a steak this time, and some hot dogs too. Sick to death of chicken. The Cook Yourself Thin ladies made a mouthwatering-looking flank steak a week or so ago, but I'm not sure I could pull that off. May just try to find a good sirloin.
hot dog buns
100% whole wheat bread (see? see? I'm not totally hopeless)
paper products: napkins, toilet paper, foil
whatever else

Note to Self:

Call Mike M. back
And, Jesus, Email Michael R. again--it's been way too long; hope he's not mad at me for letting so much time go past without following up.
Buy the Michel Legrand box set (Le Cinema de Michel Legrand)? Dusty Grooves has it for an excellent price, much better than Amazon.
Keep trying to find the British CD release of the Tess soundtrack, one that more closely matches the 1981 U.S. LP release, or that at least includes Larry Butler's elegant love theme instrumental.
Check the mail for the new Netflix stuff!

Arggh. The day is getting away from me (why does it do that? annoying); I should have started this earlier. The store is going to be busy tomorrow, a madhouse by Saturday--I should have done the shopping this morning, especially since I have to work all day tomorrow. Maybe I can shop on my lunch hour tomorr--no, girl. Don't do that. Don't even go there.

What is it now? 82 degrees? Lovely. All those white sails dotting the lake's blue water. I should definitely head back out and get more of this, whether to shop or not. This was a wonderful time to be alive when I was school age, especially the elementary school years. Everything was green again, the weather was nearly perfect--not as cold as it had been, not as hot as it was going to be--classwork was winding down, and my teachers, happily anticipating their summer vacations (or so I surmised), were mellowing and becoming almost human again. Most of them.

Field trips were on the rise, the zoo, the museums, as everyone was restless and eager to get out of doors. No homework, or damn near. I remember how strange and dusty and forlorn the third floor hallways looked on the last day of school, especially with all the classroom doors closed shut. Abandoned and forgotten. The long stretch of floor, that had looked so shiny in the morning, was now streaked and mottled with hundreds of sneaker and sandal prints. I'd look back and around, and, momentarily, feel a deep pang of guilt and a kind of regret...

Then I was out the door like a shot. See you in September, Charles Kozminski. You and the custodian--you're on your own now.

eggs
bacon? (really shouldn't)
2% milk, a gallon
nonfat milk, a quart
bath soap

It was a late spring summer-ish day like this one. There was this girl I'd known in school. What was her name...? Cynthia? No. Yes. I think, Cynthia. We'd stopped dead in our tracks, right in the middle of the sidewalk, upon suddenly, unexpectedly, encountering each other in the street after years of seeing each other in Miss Westmore's class every single day followed by years of not seeing one another at all. This was somewhere in the Reagan eighties, a good dozen-plus years or so away from our elementary school lives. We had not really been girlfriends then, not close-close friends anyway, but I remembered she had been nice, not a bully, had had a certain unassuming charm, and I'd liked her. Well enough.

I was disappointed to realize she seemed delighted to see me. Disappointed because I'd wanted to return the feeling but was instead uneasy and immediately on my guard.

"Lorraine. Lorraine?! Hiiiiii!!" She rushed up to hug me, grinning big. A little awkwardly I hugged back, then stepped away. "Hey, Cyn."
"How you been, girl? How long has it been?!" Swinging and shaking my hand like we were kids. She looked so happy, and... and young, still so much like the skinny little girl she used to be, even more petite than I was. Had once been.
"Um, okay I guess; yeah. Been awhile--how are you?"
"Me, I'm fine, you know. Hangin' in there, trying to raise my kids--!"
"Wow--kids? Get outta here, you're somebody's mom?" She laughed a sheepish little laugh, rolled her eyes. "Girllll, yeah! You know how it is." She looked at me again, a penetrating, right-into-the-eyes kind of look, and took a deep breath.
"So--?" She said expectantly. I braced for it.
"--you? Got kids? You married?" Still that searching look. What the hell was she looking for?
"No. No, I'm not. And no kids, no, not me." Careful.
"No? So what do you do? Are you working, or..?"
I took a deep breath. "I--I'm--I write. I'm a writer."

I shrugged and took a step back. And then Cynthia surprised me. She looked--I'm still not sure this is the right word, but it's the one that comes first to mind--she looked relieved. Pleased, but also relieved. Like one of us had dodged a bullet or something. For the barest second I was puzzled, and then all at once I understood, and as her words came out in a rush of praise and breathless enthusiasm, I felt bottomless sadness for us both.

"Yeaahh, I remember you used to draw all the time! I used to wish I could draw like you! And now you write? You're a writer??"
I swallowed, smiled tightly. "Well. Yeah, trying to--"
"That's great. That is great, Lorraine! I knew it, I knew you'd be something! You were always so smart when we were in school--you used to get really good grades I remember that (laughter)--I used to love the way you draw--do you still draw?--I'm so glad to hear this--I'm so glad one of us made it..."
We stood right in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious as the errant passerby pointedly walked around us, eying us. And Cynthia went on a little longer like this, animated and gesturing, almost pathetically eager to congratulate me on escaping poverty and routine, celebrating me my many accomplishments.

My many bogus accomplishments.

Because the truth was, I was not a writer, except in spiral notebooks and my daydreams. I'd been a good student, yes, but not an exceptional one, and I did used to draw because I liked to and because I could. And I was lying to Cynthia now because the truth, that I was working a series of hourly wage administrative jobs for a downtown temp agency, was too mundane and bleak and comedown to share. Because I could see in her eyes she wanted--no, she needed--me to be special, a success, and I couldn't bear to let her down or let her see how much I'd let myself down.

I laughed, shaking my head. "Yeah, well. It's hard, you know..." Cynthia nodded vigorously, as though she could well imagine. "Oh, but you'll make it, Lorraine! Just keep it up, girl, keep doing it, you'll make it--I know you will--"

Then we chatted briefly about other schoolmates--who was now driving a bus, who had gotten married and divorced and re-married, who had had to leave town, who had had twins, who still looked just the same as back in the day--and finally we hugged once more and parted, moving again in our separate directions, each of turning around to wave. I couldn't get away from her fast enough. Her and her touching pride and hopefulness; me and my pack of lies.

And Cyn, if you're reading this now, try not to hate me too much. I was wrong for that, I know, but I wasn't playing you. I was just scared. You had come floating up out of my past, the girl who had known the girl with all the potential, and--for a moment, for a little while--I was desperate to see in someone's eyes the me I wished I was, would like to have been.

mild cheddar cheese
laundry detergent
bag of ice
frozen spinach
soda pop.

Diary Pages -- May 2003

2009-05-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, the familiar terror of the blank page.

Welcome, torture.

Still thinking about the e-rants of Miss White Disgusted--who made it quite clear that she's had it up to HERE with the snide remarks, evil looks and general disapproval from black women about her relationship with a black man--and Mr. Black Royalty, who had a thing or two to say in reply to Miss White Disgusted. Both of them angry, both fed up, about the other's clueless attitude. Or something like that.

Very interesting reading indeed.

I can't decide what fascinated me more, Miss Disgusted's insulting ignorance about black female anger or Mr. Royal's sardonic reply--which, for all its loyalty and impassioned righteousness, rang slightly false somehow.

I mean, he made his point, Mr. Royalty did, about the strict upbringing of young black women and how this made the sexual "availability" of willing young white women an appealing option for young black males on the make. ("You're no goddess, baby--you're just easy!")

I have to admit I liked what he Mr. R had to say about the resilient strength of African-American women through the generations, the way generations of us have taught white women how to cook, how to dress; how we've raised white women's babies even as our own were ripped from our arms forever.

And let's give Mr. Black Royalty points for his willingness to acknowledge black male fear of black women, and the worry that she will leave him behind as a higher wage earner--better educated, better motivated to succeed, more socially sophisticated--enters her life (or as she becomes all of those things).

Yeah, I liked all of that. Until I slowed down to

First Sunday In May

2009-05-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, sunny and everything's popping green (at last). I should be outside today.

Can't. Too much pain. Will have to take it easy today, maybe finish the Paul Krugman book. But there's a cooling breeze coming off the lake--damn, wish we had a patio.

Bolero is playing in the black and white background of Secret Agent/AKA Danger Man. A petrified middle-aged businessman type is about to get offed by the doughy, steely-eyed blond guy holding the pistol. Always loved the theme of this show--not the Johnny Rivers vocal, which is swingin' finger-poppin' fun alright, but the spritely, organ- and trumpet-driven incidental music or whatever it's called that always opens the episode. You see the "Series Devised and Edited by Ralph Smart" and other credits over the action as it plays. Remember?

Max was so pissed off last night she pissed me off. Can't get that out-of-left-field phone call out of my mind. I guess Mom is right that it's likely a control issue. Max has been the family free spirit for such a long time, it's hard to watch her slowly becoming a cranky old lady with ever diminishing capacities. She hates the new apartment--totally understandable where the kitchen and bath are concerned--and she's lost her pretty view of the boats on the lake. But mostly she hates her increasing vulnerability, the way she's become so dependent on the rest of us for almost all the things she used to be able to do herself.

I understand that, I do. I watch Maxine's decline and am swept with sadness at the change in her, and worry what's coming for my mother, my Aunt Mary, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Vera. And Michael.

And me.

When we were living in California, some--Jesus!--25 years ago, Max and I would often get in the car and just go. Sometimes shopping, sometimes sight-seeing, sometimes just for the ride up the Pacific Coast Highway and the breathtaking views of sparkling water and distant mountains. We'd roll the windows down, turn the radio up and laugh like maniacs at jokes nobody but us would get. We'd find the best restaurants and sweet shops, if we were lucky a combination of the two, and bring home mouthwateringly fresh peach pies, strawberry pies, lemon lush pies and (this absolutely floored me; still does) the most delicious french vanilla ice cream--a local drug store brand, as good or better than Haagen Daz, Baskin Robbins or Breyer's. Don't smirk. If you'd been there you'd know what I mean.

I miss El Pollo Loco, Marie Callendar's, Jongewaard, and Jim's Hamburgers--far and away the best greasy spoon burgers I've ever had. Mostly though I miss going to all those places with Max. She was then the age I am now, and I was a little girl with big, grown-up hips thinking lipstick, summer dresses and high heels made me her equal. We were such great friends. We're still friends. But everything's so different now.

Everything is so dfferent now.

WTF??

2009-04-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

Two blogs--or was it three?--posted in January, one in February (something about Rita Hayworth? Where was I going with that?), and nothing at all last month. Nothing really this month either, as this is the last day of April '09.

What is going on? I so want to write... but when I sit down to try to do so all that comes is nothing. Nothing, nothing and more nothing. It's hideous. And the reading is not going all that well either come to that, even though I'm steadily buying books and borrowing books and people are giving me books. I just can't seem to concentrate, to focus. It's almost impossible to relax and just give myself over to the whatever--the page, the pen. Maybe I need to get out more.

Do you think I need to get out more? What do you think?

PS: Carrie Prejean is a fucking idiot. Nice teeth, though.

Yesterday Was Awful

2009-02-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

Put the blame on Mame, boys
Put the blame on Mame
Mame did a dance called the hitchy-coo
That’s the thing that slew MacGrew…

Don’t know what made me think of slinky Rita Hey-Hey-Hey playfully pulling off one long black satin glove, raven waves falling seductively over one eye…

Auburn waves. Not raven. The Lady From Shanghai notwithstanding, the lovely Rita was most famously a redhead and Gilda, her most memorable film, was a noirish black and white.

Yesterday was awful, one of those working days that makes me wish I’d tried harder to stick it out with the money-grubbing private sector. I arrived roughly an hour early as is my custom and decided to use part of the time to shop for a few groceries. Some thirty minutes later it turned out I’d bought rather more than a “few” items and was relieved to make it back to the front door of the library with several heavy shopping bags of milk, juice, meat, etc. Even bought a pint of my beloved Haagen Daz—on sale, of course. By then there were some twenty minutes to go before time to open for the day. I wasn’t worried, initially. I could see all the lights up, including in the auditorium and staff room spaces… someone had to be there…back there… somewhere…

Not.

No Friendly Custodian Guy, no Briskly Efficient Branch Manager, and—it goes without saying—no Clerks, senior or junior. Nobody. ‘Cepting the painters, who as a rule seldom look up from their mixing and pouring or break from their gossiping, assuming they even heard my increasingly insistent tapping and pounding.

The time ticked away, the unseasonably warm temps began to melt my Haagen Daz, and the patrons began to gather in earnest, most of them youngish men impatient to get on the Internet access pcs and get those job searches, tax preps and circuit breaker requests going. Most of them seemed resigned to yet another late opening day; one or two of them seemed dryly amused. “That’s our people, ya know? We jus’ be like that sometimes.”

I was not amused, dryly or otherwise. I was steaming. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to help it. It was damn near noon; in another minute or two, once again, I was going to be late swiping into that damned time clock, once again through no fault of my own. This was a replay of Saturday, my previous working day, when the only other staffer on the schedule—the only one—finally pulled up to the curb several minutes late. And once again I’d placed an SOS call to the Branch Manager, who was not scheduled to work that day but was now forced to alter her plans due to the irresponsibility of one of her coworkers.

This time around I called the (Interim) District Chief as well, and told him directly how—“tired” was the word I chose—how tired I had become of these irresponsible no-shows, particularly on a day when everyone, the Branch Manager, myself, and four full time clerks, was scheduled to work. One or two of them might be sick or have suddenly to deal with some unavoidable emergency, possibly even three of them, but all five? Five full-timers, each with keys to the door, and none of them are here? The weather is mild and sunny, traffic is running normally, there is no snow—so what could be the justification for this?

Okay, said the (Interim) District Chief, sounding pretty tired his own self, I’ll talk to them.

I’m sure he will. He’ll talk to them, maybe lecture and gently scold them all, the way presumably the previous District Chief did. The Branch Manager will react with her typical stoicism. And the clerks will grumble amongst themselves and sulk their resentment; one or two feeling perhaps a twinge of guilt… and nothing will change. Absolutely nothing.

Why is this? Why are unreliability and a poor work ethic so tolerated by the City? I don’t know for sure and have no data to back me up on this, but my assumption is that it’s a form of self-protection. To keep wrongful dismissal lawsuits to a manageable minimum the strategy seems to be to keep giving problem employees lots and lots and lots of rope with which to eventually hang themselves. I mean, I guess it’s a strategy; presumably by the time serious action is taken against a troublemaker—and by “troublemaker” I do not mean your noble, conscientious whistleblower type—all the protests in the world of discriminatory mistreatment won’t be able to hide the evidential mountain of chronic misconduct.

Which makes sense, I suppose.

But what happens to office morale in the meantime? While all that rope is slowly spooling out, what becomes of the dependable worker bees, increasingly disillusioned and wearied to the point of cynical detachment by the excesses of the slacker drones around them?

So tired all of a sudden; all of a sudden I'm fighting to keep my eyes open. I really should grab my coat and go for a walk. But it’s so gray outside, so dreary-looking, and in any case this is not a neighborhood in which under the best of circumstances I feel all that comfortable walking around.

Maybe I’ll just crawl back into bed and sleep for awhile. And dream of employers who don’t reward inconsideration and indifference.

Ghosts

2009-01-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

Barack H. Obama is now President of the United States of America. How cool is that?

It's a good thing, but that's not enough. I want to feel the elation I saw on all those shining young faces. Instead I just feel... subdued. Not so cool.

I wish I was twenty years younger. I wish I was a teenager and Joey was alive and we were both young again and connected to this moment in exactly the way so many younger people are today and seem to have been throughout Obama's campaign. I want to feel as good, as invigorated, as I'm sure they do. Through most of Obama's run, instead of Yes We Can! what I felt was, Well... Maybe. We'll See. I was not a true believer. He seemed to me so young to be reaching for what he was reaching for. I wasn't convinced he was ready yet I knew I wouldn't want to see him lose. At some points I was actually annoyed--couldn't he wait another few years? What was his hurry?

And now I am happy that he is President and I have high hopes for him--who does not? who could not with all that is at stake? I think he will be a great president. Because we need him to be.

But Uncle Larry has died, just Saturday. And his passing, a sadness in and of itself, is another reminder of all those missing places at the family table, all the people I've loved, and admired, who didn't make it to see this moment of history. Mark told me that well over a year ago Larry had predicted Obama's win--and not a pathetic, controversial, squeaker of a win, either, but a decisive sweep. That was a remarkably confident forecast given that more than a year ago no such thing seemed so certain. Who knew? Who was Barack Obama?

Who indeed? Who was George W. Bush except the privileged wastrel son of an accomplished father and a powerful political family? What did he know about running a country, about global statecraft, about leadership?

Not so much, turns out. And many, many of us are the poorer for it.

I wish--I know I said this already--I wish my brother Joe was here. I'd like so much to be talking to him today and have him talking to me, telling me what this day meant to him. If he were alive so many things would be different. We'd have all been at his and Maria's house having brunch, the televisions would be going, broadcasting the Inaugural, and everyone would be wandering all over the place, hugging, eating, and driving Colin and Allegra to distraction with endless grown-up questions about what they thought of all this, what they'd remember best. Family and friends. There would be good food and the dogs would be frantic with happiness, making affectionate nuisances of themselves. We would banter and console, argue and laugh. Conversations would spill out onto the porches. We would remember. We would eat some more. I would eat a lot.

I'm going for a walk. It's cold. But I need some fresh air and solitude. This room is crowded with ghosts.

The New Damned Toy

2009-01-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, woe.

I've finally bought myself a brand spanking new MP3 player (you there in the back, stop snickering!) and I've had the thing for only slightly more than 48 hours and already I'm having problems with it. Problems I created for myself--inadvertently, but still--problems that even the young, friendly and presumably techno-savvy Radio Shack Guy who sold it to me Wednesday afternoon wasn't 100% sure how to help me solve, though he made a suggestion that sounds like it might work (Please, God, if you're there, make it work, especially since the Sansa support@ people have not yet responded to my electronic SOS). I feel so dumb about this, and so ancient, like this boneheaded mistake I made was the kind of thing I'd be tsk-tsk-tsk at my mother for doing--except that it's me this time. I'm my mother. I'm my grandmother for Chrissakes, that's how idiotically inept was this botch-up with my MP3 player.

What happened was this: I eagerly took the thing, a Sansa Fuze 8GB flash drive thing, out of the box and my heart sank at the sight of the included mini installation disc because it's for Rhapsody music service and I hate Rhapsody and don't care who knows it. Apparently Rhapsody and Sansa are good buddies and Sansa promises cool fun features on my new MP3 player if I install Rhapsody on my computer and use that to download my music.

No. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. Not again, not in a million years. I won't bore you with all the headaches I went through with Rhapsody a few years ago when I decided to try it and downloaded it to my XP; suffice to say I learned my lesson and, cool features or no, I won't be using that music program for my player.

Besides, I don't have to. Just plug the included cable into the USB port of my computer, charge the battery and start dragging and dropping my music files into my device. Simple. Except....

It wasn't completely my fault. I mean it was, but honestly, anyone could have made this mistake, I think. See, I'd opened my Windows Media Player to look over my music files, trying to decide which ones I wanted to transfer, when I suddenly remembered I should be charging the battery, the very first thing the little operation manual instructs you to do. So without giving much thought, I plugged it into the port....and continued scanning my audio files....should I include the comedy mixes I created for myself too, or would that take up too much drive space? What about the Spoken Word (American Writers Edition) stuff my mom gave me for Christmas?.....and what about my soundtrack CDs?....how many songs does 8 GBs translate to again? 2000, is it, give or take? At the time I purchased the player that seemed like a lot, like plenty, but now that I look at all these files....maybe I should have gone ahead and popped for that other little thingee, that tiny 8 GB card that goes in the player's slot for even more audio storage (Wonder how long that sale is going to last..?).......

.....When I was snapped out of my reverie by the unexpected sight of my library of music files rapidly "synchronizing" themselves to the player. What the--? Why's it doing that? I didn't tell it do that! Why's it doing that? Hey! (I said to my computer, uselessly) Hey, stop it! Hold it! The battery's just supposed to be charging now, that's all! Drag and drop! I'm supposed to drag and drop the music, like it says in the manual, like the Radio Shack Guy said!! Hey, cut it out!

And I disconnected the cable from the USB port (was going to say I "yanked" it, but that's not strictly true; I didn't want to break anything), looking worriedly from the MP3 player to the computer and back again. I noticed the player's battery was nearly completely charged and I had a bunch of songs already downloaded--there was the album cover art, the name of the artist, and the album and song titles...cool! That was easy! Maybe I don't need to do the tedious dragging and dropping after all. For now I'll just close out Windows Media and plug it back into the pc to finish charging, and then reconnect it to WM and let the two talk to each other for awhile. Simple!

And that's what I did, checking from time to time to monitor the process and keep an eye on the remaining disk space. After, oh, I don't know, approximately 500 songs had sync-ed, I decided to stop the operation for the time being. I plugged the headphone cable into the player, pressed the horribly uncomfortable ear buds into my ears and, after some wincing adjustments settled back to enjoy the songs and get comfortable with the device's functions, adjusting the volume--amazingly good sound--scrolling through the various menus, checking out the FM radio, and so on. Finally I decided to charge the battery some more, turn it off and put it away.

The next day I was out and about running errands in my old neighborhood--no more annoying transportation rerouting since the Obamas have finally moved to D.C., though I notice the barricades and a few strategically placed police cars are still blocking off the house--and I took my new toy with me, of course, vastly enjoying carrying a chunk of my music library around in my pocket as I shopped, posted mail and tried not to fall on my ass on all the slippery new snow and ice. The sound quality of this baby is truly wonderful, and pitched just so, many of the songs weren't playing into my ears so much as reverberating through me. Duffy cooing "Mercy," Al Green wailing "Here I Am (Come And Take Me)," Cat Stevens's lilting, contemplative "Into White," even the Ting Ting's funny, punky "Shut Up And Let Me Go"--it was gorgeous, a religious experience. Sitting on the upper deck of the bus and gazing at the passing neighborhood as the music flowed into and through me I felt fifteen again, when music was as necessary for my well-being as air to breathe.

It was great.

Then I came home, sat down at my pc, and, delighted with my MP3, decided it was time to transfer more music to it.

But first, I would delete the files already sync-ed. I wanted to upload other stuff for sync-ing and after all, I don't really need them on the computer anymore since they've been safely downloaded over to my MP3. Audio files can eat up an awful lot of hard drive.

So I did. I started merrily deleting away, and later in the evening when I decided to play with my new toy again, I began to notice an odd and disquieting occurrence. An awful lot of the songs on my MP3 player were no longer playing. Oh, they were still in there alright, or at least they appeared to be--yeah, there they were. I could scroll around by song title or artist name and see them and the accompanying album/CD cover art, still in there. They just weren't playing anymore, even when I deliberately interrupted other songs to select them.

Hmmmm. That's strange. Why is this happening all of a sudden?

I did a fair amount of head scratching as my anxiety steadily rose. The pocket "quick start" instruction manual didn't address this particular peculiarity and I was adamant I was not going to slide that damned Rhapsody install disc into my computer no matter what. But what was going on??

Then it began to dawn on me. The way I'd downloaded my music to the player--I'd synchronized it. Actually I didn't, Windows Media did, initially, and without my bidding, and then I continued the process once it had started. Anyway I began to realize that the synchronization, the method itself, was the key to the problem. The American Heritage definition of synchronization is "to operate in unison, to cause to occur at the same time as something else." I sync-ed those songs instead of directly dropping them in, and each time I plugged my player into my pc they were communicating with each other about them. When I deleted those music files from my pc, my player felt it had no choice but to dump them as well, though the mystery was that they still appeared at least to be sitting in the player.

Damn. Damn damn damn damn it all to hell. Why me? And now what?

Today I took the player back to the Radio Shack Guy and explained what had happened, sharing my conclusions as to the source of the problem. Ah, he said sympathetically. Wow. Never heard of that happening before. But, yeah, that's probably what it is. You should have dragged-dropped instead of sync-ed, especially if you were going to remove the audio files from your pc. Either that or keep syncing but get a separate hard drive for your music...

Fine, right, right. But in the meantime--? Any thoughts?

His suggestion--and this sounds like a good idea to me; I don't know how many of you other Sansa Fuze owners feel differently--was that I:

1. Plug the player back into the pc without powering up Windows Media (and if it opens up on its own, close it immediately)
2. Double-click on My Computer (what I should have done to begin with) and look to see if the sync-ed music files are there. If they are, try deleting them (again) with the device still plugged in and then see if they are now removed from the player as well. If yes, delete ALL the music you sync-ed to your player, even the ones that have been playing okay until your flash drive is clean.
3. Now unplug your MP3 player from your pc and power up Windows Media. Before you plug your player back in however, go to Preferences and see if you can disable the sync function so it won't create any further headaches for you.
4. Upload all the music you want to transfer again (sigh) and
5. PRAY. PRAY TO JESUS FOR GUIDANCE AND LUCK AND WHATEVER THE HELL ELSE WILL MAKE THIS VEXING PROBLEM GO AWAY PERMANENTLY. (Okay, I added this part.)
6. Repeat step 2, this time dragging and dropping your music files into your MP3 player, checking periodically to make sure the playback is okay.

So that's what I plan to do, as soon as figure out how to fix this other little problem that happened as I was typing this post. I was trying to delete a song while it was playing, something I've done before without incident, and the song didn't delete. I tried again and now the player has frozen, with "Delete Song?" showing on the player's screen. I can't do anything with it now, anything at all. It doesn't respond when I try to shut it off, or charge it, or anything.

And now my cat is looking at me funny.

Route 66 -- A Month of Sundays

2009-01-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

I’m watching a grainy broadcast of Route 66, the old sixties tv dramas (with that memorable Nelson Riddle theme), a series about a decade or so ahead of my time, meaning it’s one of those classic tv shows I’d always heard great things about but had never actually seen. It’s an entertaining episode featuring a compelling performance from an actress who has become one of my favorites of the era, Anne Francis (better known as the sexy detective Honey West, another series slightly before my time), who is guest starring here as a young and glamorous Broadway star who has mysteriously fled New York in the midst of the run of a hot new play to return to her Montana hometown, where by chance she meets Our Wayfaring Heroes, Tod (played by Martin Milner, whom I came to know better, more or less, as the older cop on one of my gram’s old favorites, Adam-12) and Buz (George Maharis), both of whom instantly fall for her, especially Buz.

It develops that Arlene—yes, “Arlene,” that’s the very unglamorous name of Francis’s character—has learned she has a degenerative disease (Lupus? Seriously?) and knowing she hasn’t long to live has opted to run away from the bright promise of her life and career and come home to die.

A Month of Sundays was written by the peerless Stirling Silliphant, whose endearingly oddball name is attached as scribe to some of the very best of the classic television shows of the fifties and sixties (M Squad, Perry Mason, Mr. Lucky, Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and several fine movies (Charly, The Slender Thread, In the Heat of the Night) as well. His writing is literate and intense, often infused with piercing psychological insight, and this episode is no exception.

Tod: You’re going to Columbia Gardens tonight with Buz, aren’t you.

Arlene: Yes, why?

Tod (heavily): He bought a ring. He’s gonna ask you to marry him—

Arlene (stunned) No--!!

Tod: --and you’re going to accept.

Arlene (agonized): I can’t. You know I can’t, Tod.

Tod: But he doesn’t know you can’t, and that’s why you’re going to!

Arlene: How can I love if I can’t offer a lasting relationship? (Turning away) I don’t even know if I’m gonna see the rain again—I don’t even know if I’m gonna see tomorrow’s sun! How can I hurt Buz by loving him and letting him love me when it can’t go anywhere?

Tod: But it can go somewhere—

Arlene: What, a day? Two days? Maybe a week—?

Tod: A minute if that’s all there is, but a minute that counts!

Arlene: I can’t! I know Buz loves me--I can’t make it worse!

Tod (pleading): Arlene, you’re doing what everybody else does—wasting precious days, just passing the time, going through the motions! Waiting! That’s not really living. Before my father died he taught me something. He knew he was dying. He lived his last days more fully than he lived all the rest of his life. He said ‘Don’t let yourself be hobbled by fatalism and don’t run from death. Recognize it. Accept it for what it is--just as much a miracle as being born, maybe more so. Only when we lose our fear of death can we defeat it. Then we can make every hour of our existence really count.’

Tod (passionately): Arlene, Buz is a guy who’s with things! He feels every minute of every experience in every pore! And if he did know, this is the way he’d want it to be! So take this from him and share it with him and use it!

(She stares at him, wavering, troubled, uncertain, as the scene fades out and a commercial for City Colleges of Chicago begins.)

Strong stuff.

Still, watching this episode--this exchange especially--I'm struck by two things. First, I’m not sure people really talked like this, even in that bygone, presumably better educated, era. I love good television writing and it's fun watching actors eager to strut their actorly stuff sink their perfect teeth into what they know is a well crafted, possibly award-winning, script. Even so, there's dialogue you admire on the page and dialogue you really believe.

More importantly though, I’m a wee bit creeped out--more than a wee bit, actually--by the way Buz’s love, and his plans for them both, is presented by Tod to Arlene as something she’s duty bound to accept regardless of the grim reality of her circumstances (or even because of that) as though his friend’s feelings mattered more than those of a dying woman. Tod’s words seem very heartfelt, but what about Arlene’s words? Would Tod have had more respect for her feelings, would he have taken her objections more seriously, if they were coming from Buz, and it was he confronting the Grim Reaper? I realize this was (and to some extent remains) the culture, rather than a fault of Silliphant's teleplay, the days when, above all, every (normal) girl wanted to be married, supposedly, and most (normal) guys in their swingin' bachelor heart of hearts really didn't, supposedly. You say it was his idea? He went and bought a ring? Well, what on earth is she waiting for? Okay, there was this pesky wrinkle about her not having too much longer to live... but couldn't she, couldn't they, you know, work around that?

Arlene didn't marry Buz, of course; the serie's premise wouldn't have allowed for it. She began to slip away from him while they were foxtrotting on the dance floor, dying as a bewildered Buz watched a priest perform the last rites, asking Arlene if she was sorry for her sins. She said yes, gazed up at the dark night sky, her hand went limp, and Buz burst into wails of grief as a saddened Tod looked on. I felt sad too.

For her.

TCM Remembers... and so do I

2008-12-31T15:25:00.000-08:00

I don't really want to be sitting here doing this tonight. It's New Year's Eve after all; I should be out-- No, forget that. It's too damn cold, I'm too damn broke, and as I replied to that e-invite to Obama's Inaugural Ball (actually an e-invite to a Chicago "Inaugural Ball" celebration) I'm not in the mood to party. My mood was brighter earlier when the day was younger and sunnier and I was puttering around the house, cleaning the closets and tweaking the placement of chairs and book shelves and speaker units. There was in the background a cop flick on Turner Classic Movies, a mostly forgettable John Wayne actioner from the seventies, and after it ended, and following clips of coming attractions, TCM's tribute to the notable artists and performers who died in 2008 came on. I stopped distracting myself, turned up the volume, and sat down to watch.

You've seen it by now I'm sure, on YouTube if not on TCM, that poignant black and white video Farewell, silent but for Estelle Reiner's wryly funny throwaway line from When Harry Met Sally ("I'll have what she's having") and that song--Joe Henry's profoundly moving and elegiac lament, "God Only Knows"--that perfectly underscores the montage of famous and not so famous faces, beginning with tough guy actor Richard Widmark (who shocked 1947 audiences as Tommy, the giggling baby-faced psycho who kills an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman by gleefully shoving her down a flight of stairs in Kiss of Death, his film debut);

continues with "sexpot" actress Edie Adams (whom I vaguely recall as the sultry Muriel cigar girl in sixties TV commercials and whom to this day my mother remembers fondly as the drolly moniker-ed "Barbara Seville" in the Steve McQueen-Natalie Wood drama Love With the Proper Stranger);

and along the way includes dancer Cyd Charisse, whom the great Astaire called "beautiful dynamite" and so she was, those skyscraper legs and flashing eyes vamping him in The Band Wagon's "Girl Hunt Ballet," Gene Kelly in Singin' In the Rain's "Broadway Melody", and pretty much everyone else in one of two of my absolute favorite Charisse numbers: the erotic, alluring "Two-Faced Woman" (stupidly cut from Band Wagon and the India Adams-dubbed vocal handed to Joan Crawford for her outlandish, drag-queen turn in Torch Song) and the ethereally beautiful Silk Stockings Ballet in the movie of the same name;

directors Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella;

Carol Burnett's second banana extraordinaire Harvey Korman;

both Breno Mello and Marpessa Dawn, leading man and leading lady, respectively, of the haunting world cinema classic, Black Orpheus;

Hot Buttered Soul icon Isaac Hayes, composer of the much imitated "Theme From Shaft;"

director-choreographer Michael Kidd (who must be forever celebrated for his athletic, imaginative staging and/or choreography of Golden Age of Hollywood classics Li'l Abner, Guys and Dolls, The Band Wagon and most memorable of all, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers);

and bawdy, whiskey-voiced beauty Suzanne Pleshette, now and forever Emily Hartley, Bob Newhart's raven-haired spouse on the The Bob Newhart Show, but also immortalized as the earthy, ill-fated schoolteacher Annie in Hitchcock's The Birds.

Charlton Heston is dead, lost to Alzheimer's and decrepit old age, a major star (Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Major Dundee, A Touch of Evil, El Cid, The Agony and The Ecstasy, Richard Lester's splendid Musketeer films and, oh yes, Planet of the Apes) and once a Big Hollywood Liberal who somehow, somewhere along the way morphed into a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

The realization that these luminaries were now a memory (Lois Nettleton? Roy Scheider too? And Brad Renfro--? When did Brad Renfro die? What happened?) startled and saddened me, but I really choked up at the sight of the shining face of actor-comedian Bernie Mac, gazing upward and lost in a moment of thoughtful contentment near the end of Steven Soderbergh's splendid Ocean's Eleven remake, the gifted, way-too-young-to-be-gone Heath Ledger, on horseback as the tortured Ennis Del Marr in Brokeback Mountain, the rascally stand-up comic turned cultural curmudgeon George Carlin (if his Take-Offs and Put-Ons and Occupation Foole are no longer my all-time favorite comedy albums they're still right up there in the top five), and the biggest heartbreak of all, the Big Male Superstar crush of my girlhood, the great Paul Newman, actor, director, activist, race car aficionado, Newman's Own philanthropist, family man, cool dude. (I was only flirting with Redford, you know that, right Paul? A passing fancy, nothing more) I knew he was old now, and heard he was ailing. And my grown-up, logical mind understands full well that no one, even the greatest of the Great Stars, will live forever.

But still. Paul Newman.

And Eartha Kitt has left us--the sleek, sensational siren of stage, screen and the supper clubs of a more glamorous (and, alas, segregated) entertainment era, the actress-singer an infatuated Orson Welles once declared "the most exciting woman in the world," died of cancer on Christmas Day, her passing too recent for her to be included in TCM's 2008 tribute. Like Kidd, who actually died December 2007, Kitt will no doubt be featured in next year's edition. Very possibly Eartha Kitt will be remembered best by a younger generation for her amusing voice work as the evil (and wonderfully sarcastic) Yzma in Disney's superior animated feature The Emperor's New Groove, but I will always love her for the languorous purr of songs like "Just An Old-Fashioned Girl," "Lazy Afternoon," and especially the teasing, sultry "Santa Baby" (ignore the juvenile and truly awful Madonna effort), the version featured on her MCA "Best of Eartha Kitt" album, without the gulping backing vocals.

To Bill

2008-12-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

I am watching The Lawrence Welk Show on public television as I read your blog. No idea why. I could be watching the lanky and impossibly young Jimmy Stewart romance Jean Arthur in You Can’t Take It with You on TCM, or the 1973 episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show where Phyllis almost gets Lou Grant to sell his house. Instead I'm sitting here, watching this impossibly white bread song and dance routine.

My grandmother loved this waltzy, schmaltzy, relentlessly MOR variety show—especially when Arthur Duncan, the only African-American cast member, joined in ’64—and watched it every Saturday night. Sometimes, just to be with her, I'd join her in her bedroom with a snack or the evening's dessert, waiting for the appearance of America’s Singing Sweethearts, the Lennon Sisters. I never had the nerve to ‘fess it to Grandma, but I was really crushing on Peggy in those days—no, not Peggy—Kathy. Kathy was the sexiest of the Lennons and, to my 10 year old mind, the most elegant and sophisticated. I’m pretty sure it was Kathy.

Do you ever feel like life is getting too fucking complicated and you just want to go back, Bill? Not necessarily to start all over—just full out retreat to a time when life was simpler, like James Daly in that Twilight Zone episode. Or Gig Young, in that other Twilight Zone episode. A time, in so many ways, even less just than now but simpler, at least on its face.

Nothing is simple now, or at the moment, much fun. When Barack Obama won last month, I was astonished and ecstatic and emotional. Finally, it’s happened, and in my lifetime. At last, at last. My mother began to save the daily papers, savoring all the beautiful pictures of Barack and Michelle and their charming little girls, delighting in the images of America’s first black First Family. Meanwhile I gloried in all the newsmagazine covers coming into the library daily mail bundles—the Times and the U.S. News and World Reports, the Newsweeks and the Nations—the kind of magazines where previously, if there was a black male face on the cover, it probably meant trouble, disgrace. But here was Obama seated, Obama standing, Obama looking purposeful and serious, Obama with kind, crinkly eyes and a breezy smile. Obama on the cover of Ebony, emerging from a car wearing dark sunglasses; the ultimate, the epitome, of class and confident cool. God, how great was this? He was Sidney Poitier and John Shaft and Martin Luther King and Alexander Scott all rolled into one tall dark and handsome package of sexy excellence. Mister President. My president. You should have seen me grinning at my family and coworkers and neighbors and friends and all of them grinning back. Even with the snowballing economic upheavals, even growing more and more scared about losing their retirement savings or their jobs, they couldn’t stop grinning about President-Elect Obama and neither could I.

Then the reality of Prop 8 began to sink in, really take hold, and with it the dawning realization that My President was not going to talk to me about this, not going to address my shock and consternation. I understood perfectly well that while in the midst of trying to put together his new administration he was busy being confronted with one looming crisis after the next; still, his silence began to worry, and then rankle. He did release a statement through his media people, expressing his regrets, or something like that, regarding the passage of the anti-gay initiatives. That was nice… actually, no. That was bullshit. How could Obama profess to “regret” Prop 8? I mean, doesn’t he essentially agree with it? Because of his religious beliefs? Because of the way he was brought up?

And now, rubbing salt into a wound he seems unaware is there, Obama asks the new Falwell—Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who equates homosexuality with bestiality, incest and pedophilia—to give the invocation at his January inaugural. Since the announcement, the beaming, avuncular Warren has been doing the press tour thing, making it ever clearer with his remarks exactly why “the gays” and their supporters are so up in arms about him as the choice to launch the Obama presidency.

Barack Obama is still the big hero, the Miracle Man, to my family and coworkers, for whom the controversies about Prop 8 and Rick Warren (and the lack of LGBT appointees in his cabinet) either don’t register or exist mostly as a lot of damn noise. This is hard, because when I stand up and speak out I am in conflict with them and when I don’t I am in conflict with myself. On election night my mom and I hugged each other because we knew when Obama won, we’d won too. We toasted his ascension and remembered with love and sadness those who were not here with us to share the historic moment: my younger brother Joe, her oldest sister Jean, her mom—my Grandma.

I don’t know what else to say. I’m still sorting all this out. I feel wounded and a little defeated, not at all the way I expected to be feeling now. Barack Obama is still my president. I still have high hopes for him and for my country. But I’m not grinning anymore; I am too disappointed for that. I am angry, and tired, and my heart—my heart is just not in it.

Obama and Warren, Together At Least

2008-12-19T19:29:00.000-08:00

It’s disheartening, isn’t it.

Especially after Prop 8. If only Prop 8 had been struck down, and soundly, we could all maybe take a deep breath about Rick Warren—God, he’s smug, isn’t he? Just like Falwell; it’s like he thinks we’re too stupid to see through all that roly-poly affability—and say: Okay, maybe Barack is throwing the fundies an inclusion bone. We could’ve chalked it up to Obama’s wanting to reassure the religious right that his embrace of LGBT Americans does not equal a complete rejection of them, that he considers us all, every one of us, The American Family, even if some of the siblings never get along. The problem of course is that, so far, it’s us to whom he’s tossed the bone. Barack Obama has yet to truly embrace us, and after the searing insult of Prop 8—and his silence about Prop 8—the choice of Rick Me? Homophobic? Me? Warren for his Inaugural invocation really is a tone-deaf kick in the teeth.

You were expecting better? Well, I wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting anything from Obama as regards LGBT issues, exactly, though I allowed myself to hope. I am still hopeful, guardedly.

Here’s the thing. In my experience, straight black men do not handle the “gay thing” well. They really don’t. If they’re not openly, flagrantly hostile, then they’re at least terrifically discomfited, making with all manner of nervous little jokes, and pious observations that it’s not their place to judge, we’re all sinners, and anyway let he who is without sin, etc. etc. Some even feel compelled (particularly in the presence of other black males) to make obnoxious, hurtful moves just to prove their hetero bona fides. For black men in America, many of whom struggle with fatherlessness and issues with women, it’s all about masculinity, especially as it intersects with race, and the fear of being perceived as a “punk.”

In defending his opposition to gay marriage, Obama said something or other to his interviewer about the way he was raised, and I sighed, feeling tired all over. The way he was raised, yada yada yada; plus, he’s a Christian, blah, blah, blah. I thought, yeeeeeaah, ya know, maybe we need to take a step back from this guy and reassess. True, he is brainy and charismatic and attractive, the very first African-American elected to the highest political office in the land—but more than all that he’s new, relatively. Just a few years ago, most Americans had never heard of Barack Obama. Maybe that’s key. Maybe that above all is why expectations of him run so high and why so many, including so many of us queers, are inclined to see so much in him. It’s easy to idealize someone you don’t really know, easy to lose sight of—let’s be nice and say “the probability” rather than “the fact”—that at the end of the day what we have in Barack Hussein Obama is not only just another calculating politician, but also just another straight black guy who is really uncomfortable with the whole gay thing, and is even prepared to do obnoxious, hurtful things to prove his hetero, Christian bona fides.

Blue Monday

2008-12-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

The North Wind doth blow; we soon shall have snow—

We do have snow today, Chicago’s first snowfall of the season. All day yesterday the wind howled and raged, banging against our windows. We stayed inside, not eager to be pelted by icy sleet, dead leaves and kicked-up dirt. From my 25th floor view the street below looks like a child’s careful arrangement of Legos and building blocks dusted with confectioner sugar. The sky is so impossibly white, so heavy with the next blow, that the lake, usually a sparkling blue-green, has actually disappeared into it. I am seized with an impulse to walk the lakefront as I used to when I was a moody teenager. A few years ago, when I still lived in Hyde Park, I could do that since Lake Michigan was literally scant minutes away from my front doorstep. Here at my Bronzeville address the view of the lake is better but it is actually farther away, more trouble to reach. It’s fascinating to me that the water always looks so much closer than it really is.

I should have gone out today. I might still, for a walk around the block if nowhere else; it’s just a bit past 3.

Of course, time will not stand still while I type…

I spent most of the day cleaning up the joint and rearranging my furniture. I always do this when I’m restless, a little anxious, and don’t know what else to do with myself; it’s someplace—not the most desirable of places, but someplace—to take the energy. I haven’t wanted to do much of anything lately, not even write, so maybe today’s pre-spring cleaning is a good sign. I hope so. I’ve been feeling very melancholy and dispirited but then the winter holidays don’t often bring out the best in me. Last night my mother asked if we should order ham for Christmas dinner to supplement the turkey breast in the freezer and on the instant I was snappish and short-tempered, irritably reminding her that after all my efforts with last week’s Thanksgiving meal someone else in this family could bloody well do the cooking for the next holiday—don’t even go there. She retreated, meekly, and for the rest of the evening I felt like a shit.

*sigh*

I may have to be locked away for the entire month of December (and possibly January too) to ensure I don’t kill anybody.

The Thomas Crown Affair

2008-11-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

I am watching The Thomas Crown Affair on DVD—the classic ’68 original starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway—and listening to director Norman Jewison’s rambling, sometimes amusing commentary about the making of the movie. Just now Jewison is talking a bit about the versatile Jack Weston—an actor I loved, especially when he played bumblers—with whom he worked in several previous projects (including another McQueen film, The Cincinnati Kid) and who played Erwin, the luckless driver in Thomas Crown. I miss the roly-poly Weston, who died of cancer in 1996; I miss his sly smile, his raspy, distinctive whine and the way he could execute climbing hysteria like nobody’s business. (Check out his sniveling, conniving lawyer in the multi-talented Elaine May’s side-splitting 1971 comedy A New Leaf, or his turn as Rita Moreno’s lovable hypochondriac hubby in Alan Alda’s droll 1980 ensemble piece The Four Seasons.)

The Thomas Crown Affair is one of my very favorite movies, a stylish wink of a caper very much of its moment—costume designer Theadora Van Runkle’s wonderful wardrobe for Dunaway is pure sixties mod meets Paris chic—featuring then quite innovative split and multi screen effects (the bank robbery, the polo match) that must have startled and delighted 1968 cinema audiences as it startled and delighted me when finally I saw it start to finish and without commercial breaks, somewhere back in the ‘80s. Jewison and company make imaginative use of Boston locations, Haskell Wexler’s photography is creative, quirky and beautiful to look at, and the music is truly sublime, from the Oscar winning Bergman-Legrand love theme “The Windmills of Your Mind”—though between you and me I’ve always preferred the languid, sultry Dusty Springfield vocal to Noel Harrison’s brisk British recitation—to the jazzy high action sequences to Legrand’s lush scoring of the famous McQueen-Dunaway chess match (Jewison refers to it as “chess with sex”), the scene that epitomizes their tense, teasing cat and mouse romance.

This movie is also funny, with lots of amusing throwaways and odd bits of business. Witness the scene that directly introduces the glamorous, unscrupulous Dunaway character Vicki Anderson, the chopped exchange between Jamie, Gordon Pinsent’s harassed insurance company man, and Eddy Malone, Paul Burke’s tough, workaday cop (who seems almost an older, more hard-bitten incarnation of Adam Flint, the idealistic young detective he played on TV’s Naked City from 1960 to ‘63. Or the moment early in the film where Thomas Crown coolly strolls into the cemetery to retrieve the bags of money he’s just heisted from his own bank only to freeze in mid-grab at the unexpected tolling of a bell. Or the scene where Crown and the hapless Erwin sit opposite each other in a narrow police station holding room as Vicki and Malone watch breathlessly from behind a one-way mirror, waiting for the two to acknowledge one another. (It doesn’t happen of course; Crown is too smart for that.) And let’s not forget Vickie’s mischievous birthday presentation to Malone, the “Think Dirty” plaque.

There are also moments in Thomas Crown that are not funny but quite compelling, such as the stunning bank robbery sequence that opens the film (and has a documentary feel), where employees and customers stepping off elevators realize they’ve blundered into serious trouble and are quickly cowed into submission by the lethally efficient gunmen; there’s one young man who walks blindly into danger like the others, and you see first the confusion in his face and then his fright as he realizes his peril, almost involuntarily he makes a move to get away and is shot in the foot for the effort; he crumples to the hallway floor, his body clenched, and rolls around in spastic agony. You can’t even see his face now as he’s clutching his leg, just the hunched and rolling motion, but you feel the poor guy’s agony—from the moment I first saw the movie this scene struck me as one of the most realistic depictions of physical distress ever committed to film.

Also there’s that terrific terrace luncheon scene where an at first amused Eddy Malone needles Vicki—who has by now been monitoring every move Thomas Crown makes even though she is herself intimately involved with him—about Crown’s apparent romantic resumption with a former flame.

“You’re being had, Vicki girl” he teases her. ”Why,” she asks coldly. “Would you like to know where he went when he left you last night?” he grins, waving a surveillance report under her nose. “No,” she snaps, sipping her wine, before reversing herself to reach for the paper. She looks it over. “Her again,” she says dismissively. “Dirty old man.” But she is clearly rattled. Her food sits forgotten as she lights another cigarette, her mockingly playful self-assurance has vanished and her heavily lashed and mascara-ed eyes blink like warning signals. Malone watches her, increasingly discomfited.

Norman Jewison nearly didn’t cast Steve McQueen in this film; he wasn’t sure the combative, roughhewn actor could pull off a role a younger Cary Grant would have essayed with ease. But McQueen convinced Jewison to give him the part and for that we can be thankful; the reform school tough from Indiana completely transforms himself into the suave, moneyed Boston Brahmin. As Jewison notes in his commentary McQueen looks and moves differently in The Thomas Crown Affair than any movie he’d done before or since.

So does Dunaway; she is sleek and marvelous swanning around from one scene to the next in Van Runkle’s elegant sportswear, chic suits and soft, float-y dresses. She wears lots of hats in this movie and she looks smashing in all of them—and so do the men by the way; this is an era when men (of a certain age and social outlook, at least) were still wearing fedoras, porkpies and even homburgs.

Faye Dunaway has given many memorable, award-winning performances over the years but whereas I most admire her work in early films like Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, The Disappearance of Aimee, Network, Three Days of the Condor and Richard Lester’s wonderful Musketeer movies, I love her in The Thomas Crown Affair and never more so than at that brittle, bittersweet crescendo of an ending as Vicki helplessly realizes she has indeed been had, the games are over and she and Thomas both have lost something irreplaceable.

D.L. Hughley and Prop 8

2008-11-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

There’s a clip on the web of columnist Dan Savage’s appearance on D.L. Hughley’s CNN talk show, D.L. Hughley Breaks The News. I linked to it through my PlanetOut This Weekend email.

Mr. Savage, probably best known for the witty sex column Savage Love, was (of course) there to talk about Prop 8 and the angry accusation that black and Latino voters were responsible for the denial of gay marriage rights (and other LGBT rollbacks) on November 4th. I watched the clip twice—two and half times, actually—increasingly irritated by the way Hughley verbally danced all over the damn place, making one anti-gay statement after another and then immediately sort of taking it back, or not really meaning it, or something like that, talking out of both sides of his mouth as rapidly as humanly possible. “I’m not particularly homophobic” he says. Right, and then a moment later: “I don’t condone the gay lifestyle,” a slap he then he attempts to qualify with “I don’t condone the government being involved with people’s affairs.” Pick a position and stick with it a minute already!

And then Hughley did the utterly predictable thing: he started yammering on about how his homophobia-that-isn’t-really is natural and right because of, you know, the way he
was brought up and because of the church. YAWN. For Chrissake, can’t these Negroes be a little more original about their hostility to gays? Because of the way he was brought up? What exactly does that mean? I was brought up the way D.L. Hughley was brought up, so for that matter was Dan Savage. Basically, we were all raised in heterosexual households by heterosexual parents either oblivious or openly hostile to ways of living that strayed from what they’d been taught (by heterosexual parents in heterosexual households) was the acceptable norm. Religion, whether Christian or Jewish, played a significant part in the lives of our immediate and extended families. And whatever else we all grew up doing, we all grew up watching “Good Times” and “The Brady Bunch” and “The Jeffersons” and “The Partridge Family” or facsimiles thereof. I’m saying Dan Savage and I are from the same planet as D.L. Hughley—we weren’t hatched from eggs, we’re not pod people—and we’re gay. If Hughley’s “upbringing” explains his heterosexuality, not to say his homophobic clueless-ness, what explains Savage’s queerness? Or mine?

Remember the original Def Comedy Jam years? I do, in a vague, hung-over sort of way; I remember the seemingly endless parade of potty-mouthed brothas (and from time to time a sistah or two) doing stand-up comedy rants that, when they acknowledged the presence of gays in American life at all, usually did so with a sneer and an insult, the cheapest laugh of the night. Hughley was a part of that group, so was a host of others including Martin Lawrence, Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey and the late, great Bernie Mac. And I laughed, and cringed, and finally stopped laughing, disheartened and bored, frankly, as finally one comic after another seemed mainly to be imitating Eddie Murphy, who in his own club routines seemed to be channeling Richard Pryor (himself not exactly the most enlightened entertainer regarding queer issues, his affection and admiration for Lily Tomlin notwithstanding).

I got so tired of being dissed and in such a spectacularly ignorant and complacent way--and from my own people. It still goes on and I’m still tired of it. I’m weary too of the thunderous silence from lesbian and gay celebs of color. Okay, yes, Wanda Sykes came out after Prop 8, but where’s… everybody else? I understand that black queers with any kind of public profile feel caught in a bind, wary of losing a hard-won success from racism on the one hand and community rejection on the other. Still, the silence is especially troubling to me because I think it sets in stone the meanness and myth that too often informs minority objections to gay rights, essentially guaranteeing that straights of color with such mindsets continue to view all things queer as a deliberate cultural assault on their values and religious beliefs. “I’ve never met a black atheist,” Hughley said to Savage and I just wanted to throw up. The hell you haven’t, I thought, snorting. You’ve met black atheists and agnostics, too. You’ve worked with them, you’ve partied with them, they’ve been members of your posse.

Oh, maybe they haven’t had the courage to own up, to come out of their own particular closets, but they’re there, trust me. It is—excuse me—a fairy tale, and a cherished one, that every single African-American is religious and/or believes in God no matter where they come from or how they were raised. The problem with that contention is that if we’re going to bridle at White America’s inclination to view blacks generally as threats or problems, if we insist white people recognize and respect that we are as diverse as any other racial or ethnic group, then by all laws of logic we’re obligated to do the same. Which also, Mr. Hughley, means admitting that there are gay, lesbian, bisexual and tranny African-Americans and other people of color who are—as Dan Savage attempted to point out to you—as disserved by Prop 8 as LGBT Caucasians.

“Ya gotta march a little while longer,” Hughley told Savage with a big, self-satisfied grin, before hurriedly shaking his hand and wishing him the best. Yes, well. I wonder if Mr. Hughley would have been quite as smug tossing that parting shot at the likes of a James Baldwin, Barbara Jordan or Bayard Rustin?

On Being Not Where You Want To Be

2008-11-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

Just not working out.

I am home, doing this. This is not where I want to be right now.

I stood outside the library--across the street from it actually, toeing the curb--in the fucking freezing cold trying to decide what I really really in my heart of hearts wanted to do tonight, where I wanted to be. Then I decided. Then I didn't do it.

I walked into Walgreen's drugstore to buy a notebook to take with me to scribble in. Then I really felt I should buy a nice razor point pen too, to go with it. Then I decided I didn't need the pen. Then I decided not to buy the notebook.

But I wanted to go somewhere other than home, some place warm and reasonably quiet with a nice aroma and good food. A restaurant. A place with soft, low-key lighting--candles on the table would be nice--and a corner booth. I thought at first Dixie Kitchen in Hyde Park which boasts a laid-back staff that is attentive without hovering and wonderful, spicy creole and cajun dishes (Order the fried green tomatoes, johnny cakes and a bowl, not a cup, of the jambalaya. Trust me).

Then I thought, No, it's too damn cold out here to walk it and I don't want to spend the increasingly expensive bus fare (have you seen in the news that the fares are going up? Again?) to go into another neighborhood just eat dinner, especially alone. There's a new soul food place here in Bronzeville, about a block away from me--great food, if a bit pricey--and if I was lucky I'd be ahead of the dinnertime rush and could get a booth. So it was settled; I was going to Chicago's Home of Chicken & Waffles, not to be confused with Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n Waffles, apparently for legal reasons.

Then I realized I didn't have enough cash with me (Why didn't I take that folded-over $20 off my desk and slide it into my wallet the moment I saw it? Why? It would have taken, like, two seconds and I'd have it with me now I need it. What good is it doing me laying on top of Anna Nicole Smith? Such an idiot!) and I didn't want to use plastic, so I came home.

Sigh.

The thing is, what I really wanted to do was to attend MoveOn.org's Big Obama Gathering (a campaign to help the President-Elect pass "a bold progressive agenda") tonight here in Chicago. I got Stephanie L's e-invite yesterday afternoon and hesitated for a long time before finally declining. I saw that something like 19 people had already committed to attend and I guess I was a little freaked out by that. All I could see in my mind's eye was little me walking into a room full of 19 strangers and having to make smart small talk. The very thought left me feeling shy and afraid. Who are those 19 people? Will they all be white? Will they all be young? Younger than me? Of course. Everyone's younger than me. Please don't tell anyone, but sometimes I feel so ancient being 50. I may as well be 90 or 100 or 1000 years old. I'm a relic now, a ruin. If only I were 20 years younger. And about 50, 60 pounds lighter as well. Especially that.

Michael R thinks I'm wonderful, bless his Canadian heart, and he doesn't even know me except through my random postings to Bill's blog. Would I have gone to the Obama meeting if those 19 attendees included him? And Bill? And Grant and Chris and Sue and...

Possibly. Probably not. Likely not. Like-as-not. I was as full of shit and fear 20, 25 years ago as now but at least I looked better. Now I don't even have that.

I am so tired and I feel so old.

I miss Joey. I wish he weren't dead. I hate God for taking my brother from me. I hate myself for not being there for him as he got sicker and sicker, for staying away from his house as he began to fade. I let him down and I loved him so. Did he know that at the end? Did he remember? As I type this, I am remembering Joey and me at ages 10 and 11, electric with energy, wiry and full of spirit in our matching new tees, jeans and spanking white sneakers, having a sidewalk race on a warm and sunny, nearly-summer day. We ran grinning elbow to elbow all the way up Drexel Avenue, and leaping over the cracks so we wouldn't break Mama's back. I don't remember now who won. I think we both did. And we knew all the songs on the radio that year and so did our cousins and friends, which was important. Remember when music was so important, the soundtrack of your life?

Come Together. Sweet Caroline. I Just Can't Help Believing. Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In. Get Together. Everyday People. You Showed Me. This Magic Moment. Time of the Season. It's Your Thing.

I should have gone to that Obama campaign meeting.

I am going to get something to eat.

More On Prop 8

2008-11-19T00:20:00.000-08:00

I received in my email today, a forwarded article by Jasmyne A. Cannick titled “No-On-8’s White Bias.” It was published in the Los Angeles Times on November 8th.

I read Ms. Cannick’s piece with a mixture of interest and dismay and intended to reply to the sender, my cousin Mark, who by the way writes a lively and thoughtful blog of his own http://www.markyourtruthhere.blogspot.com/)

Instead I decided to post my reply here (and began by quoting the parts with which I most took issue):

The right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights.

No, it doesn't, agreed. But, was it supposed to? Why is it that because gay marriage doesn't address all those other ills it is somehow invalid as a legitimate civil rights issue? I'm having trouble following Ms. Cannick's logic here.

The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else--not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally.

"Above everything else"? Again, was that ever truly the intent? And as to why it matters--how about that the right to marry should be as available to eligible (of legal age, etc.) LGBT couples (of any race or ethnicity) who desire to do so as any heterosexual couple (of any race or ethnicity)? How about because without that legal right, depending upon the state in which you and your partner live or happen to be visiting, just what legal rights you truly have when your loved one is hospitalized, or dies, especially if there are young dependents involved, can vary in cruel and unexpected ways? How about because the determination of those straights who would devote enormous effort and sums of money to denying us those rights speaks volumes as to how they would have us regarded in this society, and what other rights they would deny us, if they could?

Second is the issue of civil rights. White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won't support their civil rights.

So the gay rights struggle generally, and gay marriage in particular, has nothing to do with LGBT people of color? It's strictly for and about white people?? Since when? Even if you believe that the gay community too often presents itself with a white (especially white male) face--and I do, and it pisses me off--does that really justify the attitude that black and other non-white queers should just sit out the ongoing battle for gay equality? At the heart of her argument, isn't Ms. Cannick basically saying that gay marriage is a "white thing"? Do you suppose that she's aware of how close she comes to the homophobic misunderstanding that persists in the black community that homosexuality (or at least non-heterosexuality) is a "white thing" and nothing to do with decent, church-going, God-fearing African-Americans?

Why is it still news to some black queers that racism exists within the gay community anyway? It exists in every other stratum of American society, why not there too? There are times when I feel that racism--the fact of enduring racist attitudes and beliefs--has become a convenience to African-Americans, gay or straight. It lets us off the hook for dealing with so many issues it's easier not to confront. (That's certainly been true in my life; how about yours?)

And marriage, let's remember, is a civil institution--not a religious one. Many people marry in the church of their faith but many others do not. So long as a couple has applied for the license, taken the blood tests and performed whatever other rituals the law requires, they are legally married whether the ceremony is performed in a registrar's office, St. Patrick's Cathedral, leaping out of an airplane or underwater off the coast of Belize.

Ms. Cannick makes a strong point regarding the ineffectiveness and general wrong-headedness of the outreach campaign against Prop 8; on the other hand, reading her article, I'm left wondering just how many of those black lesbians and gays who warned that the reliance on NAACP participation "wouldn't work" followed Cannick's lead in declining to engage black voters about the issue at all. ("Even I wasn't inspired to encourage black people to vote against the proposition.") Maybe the larger problem has been not about what white gays didn't do, but about what black gays haven't done—and why.

But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity--not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community.

I would argue that African-Americans need to understand that it is the church that has pitted itself against gay marriage, not the other way around, against gay marriage and against the very existence of gay people. And though some may find the notion heretical, I would also argue that the church's influence in black American life has been at times as much destructive as uplifting, and not just and only about gay issues. It’s worth asking how much have black conservative churches have taken as their model white conservative churches, the very same white conservative churches that once denounced Dr. King and other civil rights heroes (including ordinary blacks and whites who courageously took the risks of joining and organizing marches, sit-ins and freedom rides) as troublemaking commies and worse? How many Sunday sermons sought to reassure racist parishioners--including night riding Klansmen--of the moral rightness of their view of non-whites generally and blacks in particular as sub-human beings? (And what frequently happened to blacks and other people of color as a direct result of the stoking of such sentiments?)

And how many of those congregations have remained lily-white, at least until it began to dawn on their canny anti-gay leaders how much more successful they could be in their efforts to squash gay rights by prevailing upon and joining with black ministers and congregants, using scare tactic campaigns filled with misinformation and outright lies? How many vengeful, self-satisfied churchgoers—black and white, then and now—use religion to close their minds rather than open their hearts?

And by the way... does anybody seriously believe that closeted ministers and sisters exist only in the Catholic Church?

Some people seem to think that homophobia trumps racism, and that winning the battle for gay marriage will symbolically bring about equality for everyone. That may seem true to white gays, but as a black lesbian, let me tell you: There are still too many inequalities that exist as it relates to my race for that ever to be the case.

Well, some people may indeed think that homophobia trumps racism, but I don't and I suspect I'm not the only one. Homophobia and racism are not rivals; rather, both are malignant symptoms of the kind of prejudice that kills, figuratively and literally. They are ghastly proving grounds for bigots, whom the late Vito Russo correctly identified as "people who resent losing control of a world they thought belonged to them." It would be helpful if more of whites, gay and straight, truly appreciated the continuing racial disparity in American life; it’s ludicrous to think that Barack Obama’s historic November 4th victory has single-handedly wiped that slate clean.

But rather than waiting for our white counterparts “to finally ‘get it’” about race, next time around maybe we black gays should go ahead and “say what needs to be said” about homophobia to our families and communities so that they can begin to understand just how and why gay rights—including the right to marry—is about us. And them.

Sunday Breakfast

2008-11-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

I didn’t know Randolph Scott was in Roberta, did you? When I press the INFO button on my DirecTV remote the cast listing displays as Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, that’s all. But that’s clearly Scott in his blonde and hunky 1935 prime charming some wily old dowager—can’t bring the actress’s name into focus just now; it’s not Marie Dressler though I simply adore her (Did you ever see her giving Chaplin as good as she got in the hilarious 1914 silent, Tillie’s Punctured Romance? Most people who remember Dressler think of the wicked funny repartee between her and the brassy, dressed-to-the-nines Jean Harlow in Dinner At Eight)—and yes, there’s the elegant and witty Miss Dunne trying to calm an apoplectic Ginger—what’s she fuming about now?—in what appears to be the next room.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve really only ever enjoyed the Astaire-Rogers pairings as far as the dancing went. The rest of the movies, the surrounding plots, were generally too silly to pay any attention to and in any case seemed interchangeable. I mean, you know, Fred’s pursuing Ginger and, usually due to a series of farcical miscues and misunderstandings, Ginger is in a snit about it throughout nearly all of the film. Sorry, tedious! The one exception is 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway, their last film together, and yeah, they bickered and misconstrued in that one too, but Rogers was different somehow. Earthier. Funny in a more knowing and womanly way, like the characters she played in Stage Door, The Major and The Minor, and even Monkey Business. I even liked her and Astaire’s dance routines better, especially the droll “My One and Only Highland Fling” and the playful, assured “Bouncin’ the Blues.”

My mother loves the Astaire-Rogers movies, ridiculous set-ups and all, her favorites being Top Hat and The Gay Divorcee. She was not watching Roberta though; she followed me into the kitchen (where I was attempting breakfast), eager to talk about the comments she was hearing on V-103’s Sunday morning urban affairs program, Chicago Speaks. The topic today was Prop 8.

Now, my mother is 72 and Catholic and though she’s been very loving and accepting of me since my coming out, and has over the years had her own personal quarrels with the Church, she I have not always agreed on queer issues. So, when after a good morning peck on the cheek and several minutes good-natured teasing about my pancake-flipping abilities she cleared her throat and said “Well, people are calling in to Ty and Mary’s show about this Prop 8 thing and most of them are saying—“ I groaned inwardly and braced myself, half-preparing to mount a defense. So much for a pleasant Sunday breakfast…

But Mom did what she does best—she surprised me, or maybe I should amend that and say she surprised me somewhat, since I could pretty well guess the prevailing viewpoint of the average black radio caller regarding anything to do with homosexuality and I didn’t really expect her to throw in with that. She didn’t. On the contrary Mom was thoughtful and dismayed at the bilious rancor of the callers, most of whom not only defended their support of Prop 8 but also their denouncing of homosexuality as a choice (sigh), as though, assuming it were true, that justified denial of full citizenship, including the right to legally marry, to LGBT people.

And all these callers, she said, pointed to the Bible as proof of the moral rightness of their arguments. Well, I mean, of course. If there’s anything black folks feel safe staking their reputations on, it’s Holy Scripture. Who was it that said Americans pour religion all over everything, like chocolate syrup? Did I read it in a book? Was it a line from a movie? Whatever its source it was not a charge aimed specifically at African-Americans but there have been times in my life when I’ve felt it could have been. It represents to me the dark side of my people’s faith, the robotic insistence on letting words in an ancient book that can be interpreted a thousand ways do your thinking for you, or perhaps more properly circumvent your ability to think, to take the world as it comes, and deal with it standing on your own feet.

“Honey, don’t throw that away! I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.” Mom was holding out her plate for the comically misshapen misfire I was trying to scrape out of the pan. I didn’t used to like pancakes, don’t remember now why. Mom used to like to fix them for my brother Joey and me when we were little and I ate them well enough then. She also used to attempt homemade waffles, using one of those big old-fashioned iron contraptions that had belonged to my grandmother. They were always a disaster, those waffles. Poor Mom. She was forever misjudging the timing, either jerking open the top of the thing too soon, exposing a half-cooked, dripping goop of bubbling yellow-white batter, or way too late, after noticing curls of grayish black smoke coming out of the sides: waffles like blackened rock, like corrugated brick. I can still see the perplexed exasperation on her face and the resignation on my little brother’s.

My third, fourth and fifth pancakes were a lot more successful: golden, slightly fluffy and not too tough. I started adding in pecans halves and small chunks of banana, cocky now. Mom ooh-ed and ahh-ed, hurrying to set the table, pouring the orange juice. I drizzled more batter into the sizzling pan, trying to concentrate and halfway listening to my mother, half lost in my own thoughts. My mind conjured up angry dark faces and full lips twisting in disgust. This one made six; that should be enough, three each. Oh, maybe one more since there wasn’t much batter left anyway. Might as well.

“But there was another caller, finally, a young male,” Mom was saying, “saying something I thought was very important to all those folks using the Bible to justify their attitudes.” I waited, looking from her to the pan and back again.

“He made the point that the Bible says a lot of things” –Right on, I thought sardonically, banishing the faces as I loaded and passed her our plates—“including ‘Do unto others.’ You know, treat others as you would have them treat you? He said ‘I’m not gay myself but I don’t understand how it is that our people can’t see how the way they are acting towards gays is so close to how white people treated us. White people used to say we were only 90% human, that we weren’t their equal, and they used that to defend wanting to deny us full rights, including the right to legally marry each other let alone any other race.’” I was nodding vigorously as I chewed. I started to say something about irony, but the subject had obviously touched a nerve with my mother, and she plowed on, eager to speak her piece as I refilled our juice glasses.

“…And you know something, honey? I think in the back of the minds of a lot of black people is the suspicion, or the fear, that our rights—the rights we fought so hard for forty, fifty years ago—might one day be taken away, and if that ever happens there are certain issues we don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of—you know what I mean?”

That one caught me mid-swallow. I stared at her, not sure I knew at all what she meant. Mom shifted in her chair and leaned across the table towards me, her eyes intense.

“What I’m saying is—well, sort of like what that young man who called in to the show this morning was trying to say. That we seem to be taking our cues about how to feel about gays from whites who feel that way about gays and about us, siding with people who not that long ago didn’t want us in their churches or living on their street or being around their kids in the schools. As though to say, ‘See? There’s no need to discriminate against us, we feel just like you do about all that mess.’”

Ah, yes—I got what she meant. I thought of the writer James Baldwin, who was so outspoken during the civil rights struggles in the 1950s and left the United States to move to Paris, never to return. Baldwin was gay and his vehemence at social injustice was not limited to racist White America but extended as well to bourgeoisie Negroes who would seek to ingratiate themselves to sympathetic whites by incorporating white hypocrisy about class, sex and sexuality.

“When I was about seven years old there was this young gay woman—a girl, really, she was about the same age as your aunts Mary and Maxine, and I think Max said she’d been a classmate at Corpus Christi before she dropped out—anyway, this girl lived somewhere in the neighborhood, I could never figure out where, and no one would tell me. To this day I don’t know how this girl lived or who took care of her or what; her parents had kicked her out of the house and wouldn’t have anything to do with her. We would see her in church on Sunday mornings and after Mass she would come out with all the rest of us and linger for a few minutes, looking around at everybody. And I would watch the way everyone avoided making eye contact with her, nobody would speak to her or even acknowledge her presence. A few people (including your aunt Jean) would glance at her and then shake their heads… and I would pester Mama and Jean and everybody, asking ‘But what did she do? Why won’t anybody talk to her?’”—Here my mother laughed a rueful little laugh and shook her head—“And of course no one would answer me. No one ever told kids anything in those days. Your grandmother would just sigh and say sadly ‘Oh, honey…’ and that was about it.”

“And all this because she way a lesbian?” I asked, frowning. “How did you all even know she was gay?” Mom looked slightly embarrassed.

“Well…she wore men’s clothes, even the hat. Nobody ever saw her dressed any other way. Keep in mind this was in the early ‘40’s and we weren’t used to seeing that. She had a very pretty face, and pretty hair that she’d clipped short and slicked back. And there was something about the way she carried herself—you’d see her walking down the street somewhere and she had this kind of soul brotha strut.” Mom chuckled, remembering. “I used to cross the street when I saw her coming.” Her smile faded and she looked at me guiltily, her eyes pleading. “I was afraid of her and I really didn’t know why, except that I knew—I mean, it had been communicated to me by Mama and everyone else—that she was a bad person for some reason. She wore men’s clothes…”

I was trying not to get impatient with my mother, but all I could think about was how lonely and isolated that girl must have been, how terribly hurt, to be thrown away by her family and neighbors. I was blown away too at her stubbornness and courage in showing up for Catholic Mass each Sunday even though her welcome—or lack thereof—could not have been clearer. How old had she been? Max and Mary were in their teens when my mother, the family youngest, was seven; if this young woman was their contemporary, a classmate, she couldn’t have been much over sixteen. I watched Mom digging into her breakfast and said finally, “You know, you say she was pretty—wait, what was her name, anyway?”

“I dunno.” She shrugged, chewing. “I don’t think I ever learned.” I looked at her. She shrugged again, uncomfortably.

“Okay… well, I’m thinking maybe the menswear was a way of keeping men at bay, you know Mom? She might have liked the clothes, but maybe also they were meant to discourage unwanted attention.”

At this my mother brightened and smiled admiringly at me. “Yes! You know, it hadn’t occurred to me before, but now you say it that could have been it. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that back then.” I snorted. “It doesn’t sound to me like any of you were doing much thinking. You were all so busy being afraid and disapproving of her. All you God-fearing Christians.” Mom flushed and her guilty look returned. I softened. She’d been only seven at the time after all.

“Yes, well... but the weird thing,” she said, frowning a little, “was that there were these two men in the choir at Corpus Christi—they both sang tenor but Teddy, he had a beautiful voice, could have been a professional singer if he’d wanted—and everybody liked and accepted them. Nobody ostracized them. And they were a couple, Lorraine! It took me a quite awhile to get my mind around that, though I don’t know why since they did everything together; they lived together, they came and went everywhere together... They were part of our group, invited to all the parties and get-togethers and social functions we all went to—and they were a couple.”

I smiled, crookedly. “But they never talked about it, did they. Never touched each other, never told any of you, never talked to each other the way a hetero couple would, at least not in you all’s presence—“

My mother shook her head vigorously, her eyebrows up. “—No, they didn’t, and they would mock openly gay men, I mean the femme-y, swishy guys we knew, the hairdressers, you know, the ones who said “Girl” this and “Girlfriend” that, calling them sissies. Everybody called men like that sissies, even when we didn’t think we were being insulting. Freaks—your father used to say that—and sissies.” She looked at me sympathetically, reached out and squeezed my arm. “That girl was ostracized by all of us but Mel and Teddy weren’t. They were our friends. They were one of us.”

We were just about finished. We paused and stared at the dishes and the spoons and the coffee cups on the table. “I wish you all had gotten to know her too, Mom,” I said softly. “I wish you’d at least learned her name.” She sighed again and smiled, gently.

“Me too, sweetheart.”

Good Night. And Good Luck.

2008-11-10T22:05:00.000-08:00

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

That passage is from Keith Olbermann in his closing “Special Comment” segment tonight, inspired by the passing of California's anti-gay marriage initiative, Proposition 8. I truly appreciated Mr. Olbermann’s eloquent words but wished (still wish) these words had come out of the mouth of President-Elect Obama instead—and before November 4, 2008.

In fact I wish then-Senators Obama and Biden had been clearer—and louder—in their recently stated opposition to Prop 8. But then, how could they be? since during the VP debates Senator Biden declared, in answer to moderator Gwen Ifill’s question, that both he and Senator Obama had made clear that they absolutely do NOT, do NOT, support gay marriage. How could they explain being both against gay marriage and in support of gay people's right to marry?

I think it’s about time Queen Latifah came out. Don’t you? And Dexter King, and Mayor Willie Brown too. And all you hip-hop down-low rappers and multi-millionaire team sport athletes--give it up already. I know you're there and I'm tired of you getting to have it both ways. How I wish Luther Vandross, Barbara Jordan and Max Robinson had had in their lifetimes the courage to stand up and own up as well. There’s a lot of talk in the blogosphere these days about the need for more aggressive outreach from the gay activists to black communities and black conservative churches. I’m sure that’s true. No doubt that would help, given persistence and time.

But it’s clear to me that nothing is going to change significantly in African-American minds and hearts about gay rights and gay marriage and gay people until they are forced to confront the fact that "those people" are People They Know, including people whose lives and success they admire and aspire to emulate. I want to see these Friends of Dorothy of Color stand up and allow themselves to be counted, out in the open, out loud, where everybody, most especially their fellow People of Color, can see them.

What do you think, group? Everybody ready? Come on--on three. One.... Two......

Election Day 2008

2008-11-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Thirsty again. What is going on with me being so thirsty all the time?

I must have fallen asleep watching a movie channel last night because as soon I turned on the set this morning there was Ethel Merman, she of the belting, bulldozer vocals, singing to the rafters. This is Call Me Madam, a 20th Century Fox musical from 1953 in which Merman plays American ambassador Sally Adams, and if you look close and don’t blink you’ll also see Lois Maxwell, better known on this side of the pond as Moneypenny in the first (and best) of the Bond movies, in a tiny role as a singing receptionist (or something like that). Call Me Madam is not to my taste first rank as Golden Era musicals go, but it’s pleasant enough. Donald O’Connor woos European princess Vera-Ellen in this one and they are a cute couple—and superb dancers—but their supposedly star-crossed love affair leaves me…well, not cold exactly. Tepid, more like. Audrey Hepburn and Greg Peck in Roman Holiday—now there’s your heartbreaker romance. Personally I think Vera-Ellen had loads more chemistry with Danny Kaye in White Christmas. I do find Ethel Merman and the acerbic George Sanders a hoot and a half as the other romantic pairing in Madam. Sanders would probably rather have been romancing the prissy Billy DeWolfe (or one of cute chorus boys, more like) than the brassy Hostess With The Mostess On The Mall.

It took close to two hours but I cast my Ballot for Barack this morning. Now all I have to do is stay the hell away from all news outlets and threaten with bodily harm any friends, family or coworkers who attempts to share exit polling numbers with me. I don’t want to hear squat about exit polls, people, I want hard numbers and I can wait until this time tomorrow if need be to get them. Leave us not forget that exit polls projected Kerry the winner in Election 2004 and Gore the winner in 2000, the Year of Great Debacle.

I live in a senior retirement complex with my mom and so was able to vote in my pjs this morning (what? I wore a robe, too) in the polling place set up on the second floor of this tower. I brought with me an interesting book about fear, but kept putting it down to look around, shift in my seat and grumble a bit at the goings-on. Though mine was not the nightmare wait others have endured, patience was the key as it was a sloooow process. Even arriving early (or so I thought) I stepped off the elevator to encounter a line so long it snaked around to parts of the building I didn’t know existed. (We have a movie theater room here? With comfy chairs and cup holders? When was somebody going to tell me??!) The line moved fairly quickly (my younger legs would consider 40 minutes “fairly quickly”; I suspect my mother felt differently) but the bottle-necking began when the Board of Election workers—were these volunteers?—began passing out to each of us who had reached a certain point in the wait little squares of paper with numbers on them, to keep track of who needed to sign in and who was next in line for the next available voting machine, only to wind up having to canvass the groups, calling the same numbers over and over again, to track people down. There were a lot of seniors waiting to vote, some in wheelchairs, some balancing shakily on walkers and canes, and as far as I could tell some of them were pocketing the paper squares and either forgetting which number they’d been given or forgetting they’d been given a number in the first place. They’d just sit there as their number was called, needing to be prodded back to consciousness by the person next to them—I did this twice.

Adding to the bog down was that percentage of younger people who apparently had never voted before (or hadn’t in many years) and needed assistance with the machines, refusing to move forward until they’d been rescued by someone who knew what to do, this in spite of the fact that there were big, bright “voting instruction” signs all over the place, most of them directly behind the ballot booths and voting machines. I heard around me a lot of anxiety-tinged jokes about wanting to vote for Obama and being afraid of mistakenly casting the vote for McCain.

And I watched some idiot girl actually taking an incoming cell phone call while she marked off her ballot. Jesus Christ. My people.

Letter To A Friend -- Halloween 2008

2008-10-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hey Mike-y….

I know I’m in trouble with you by now, seeing as how you’ve called me twice already this week and I’ve yet to return either call as promised. Hope this letter rectifies things a little bit…

My day started weirder than usual, what with me being the only staffer to show up for work today—

Okay, that’s not strictly true. The true part is that I arrived early as usual and was able to get into the building to clock in because our engineer was there. The other staffers scheduled for the day were both running so late for various reasons that we didn’t open on time—in fact we were almost 25 minutes late. Try to imagine the increasingly perplexed and nasty looks I was getting from patrons milling outside the doors, wondering what the f**k was going on now. They peered in at me, their faces hardening; impatient to get to the internet access computers and resume those job searches, tighten those resumes, re-apply for those benefits, surf those porn sites….if I would just come on already and unlock the damn doors. What was my problem, anyway? Couldn’t I see them all standing there? Couldn’t I see a damn clock? Why didn’t I open up the muthaf**kin’ DOOR?!! Frank, bless his heart, went out there a couple of times, to explain the situation.

Me, I was humming with happiness. Not out of disregard for the patrons, whom I really did feel kinda sorry for, most of them. And not about Miss T, who had been suffering back pain all week and hadn’t been able to take off even one day to rest and heal, either because we were (we are) too short-staffed or because there’s been too much going on—school groups and reading groups and the little trick-or-treaters today—that required her presence. She called, having decided to take part of the morning off, but when she asked to talk to Marlena to let her know, only to learn that she hadn’t yet arrived, she was forced to scuttle those plans. Her voice sounded very weary as she assured me she would be in soon.

And I wasn’t smiling about Marley, either, who was this time surely looking at some kind of “official” censure for being so tardy (again), unless, that is, this time she had a truly legitimate reason; something act-of-God and unavoidable, like the morning sun had crashed into the lake and the resultant tsunami had flooded the streets, backing up traffic for miles…

Because the thing is, Mike, I really like Marlena. So does Miss T, actually. She (Marley) is the best, most conscientious worker in the place—aside from your truly ;-)—and everybody knows it and most of us appreciate it. I hate to see her of all people getting into trouble. When I consider the work ethic (or lack thereof) of others, it just seems so damned unfair.

No, I was happy because… um. Because….

Alright, give me a minute. It will come to me.

I walked to work today. I bet you would have too, if only your job was closer to home. It was just such an incredibly gorgeous morning, bright blue skies, golden, sunny, mild temps, and the trees all along the way so beautiful, absolutely ablaze with color. An almost perfect start to whatever the hell my day was going to become.

Then when I arrive at the front doors I can tell immediately that Frank (or somebody) is there because all the lights are up; sure enough he answers my knock right away, as though he’d been waiting for me. So I clock in on time/early and get busy with the morning set-up, listening to my Natalie Goldberg-Julia Cameron tapes (an interesting and sometimes funny conversation about the writing life) as I go, and I’m, I dunno, feeling pretty good, you know?

Then it got closer to time to open and still no one—staff wise—had shown up yet. When Miss T called and cautioned me not to open (at least one senior staffer had to be on the premises per library policy) I felt elated, positively liberated. This may sound odd to you, I realize. But don’t you love it when the ordinary suddenly becomes the unusual, the unforeseen? Something unexpected was going down! Maybe we wouldn’t open until noon! Maybe we wouldn’t open at all! Then I could do with this glorious day whatever I wanted.

And even if not, so what? Even if only momentarily, it was a giddying feeling, that feeling of the routine veering off course and possibly turning into something else, good or bad, didn’t matter. In moments like that, however transitory, however fleeting, you’re reminded of all the myriad, numberless possibilities of a morning, a day, a life. Ach, this probably makes no sense to you. It doesn’t to me, completely.

But while it lasted it was a good feeling.

The Long Goodbye -- Lizzie, Part I

2008-10-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

If this workday is going to be anything like yesterday, you can keep it. Too few workers, too many patrons, too many equipment problems.

And my damn cat is beginning to drive me crazy now. She's pooping outside her box now, not every day but once in awhile without warninig, principally on any available carpet (living room) or shag rug (bathroom, during the night, directly in front of sink--surprise!!). And her peeing is becoming a hit and miss affair as well, as often outside her litter box as in it. There's something different about the way she's squatting when she needs to void. And she's so thirsty all the time--she never used to need so much water.

She may be diabetic.

Back to the vet, if I can just find a ride.

Oh, man. I see a long, expensive road ahead of me. Back and forth vet visits. Medications. Progressively messier clean-ups. Wakeful, worried nights.

This is the part about pet care that I dread. You bring these creatures into your life and home as adorable, plump little balls of fur. You love them, care for them as best you know how. And in return they bond with you, greet you joyfully at the door each evening, learn to play with you, anticipate your moods, and by their comforting presence ease those moments of loneliness, stress and trauma. Your little buddy. And then, before you know it, you realize they're getting old and starting to get sick and you're faced with preparing for The Decision.

My World... And Welcome To It--Part II

2008-10-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Again—again—watched in dismay today as yet another parent walked into the branch and made a beeline for the nearest Internet access computer, leaving her preschooler pretty much to her own devices for the next hour. Or more likely two. Here we go, I sighed, and nudged at my coworker, who nodded sagely and shrugged a Gallic what are you gonna do-type shrug before turning back to the pile of library card applications in front of her. I headed for the magazine and newspaper display.

The child was a cute chatterbox in a red corduroy jumper, wide-eyed, tentatively friendly, intensely curious about everything going on around her, and generally pleased to find herself in this interesting, strangely quiet place that was crowded with more books than probably she’d ever seen in her entire young life. She wandered over to one of the paperback carousels, poking and prodding at the lower tiers, attempting to make the thing turn. Then, bored with that, she ambled up to the community information table and stood up on her tiptoes straining to get a better view of the stacks and scatterings of leaflets, flyers and shiny, colorful pamphlets. Frustrated, unable to reach even the papers closest to the table’s edge, she abruptly dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl around under it like a little red mouse, humming softly to herself as she examined the carpet for minute, invisible…somethings. Tiny, Lilliputian somethings only she could see. I couldn't help smiling, watching her.

K-----! Come here, her mother hissed at her. Sit over there. SIT. OVER. THERE. NOW. Now stay there.

Whereupon I calmly rushed over--I know that sounds like a contradiction; it takes practice--hoping to head off disaster. Stupid woman. Was this adorable child, who could not have been more than 4, maybe 5, really expected to sit in a hard flat chair at a large bare table for the next 60 minutes-plus? With absolutely nothing whatsoever to do? What was this stupid woman thinking?

Can I bring her something to read? And maybe some coloring sheets and crayons? I whispered to the mother. I made a point of sounding sympathetic. And I was. For the child.

The mom shrugged; mumbled yeah okay.

I smiled tightly and went looking for kiddie supplies, grabbing a half dozen Sandra Boynton and Eric Carle titles from the “Toddler/New Reader” shelves on my way back. Then I sat the little girl down at one of the reading tables nearest her mother—who did not even bother to look up, nor did I expect her to—and presented her with my offerings, whispering encouragements.

And for a small period of time the little sweetie was content, happily absorbed in her coloring and drawing and “reading.” But the inevitable happened; she lost interest in both the crayons and the cardboard books, became restless, and began to fret, disconcerted at how thoroughly her mom, frowning at the computer screen inches from her face, had zoned out, seeming to forget all about her little girl. She stage-whispered to her mommy to come here and see; Mommy shushed her. She tried to show Mommy one of her coloring pictures and her mother rebuffed her at first, irritably, her gaze never quite leaving the monitor. Finally the mom sighed and pulled Baby Girl into her lap, distractedly bouncing and rocking her to settle her down—but Baby Girl would not be settled. She babbled and prattled incessantly, peppering her mother with questions which her mother ignored almost completely. Ignored, the child’s whining and whimpering increased in volume and intensity until she’d succeeded in twisting herself down and out of her mother’s loosening embrace.

Then, pouting, she marched defiantly back to the carousel where, after some quick, furtive peeps at Mommy (who remained as oblivious as ever), she snatched Richard Wright off the “WR” rack and threw him to the floor. Then she did the same with Courtney Wright, sending Teri Woods sailing right after, and then a misplaced August Wilson, all to the amusement--and here and there the annoyance--of several patrons nearby.

And then, giddy now and balancing precariously forward on her tiny sneakered toes, Baby Girl reached high for Valerie Wilson Wesley and higher still for Alice Walker while Mommy, aroused finally from her long electronic stupor, advanced upon her daughter with murder in her eyes…

It was a long morning. A long, noisy morning.

My World... And Welcome To It--Part I

2008-10-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post is featuring a Chicago Sun-Times story about the rise of library patronage as a response to economic hard times ("Library Circulation Soars"). This is not news to me, friends....

When I was a kid, I loved public libraries. A perfect day--at least as an alternative to sitting in classrooms all morning and afternoon, staring out windows--was a day spent in the big main center downtown, floating like a visiting princess up and down its ornate, curving stairwells, and sprawling in lazy contentment in overstuffed chairs in large, sunny, elegant reading rooms. There was just no better place to be, and even the dinky little neighborhood branches were good in a pinch. I loved especially the hushed, cathedral quiet of libraries, and the feeling of sanctuary. When I wasn't actually reading I could just sit and think and dream.

But libraries are not quiet spaces any longer, at least the branch in which I work certainly is not. Thirty-five years on, the world is different, the culture is coarser, and people are anxious, more easily frustrated and often less accommodating of one another. The addition of Internet access computers in libraries has been a mixed blessing, offering patrons who can least afford the purchase of home pcs and monthly internet fees more resources for employment, health updates and educational searches. This is a good thing.

On the other hand...

Bad Moon On The Rise?

2008-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Not a good sign that these posts have been getting farther and farther apart. It's not like I've had nothing on my mind, after all.

Creeping tension as the days--just 8 days at this writing--tick down toward election day. Will Barack Obama be elected? And by what margin? Will he squeak by so narrowly that we'll be forced to revisit the Recount of 2000? What if he loses narrowly? Can we safely assume vote tampering? (how could we not?) I am trying to maintain, as I'm sure you are. It is not easy.

There is the fear factor once again at the revelation of a plot--is this for real? and should I be using the word "alleged"? --by 2 white supremacists to go on an African-American killing spree meant to culminate in an assassination attempt on Obama. According to federal authorities the would-be assassins, a 20 year-old high school dropout from Tennessee and an 18 year-old from Arkansas who met on the Internet through a shared interest in all things white power (and why are none of these details a surprise to me), were planning to target first an African-American school--though exactly which particular school apparently isn't yet known--killing 88 of its students, 14 by decapitation, or so revealed documents unsealed in a Jackson, Tenn. U.S. District Court. Why 88? And why 14 by beheading? God, I don't know. Something or other about those being magic numbers in the skinhead culture, according to the Associated Press. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. And--oh yes--according to the same report the two had been shooting at the windows of a black church (no injuries or casualties, thank goodness) in Brownsville, Tenn. on the day they were arrested.

A real class act, both of these sons of dixie.

Also (also?? did you hear what I just said?) I can't fight off the worry that, despite reported leads in all the battleground states, Obama could still lose--we could still lose--this election, undone as much by our own hubris or complacency as by GOP hanky-panky. Early voting is taking place but not, apparently, in the numbers expected or hoped for in key states; too many people seem content to chance the long lines and unexpected glitches of November 4th. I had this discussion--let's go ahead and call it a "discussion"--just this weekend with several fellow residents over the folding table in the laundry room, who smiled indulgently at my growing exasperation.

And--oh, what the fresh hell???--are we now at war in Syria? Because the news reports I'm watching tonight sure seem to be suggesting that...

George W. Bush. You just never want to stop slapping him. (I may be repeating myself)

November, Part II

2008-10-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

I am so depressed.

The general consensus seems to be that Obama won last night's debate. If substance means anything anymore I think he did too. But guys, 19 days. So much can happen in 19 days. Everything can happen in 19 days, including the unthinkable, the untenable. Ask Al Gore.

So fucking depressed.

November

2008-10-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

They’re gonna kill him. You know they’re gonna get him—these white folks ain't gonna let no black man be President of their country—girl, puh-lease!

There’s one line in the ethics report from the Alaskan State Legislature, the bi-partisan (partial) censure of Governor Sarah Palin for abuse of power regarding her attempted ousting of her former brother-in-law as a state trooper, one sentence that offers Palin (and of course, McCain) a tiny ray of hope--you just know Rick Davis and company are going to leap on it and ride it for all its worth every freaking day 'til election day to put as positive a spin on this otherwise unpleasant news as possible--and I can't at this moment remember what that single line is, because...

...because I am still slowly shaking my head at the televised images of a flustered John McCain trying to calm down these angry, ignorant numbskulls--his beloved base--yelling death-to-the-infidel type insults about Obama The Terrorist Candidate (aka Obama The Terrorist Sympathizer Candidate), insults McCain himself—with mindless, eager assists from Governor Palin—has been stoking and fueling and encouraging with his bizarre, relentless, obsessive linking of Obama to William Ayers, a former 60's radical whose acts of political terror were committed when Barack Obama was all of 8 years old.

There's McCain smilingly handing his mike to a young man whose wife is expecting a child next spring, a guy who tells the senator and the audience that he is "scared" at the prospect of raising his child in an Obama (He means "Osama"--but you all got that, right?) America; there's the disheveled-looking, barely coherent woman who takes the mike to call Obama "an Arab," and there’s McCain, who right up to that moment had been smiling and nodding his head, again having to abruptly change course and "correct" yet another poor, misinformed soul. No, no, no—there’s no reason for you to be scared of an Obama Presidency; No, ma’am, no, he is not an Arab; no. And the crowd—his base—actually boos him as he labors to assure them that Obama is really a loving family man and decent guy, honest!

And as I watch all this, taking it all in, my thoughts drift back to when Barack Obama first announced his candidacy, and my friends and family and I watched in wonder as day by day his presidential campaign electrified the country, turning into first a national then global movement until finally one of my co-worker friends--who to my steadily growing annoyance had been ceaselessly shaking her head in cynical disbelief--finally said to me "Oh, girl, please. You know what's gonna happen. They're gonna get him. They're gonna do him like they did Dr. King, and Malcolm, and Medgar—they’re not gonna let no black man be President of this country! They will kill him first, you know they will!"

I’d wanted to smack that woman, right on the spot, in part because her faintly amused cynicism kept reminding me uncomfortably of my own doubts about Barack Obama's qualifications and readiness for that toughest and most exalted of jobs. What is wrong with black people, I remember thinking irritably. Do we have to be so damn negative all the time, so ready to dismiss each other’s—and our own—aspirations, hopes, excellence, dreams? Are we are own dream-killers? Why are we always so afraid to embrace the best in ourselves, and so expectant of the worst in others?

I switch the channel from MSNBC to CNN to CBS to PBS to ABC News to BBC America World News, and my friend’s bitter warnings swirl in my head as I listen to the cries and catcalls at the Republican rallies:
“I just don’t trust him!”
“He’s not one of us!”
“He’s not even American!”
“Not like us!”
"I've been reading up on him--"
“Traitor!”
“Terrorist!”
“Off with his head!”
“Bomb Obama!”

You know they’re gonna get him, girl. You know they will.

October Mornings -- A Memory

2008-10-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

Well, here it comes. Winter's onset. It's not officially Autumn yet, yet I was kept awake almost all night long by howling, shrieking winds (poor stray creatures!), and this morning I'm watching a stone gray sky turn chalky white like when the clouds are filling with snow, and I am slamming the windows against the chill. A good day to stay inside, if only I could.

About this time five years ago I was unemployed. I saw the end coming but what with one discouraging thing and another felt too tired and depressed to rescue myself in time. The Day of Reckoning arrived and I cleaned out my desk, turned in my access badge and said my farewells, promising coworker-friends I'd keep in touch knowing full well I would do no such thing. I boarded the Metra train home and settled back in my seat feeling... I don't remember exactly. A blur of things. Worried, certainly, about what was to come. Relieved mostly, even cautiously happy, to finally be free of the place I'd been in, free of morning anxiety as I'd shower and dress and attempt breakfast trying and failing not to brood and ruminate in anticipation of the day ahead, the office, the people, the work I felt increasingly bored and overwhelmed by.

So I was unemployed and the mornings I'd once dreaded were now mine to do with what I wished. I could stay up late now and sleep in. I could rise as early as always luxuriating in the knowledge that I was getting up for myself instead of to appease some faceless, soulless corporate entity's timeclock. I could shop or travel--except that without a steady income I really hadn't the money for such pleasures.... or I could hibernate for the winter, like animals, like the bears, which is what I most wanted to do anyway, and nurse my wounds. (You don't want me here? Well, I don't want to be here either. I don't like you anymore. I don't even know you anymore.) I could sit in my new pajamas on the loveseat I'd parked closest to my windows, my favorite robe--a Christmas gift the previous year from an ex-friend-- wrapped around me, my bare feet curled up underneath me, the book I'd been trying for weeks to find the time to read open in my lap, and breathe, and meditate, and think things I hadn't time for before. I would gaze out at the changing landscape and quietly marvel at all the trees going from their uniform green to blazing bursts of reds, yellows and golds, smiling sympathetically at middle-schoolers with backpacks trudging and scufflling dejectedly through mounds of curling, withering leaves as their harried parents (or people who looked like parents) rushed to catch express buses and frantically hail taxis.

The world was passing me by and I was grateful for that. In the moment, I was just fine with that.

October Monday, Early Afternoon

2008-10-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

Quiet, blessedly. And cloudy.

I'm watching a rather grainy VHS copy of Joseph Losey's 1975 film The Romantic Englishwoman, starring Glenda Jackson, Michael Caine and Helmut Berger. When this concludes I will flip the switch to DVD (cleaner sound and picture) and begin John Schlesinger's elegiac Sunday, Bloody Sunday, also starring Jackson and the great Peter Finch--the great, late Peter Finch, who died more or less on the eve of his 1977 Best Actor Academy Award win for Sidney Lumet's Network. I think it was Lumet who directed. Wasn't it? If not it should have been.

How I miss the cinema of the seventies. I remember that time just well enough to know not to romanticize it too much--there was a fair amount of schlock--there is every era--but so many good and great movies were being made then that it's come to feel like a cinematic Golden Age. Independents, young turks, and the masters of European cinema that inspired them were either still in their prime or just hitting stride, creating new language and new rules and releasing modern masterworks like The Last Picture Show, The Godfather Parts I&II, A Woman Under the Influence, Dog Day Afternoon, Nashville, Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, The Conformist, The Conversation, Amarcord, Jaws, Fear Eats The Soul, Scenes From A Marriage, Days of Heaven and My Brilliant Career. Even the living monuments like Hitchcock still had a trick or two up the sleeve with Frenzy and Family Plot. Movie-going was absolutely necessary back then; you felt that cinematically anything could happen.

Here is Michael Caine in Romantic Englishwoman. He looks great in this movie. This is post-Alfie, post-Ipcress Files, post-Gambit. Here he's older, successful, sophisticated and (still) cynical; this was his Get Carter, Sleuth and The Man Who Would Be King period. In Romantic Englishwoman he plays a wealthy, chauvinistic novelist, an insecure, self-regarding prick who loves his wife--a wry, restless Jackson--but is so fearful of losing her to a handsome gigolo she meets by chance during a solo getaway--the German heartthrob Berger--that he effectively goads her into an extramarital affair.

And Jackson....Glenda May Jackson. Words fail me. She is now a politician--a Member of Parliament (Labour Party) since 1992--and Britain's political gain has been every movie-lover's loss. As an actress Glenda Jackson was such a force of nature--there's never been anyone remotely like her and likely won't be again. She was unique; passionate and iron-willed before such strength was considered a virtue; brazen, brainy, and a sexual powerhouse. In Women In Love she was the mythical Free Woman come to defiant, indomitable life, in The Music Lovers (both directed by Ken Russell, whom she greatly admired) she is a ferocious avenging angel. Yet she could be marvelously funny, giving wonderful, wittily feminist performances opposite George Segal in 1973's A Touch of Class and Walter Matthau in 1978's House Calls. It figures that she played Elizabeth I, not once but twice, in 1971's Mary Queen of Scots opposite Vanessa Redgrave (another strong, independent lady of British cinema and theatre) and again that same year in Elizabeth R, a beautifully produced mini-series presented in 1972 to American audiences on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre.

I miss seeing movies and television, I miss movies and television productions being made, with Glenda Jackson in them.

For Michael M.

2008-10-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

It’s too bad I’m broke because it appears to be a good day for walking—crisp and sunny—I thought to stroll around Hyde Park, and maybe find a café to park in to read or write (or both) for a few hours. It’s harder to do those things at home, with the distraction of the television, the stereo, the family, the pet, the phone, and what have you. Some days it’s impossible. Most days it feels impossible.

One thing I guess I’ll be doing this afternoon is going back online to barackobama.com to continue my participation in the “Neighbor to Neighbor” volunteer effort I began yesterday afternoon. Bill M. sent me an email yesterday urging me to join—actually what it appears he sent was an “e-blast” and I’m on his listing—that’s how I got involved.

If you’re at all interested (What..? What do you mean “No, thank you”??) go to barackobama.com and you’ll see the “Neighbor to Neighbor” volunteer information where you can choose to donate money to the Obama-Biden campaign, or volunteer online to phone people in your state or a neighboring state (the system will generate names and phone numbers plus a script you can follow to make it easier to know what to say) or you can opt to canvass your area door to door—the software even provides flyers you can print up to take with you if you want to distribute them around.

I’m not comfortable with the idea of walking around this neighborhood knocking on strange doors, so I chose to work the phones. I called 50 people yesterday, Mike. I was a little nervous at first, worried about the reception I’d receive (“You’re WHO? Who is this REALLY? How you get my number? Why you callin’ here? Goddam it, don’t call this number again!!”), but it turned out not to be so difficult at all. The reason was because each of these individuals were already acknowledged Obama supporters, having either donated money or signed a petition or done something to indicate their interest in getting involved in some way. What I was phoning to learn was whether they were still interested in volunteering, and if yes what their availability and level of involvement would be. The script included five simple questions that the person could answer Yes, No or Maybe to, with me clicking on the appropriate radio button to record their responses. After that I thanked them for their time and clicked on the Save tab at the bottom of the page to transmit the information to Obama headquarters and move on to the next name on the list.

There were some awkward moments—a few people were wary at first but when they realized I just wanted to ask a few quick questions that they could respond to simply they relaxed, and some folks became downright chatty. (One very friendly lady asked me several questions I couldn’t knowledgably answer; I rescued myself by directing her to the Obama website for more information.) In cases where I encountered voice mails I left a message since the script included that option if you aren’t able to talk to an actual person. Other options were:

Wrong Number
Not Home
Refused To Talk To Me
Spoke A Foreign Language, and
Deceased.

You’re laughing now, aren’t you. I certainly did--I couldn't help chuckling as I was preparing to dial the first number, having a sudden image in my head of someone so determined to avoid talking to me that they resorted to each of the above options, including the last.

You could also make the selection “I Am Uncomfortable Calling This Person” (Stop laughing!) but you had to explain why. There was also a space for typing in any remarks you might want to add; I used this a few times.

The “Leave a Message” option created the expectation that I would be calling these folks again, either today or tomorrow (which is what I anticipated having to do), but I later discovered that whenever I selected “Leave a Message” the system automatically removed those names and numbers from my list making follow-up impossible. (Eventually I e-mailed the help desk suggesting this was a glitch that should be fixed; they replied by thanking me for the heads-up and assuring me that the deleted names are always handed off to another volunteer for follow-up)

Also, unexpectedly, several of the people I left messages to called me back—since I was calling from home, my name and phone number popped up on their caller IDs—and one person even interrupted my dinner! (“Uh, hi? Is this Lorraine? Is this a good time to talk..?”) Since at this point I had logged off the website and no longer had the script in front of me, I had to scramble trying to remember what to ask, jotting down their answers on a pad on my desk. (I later emailed the help desk again with the person’s information)

There were three—or was it four—instances where someone answered, a spouse, a baby-sitter, whoever, who asked me to call again; today I’ll go back into the website and do so to finish up. (Don’t know if I want another 50 names, however... oh, what the hell. It's for the cause.)

As I type this I’m watching the Fox movie channel’s letterbox edition broadcast of the 1966 spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum, a good movie that gets better each time I see it. Remember this film? It boasted a terrific international cast, including Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, George Sanders, and, as The American Hero Who Saves The Day, a young George Segal in possibly his best wise-guy role as the beleaguered U.S. spy sent by Sanders and Guinness to root out Nazis in the “new” Germany. Beautiful Senta Berger (Whatever happened to her?) plays the love interest who may not be as innocent as she seems. And Guinness gives off a vibe here like he’s playing “A Homosexual.” Sort of queeny, sniffy. Coming on to Segal, subtly, and Segal knows it which makes it easy for him to dismiss Guinness. Since Alec Guinness was gay in real life and George Segal, so far as we know, is not, you watch this scene wondering how much of that dynamic was real. (The regal, arrogant Sanders, who was once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor, was also queer--not in this movie I don’t think but in real life.)

Segal, an actor who was good to look at but not distractingly pretty like, say, Redford (whom he worked with in 1972’s comic heist movie The Hot Rock) excelled in roles like this—resourceful, everyday, workaday guys who through a series of circumstances land in the shit and sometimes prevail, sometimes don't. There’s a movie he made around this time—perhaps in the same year?—with Eva Marie Saint, in which he played a philandering husband who tries to hang onto both his wife and his mistress, if I’m remembering it right. It’s never shown anymore and I don’t know if it’s available on VHS or DVD at all. I’d love to see it again. I think the name of it is Loving; must make a note to do an Amazon search for it.

Paul Newman could also have played Quiller, of course, and was probably offered the role first before it made its way to George Segal. As I say, I like Segal just fine in this movie, his work is solid, but part of me can't help but wish Newman had signed on for it. What did he release in '66, anyway? The Secret War of Harry Frigg? (Nope, that was '68.) He should have played Quiller.

But maybe Newman felt he'd played this world-weary wisecracking hero character before, or some variation of it, in Harper or Torn Curtain or even The Prize. How is it possible that Paul Newman--not just a wonderful actor and one of the great male beauties of the Silver Screen, but a humanitarian and philanthropist, a man with strong socio-political convictions--is gone?

The sun is gone, too and it’s starting to rain. Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t go out today. More later.

For Michael T

2008-10-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hiya. Not sure how far I'll get with this letter since I'm typing during a quiet moment at the job but we shall see......

This is a birthday letter, which admittedly is not the same as a birthday gift, but is almost as good if you're, you know, flexible about it. :-) When precisely is your birthday, by the way? I haven't missed it, have I? (Say no, Mike. Lie if you have to.)

I'd like to get you an actual gift but I'm not sure what you'd like, and since you're not 9 anymore I don't want to wing it and just pick anything. Is there a DVD or two that you'd like to have, or perhaps some blank discs and labels? Email me--or call--and I'll see what I can do.

Ordinarily I'd be on my way home now since my schedule has changed due to the recent departure of another staffer (more about that when I see you, if you're interested in hearing). Now I work 9 to 1 on Saturdays, except that I let myself get talked into working all day today since we're short-staffed again. (We're always short-staffed here.)

I was thinking about you yesterday. That must have been what started me humming "Love Me Do" and "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" while I was shelving and straightening; thinking of Beatle songs always reminds me of you. I'm always reminded of when we were all kids and Joey and me were staying with your family back in the day. You were the British Invasion expert back then, and when you found out I liked the Beatles too took it upon yourself to educate me about all things Fab Four. You played all your records for me, taught me the lyrics. It meant so much.

Oh, Grow A Pair, Both of You!

2008-10-02T19:19:00.000-07:00

So Ifill asks both Palin and Biden if they support gay rights and as expected Palin does her smiley-face bullshit tap dance, alluding to gay friends and family members (Really? Who exactly?) and making sure to say the word "tolerance" 60 times just to assure us all that she’s, ya know, a nice, reasonable person with no hard feelings towards the gays, honest. She and John McCain would never dream of standing in the way of some same-sex person with one of those contracts wanting to visit his or her hospitalized partner, or stuff like that.

When Ifill asks Palin if she supports gay marriage, however, Palin stands still and says no. She says, smiling sympathetically all the while, that she’s gonna be a straight shooter about this and come right on out and admit that her understanding of marriage is the traditional “one man and one woman” arrangement. So no, she (and John McCain) does not support gay marriage, no.

Well, no surprise there. And I give Governor Moose-shooter some credit—on the marriage issue, anyway—for not waffling around about it, for just saying what she really thinks about gays and marriage. No word of course on what those gay friends and family members of hers (Are you here? Are you sure you’re queer?) think about that.

But it’s Biden who depresses and disturbs me the most when, in one moment he makes firmly and unequivocally clear his and Barack Obama’s support of LGBT people having all of the same protections and rights as heterosexual people (Yaaaay!!!! Right on!!), and then in the next declaring he and Senator Obama absolutely do NOT support gay marriage, at all, period (Uh…what??).

Now, I can’t say that I’m shocked by the distinction Biden seemed to be making. Shocked, no; perplexed, yes, continually—gays are just like everyone else and civil unions are right and just but marriage is… out of bounds? (To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to! Get over it, already!) And it’s been suggested to me that, in a close election in a country as sexually backward, hypocritical and perennially ambivalent about gays as these United States, for Senators Obama and Biden to distance themselves from the gay marriage question is actually a politically smart (if craven) move. Once in office, I have been assured, surely both men—or the younger Obama at least—will come to recognize and eventually acknowledge not just the justice but the inevitability of LGBT people being allowed to legally marry—and not just in one or two states where the decision could be overturned.

Okay, maybe. But ya know, I grow so weary of these supposedly progressive politicians always counting on the LGBT community to help them win their elections even as they continually keep us at arms length on the most fundamental issues of our lives.

So memo to Senators Obama and Biden: Grow a pair and get on with it already!

Waiting (Nearly 7 PM)

2008-09-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

Waiting, sitting and waiting. Hate that hate this. This. Sitting around waiting for a meeting that was supposed to happen almost 30 minutes ago(!) Waiting waiting waiting for meetings tense discussions scoldings repetition boredom nervousness jealousy fear endless bottomless boredom again. And no dinner. Stuck. Waiting.

Nothing ever comes of this. An hour or more of grumpy-parent managers and bratty-worker bees, every one of them waiting for the closing bell waiting for
freedom from
routine
ridicule
remorseless
rapacious
repetition
and red-eyed
tight-lipped
angry
boredom
boring meetings
and waiting still
hating this.

Breathe.
Yawn.
Stretch.
Think slow sweet smooth thoughts.
Dream.

Dream about something else before you flip. Dream about......quiet childhood mornings and peaceful family evenings with Gramma's comfy-bony warm brown knees, her dainty dancer's feet in dirty pink slippers and always her gossamer soft faded rose housecoat, pockets stuffed with folded kleenex, Daily Defender clippings and ancient bobby pins. Her hands on my shoulders, playing with my hair, rubbing my back. So easy in Gramma's company watching TV, refuge from classroom rules and mean girls (daytime) and uptight anxious mom (nighttime). Missing her so much right now. Missing everyday her faded roses, her bony knees, her absentminded murmurs, sighs of resignation, mischievous chuckles and her strong fine hands. Missing everything about her and hating this wait.

Hope there's afterlife after this. Hope I see Gramma and make her laugh again. Hope there's satellite in heaven and Hollywood Squares, The Edge of Night, Gunsmoke, and The Jeffersons are on a continuous loop!

Everybody's Reading Zane

2008-09-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

So what do you think of the urban books phenomenon? You know—those mostly paperback and softcover trade novels published by Zane and Triple Crown and the like—even Essence magazine is getting on that gravy train—that are written for and heavily marketed to young black readers? You’ve seen them by now I know, they are a huge publishing trend and tend to feature on their covers either sexed-up, uber-glam young black women, with titles like Whore, Bitch, Around the Way Girls, Gettin' Buck Wild and In Cahootz, or fierce, muscled, broody-looking young black men, with titles like Blow, The Ski Mask Way, Thugs And the Women Who Love Them and A Hustler's Son.

I don’t know quite what to make of this development and indeed there is some ongoing controversy within the library system nationwide about these books, with some librarians simply refusing to carry them and others doing so reluctantly, trying to decide how to classify them and whether to make them available to young readers. We carry a lot of these titles with more coming in every week, and they seem to vary in quality, with some written with some polish and verve, and some pretty raw and crude.

I’ve tried to read a few of them, curious to understand what they’re about and what their exploding popularity means. As a rule, they’re generally trashy, soft-core porn, an updated inner-city twist on the bodice-ripper romance novel, with characters—mostly women; most of these books seem to be aimed at young minority women—who live in a sex-and-violence universe of one kind or another. These books are VERY popular with girls and teen-to-twenty-something black women (and increasingly, the same age group of black males) who assert that they “tell it like it is” about life.

Well… yes, they do. If yours is a ghetto-underclass sort of life, that is. The books do reflect certain bleak realities, though I think more than that what they do, really, is exploit that world, in the way gangsta rap both glamorized and exploited a kind of black life experience, slickly packaging and marketing it back to both the black community and, especially, naïve suburban white kids attracted to an existence foreign to them and unnerving to their parents.

It makes me uneasy that even younger, middle-schoolers are now coming in looking for these books. These kids are always a little shy and embarrassed when asking for help in finding them, as though afraid we’re going to tell their mamas what they’re reading, and they usually don’t even know what specifically to ask for—they never have a title or author name in mind—it’s always just “Y’all got any Zane books?” Apparently one title serves as well as the next, and that alone worries me. There’s a mindlessness in this kind of reading. To me urban books are the literary equivalent of junk food—fast and tasty but not very healthy, especially as a mainstay.

Yet I wonder if I’m overreacting, or possibly missing something about the books’ appeal. What are young readers looking for in urban books? Are girls drawn to headstrong women characters who, against daunting odds, manage to make their own success in the world? I notice some of the books feature—mostly as a tease, admittedly—girl-on-girl attraction and I wonder if that is particularly significant to a young minority reader trying to sort out gender identity or sexual orientation issues without drawing too much attention to her (or him) self.

We carry both fiction and nonfiction titles designed to reach out to young LGBTQ readers and in my shelving duties I’ve observed that those books are frequently pulled from the shelves by young patrons but seldom actually checked out (I’m always finding them in the wrong place). My guess is those books, by their very titles and cover art, are considered likely to provoke storms of censure from all quarters; sadly, for minority readers especially, they are thus radioactive. On the other hand everybody’s reading Zane.

Myth

2008-09-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading a piece in Time magazine by Joe Klein in which he explores the phenomenon of “Palinmania” (or whatever he called it). As usual Klein is succinct in his pinpointing of the reasons Republican VP pick Sarah Palin has not just electrified the evangelical base but appears to have energized the GOP across the board, and in so doing probably changed the direction of the election. About a minute ago it was Barack Obama and his meteoric political fortunes the media couldn’t stop talking about, now it is Palin, and through her the resuscitation of John McCain and his chances for the White House.

All this, of course, is crushing news for the Democrats, most especially African-American Democrats, who saw an historic January inauguration so clearly we could practically reach out and touch it; now it seems, at this writing, to be slipping away.

I think this is bad news for the country as well. As Klein has assessed, it is nostalgia, in particular a nostalgia for a vanishing, Main Street, “Morning in America”-type past (that in fact never really existed) that Palin—the Sarah Palin we sort of-kind of know right now, at least—embodies for those so taken with her; a Reaganesque nostalgia with a twist: Rosie the Riveter Goes to Washington. She is selling herself—a ferociously determined GOP is selling her—as just an ordinary working mom (from a last-frontier-type state yet) who has made extraordinarily good; it is an Americana fantasy, it is the way Americans, white Americans especially, loooove to see themselves.

And it is an “uncomplicated” America--where people of color knew their place (mostly in the background or out of the picture entirely) and were okay with that as far as anyone bothered to know, an America as it was before those trouble-making, smarty-pants liberals with their radical notions about racial equality and queer identities and women’s rights started stirring things up--that Palin represents.

That America never had to contend with a Barack Obama, an urbane, educated black man with an exotic name and mixed-race life history to match, and what he represents. His is not the myth white Americans, of a certain age and upbringing anyway, know and love. If anything Obama and his candidacy signal a culturally complex, changing world, a world changing way too fast for an America more comfortable with fable than fact.

Race

2008-09-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

There's a passage in "Edge of Midnight" (Should that title be in quotes by the way or italicized? I can never remember...), Bill Mann's bio of the late director John Schlesinger, where he talks about reading and listening to Schlesinger's diaries and comes across the director's memories of a trip to South Africa, and suddenly my mind went to race. These were not thoughts about the apartheid of that country, but rather past and recent struggle right here at home.

For some reason I thought about the 1977 broadcast of the groundbreaking mini-series Roots, and the way some (many?) white Americans reacted to it and to the African-Americans around them. I dimly recall a couple of stilted, awkward conversations with white acquaintances about episodes of the show; I remember reading accounts of white regret and discomfort, with a number of people saying stuff like "I didn't know", and rolling my eyes at that--You "didn't know"?? Seriously? So where have you and your relatives been living these past few decades, Pluto?--and my reaction being shared by many blacks I knew: Who are these people kidding?

Coincidentally I glanced at Bill's blog a short while ago and I see he's hopping mad about the way things are going for the Democrats. Wanted to post a comment teasing him about his shit-fit (Along the lines of: I'll bet it's a DREAM living with you, Bill; I'll lay odds Tim's hunkering down in the bathroom or somewhere until things quiet down :-)) but decided this may not be the moment; he's really that upset.

And reading Bill's post, I thought again about race, this time of course about Barack Obama's chances at being elected President of the U.S.

It doesn't look good.

Not that this is the first time I've had this feeling. As much as I've wanted to be hopeful and celebratory, I've nevertheless been very skeptical as to how ready this America truly is to elect a black man to the highest office in the land. This America. Not some mythical reconciled America of the distant future.

The mainstream media has been talking a lot about what Sarah Palin represents for Republicans, especially the evangelicals and (ahem) other "social conservatives." What she brings to the McCain campaign, what she (theoretically) offers the still disenchanted Hillary supporters. It seems to me there is something else Palin offers to those inclined to vote for her--excuse me--for John McCain, something the GOP is fully aware of and in fact counting on, and I keep waiting for the MSM to acknowledge it but, except for here and there around the edges, they're not doing so, at least not yet.

Miss Sarah offers white voters who are not thrilled with McCain but would frankly rather die before casting a vote for a black man, a way out.

She's new! She's fresh! She's young! (Younger even than Obama!) She's a wholesome, small-town, family-values All-American gal!

She's one of us!

Falling Behind

2008-09-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Frustrated right now because I meant to be somewhere else, running a fun errand or two for myself before starting work, but I ran out of time and can't do it now without risking making myself late... maybe Thursday. Hopefully Thursday, since one important thing I want to do is get a gift for my nephew's upcoming birthday. He will be 14 on Sunday.

14. A teenager. It doesn't seem possible that time has moved so quickly. I remember (vividly) when Col was a babe in his proud parents' arms, smiling shyly at everyone, charming everyone around him. I remember when he was toddling but still not talking, fascinated by keys and telephones... especially the afternoon my brother and I watched amused as he set about "locking" every door in the house, including a hallway closet.

"But why that door, sweetie?" I asked him, playfully. "That's just a storage closet, ya know?" He paused to look at me as though considering my question. In that moment my brother--his dad--and I must have had the same thought: if this were a cartoon there would be, in reply, a thought balloon over Colin's head.

As if on cue, Joe provided it. "Things... come out at night," he intoned and we cracked up as Colin grinned.

His other big thing was "talking" on the telephone. Col had a toy phone that had begun to lose its appeal as he noticed his parents taking incoming calls on the wireless grown-up phones around the apartment. So his parents gave him an old, cordless powder blue princess phone and we made a great game of answering it for him when it "rang" asking if he wanted the call or should "they" call back, and then handing him the receiver.

"Her-row?" Col would say importantly, his eyebrows up. Then as he noticed us all eavesdropping he'd turn away slightly and lower his voice to a conspiratorial whisper of garbled baby-babble. I don't think the word "cute" properly describes how sweetly hilarious it always was, but I suppose it will have to do until a better one comes along. And as ever, I'm swept with regret that no one thought to record priceless moments like that... how is it possible that not one of us in that loving circle of grandparents, aunts and uncles had the presence of mind to get a camcorder going?

I remember crisp, sunny days like this one when a pre-school Col, his affectionate black lab Baker and I would wander the neighborhood, searching for Tyrannosaurus Rex bones and the perfect playground (where other little kids were friendly back and you never had to wait your turn for the carousel horse). I miss our Tuesday morning jaunts to the local library for lively read-alongs, and searching Blockbuster shelves for Disney and Land Before Time videos we hadn't seen already a million times, I miss our bookstore trips and joining Dad at The Medici for a quick lunch or a sticky bun snack. I miss backyard games of catch, and watching Little Bear and Magic School Bus episodes with Col, miss putting him down for a nap and reading him a story as he did his best to fight off sleep. I miss... everything.

Now he's taller than me, sounds eerily like his late father on the phone and--last time I saw him anyway--resembles one of the Jonas brothers. I know I sound like my own grandmother saying this, but where on earth did the time go? How could the boy have grown up so fast? And where have I been as he's been doing that?

No Time (Again)

2008-09-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

No time to write this morning; have to be at work earlier these days and now I have an unexpected errand to run before going in.

Also reading so many Daily Kos comments to Palin's speech last night--very lively and insightful stuff (The commenters, not Palin. She's a nasty little snot)--turned out to be more time-consuming than anticipated.

More later, if I'm not too bushed (Ugh. Let me find another word, quick) tonight.

Wednesday Morning Pages - E-Mail To A Friend

2008-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Christ almighty, G. I don't know what to make of this, do you?

At first I was delighted because I thought this VP pick so patently ridiculous that I was convinced McCain had, in effect, handed the election to Barack Obama. This is perfect, I thought, this is almost too easy!

But now I'm starting to worry. Maybe it is too easy... Palin IS a ludicrously unqualified choice, and this DOES say troubling things about McCain's judgement (or should) but will the mainstream media (always bending over backwards to try to disprove "liberal bias") allow McCain, Palin and the GOP to get away with spinning and lying their way past the hypocrises and contradictions?

The MSM after all have been such admirers of John McCain's "maverick" persona that they've seemed unwilling or unable to admit to themselves (and thus to the American public) that McCain has not been that person in years if he ever truly was. And then there's the Democrats, with their uncanny talent for "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." Will Democratic leaders actually find a way to blow it, to screw up what should have been--after 8 years of the train wreck that has been the Bush presidency--a cakewalk to the White House?

Even more importantly, will the American people use common sense, recognize the disaster-in-the-making of a McCain-Palin administration and vote accordingly? Or will lingering racism about Obama and self-delusion about John McCain's supposed "experience" sabotage us? I'm just wondering if in November this country will give the Europeans yet another reason to shake their collective heads and wonder--again--what the hell the Americans are thinking.

When I consider all of that, I'm not sure of anything anymore

Tuesday Morning Pages - Away From Her

2008-09-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

On my walk this morning thought a lot about a sad, small, funny Canadian film I stayed up much too late last night watching, Away From Her, which was written and directed by Canada's multi-talented--and amazingly young--Sarah Polley, Christie's friend and former co-star, and is based on Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain."

Away From Her stars Julie Christie, stunning as a well-to-do woman named Fiona who is succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease, and the pouchy, shambling Canadian actor-director Gordon Pinsent, excellent as her anguished husband Grant, a retired university professor with a past history of philandering. Olympia Dukakis is in the movie also and she is just devastating as the angry, grieving survivor spouse of the nearly unrecognizable Michael Murphy, remarkable in a wordless performance as a man physically and mentally wrecked by the disease who nevertheless forms an intensely emotional bond with Christie’s Fiona. I am making note to find Away’s haunting soundtrack, or at least k.d. lang’s mournful rendition of Neil Young’s plaintive classic “Helpless.”

My goodness, how old is Julie Christie now? I think this year she is or will be 67. Or 68. It’s hard to comprehend this. I keep remembering Julie Christie as the belle of the swinging sixties ball, radiant in iconic films like Darling, Dr. Zhivago and Petulia, I keep seeing her carefree and freewheeling, swinging her hand bag like a little girl on holiday as she ambles along a London street in her debut film, 1963’s Billy Liar. John Schlesinger was her best director, with Richard Lester coming a close second. (You may dispute me on this, for all the good it will do you.)

Christie is still radiant. There’s that moment in Away From Her where she is standing in her home gazing pensively out a window and her long beautiful hair is loose around her shoulders. Her husband, watching her with a mixture of love and dread, calls to her. She turns to him and her blank reaction to his question freezes him to stone, then suddenly she gives him a wide warm smile—she understood him perfectly, she was only teasing. With that familiar broad smile and the luxuriant hair softly framing her luminous face, even the way she wears that big striped blouse (68 or no Christie still has the figure of a coed and looks fabulous in those expensive sweaters and tailored slacks), she is once again the winning, winsome young girl who was once the pride of Mod Britain’s Carnaby Street. Even the ravages of time, real and cinematic, can’t diminish her.

Inevitably, while watching the movie I thought of my maternal grandmother, Mary, who died in 1990 in a suburban nursing home, a clenched and shrunken shell of her former vibrant self. The Away From Her DVD is of course preceded by the usual annoying barrage of coming attractions but there is also a PSA for the Alzheimer’s Association featuring a collection of celebrities that includes Dukakis (whose mother died of Alzheimer’s), Dick Van Dyke, Vivica A. Fox, NBC News’s Natalie Morales, Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce, and actor Victor Garber, who lost both his parents to Alzheimer’s. Both parents, my God… Just how epidemic is this ghastly disease?

Away From Her makes me want to go back and try again to revise and expand "With Grandma, In Winter," a short piece I wrote a few years ago. I abandoned previous attempts because it just wasn’t coming together and after awhile I was afraid I was only ruining the original essay. Maybe now I can do it. I don't know.

I miss my grandmother; miss her sheepish little laugh, her strange, distinctive gait, her quirky conversation, the unique pleasures of her company. So many things evoke her memory and our past times together—just walking up Woodlawn Avenue past our old apartment on 54th Street does that, or wandering through the stately gardens of St. Thomas Apostle and then on toward the Friendly Club, her favorite “keen-ager” hangout. Spiked Christmas egg nog. Zane Grey paperbacks. The Music Man, My Fair Lady and The Untouchables. The drycleaner on the corner and the theologian bookseller—I see echoes of her everywhere, anywhere I look. But it’s such a melancholy feeling; echoes are not enough. I want her back, as she was, before bewilderment and paralysis enveloped and consumed her, before she began to disappear right in front of our eyes.

The final scene of Away From Her simply shatters me. For any who have yet to see this lovely little movie I won’t spoil it for you with specifics, except to say that the ending is all irony and heartbreak and a very black humor; you thinking That’s it, time to let go, pack it in and try to move on—only to be surprised and hauled back again to what you thought irretrievably lost; and now where are we? Where are we now?

Morning Pages - Labor Day Edition

2008-09-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

Summer is over or nearly. Thank Christ. That’s strange, I know—I was so looking forward to summer and now I’m glad to see the back of it. But there have been certain benefits to the warmer temps—are my waist and hips really smaller since I started the morning power-walks? (Thanks, Mom!:-D)

So frustrating though, on these walks. This morning as I’m huffing and puffing toward Washington Park all sorts of interesting thoughts pop into my head: imaginary conversations, a flood of memories both funny and painful—and I could write none of it down because I was out of doors pumping those arms and legs, trying to get some me some serious metabolism boost.

Now that I’ve showered, and dressed for around the house comfort, and am sitting at my desk ready to write—I’m drawing a blank. It never fails. I may have to invest in a micro recorder or some kind of mini equipment I can take with me so that I can record my morning walk musing to transcribe later on because this is getting annoying. Anne Lamott suggests always having an index card and pencil or pen with you so that you can at least jot a few key words that will help you recall later whatever it is you noticed or thought about, but I don’t like the idea of having to slow to scribble things. I’ll try the tape recorder—something compact and tiny—and see how that works for me.

One thing I do recall muttering to myself about today is remembering my much younger self being afraid of people figuring out my queerness. Not sure what brought all that back. There I was, the twenty-something me, working as a teller at the Peyton Place that was You Bank, trying desperately hard to keep my balance as some co-workers (especially women) endlessly prodded and poked at me these uncomfortably personal questions and the males--some of them--did their best to catch and hold my attention. Cops especially, working security duty. Which was the case years earlier at Playboy Inc. as well. (And there's that police officer who comes into the library, and a security guard here in my building... just what is it about me that so attracts law enforcement personnel???)

God, I was so frightened.

Of so many things, of pretty much everything. I was so tightly wound and so neurotically fearful of anyone noticing how little interest I had in whatever it was girls were supposed to care about. Certainly by my twenties I’d (finally) begun to look like a girl, and I truly enjoyed feeling more attractive, more womanly—two or three years earlier while still living in California I’d finally ditched the teenage eyeglasses for contacts, bought some flirty summer dresses and serious heels, and wandered into a Merle Norman shop (“Get Your Face Made Up For Free!” chirped all those glossy before and after magazine ads) and learned at last how to pretty myself up. It was quite the transformation—for the first time in my life I was a very glam girlie girl.

And I loved it. Try to imagine how much.

Then I started to realize the kind of attention I was attracting, very amorous attention I really didn’t want and didn’t know how to turn aside or side step gracefully. Oh I liked the compliments when that’s all they were, particularly from a stranger passing me on the street or a fellow passenger on a bus ride—people I knew I’d never meet again, never have to deal with. This was true even with the occasional jerk, some idiot who obviously thought I was obliged to melt with gratitude and immediately hand over my address and phone number and who’d then snarl Fuck you bitch when I declined. (Yeah, that’ll teach me. Asshole. )

But things got a lot more complicated when the tribute was coming from men I worked with or men who were neighbors, people I couldn’t shake off so easily. Some of these guys were so determined and persistent that they’d wear me down and then I’d go on these hellish dates where every minute, all through the movie, all through the dinner, and especially near the end with the stroll to the door, I was jumpy and on edge. (What if he tries to kiss me? He’s going to try to kiss me, I can feel it! What the hell do I do if he kisses me? What if he tries to do more than kiss me? Why did I agree to this? What is wrong with me? and etc.)

I would get so mad at myself, trying to will myself to relax already and just enjoy the stupid evening, you know, it’s not that big a deal, it doesn’t mean anything, you’re not marrying him for Chrissakes!, trying to calm myself with the thought that I was under no obligation to do anything I didn’t want to do or to allow to happen anything I didn’t want to happen. Sure they wanted sex, they all want sex, so what? (So do you, but not with them.) You’re in charge, Lorraine, I’d tell myself, remember that. You’re driving the bus. If you don’t like what happens next, kick ‘em the fuck off! You’re the boss!

I was the boss.

Yeah. Right. Sure I was. On these dates I never felt less in control—of anything, including myself—in my entire life. I felt like a hostage, truly, like I could make no boundaries, and had no real right to say no. I’m shaking my head as I type this, remembering my pathetic attempts at setting some ground rules: We’re going Dutch. Or, how ‘bout you pay for the tickets and I’ll pay for the gas and pick up the dinner check. Dessert's on you, fine. I would be firm on this, and these guys, they’d give me that savvy look, they'd smile and go, Yeah okay. Whatever you want. And then flatly refuse to let me pay for anything when we were actually out and about, all with the supposed unspoken understanding between us (most of the time but not in all cases) that if he paid for everything while we were out, I of course owed him a little sumthin’ sumthin’ when we were in (my place, his place, a locked parked car; wherever). It was unnerving, and when the date was over and I'd made it home unscathed I’d be absolutely drained, like I’d survived a perilous crossing through a land mined war zone.

And it didn’t help one whit that in those years damn near everyone around me, by which I mean well-meaning friends and family, would cheerfully get all up in my business, rooting for certain guys and wanting blow by blow accounts of everything that happened when I went out with them, including wanting to know when I planned to see the guy again. They would try to arrange dates for me, pushing me at these guys, talking them up, and teasingly dismissing my embarrassed protests that I didn’t want that kind of help, honest. If some moonstruck guy was pestering me with phone calls and I got cranky about it I’d get scolded for being mean and hurting his feelings. What about my feelings?, I’d sulk, guiltily. What about what I want instead of what everyone else seems to want for me? I felt surrounded.

Eventually, I’d get pissed off and fed up with feeling cornered by the assumptions and expectations of the whole hetero world. I didn’t have the guts to be honest, even with myself, especially with myself, and I’d go into tailspins of fury and resentment, glowering and snarling at anyone who got too close or asked too many questions. Fuck Hetero World—fuck everybody. And fuck me too, for being such a wuss (albeit a glamorous, cherry red chapstick wuss), for wimping out on myself and letting everyone else dictate who I was supposed to be.

Too Tired and Depressed

2008-08-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

Meant to write; too down right now. More later when i feel better; promise. Watch this space.

The Writing Life -- Chapter 1: Anxiety

2008-08-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

There are some writers who are so fantastically good they immobilize me. Do you know what I mean?

I read their books or essays or magazine articles or what-have-you and I'm floored, amazed, enthralled at their ability to write dialogue that stings and zings, their talent at creating (and juggling) compelling characters, their skill at keeping a plot moving smoothly, seamlessly along. I read them and think Wow. How cool is this. How tremendous to have such gifts. How lucky to be able to just do this.

Then I get depressed.

I look at my own paltry attempts and think, Idiot. What made you think you could ever do what this writer does? You who never finished college. Who can hardly keep a job for more than three years. Who could lose a few pounds and should floss more often.

At the recommendation of a friend--I mean "on"--"on the recommendation of a friend" (See? This is what I'm talking about) I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird, a book that is by turns reassuring (sometimes), informative (plenty), and hilarious (always). There is a point where Lamott quotes the writer John Gardner as saying "the writer is creating a dream into which he or she invites the reader, and that the dream must be vivid and continuous." Lamott says that when she teaches she always has her class write that part down: the dream must be vivid and continuous. She reminds you that you won't after all be able to sit next to every reader of your work and explain all the details you left out, the stuff that would have made the story more interesting, and the characters more believable. Your story has to work on its own, and the dream must be vivid and continuous.

I try to remember that.

She also says--and this is in some ways the scariest part--to find someone to bounce your material off of, someone "who can bring a colder eye and a certain detachment" to your effort. This is definitely the hard part for me. I suppose it's the hard part for anyone who writes and wants to be published.

Although--wait a sec. I have already done this, sort of. Several times now I've shown some stuff to a writer friend who's been very encouraging, although so far this has been an extremely informal arrangement; he's not my teacher or editor or anything remotely official like that. I just send him a few things from time to time, and what he likes, he praises. Maybe if I were taking a class with him he'd be a lot tougher on my work? I don't know. But Lamott does make the excellent point that the writer is usually too close to her material to see it objectively enough to know either when to leave it alone already or when it really, really, really needs more work.

This may strike you as grandiose, but suddenly I'm thinking of The Beatles. Not by way of comparison; I just had the thought that it might help if once in awhile I keep Lennon and McCartney in mind, how they would write songs individually and show them to each other for feedback. Paul McCartney once told an interviewer that he wrote a lyric and showed it to John Lennon not sure what the hell it all meant, half-apologizing as Lennon looked it over, and hastily assuring him that he would change things: "I know; don't worry; I'll take that out..." but Lennon looked at him and said "Why? That's the best part."

That's what a good teacher or editor or friend with a "cold eye and certain detachment" does, I guess--he (or she) is your John Lennon, keeping you from taking out the best parts.

Thursday Morning Pages -- My Gramma's Face

2008-08-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

News flash: no one likes getting older.

Our metabolism slows, our relationship to gravity changes, we begin to look tired whether we are or not, and even the cat has begun to notice that uuunnnnhh sound we make as we straighten after feeding her and freshening her water, and it actually seems to annoy her. (Like she's getting any younger.)

Once, on a southbound bus, I saw a poster of people's faces with their ages printed under each. It was just a quick connecting ride so I didn't have time to study the poster carefully enough to figure out what the point was--probably just another Dove advertisement--but I was struck by how remarkably youthful some people remained even into middle age, assuming the given information wasn't a put-on. How lucky is that, I thought as I disembarked. And how freakin' unfair.

This morning as I was slathering on moisturizer and applying foundation, eyebrow pencil and eyeliner with my customary artful care (necessitating two and a half do-overs), I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and saw something completely unexpected.

My grandmother's face.

Not her Gramma face, you understand, not the twinkly, wrinkled, slightly saggy visage I remember from my teenage and twentysomething years. The face staring at me in the mirror was a younger version of my grandmother to be sure, but unmistakably her. (There was maybe a little of my mother in there, and my aunt Max, around the edges.)

I have no idea what else to say about this, people. I'm still absorbing it-- you can understand.

More on this later. If I'm not too freaked out.

Two Summer Couples

2008-08-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know them, but I love them--just for being there, for being out, for being happy. On Commercial Street, I'll see men I don't know holding hands and I'll think, "That simple act would be enough to get you bashed somewhere else." I'm tired of people bashing my friends, my people, my tribe. And no issue, my friends, is more important than that. (William J. Mann, williamjmann.com, MannTalk August 18, 2008 "Monday Musing...Republicans, Polls, Tea Dance and Herring Cove Beach")

Oh, Bill… Reading those words evoked in me a rush of emotions and memories, a kaleidoscope almost, of feelings both warm and sad.

I thought of the very first time I saw two young men kiss. It was late summer, I was 21 and working the lobby concession counter at—no joke—Playboy Enterprises, back when the publishing offices were still at 919 N. Michigan Avenue, here in Chicago.

They hadn’t come in together. One of them—a guy who could not have been much older than me and was so cute with his beautiful smile and long lashes that I couldn’t stop staring at him—wanted to buy a package of gum. I flirted with him a little; he was amused and we chatted a bit. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, the Playboy club down the hall was closed (though the joint would be jumping later that night), and there was no one else around.

I guess his boyfriend (also a looker) was wondering what was taking so long because he came striding into the lobby with a peeved expression on his face. He and the Cute Guy had a brief, bantering sotto voce exchange and then, right at my counter, right in front of me, they nuzzled each other and suddenly smooched. And I don’t mean a dry, quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peck either; I’m talking a lingering, passionate lip-lock.

Well. I wish I could tell you that I was charmed by the sight, but in fact I was shocked, and embarrassed, and wished to God I were somewhere, anywhere, else. My mouth flew open, my eyes popped—and I think I actually gasped, like a stock actor in a bad play. My chocolate brown face was now beet red; I looked down, not wanting to see such things, and was furious with myself for the way I was behaving. I had queer friends after all, and had prided myself on being hipper, better informed and more sophisticated than, say, my mother, who would roll her eyes and purse her lips whenever she made reference to a gay coworker, or my grandmother, who would call men and women she presumed to be gay “strange fruit,” chuckling at my wince. When I dared to look up I discovered that both young men were watching me—the Cute Guy with a look of soft disappointment in his eyes, the Boyfriend with a twisted smirk as if to say to his lover, See? You can’t be friends with them. Indeed, I felt angry and defensive, as if I was on trial for something. I felt ambushed. And stupid. I dropped my eyes again, mortified.

The Boyfriend tossed me another cutting look and then left to wait outside in the sun. The Cute Guy paid me for his gum—this time no chat between us; total silence—watching me closely as I made his change. I could feel him wanting to say something, but he didn’t. I desperately wanted to say something—I hated the thought of him thinking of me what I knew he was thinking—but I didn’t know what exactly to say.

Finally he pocketed his money, said a brief “Thanks” and walked out to join his friend. I watched him go, feeling close to tears. It was like, in that moment, with the kiss and the accusing looks, they had forced me to see something I hadn’t up to then realized: what a repressed and immature little girl I truly was. It left me depressed and vaguely ashamed.

But reading your words I also remembered an almost-encounter with another two very young men, this time nearly twenty years later, this also in late summer—isn’t that odd?

I was on a bus going home from work and feeling very dispirited. I was temping and in this assignment I was working in an office I didn’t like very much, doing work that didn’t matter to me, making conversation all day with people who cared about things I didn’t—or the other way around. It was one of those periods in my life when I felt very far away from my truer self, when I knew I was burying or denying myself, retreating from life, just getting by. I had a book with me—I always carried a book—but I couldn’t relax and enjoy it because my mind was jumping and whirling with anxious, angry thoughts; replaying the day, replaying old conversations, replaying old reproaches.

The bus was stopped by a traffic light and was idling close to the curb—and that’s when I saw them: two thin, young white men, both in white shirts with loosened ties, the shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows and each of them carrying their jackets over their arms, one clutching a briefcase. And they were holding each other’s hands, their fingers tightly interlocked. Though the sight of their hand-holding was touching to see—such brave nonconformity, such affirmation!—it was their facial expressions that really tore at me. They looked so unhappy. In fact, they looked very angry and a little bit scared. I understood implicitly, or assumed I did.

They were headed for subway stairs just a few steps in front of them. As I watched them I wondered: From how far had these two walked in the blistering evening heat to get to here? Did they work in the same office together, or meet each evening on a prearranged corner? My hunch was they were catching the red line train for Lakeview—more commonly known as Boys Town—where nobody was fazed by male-male handholding (or kisses), where such sights were commonplace. But this was State Street in downtown Chicago.

How much abuse had they taken as they’d made their determined way, hand in hand, to that train station? And how much more name-calling and threats and who knew what else would they have to endure on that gritty, smelly subway platform, and on that train, before finally they were once again on their own street and among their tribe? How much insult, every day, every evening, had they had to rise above, and for how long?

My eyes began to sting as I watched them trudging along; at any moment now the light would change and the bus would pull away. I was seized by the need—was I remembering another young couple, years ago?—to make my presence known to them, to somehow communicate my support. I sat up straight in my seat and tapped on the window with my fingernails, trying to get their attention, my mind calling frantically “Guys! Over here! To your right! Look at me! Look at me!” but they stared stoically, resolutely forward, not hearing me.

Or maybe they did hear me and assumed I was just another homophobic jerk trying to mess with them; probably it happened all the time and they were not going to give me the satisfaction. The bus was slowly moving forward in the stop and go traffic; at one point the couple was so close it was like we were all in synchronized motion together… The woman sitting next to me, her attention likely drawn by my silent histrionics, noticed them also and tsked, frowning distastefully. Fuck you Lady, I thought irritably, cutting her a sharp look. What do you know about them. Or me. What do you know about anything.

They were nearly at the top of the subway stairs now and poised to disappear down the stairwell. Your Pride pin, I thought feverishly. Weeks earlier my cousin Mark had come in from New York and we’d bought and been given flags and bands and condoms and dams and assorted other colorful little knick knacks at that summer’s Pride festivities. I had attached a small Pride button to the outside of the leather hobo bag I was carrying that year. I wrestled it to the window. If they would just look up, if just one of them would look up, for just one second, and they could see that button, and my smile of reassurance. Guys! Guys—it’s okay! I’m family, too!
They never looked up, Bill. I guess they’d learned not to. They went down the steps and the bus roared off. I sagged in my seat, feeling utterly drained. We were so close, and they never knew I was there, worrying about them, marveling at their courage, trying in that little moment to watch over them.

And I had so wanted them to know. I’d wanted them to see, just once at least, a friendly, loving, supportive face, especially my face, my brown, female, middle-aged face. I’d sat back in my seat, and clutched my purse and my book in my lap, saying a silent prayer: Please, God. Don’t let anyone hurt them anymore than they have been already. Let them get home safe. Let them grow old together safe.

And as I was getting off at my stop I made sure the disapproving lady next to me saw my Pride button. As I rose I swung and shouldered my leather bag in such a way that she couldn’t fail to see it, nearly hitting her smack in the face with it in the effort.

Unintentionally, of course.

An Irritating Way To Start The Day

2008-08-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

As usual, Bill Mann has written a thoughtful and wonderfully expressive blog entry ("Monday Musing...Republicans, Polls, Tea Dance and Herring Cove Beach"). He really is a wonderful writer.

Instead of being able to savor it though, and comment specifically to it, I found myself drawn into yet another slugfest with a reader who seems to pride himself on posting offensive, idiotic things. I hate that. I hate getting sucked into that. It's one thing to respectfully--or even heatedly--disagree with someone who is clearly coming from another place, another mindset, another worldview. It's something else entirely to participate in the literary equivalent of a schoolyard brawl, which is what it often seems to come down to between me and this guy.

I also dislike the assumptions I catch myself jumping to about this person whenever we argue--I read his self-satisfied pronouncements and assume he is white and male.

But I've never met or even seen this indvidual and could have no way of knowing that.

Time's a-wastin' as my Gramma used to say; have to stop here. More on all this later.

Get Yourself A College Girl Who Thinks Young!

2008-08-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Well.

Between listening to Gene Pitney this morning and watching the Dave Clark Five and the Animals this afternoon, we’re all about the American pop culture thing, specifically the American pop culture movie, circa 1964.

The older we get though, the more we find we have to be in the proper mood, or something like that, to sit through this kind of movie. As entertainment goes, sixties pop movies are not exactly… well, they’re not exactly anything, exactly.

Get Yourself a College Girl, for example, plays as a pastiche of a bunch of things, obviously taking its swingin’ gals on the prowl look and tone from predecessors like 1960’s Where the Boys Are and the more popular beach party flicks of the era. If you are in the right frame of mind for it, College Girl is hilarious, albeit mindless, fun.

If you’re not… it’s awful, really it is. Cute little Republican-soccer-mom-to-be Mary Ann Mobley as a coed sex-bomb “liberating” her peers with her “sophisticated, sexy” songs? Please. Seriously. Stop.

And then there’s For Those Who Think Young, yet another variation on campus musical/ beach blanket bikini hijinks, also from ’64, this one starring—you can assume we’re using that word very loosely here—sixties hunk muffin James Darren as Gardiner Pruitt III, nicknamed—we swear we are not making this up—“Ding-a-Ling” or “Ding” to his intimates, and the wholesome and sultry Pamela Tiffin as the coed Ding digs. We don’t recall her character’s name just now but be assured that doesn’t matter much here; this is the sixties after all and she’s just a chick, you dig? Young also co-stars Nancy “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” Sinatra as Tiffin’s respectable and demurely brunette best friend and—get out—a blonde Ellen Burstyn (appearing in the cast listing as Ellen McRae) as an upright, uptight arbiter of campus morals with a bod that won’t quit who eventually learns to loosen up and get with it. Of course she does.

We should mention that the amusing Bob Denver, still in full Maynard G. Krebs mode, is on hand as Sinatra’s bearded boyfriend, and that wonderfully snarky Paul Lynde plays, well, he plays Paul Lynde—not that we’d have it any other way. Also we thought we recognized the dependable Allan Jenkins somewhere in the proceedings as a kind of hipster-fogie crony—okay, yeah, but we can’t figure any other way to describe him—of Darren-Ding’s wealthy, disapproving grandpa, played with appropriate gruff by Robert Middleton, who has surely seen better days in fifties movies like Love Me Tender, The Desperate Hours and The Court Jester, movies we frankly liked a whole lot better than this one.

And, saaaay-- isn’t that the impossibly glamorous Tina “Ginger” Louise as campus bombshell-stripper and closet intellectual Topaz McQueen, over there with Golden Era tough guy George Raft and 77 Sunset Strip’s debonair Roger Smith, both of whom appear here as determined G-men or some such? Ye-es. We'd have to double-check, but we think it was not long after this film’s release that Smith decided to give up the acting, marry Ann-Margret, and concentrate his energies on managing her career. We shouldn’t wonder.

It’s probably unfair to expect much from movies like this; still, you kind of do. You sense that, when done properly, and with some verve, sixties flicks are a fun, frothy treat and not at all a bad way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, no matter what our mom says.

Think Oliver Reed and a shockingly young Michael Crawford in the romp, The Jokers; think The Beatles in Help! and the superior A Hard Day’s Night; think Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham in the knockabout Smashing Time; think Frankie and Annette in the agreeably silly Beach Blanket Bingo, for goodness sakes.

When they’re not done well, when they’re slapped together and rushed out there, the better to jump on the youth movement bandwagon while the wheels are still attached, you cringe with disappointment. You wince and smirk and wince some more as you watch yet another mid-sixties “youth movie” that is nothing of the sort—everything about the way these “kids” talk, move, and look, the boys spit-polished and clean-cut in suits and ties, the babes elaborately coiffed and coyly demure in Evan-Picone and sensible heels, betray establishment Hollywood’s totally clueless notions about the New Youth. The supposedly swingin’ soundtracks of Get Yourself a College Girl and For Those Who Think Young are (mostly) painfully generic muzak that studio suits apparently convinced themselves was reasonably representative of righteous rock and roll, though this was—we’re pinching ourselves—the very same year that Motown, the Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and the aforementioned Beatles Ate America.

Call this the “Velveeta Revolution,” a blonde, bland, blah offensively inoffensive, pre-fab youth rebellion for a Goldwater Middle-America.

Or call it—oh, screw it; you know by now where we’re going with this.

Wonder if “Gilligan’s Island” is on?

Thursday Morning Pages

2008-08-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that of the Jeff-Lloyd trilogy, Where The Boys Are is the one I flat-out enjoyed, page by page, the most, with its predecessor, The Men from the Boys, a thisclose second. Stunning cover art, too. I wonder if there's any possibility these books will ever be serialized for cable or maybe condensed into a movie? Who would Bill want to see play Jeff O'Brien? Lloyd? Henry? and most importantly, Javitz?

This bacon is sooooo good.

I love bacon, wish I could eat it every single day (like I used to, in one of my past lives). But with its sky-high fat and sodium content it's one of the absolute worst things you could possibly put in your mouth, then chew and swallow. Why? (I've often asked total strangers) Why does something that tastes so good--that smells even better when it's cooking--have to be so bad for you?

It's off-putting, is what it is.

These particular strips remind me of the glorious Farmer John brand I used to enjoy most mornings when I was living in California, many years ago. I'd never heard of that brand before and you should have seen the look I gave my Aunt Max when, during an evening grocery run, she ignored the Oscar Mayer and eagerly grabbed not one but several plain white rectangular boxes and dumped them into the cart. "This is better," she said breezily as I stared perplexed at the nondescript black lettering. Better? This stuff? This stuff looked for all the world like that dreaded Brand X crap you avoided at all cost even if it was cheaper and you were between paydays.

But no. Max was right as usual. Its generic packaging notwithstanding, Farmer John bacon was scrumptious, delicious, lip-smackingly tasty stuff--and that's saying a lot because, really, it's hard to get it wrong with a food like bacon. Most everyone--everyone who still eats bacon, that is--has their favorite but almost any brand, carefully cooked, is good (I know what I said before. Don't interrupt.) and Farmer John, with its woody, slightly smoky, very big flavor, was exceptional. I'm telling you people, the pigs that gave up their porky little lives for Farmer John brand bacon must have been raised on ambrosia or heather or something similar.

Hog heaven, friends. Hog heaven.

Wednesday Morning Blahs

2008-08-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

It's a gray, gray, gray day out there, gang. Low, brooding, moody clouds. Matches my frame of mind perfectly.

I've just punched the mute button on this 1998 Spin City rerun because suddenly I can't stand it. This is a '90's sitcom that could usually be relied upon to give me a chuckle or three, mainly because of affable oddball Richard Kind who, if he's not careful, is on his way to being a TV sidekick national treasure assuming he's not there already. And Michael J. Fox is fine, I've liked him since his Family Ties/Back from the Future glory days, and Heather Locklear is...well...she's very Heather Locklear, but I swear to the God I no longer believe in that if I have to watch the dating dilemmas of one more adorable white het TV couple I'm going to lose my breakfast.

In the next hour Frasier will come on and there'll be the continuing saga (circa 1999) of the romantic misadventures of the lovestruck Niles and the charmingly oblivious Daphne who (come on, you know I'm right on this) became a LOT less appealing after she and Niles finally hooked up in Season Whenever. After which neurotic singleton Grace Adler gets to french every guy she encounters while her other half, Will, gets to frown with concern and make quippy wisecracks on the sidelines with the antic, boy-crazy Jack who never--not once--is allowed similar lip-locks with any of the boys.

Just--enough already, okay? For today, anyway.

Spin City does have a queer black character, the reliable Michael Boatman as Carter Heywood, Minority Affairs honcho of the fictional NY City Hall office of Mayor Randall Winston, but therein lies the rub. Boatman is funny and does the best he can with what he's given, but what's he given? Some witty throwaway lines as he wryly observes the office absurdities, romantic and otherwise, all around him? Both before and after Ellen's groundbreaking "Puppy Episode" the closest thing to a serious love affair Carter was allowed--by which I mean that we the audience were allowed to see--involved him hugging goodbye some hunky closet-case whose "issues" meant neither we nor Carter were ever going to see him again.

Well, there's always LOGO later.

All my zen serenity of this time yesterday has evaporated and I am back to being on pins and needles of anxiety about the artistic workshop Bill had proposed on Sunday. Monday he did another, more extensive email blast to gauge interest and I've not heard anything further since. I'm not sure what to think. I want to put positive energy out there, you know, good karma, but my naturally pessimistic nature is fighting me every step of the way. If Bill gets X number of encouraging reponses will it happen? Great; but what would that mean for me? I'd basically be right back where I started, unable to afford the trip.

On the other hand if he gets qualified responses, where people indicate that like me they want to participate but can't deal with the various costs, an online workshop might well be a go, which would work for me though frankly, I'd rather travel and do the classwork in P-Town (preferably) or Palm Springs.

And what of Tim Huber's participation if Bill decides to try for it online? Can Tim do what he does best (I mean professionally you guys, come on now, behave) electronically? Could Bill and Tim double-team on this electronically? Would they really want to? How would it work?

For that matter how would it work were we all able to meet in person? Could a 2 or 3 day seminar or class that attempted to blend psychological counseling with artistic coaching really yield the desired results? Which would be... what, exactly? What would everyone's expectations be and could they all be met? Bill noted in his blog that he and Tim Miller had done this before with great success, and Tim Miller responded to Bill's blog that he'd just returned from Chicago (He was here? Hello? Where the hell was he? Where the hell was I??) having done something similar (or was it?) with great results (What? What results? What did TM do? What did the two of them do previously?)

I need to get going. (In more ways than one, gang.)

The Daydream Deferred

2008-08-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Feeling so deflated right at this moment. Just heard from Bill regarding the workshop and it doesn't look like it will be a go--the response he's gotten so far has not been strong enough. So many folks have been Bush-whacked by this Gilded Age economy, me included. Ten years ago, five years ago, I could have made the trip; not now.

And I'm annoyed at myself for letting myself get excited. Because I knew, even as I read his post, that I wouldn't be able to put the funds together for the trip. But I so loved what he was proposing that I got carried away anyway in spite of myself.

A ray of hope: There may be the possibility for an online class of some kind, and if so I would like very much to participate. Maybe the response will be stronger to something like that.

Would have been so nice to do this in P-Town, though.

Maybe next year...

Daydreaming An Impossible Little Dream

2008-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm still breathless from Bill Mann's latest blog posting, in which he asks if anyone out there is interested in a creative writing workshop. In Palm Springs maybe, or Provincetown.

Godamighty. Is he kidding? Is anyone "interested"?? Let me just take a deep breath and see if I can get my tumbling, caroming thoughts in some kind of coherent order.

I would--well, not kill, exactly--but I would do a lot to be able to participate in such an event, even if it's only for 2-3 days. Also I would dearly love to go to Provincetown, Mass and see for myself what it is Bill raves about: the fascinating parade of people, the flow of queer locals and curious tourists, and the water and sun and the unique interplay between the two that produces (he says, others say) the kind of light one doesn't find anywhere else. I'm sure Palm Springs is lovely, but Provincetown is magical, or so I've heard, or so I'd love to see.

And I need a change. I really do. I need to break out of the prison existence I've been living for so long, this soul-deadening routine of work, home, work, home. I long ago walked away from my artwork and my writing, save for this blog, is going nowhere. I need to see other places, meet new people, make more friends, find my joy.

I need to work, but at something that really matters to me, that will make me feel alive and engaged with the world. I don't know if, realistically, a 3 day seminar would help me accomplish all that--that may be asking too much of any sort of class or workshop. But a start. It could be the start of a new path and a new sense of purpose.

If I could go.

I don't see how I possibly could; I'm barely making ends meet as it is. How many hundreds of dollars would a 3 day workshop in Provincetown or Palm Springs cost? How to get there from here? I'm getting depressed just thinking about this now, to think I could be a part of something like this--it's out of the question.

But if I could......

Lulu, Slappy, Mother and Me

2008-08-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

From a December 2005 diary:

Reading about Lulu Guinness and her amazing success with her elegantly whimsical handbags for some reason puts me in mind of a Fats Waller song. A period thing, I guess. In the Vanity Fair profile Mrs. Guinness emerges as a witty singular personality, confident from the start about her affinity for the glamour of a bygone era. As young as age 9 she knows who she is and trusts her instincts enough to let her creative impulses lead her to a happy (and lucrative) adult life.

Lulu Guinness, I salute you.

Lulu Guinness, rescue me.

I had Lulu's kind of confidence once. Didn't last long, sadly. If I'd been luckier in the gene pool lottery or if my parents had been simultaneously more mature and adventurous... i know. It's cheap and easy to blame mom and dad for your adult failures. Then again there is an argument to made for how your beginnings can seal--or at least strongly influence--your fate. Personally, I cringe when I remember how my mother--

Oh, hell. That is too easy.

But you know, my pre-adult life might have been happier and fuller if only my mother had had the wisdom, or the confidence, or both, to take advantage of certain unique opportunities that came her way.

Like the offer in the late 50's to be a straight man, er, woman, to Redd Foxx--or was it Slappy White?--when she was a barely-twenty-something nightclub dancer at the Club DeLisa; Mom was pretty, curvy and funny, an apparently rare combination.

Mom said she spurned the offer because she didn't want to have to deal with a reportedly pathologically jealous wife and also she suspected, not without some justification, that Mr. White's--or was it Mr. Foxx's?--interest in partnering her was not strictly professional. Under the circumstances I suppose I can understand Mother's disinclination to follow that one up.

And then there was the offer in the early 70's to move to Denmark as the guest of her coworker friend, N, who was returning to her homeland with her young son, A.

N assured my mom there would be plenty of room for all of us on the family estate, regaling her with all the cultural and educational opportunities for Joey and me; Mom said thanks, really, thank you--but, no.

When some years later Mother told me about all of this, I wanted to throttle her. I really did. She passed on great adventures for herself and the possibility of untold opportunities for her family. What was she thinking, turning all of that down? Where was her spirit?

But all my mother could see looming ahead was the stress and confusion of packing up and starting over and the challenges, the unknown difficulties, of navigating strange new worlds...

Typical. If someone had ever made such offers to me, I'd have... um...... Without hesitation, I'd've.... hmmm.

*sigh*

Too Stressed Tonight To Write

2008-08-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, fuck!

Is Spybot worth the trouble or not? I just don't know anymore.

First of all, it takes a frikkin' year for the thing to load and do its stuff whenever you try to open the program to download updates and run a scan... Now, apparently, in trying to download what I (obviously mistakenly) thought was a legit updated version of Spybot on my mom's PC, I've unleashed something nasty enough to disable her BitDefender anti-virus. (I have to monitor and run her PC security because she won't, because she forgets how it all works, and anyway she forgets to do it, and anyway she doesn't really want to have to deal with stuff like this. That's what her daughter is for. Among other things.)

Now I sit here anxiously waiting to hear from BitDefender support for instructions on what to do next, praying the damage, if there is any, is negligible. I can't concentrate on anything else until this is resolved...

Oh, fuck! I had none of these headaches back in 1995. If Gates, Allen and Microsoft really want to impress me, they'll come up with a System Restore that will return me--forget the damn computer; me--to a younger, less techno-stressful time.

Pressed For Time

2008-08-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Unnngghh..! I really have some things to say, really feel like writing, but no time just now to type. (Should have gotten up and out earlier this morning...)

Oh, well. Maybe tonight. If not, tomorrow first thing. Promise.

Absolutely NOT A Diet. Honestly.

2008-07-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Am inspired by a post I just read on Mark’s blog (http://www.markyourtruthhere.blogspot.com "Fasting as a Way of Life") about health and fitness. Liked it so much I read it three times and will probably refer back to it from time to time to help me keep myself on track.

I have recently (too recently--I should have started doing this ages ago) begun incorporating morning walks into my daily routine and am almost (almost) at the point where if I wimp out and don't get up and go I feel lousy, like my day didn't begin properly. I already walk back and forth to work whenever possible, and have been looking into inexpensive Chicago Park District swimming classes and facilities--I would LOVE to have a daily (or even just 3-times per week) swim.

The next task for me is to seriously modify my diet. To that end I have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to end my long love affair with soda and other ultra-sugary, caffeine-laden beverages. I am pleased to report that I have cut waaay back on my coca-cola intake but admittedly am not yet cola-free. (I'll keep you posted.)

A week or so ago I saw a woman interviewed on the Today show who was once staggeringly obese. Though she is still heavy, she is in noticeably better shape than she used to be and credits her weight loss with a kind of baby-steps formula of eliminating one unhealthy food or beverage item at a time. I like that approach. Accordingly, once the soda pop is completely a thing of my self-indulgent past, I will pick something else to remove from my diet; once that item is conquered--and no, I don't yet know what that will be; I'm trying not to scare myself to death with unrealistic goals and expectations--I will add, or rather detract, something else.

Masterpiece Theatre Memories

2008-07-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

We fell in love, my mother immediately, me gradually and initially somewhat reluctantly— with the British-PBS (Boston’s WGBH-TV) cross pollination that became known as Masterpiece Theatre, including its appropriately majestic— and French— opening theme, Jean-Joseph Moret’s “Rondeau”, and the series’ elegant, elderly host Alistair Cooke, as well.

Nothing at all against the capable Russell Baker, the American writer-journalist who took over the hosting duties and presided for a dozen years when Cooke retired from the series in 1992, but for us the wry, magisterial Alistair Cooke in his English drawing room chair personified Masterpiece Theatre. (And I can’t resist mentioning here that Mom was thoroughly charmed by the sweetly silly Sesame Street send-up, Monsterpiece Theatre, featuring one “Alistair Cookie.”)

Closet romantic that I am, I always preferred Masterpiece Theatre’s costume and historical epics, a genre the Brits seem to produce with impeccable ease. The standouts were Lillie starring the cool, beautiful Francesca Annis as the Edwardian “Professional Beauty” Lillie Langtry and featuring Peter Egan, quite wonderful as her ardent friend and champion, the witty—and doomed—Oscar Wilde; Elizabeth R, with the commanding and customarily brilliant Glenda Jackson in the title role; and Therese Raquin, starring a spellbinding Kate Nelligan as the ruined heroine of Emile Zola’s psychological horror story of passion and Gothic revenge.

I also enjoyed every minute of the Masterpiece 1996 production of The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. The sensual, curvaceous Alex Kingston—like her countrywoman Glenda Jackson not conventionally lovely, but blessed with strong, striking features—was letter perfect as the desperate and determined 18th century adventuress. Some critics found Kingston’s periodic asides to the camera/audience distracting, but so compelling is she as Dafoe’s bawdy anti-heroine that, for me, the device really worked. Kingston was also terrific on ER as the talented surgeon and unapologetic flirt—loved that tony Brit accent, didn’t you?—Dr. Elizabeth Corday, back in the days when ER was still appointment television.

Oh, and speaking of ER, can I just quickly get something out of the way?

There is only one Dr. “McDreamy” and that was/is bad boy Doug Ross aka George Clooney. Okay? I am willing to make allowances for those of you old enough to remember fondly the young (and closeted) Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare—he was, in his day, pretty darn hunky. But the modern “McDreamy” is and always will be ER pediatrician Dr. Doug, so enough already about Patrick Whatshisname.

Thank you.

So what were your Masterpiece Theatre favorites? The music, the production values, the actors, the accents— surely over the years you’ve been captivated by something from this wonderful anthology series, which also offered a number of non-costume dramas, by the way, like the dark political satire House of Cards, starring a reptilian Ian Richardson, and in time included American works by James Agee, Willa Cather and Langston Hughes (whose Cora Unashamed kicked off MT’s “American Collection” in 2000).

I can tell you there seemed to be a Masterpiece Theatre for every member of my family. Brother Joe, whose television preferences seemed strictly limited to live sports, Star Trek (the Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley original) and Doctor Who (the Tom Baker period, preferably), never missed a single episode of I, Claudius, riveted by the malignant lunacy of John Hurt’s Caligula, the scheming cruelty of Sian Phillips’s Livia, and Derek Jacobi’s wretched, twitching, cunning Claudius, the ultimate political survivor.

Even my Gunsmoke and S.W.A.T.-loving Grandma found her Masterpiece favorites, first in the irresistibly addictive Upstairs, Downstairs, easily the most celebrated of the MT offerings, the superior British soap opera that chronicled the fortunes, setbacks, scandals and celebrations of the wealthy Bellamy family and their household staff; and later in the suspenseful Danger UXB, this one right up her tough-men-in-jeopardy alley, a bleak and gritty account of the unforgiving hazards faced by a British bomb disposal unit during the terrifying days and nights of the London Blitz.

Danger UXB starred Anthony Andrews of Brideshead Revisited fame, the classy 1981 PBS series based on the Evelyn Waugh novel (this one a Great Performances rather than Masterpiece Theatre production); you may recall his Brideshead co-star was none other than Jeremy Irons, another Masterpiece alum (The Pallisers; Love for Lydia) and Oscar-winning movie star.

My mom, to this day an MT fan, was the one who over the years embraced most of its numerous offerings— from The Six Wives of Henry VIII to Shoulder to Shoulder to The Jewel in the Crown to Jeeves & Wooster to the Prime Suspect series and many more in between— beginning with the 1969 forerunner The Forsyte Saga, the very first British serial broadcast in the U.S. That show, a black and white dramatization of the books of John Galsworthy, was such a hit with American audiences—who up to that point had never seen anything quite like it—that its success rescued the struggling PBS and made the omnibus Masterpiece Theatre not only possible but necessary.

Sammy and Peter and Debbie and Cliff

2008-07-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

I am just like John Lennon as I type this—no, really—preferring having the television on as background while I write or read or do almost anything, really (I did say almost anything, people)--I am half-watching a Flix channel showing of the 1968 movie Salt and Pepper, starring Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter Lawford as hipster nightclub owner buddies who somehow--how do these odd things happen?--get mixed up in espionage and murder when all they're trying to do is have a happenin' time in Swinging London at their Studio 54-prototype club and chase dames, I mean chicks, I mean birds.

Davis is Charles Salt and Lawford is Christopher Pepper--cute, no? And the pace is zippy enough--almost too zippy, the plot is more than a little confusing--and Davis energetically sings a couple of forgettable mod-pop songs and is really quite funny (Did he win the toss to get the best scripted jokes or are these ad-libs?) but something is missing here and it's not just plot coherence.

As I say, Sammy Davis is entertaining--Peter Lawford is nearly a wooden plank by comparison--but overall this film seems to me another example of the panicked desperation of sixties era Big Hollywood to produce movies that sixties era big audiences would want to see.

But who precisely were "sixties era audiences" big or otherwise? That must have been the dilemma. There was an older, more conservative, ticket-buying audience that shouldn't be ignored, but by '68 the youth movement was in full roar and studio executives, mindful of this, were apparently caught in the middle of trying to appeal to both groups.

The too-frequent result was studio offerings like Salt and Pepper, which tried too hard to have it both ways, casting older, familiar, established stars in roles that should have gone to 25 year-olds. Lawford particularly, with his graying sideburns, triple chins and tired, pouchy eyes looks faintly ridiculous coming on to all the lithesome, twenty-something "birds" around him; yi-ikes--you wince to watch it.

Also, you simmer. You watch how Davis is being used in this movie and you contemplate all those white studio executives, resplendent in their Nehru jackets, love beads, and peace medallions who were nevertheless too threatened, obviously, by the notion of black males as sexy leading men--even black males like flinty little Rat-Pack mascot and Nixon-hugging Sammy Davis, Jr. Sammy is therefore sweetly dissed by all the lovely dollies he approaches, and relegated to the role of mouthy Court Jester.

Oh, well. We could at least claim the elegant, dignified Sidney “They call me MR. Tibbs!” Poitier—though not in this movie, unfortunately—and Jim Brown, in 100 Rifles, and Richard Roundtree, in Shaft, and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, in Black Caesar, were just around the corner...

Earlier I was flipping back and forth from this movie to the HBO broadcast of 1963's My Six Loves starring Debbie Reynolds as a "big Broadway star" who finds and adopts six adorable sibling urchins. Yes, well.

I'd noticed this movie in the programming grid earlier in the week and set the reminder function for it, thinking I would enjoy it as a nice bit of Saturday morning nostalgia...

Not so much, as it turns out.

Maybe the problem is that now I'm looking at these films from the perpetually pissed-off and jaded perspective of the grown-up me rather than from the perspective of the wistful, movie-loving adolescent I once was. Because I've seen this movie, or parts of it, before now I’m sure—and I remember liking it a whole lot better.

I guess back then I just took it all at face value--and enjoyed the great Eileen Heckart's wisecracks and deadpan observations. (As witty sidekicks go, Eileen Heckart may be the best time you'll have in any movie that Eve Arden didn't get to first.) Probably I also got a kick out of the pre-Fugitive David Janssen as Debbie’s exasperated manager-suitor. Now, however--though I still adore Heckart--I'm too aware of the film's nastily manipulative message to women everywhere to Stop!! Stop all this independent career and self-reliance nonsense and go get married and have babies like God and them meant you to!

I mean, there's handsome Cliff Robertson as the neighborhood minister and part-time handyman (Uh, what?) who starts off by trying to help a conflicted Debbie cope with her instant orphan family, but by the end of the movie finally barks at her and the blustery Janssen: "It's about time she stopped being a star and started being a woman!" or words to that effect, clearly expressing the viewpoint of the movie's director, producer, writer, production team, Krafts Services crew, every hetero male in the audience, and--I will bet all of you any amount of money--Reynolds's real-life hubby of the time, effectively guilt-tripping our heroine into motherhood, marriage and rock-solid suburban conformity.

And just to reassure Robertson, herself, her husband and the rest of us that she is indeed a "normal" woman with "normal" needs, Debbie Reynolds actually apologizes to him for her epic impertinence in thinking her life actually belonged to her, and then do you know what she does? She shuts up and does as she's told, letting Reverend Robertson be the boss he was meant to be. They kiss. And the wonderfully cynical Heckart, her plain speaking best friend-secretary, a single career gal herself, mind you, rejoins with wry and weary gratitude that "it's about time."

Jesus.

Oh, I know how I sound, but look, it's so complicated! I love sixties movies, even bad sixties movies, sometimes, especially, bad sixties movies--and there were obviously a LOT of bad sixties movies--and yet, increasingly, when I try to relax and enjoy them, knowing full well what I'm in for, I nevertheless keep tripping over the simple-minded sexism, false pieties, and (usually lurking in the background somewhere) racism and smarmy homophobia of the times. Consequently, I often wind up too irritated to stay with a My Six Loves or a Salt and Pepper from start to fin—

Ooh, wait a sec! AMC is showing The Pleasure Seekers! Isn't that... Ann-Margret..?

MWW, MPGs and the People Who Love Them

2008-07-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

There's actually a name for it now. Did you know that? (Saw it in Wikipedia, so it must be true.)

MWWS--the Missing White Women Syndrome, alternately known as the Missing Pretty Girl Syndrome, refers of course to the disproportionate amount of news coverage--not only but most particularly broadcast news coverage--given to missing/presumed dead white females of varying ages, that is if they're Caucasian, upper or middle-class, and button-cute little ones, like Britain's Maddie McCann (The new Jon-Benet, or so the tabloids and ratings-hungry MSM have no doubt fervently hoped) and Orlando, Fla. toddler Caylee Anthony; or slender, model-pretty teens and twenty-somethings like--oh, well, the choice is wide. There've been so many over just the last few years.

Natalee Holloway. Laci Peterson. Chandra Levy. Plus Amber, Amy, Tiffany, Tyler, Blair, Bree, Bitsy--oh, you know what I mean: A bunch of other names less nationally known but all reliably Cute and Caucasian. And let's don't forget stunning Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart, one of the very lucky few found alive (and apparently reasonably well) who, upon learning that her kidnapping ordeal was going to be dramatized in a cable-TV movie, reportedly petitioned her parents to let her play herself. Mr. and Mrs. Smart--or their PR reps--wisely turned her down.

Meanwhile, the family and friends of black females such as Syracuse U. student April Gregory, NY student Romona Moore and twenty-somethings Tamika Huston and Latoyia Figueroa were faced with something like polite indifference from police and/or local and national media, even as both law enforcement and press were aggressively investigating the disappearances of white girls at the same time. The African-American women were young and pretty, too--and Ms. Figueroa was even five months pregnant when she vanished--but not enough, apparently, to be considered worthy by the MSM who seem prepared to allow serious time and resources only for the kind of victims readers and audiences--presumably white readers and audiences--would more easily "relate to" (read: "give a damn about").

This discriminatory practice--sorry, discretionary inclination--has become so prevalent that network dramas like CBS's Without a Trace, and by now probably one or several of the Law and Order series, have devoted storylines to it.

Accordingly, if your minority, poor or working class, single-parented, possibly drug-addicted lesbian daughter--or (gay or straight, but especially gay) son--goes missing with foul play suspected, gather your friends and neighbors, post the flyers, and do your best--and best of luck--because you won't get much meaningful assistance from the powers that be. Even if police and local media take an interest it will likely be only momentary, a perfunctory mention at most. Come on, be fair: there are soooo many minority young getting snuffed or going missing these days who can reasonably be expected to keep track?

And the next Maddie or Natalie could be just around the corner, after all...

Not Tonight

2008-07-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

Was going to write but irritable all day today--just about everything--work, home, news reports--has pissed me off. Maybe tomorrow.

Larry King And The "Limits of Tolerance"

2008-07-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Just re-read that Newsweek cover report about the murder of 15 year old Larry King by 14 year old Brandon McInernery. It's all so heartbreaking, infuriating.

Both these kids were failed utterly by the adults that surrounded them--parents, teachers, school officials--and one boy is dead and another facing the possibility of a lengthy prison term, because of that failure. In the face of his death, the teachers who spoke to the press insist that they tried to support the complicated, boundary-pushing Larry, but I wonder for how many that is really true. He was different and now he is dead. I'm sure there's quite a bit of damage control going on right now, personally and officially, as everyone tries to put the best face on their own involvement (or lack thereof) in this tragedy.

No doubt the only thing everyone can agree on right now is that what happened should not have happened, that things should never have reached this point. But, beyond either ignoring Larry King or getting angry at him for behavior they didn't understand and didn't know how best to respond to, where were all these grown-ups as things slowly unraveled for Larry and Brandon? Were they standing out in a field somewhere, watching cloud formations?

Put aside for the moment the McInerney boy and his issues (and ease of access to a loaded gun)--where were the adults when kids started mistreating and ostracizing King when he began coming out at age 10? It wasn't just Larry King that needed help navigating the rough seas of puberty and sexual and social identity. All those classmates who taunted him--the girl who started the "Burn Book" to punish King, the boys who "pushed him around" in the locker rooms--were obviously coping, badly, with their own identity questions, anxieties and fears. Larry King could not have been the only gay, or eccentric, or defiantly flamboyant, or troubled, kid in the various schools he attended--what happened to those kids? What's happening to them now?

King is said to have been a "bully" and to have bullied the boy who would be his executioner. Where was the outrage--the acknowledgement--of the bullying King experienced?

How Brandon McInerney chose finally to resolve the problem of Larry's allegedly determined and unwanted attentions was horrifyingly inappropriate--to say the absolute least--and he should, he must, face the consequences for his actions. That said, it's impossible, reading the Newsweek piece, not to feel some sympathy for him as well, and anger at all the adults around him who apparently didn't take seriously enough his rising embarrasment and distress and intervene in a way that might have defused what was becoming an explosive situation. If McInerney is tried and sentenced as an adult, the harassment he experienced from a lovestruck classmate will be nothing compared to what eventually he may be forced to confront in a prison setting.

And what of the school's lesbian (former) assistant principal, Joy Epstein, who counseled and befriended King? According to the Newsweek story she was not out to the students, but she was to fellow staffers (Epstein kept a photograph of her life partner in full view on her desk), not all of whom were accepting, and it seems she is now being looked upon with great suspicion--indeed, if it's not King himself being blamed for his death, it is Epstein, with both parents (including Larry King's father, Greg, who was accused by his son of abuse, leading to Larry's temporary removal to a group home) and disapproving faculty accusing her of having had an "agenda."

Ah, yes--the fabled "gay agenda." Apparently any gay teacher or adult with access to kids who is supportive of gay kids particularly, counseling them on their rights, is obviously attempting... what? World domination?

Seriously, what's it supposed to "mean" when teachers are proudly and openly gay and positively acknowledge queer and questioning kids who come to them for support and advice? What would they be doing that is supposedly so inappropriate, so suspect? Are out gay teachers and counselors truly expected to counsel gay kids not to be? Not to be what? Not to be out and proud? Not to be gay? And what exactly is the "agenda"? I've yet to hear (or read) an answer to any of these questions from any such accusers that I have not found convoluted, irrational, and downright hysterical.

Poor Larry King. For all the turbulence of his young life, he seemed to me a bright, imaginative, and incredibly ballsy teenager who just might--with a lot more sympathetic support, guidance and protection and a lot less over-reactive judgement--one day have had the fabulous life he dreamed of.

As it is, now he--and we--will never know.

From Matthew to Lawrence

2008-07-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

Oh, God, no--it's Matthew Shepard all over again.

It isn't, actually, but that was my immediate, visceral reaction to the cover of this week's (July 18th) Newsweek. The cover story is about the murder of gay middle-schooler Lawrence King and the deeper you get into the reporting the queasier and angrier you feel--among other reasons you're left with the distinct impression that King, the victim, portrayed for the most part in the article as a pathetic troublemaker, is essentially to blame for what happened to him.

He was shot dead in a computer lab by classmate Brandon McInerney who, after aiming directly at King's head and firing (twice), calmly tossed the gun to the floor and walked out of the room, to be apprehended minutes later by police.

I feel so distressed--so unsettled and depressed and pissed off--that I can't pull my thoughts together right now. I need to learn more about this awful story; I need to think about what's being said here.

More later.

Letter to an X-Friend

2008-07-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

So how long has it been now?

Six years? Seven? I know I was still at The Lite when the friendship came crashing down around us—was it in June that we, that everything, stopped? I could be misremembering the timeline, but I think it was June. (I’m really coming to dislike the month of June.)

Brendan Lemon’s closeted ballplayer boyfriend. That’s what touched it off, the Out Magazine editor letter. He wrote about the difficulties of being openly gay and trying to maintain a relationship with someone who was not, especially someone with a public profile. The letter caused a sensation in the gay press, was picked up by the mainstream press, and as the guessing game of the ballplayer’s identity commenced, op-ed pieces started appearing in publications that seldom if ever bothered to report or comment upon queer issues of any kind.

You and I seemed to draw different lessons from the controversy, unable to agree even on whether or not Lemon should ever have brought up the matter publicly, though I think we were slowly becoming aware, long before then, that we seemed not to be on the same page about many things to do with gay.

The e-mails between us got stronger, angrier (typically, mine got lengthier). That was our mistake, I realized even then. Instead of tabling the debate about Lemon, his mystery man and whatever and whoever else was getting dragged into the squabble (Jackie Robinson, Rock Hudson, the Brady dad Robert Reed) until we could see one another and talk more calmly over coffee, or dinner, or a bookstore browse, we kept slugging it out electronically, each of accusing the other of not seeing it, both of us more emotionally invested in our viewpoints than we were willing or able to admit.

I know I was. I was absolutely convinced I was right and you were a pigheaded idiot who couldn’t admit when he was wrong. Though I couldn’t actually see you, I could feel your back stiffening with each hit of the send key, until finally you accused me of laughing at you—I realized later you meant “mocking” you—and said we couldn’t be friends anymore.

I’d rolled my eyes at this, exasperated. Not friends anymore? Come on, what was he talking about? Alright, so I’d gone a bit—maybe more than a bit—overboard in my determination to mow down his resistance. So maybe he was right in his accusation that this wasn’t a spirited exchange of ideas any longer (if it ever was) and I had let myself get too gleeful about winning what had turned into a fight. He was still being a drama queen—a melodrama queen—with this relations between us are at an end stuff; he doesn’t mean it. Not really.

But you did.

Even with my semi-conciliatory reply—recognizing at last that I had gone too far, in the execution of my argument at least, if not its substance—you refused to budge. Me too. I waited, not too bothered that the days were turning to weeks, thinking after all that we both needed the cooling off period, and sure that at the end of it you would at last reply, or that one of us would pick up the phone, that we would pick up and stagger forward, the connection between us frayed but not broken, our friendship ultimately stronger having been tested. Like... like... Mary and Rhoda. (Fine. Then you think of somebody.)

It didn’t happen. You didn’t write and we didn’t call and the silence between us grew heavier, lengthened. We didn’t speak; we never saw each other again. And it has been—six years now? Seven? Longer than that?

I didn’t expect that outcome, did you? I knew we could both be stubborn; as I realized the weeks were becoming months I grew uneasy, complaining to Connie about what a baby you were being, and how I should not have to plead for the restoration of our old camaraderie, no matter how much I missed it. Eventually I reached for my sharpest, finest pen to write you longhand; I sat down at my computer, searching for just the right font. I picked up my phone and made ready to dial, determined to end the stalemate. Each time I backed away, uncertain of my welcome, and feeling vaguely…idiotic.

It’s never a good thing when, instead of getting wiser as you get older, you realize you’re only finding new ways to disappoint yourself (and others).

Maybe you feel that too?

Pure Poppycock

2008-07-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Last March, the Today show featured a segment on the phenomenon--I'm pretty sure we can just go ahead and call this a phenomenon--of something called Purity Balls, in which fathers take their daughters on a date. No, really. In the course of the festivities and a ceremony involving—I swear I am not making this up—roses, swords and a large white cross, the girls promise to remain “pure”, that is, to not have sex until they get married, and even signing “pledges” to that effect. This thing must really be taking off, because there it is again in the July 28th issue of Time magazine, an article titled "The Pursuit of Purity" by Nancy Gibbs.

I don’t know what these people—I'd assumed them to be Bible Belt conservatives but possibly not—are thinking. Maybe they aren’t thinking. Surely if the mothers and fathers who endorse the concept of purity pledges considered more carefully the full ramifications they’d not let their children—daughters only, is it?—anywhere near it. I mean, it’s disturbing on the face of it.

And creepy. Are these parents so freaked by modern culture, and so uncomfortable with adolescent—especially female—sexuality that the best, the only, way they know how to respond is by psychologically handcuffing their girls to unfair and ultimately unrealistic promises of chastity? (And am I right to be skeptical that the sexuality of sons is not considered nearly so problematic? The Nancy Gibb piece hints at more pledges to come, this time involving boys.)

When I read about teenage sexual behaviors the statistical data suggests that assertions that kids are having sex at younger ages is simply not true, yet the promos for the “Today” show piece inferred the opposite. So what’s going on? Are worried parents misreading or reading too much into their youngster's fascination with the flagrant trampiness of Paris and her acolytes? But even if the concern is entirely justified, the notion that parents can protect their daughters by extracting promises of sexual purity from them seems to me somehow deluded, wrongheaded.

The girls will sign of course, the majority of them no doubt happily, eagerly. Kids love their parents after all, trust that their moms and dads know best and have their best interests at heart, and they want to please them and make them proud. But how long will it be before these daughters are sorry, even resentful, that they went along with such an agreement? What, in real-life terms, will it mean to a young girl to promise to wait until marriage for the experience of physical intimacy?

The dads interviewed for the Time article, including co-inventor of the purity pledge balls, Randy Wilson, insisted that the pledges are not just about sex, and that focusing solely on that aspect misses the point. They spoke of the need to commit more fully as fathers to their children, to protect their girls and be better role models for their families and communities. Well, yes--who could argue with that? I read those words and thought how commendable, how absolutely admirable, how right.

Then I kept reading, noting that one of the daughters attending the purity ball with her daddy was only 4 years old; also in attendance was a 10 year old who shyly admitted she had no idea what the purity pledge meant beyond promising her dad "to be a virgin until you are married and not have a lot of boyfriends." And according to that Today show segment, 11 year olds are being asked to sign these pledges.

That figures. I remember—more vividly than I would have expected from this distance—being an 11 year old. Though I developed crushes left and right, at least one of them quite erotic, the mechanics of sex, the actual doing of the deed, was a remote and vaguely icky mystery I was in no particular hurry to solve. Few girls so young would object to agreeing to a purity restriction, especially when it's her favorite boyfriend—every little girls first crush—asking it of her and doing so at an emotional, elaborate, Cinderella-type party at that. (Had my dad cared enough to stick around and escort me to such a lavish event I would have swooned, agreeing to absolutely anything he requested, up to and including always calling my stepmother “Mom”.)

A few pertinent questions, though: What happens when a naive, starry-eyed 11 year old playing dress-up turns 15, turns 16, 18, 20—will she still want to keep such a promise? Will she feel able to? Will she feel she should even have to?

Will these pledges really make the young girls who sign on to them stronger, more confident and wiser in their choices—or will they remain perennial adolescents incapable of making choices of their own? Is it understood that as of a certain magic age—which would be what, by the way, and decided by whom?—these daughters are released from the pledges they signed, expected finally to decide their personal lives for themselves? How do they do that, though, when up to that point their most intimate decisions were in the hands of someone else, someone who with the passage of time may no longer seem so heroic and infallible?

And what sort of women will these pledges create?

What happens to the “bad daughters” who rebel and decide to have sex? They promised after all; on an evening unlike any other they pledged to their devoted daddies (or daddy substitutes) "not to" until marriage. What if they can’t keep that promise? Will they sneak around, riven with guilt and shame? And will they delude themselves that if they don’t take any birth control or other precautions they’ve got wiggle room to characterize their sexual encounters as “accidental” and their purity thus “technically” intact? What about the resultant risk of STDs, HIV, AIDS? And how many unplanned pregnancies will be the result of such a strategy, and who raises those daughters?

And what are the options for the “good girls”? Will they ease their consciences by feeling compelled to marry the first guy they fuck, regardless of whether or not either partner truly wants to marry? What if they’re both too young? What if daddy doesn’t consider the groom-to-be acceptable husband material? Does the good daughter elope, hoping for the best? Or does she marry the man daddy signs off on immaterial of his appeal for her? Just what kind of “personal” life can such a young woman hope to have when that life is essentially chosen for her?

Purity fathers may be convinced that they are really only doing their duties and looking after their little girls, but don’t these virginity pledges ultimately translate into an exercise in the power of male prerogative, and an insistence on a certain kind of cultural conformity? Aren’t they really an attempt to return American society to a supposedly more morally upright time--such as when men literally owned their wives and children?

At purity balls the fathers also take a pledge, to protect their girls—but who protects the girls from the fathers? What happens to the “pure” daughters of men who are sexual predators? or wife beaters? or self-loathing closet cases? or lying philanderers?

Is it possible that purity pledges really represent not just reliable parental squeamishness about pubescent sexuality in general, but also a new wrinkle in the same old determined resistance to issues of gender identity and alternative sexual preferences in particular?

Aren’t the purity daughters (and presumably, in the near future, sons) being asked—required, actually—to be not merely chaste but conventional? predictable? traditional? heterosexual??

Just asking...

Movie Night

2008-07-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

So much I wanted to post tonight but it will have to wait--TCM is showing 1960's The Fugitive Kind starring a coiled, mascara-ed Marlon Brando as The Drifter, and Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani as The Women In His Life, with able support from Maureen Stapleton, Victor Jory and R.G. Armstrong. Brando is still potent, still Brando. Love Joanne Woodward in anything, even bad things. And Magnani--I never see enough of her; love that lived-in face, the best this side of Jeanne Moreau.

Sidney Lumet directed, the great Tennessee Williams adapted the screenplay from his play. Small town, Deep South, all in gothic, glorious black and white. (I mean the film stock. Don't overreach.)

Anyway, this needs my full attention and I happen to have popcorn in the house.

More later, y'all.

Mass Media Madness and Other Things

2008-07-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

I guess I have my nerve needling Bill M. about the time gap between posts. What's today? Thursday? Is it still Thursday? Is it still July?

It's just... ever have one of those periods when there's so much on your mind that you can't untangle and sort it out to get it down on "paper" in a coherent way? Or something swirls around in your head that you'd really like to set down, but in the moment you're just not able to write? You're traveling. You're elbow-deep in work. You're literally in the middle of a conversation. Your nose is in a book--a good one--and something in the text triggers a thought that starts nagging at you; now you're torn: do you close the book and grab notebook and pen to scribble your thoughts or stay with the story?

Here's one thing that's on my mind: I'm still pissed off about that New Yorker "radical/Muslim" Obama cover. The minute I saw it my jaw dropped--and I'm sitting here still feeling blindsided by its nasty cluelessness. All's fair in the historically down and dirty game of national politics I guess, this kind of thing is not new, I know, but nevertheless what the hell? This is THE NEW YORKER we're talking about--the folks who supposedly like Obama, the ones who are on our side. This came from so out of left field (or maybe more accurately "right field".) What were they thinking? Should they have run it?

Well...I'm uncomfortable with censorship, with saying things can't be said or shown. And the NY editorial management has defended its July 21st cover insisting it was meant to satirize Republican demonization of the Obamas. But how many people looking at that cover can we trust to understand that? Images, whether photographic or illustrated, are powerful, more powerful even than any words used to explain or justify them. (Just ask the Danish) I don't remember at the moment what the reported percentage is, but a significant number of American voters actually believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. Which shouldn't matter. But, especially in these post-9/11 times, and in an election cycle, it does.

Oh, and there's also the matter of that Orange County, Florida billboard, the one with the image of the burning, crumbling WTC towers and the words "Please Don't Vote For a Democrat" on it--I know I shouldn't be, regardless I'm dumbstruck, speechless.

Except to ask: how low? How much fucking lower can anyone go? That billboard was reportedly commisioned by a St. Cloud businessman-musician named Mike Meehan, who also advertises on his website a CD--yours for only $5--called "The Republican Song" which includes the chorus "Don't vote for a Democrat". I understand a video is also available. Well, of course. And do you suppose either bothers to acknowledge, even peripherally, that the WTC tragedy happened on the watch of a REPUBLICAN administration?

I'll go out on what is probably a very short limb here and say no.

Marnie and Sophia

2008-07-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Oh, hell! Just a quick-fast addendum to my previous long-ass letter:

The enclosed photocopy is taken from the original source for what has become one of my very favorite of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, Marnie.

Marnie began life as a 1961 novel by British author Winston Graham, with all the characters and settings originally placed in England. I was delighted to discover that this decades-old book was sitting on one of the CPL’s branch shelves and immediately sent for it and enjoyed reading it—in the book, Marnie herself is the narrator—until I came to page 100 and came across that startling bit of dialogue between Marnie and Mark Rutland, the love interest (played with vivid intensity in the 1964 movie by a ruggedly sexy Sean Connery).

You can see where I’ve highlighted the part that threw me for a loop. I gasped, blinked, re-read it and put the book down for a minute, wondering if I really just read what I just read.

See what you think. Marnie was written by a white male, and in the complacently racist Britain of ’61 at that... On the other hand, Americans have often been befuddled by British-isms and English slang—could the word really have meant something different..? Perhaps..?

Still. Wow. Rather shocking, at least to me…

Okay! That’s it! We’re done!

Ciao for now Michelangelo! TCM is having a Sophia Loren festival this month—at this moment I’m watching one of her best, 1963’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, as I type this. Great movie, even if you don’t understand a word of Italian, and Loren, then 28, is at the height of her astounding Neapolitan beauty—no. I tell a lie, as the English like to say.

Loren is stunning here, especially in this, "Mara," the best-remembered of the trio of tales, in which she sends favorite co-star Marcello Mastroianni into screeching paroxysms of ecstasy as she performs the playful striptease seen ‘round the sixties cinema world; but she truly reached the summit of her magnificence several years later in 1967’s exquisite Italian fairy tale More Than A Miracle opposite Omar Sharif, who if anything is almost as pretty as Loren. The first time I ever saw More Than A Miracle, back in 1994 when I was living on 47th and Lake Park, my jaw dropped, literally, when Loren first appeared on screen. I’d never seen her so ravishingly beautiful. Those lips! Those eyes! Those cheekbones! (Angelina who???)

Anyway—later, babe. Ciao Bella.

More Later

2008-07-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

Too busy--no , too distracted--actually both--to write much of anything just now. More later. I think. I promise.

Second Thoughts

2008-07-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

Wow. Yesterday's post was kinda harsh, maybe too much so to leave it up.

I'll decide tomorrow. Too tired tonight.

Letter to an Old Friend

2008-07-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

I’m listening to my ‘70s nostalgia folder on Windows Media Player as I type, and Blood, Sweat and Tears is playing. This song is one of my old adolescent favorites—"Lucretia Mac Evil". Remember that one? I used to play my BS&T Greatest Hits album back in the day and whenever this song came on I would dance provocatively around the house, pretending to be a siren luring incautious men to their doom. You should have seen me, or perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t—you might have gotten hurt laughing yourself silly.

Now Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Sweet Home Alabama" is playing—and it’s funny. Not the song; I mean I remember how much I loved this song the first time I heard it, and how appalled I felt upon later realizing that it was basically a redneck defense of the Old South.

Actually, that may not be a fair assessment of the song, but"Sweet Home Alabama" was written as a "backatcha", a thumb of the nose, a direct challenge (Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her... Well, I heard ole Neil put her down...) to Neil Young’s "Alabama", a stinging criticism of entrenched Southern attitudes, from his monster 1972 album "Harvest", though "Heart Of Gold" was the album's big single, with James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt wailing back-up. Upon its release Joey bought "Harvest" and played that song over and over and over again (that one and the bittersweet "The Needle and the Damage Done") and I got good and sick of it, but the CD is sitting on one of my book shelves now.

Nowadays you hear "Sweet Home Alabama" and think not of the Deep South, race relations or rebel yells but of... Popeye’s chicken.

Unnhhh.

Isn’t it depressing the way Madison Avenue has latched onto Boomer and Gen X popular music, using one iconic sixties (and, increasingly, seventies) pop song after another to sell cars, fast food, beer, and you name it? This is not by any means a recent development, I know, but the practice seems in hyper-drive these days. I’m constantly grousing to my mother (who in response usually just chuckles sympathetically) that when I hear the Beatle’s "Revolution"--reportedly John Lennon’s wry response to The Rolling Stones’ swaggering "Street Fighting Man"-- or Marvin Gaye’s sultry"Let’s Get It On" I don’t want to think of overpriced sneakers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Bunnies!

Remember the commercials of sixties TV, Mike, and songs like "Kids" from the stage/film musical Bye Bye Birdie being used to sell floor wax? That one and "Will Everyone Here Kindly Step To The Rear (And Let A Winner Lead The Way)", from the (short-lived) stage musical How Now Dow Jones, which was used to sell Plymouth cars? And who could forget (well, okay, I haven't) "Hey, Big Spender", from Sweet Charity, to sell cigarillos—back when tobacco products were still being advertised on prime-time television, that is.

I loved those musicals, by the way. Loved them. At that time I especially loved any musical that starred or featured Gwen Verdon and Liza Minnelli. Redhead. Flora the Red Menace. New Girl in Town. I spent my whole 14th year in my bedroom pretending to be either a quavery, broken-hearted Gwen Verdon plaintively singing "Where Am I Going?" or a brassy Liza Minnelli belting "Cabaret" and "Liza With a Z".

Those songs coming out of the tradition of American musical theatre made the use of them for advertising purposes—to my mind anyway, you may not agree—more logical and acceptable, somehow.

The most memorable modern pop music reflects periods of flux and change in our lives and in the larger culture, don’t you think so? And though many of us adore musical theatre, I don’t think we have such exquisitely emotional memories attached to those kinds of songs, which is why I suppose I particularly resent the corporate co-opting of sixties and seventies pop, rock and soul music. That's the good stuff, the stuff that is, as one of the classic rock stations here in Chicago likes to advertise itself, the "soundtrack of our lives".

So whenever a TV commercial appears that features yet another memorable pop, soul or rock and roll song from my youth, I feel invaded, like something intensely personal is being yanked away from me. Back in the early eighties veteran rockers Neil Young and John Fogerty united to produce and perform "This Note’s For You", a protest song satirizing the selling out of classic pop music. The two did some local news interviews about the issue, and also made an accompanying video for "This Note" which, I'm guessing, may have made MTV execs a tad uncomfortable because I swear the song came and went in a blink, or at least that's how I remember it. I think I saw that video twice in total—twice, maybe three times—and this during the period when I was captivated by eighties “new wave” music and videos, watching MTV constantly.

Having said all that, I’m not completely disdainful of TV commercials. In the late sixties and early seventies some of my favorite TV shows were in fact commercials--because I was a kid and what the hell did I know--but also because many of them were so entertaining and were made especially memorable by original, catchy jingles written expressly for the product. If you watch programming on the TVLand or Me-TV channel today you will from time to time see these nostalgia commercials, like the kicky black and white oldie from 1964 for Polaroid Swinger cameras (Bobby Sherman sang this one with a chirpy female back up):

Bobby Sherman: Hey! Meet the Swinger
Chirpy Girl Back-Up: Swinger
Sherman: Polaroid Swinger
CG Back-Up: Swinger
Sherman: Meet the Swinger
CG Back-Up: Swinger
Sherman: Polaroid Swinger

Chirpy Girl Back-Up: It’s quite a good camera
It’s almost alive*
It’s only nineteen dollars
And ninety-five

Sherman: Swing it up
CG Back-Up: Yeah yeah
Sherman: It says yes
CG Back-Up: Yeah yeah
Sherman: Take the shot
CG Back-Up: Yeah yeah
Sherman: Count it down
CG Back-Up: Yeah yeah
Sherman: Rip it off
CG Back-Up: Yeah!

Sherman: Meet the Swinger
Chirpy Girl Back-Up: Swinger
Sherman: Polaroid Swinger
CG Back-Up: Swinger
Sherman: Meet the Swinger… (fade-out)

* At least I think that’s what they were singing (“It’s almost alive”). If you ever catch this commercial on television, tell me what you think.

The visual for that commercial was a winter scene featuring a group of lively young people with bright Pepsodent smiles, apparently on a unisex ski trip. There was a laughing, pretty brunette in that commercial that got a lot of face time—you’d recognize her instantly as the young Ali MacGraw.

I think this was when Miss MacGraw was married to Paramount Pictures honcho Robert Evans, shortly before box-office winners like Goodbye, Columbus and Love Story lifted her into the celebrity stratosphere. She was then cast in maverick director Sam Peckinpah’s gritty crime drama The Getaway opposite Steve McQueen, the American cinema’s King Of Cool (who in reality was reportedly anything but—Steve had a LOT of issues, turns out), and thereafter created a major Hollywood scandal—and I mean a BIG scandal, my dear; not since telephoto lenses caught Liz Taylor canoodling on a beach or sun deck or whatever it was with Richard Burton during the filming of Cleopatra a decade earlier did everyone make such a fuss about marital infidelities—when Ali left Bob for Steve during the filming. Remember that? My God, I remember that; in those years I swallowed whole all those Photoplay, Modern Movies, and glossy Rona Barrett's Hollywood and Rona Barrett's Gossip magazines--pics galore! Pics for days!

But I digress.

Remember the 1969 or ‘70 Budweiser commercial? There’ve been so many Bud commercials over time that I don’t blame you if you can’t recall the one I mean, but this one featured a night club-like setting where a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell-type duo crooned to each other:

He: When you say Bud
She: When you say Bud
He: You’ve said a lot of things nobody else can say
She: Mmm-yeah
He: When you say Bud
She: When you say Bud
He: You’ve gone as far as you can go to get the very best

He: There is no other one
She: Other one
He: There’s only something less
She: Something less
He: Because the king of beers
She: King of beers
Both: Is leading all the rest

Both: When you say Budweiser—
She: Say it, say it—
Both: When you say Budweiser—
She: Oh, go on and say it—
Both: When you say Budweiser—
Both: Oooh, you’ve said it all

I LOVED this commercial, Michael, and apparently I wasn’t the only one—its popularity meant it aired constantly with a slightly abbreviated version of it playing almost as frequently on AM radio. I used to walk around the 52nd and Drexel apartment humming and twisting and warbling away about Budweiser beer, the actual taste of which I couldn’t stand, though you'll recall my grandmother, Mrs. “CLOSE THE DOOR!” Wimberly, sure loved her Schlitz. Does that Budweiser jingle ring any bells with you? I don’t know if the lyrics help jog your memory or not—sometimes this kind of thing just looks so weird on the page. I’ll bet though if you heard it you’d remember.

Actually, wait—you have heard it—about five Christmases ago you gave me a wonderful CD of classic TV jingles (“TeeVee Toons: The Commercials”) and “When You Say Bud” is included, though that one is the original, extremely white-bread version sung in a sprightly up-tempo by a solo female singer, not the swingin’ soulful duet I fell in love with.

The couple in the commercial wasn’t actually Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell of course, but they sounded uncannily like Gaye and Terrell in their soulful call-and-response style of singing. "You’re All I Need To Get By" and "Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing" were huge crossover hits at or around this time and the “When You Say Bud” jingle was obviously meant to evoke those tunes.

Pointless Bit of Trivia Alert: In 1972 Sonny and Cher made a record called “When You Say Love” with lyrics written to the tune of the “When You Say Bud” jingle. That’s how popular the original jingle was (or how goofy the times were, take your pick). I remember Sonny and Cher’s “When You Say Love”—I don’t know if you do—and, young as I was, knew it was pathetic, just pathetic. I don’t think it was a hit for them either, certainly not on the order of "I Got You Babe" or "The Beat Goes On" or even the bizarre "A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done" or the melodramatic "Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down".

Well.

Enough of all this, for now, anyway.

Yesterday was my mom’s 72nd birthday—72, Mike!—and we had a nice day, though it was only the two of us. I’d like to take her and her sisters out for lunch or dinner but we’ll see—we’ll see how the money holds up--needless to say, my (ah-haha) “stimulus” rebate is long gone now (have you yet received yours?) I made a nice dinner and a cake for her, and also bought her a Sony DVD player and several DVDs. She was delighted I'm pleased to report, especially with the DVDs—a nice Bugs Bunny “premiere collection” set and the original, hilarious Jay Ward-Bill Scott cartoon “George of the Jungle”. Mom’s always loved these cartoons, partly because they’re so wonderfully drawn and the dialogue is so slyly witty--most of the puns and asides still holding up after so many years--and partly, of course, because Joey and me loved them too, when we were growing up.

See ya; Love ya—

L

Elizabeth the Great

2008-07-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Been reading all the back and forth on Bill's blog--the comments and his replies--about the great Elizabeth Taylor

Like everyone else on the planet I love the films for which Dame Liz is best known and justly celebrated... but of all possible ET movies to recall as I read the comments, for some reason I'm thinking of "X,Y and Zee", the "daring" '72 flick starring Dame Liz, Michael Caine and Susannah York, in which we are asked to believe that the logical explanation for Liz's obsession with the delectable Susannah was strictly to save her (Liz's) disintegrating marriage to the dishwater dull Caine. (Mmmm...yeah.)

Not a great film by a long shot (It was directed by Brian G. Hutton who seemed on firmer terra cotta when he was helming macho adventure stuff like "Where Eagles Dare" and "Kelly's Heroes") but I retain a perverse affection for it. For one thing Elizabeth, who had just that year turned 40, looked incredible.

I also love "Secret Ceremony", "The Sandpiper" and--of course--"Butterfield 8", for which she'd won the Oscar. (That breathy, emotional acceptance speech...) Trust me--films like these are a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon. (Okay, an almost perfect way.)

Is "Ash Wednesday", the '73 film she made with Henry Fonda in which her character resorted to a face lift (as opposed to a steamy lesbian seduction) to rescue her faltering marriage, available on DVD now? I've never seen it but have wanted to for years... also "Divorce His/Divorce Hers" the two-part TV movie she made around the same time, with her most famous partner, Richard Burton.

And whenever I have occasion to see "Gone With the Wind", and it comes to the part where Rhett and Scarlett are sparring about their willful little daughter, Bonnie Blue, I lament once again that the child actress Elizabeth was not cast in the role--she was the perfect age and she was strikingly beautiful, with an eerie resemblance to Vivien Leigh's Scarlett. As memorable movie entrances go, that would have been a perfect role for such a legendary star :-)

Autumn Monday

2008-07-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

Nearly 2 pm. Extremely humid and so hazy out it's like looking at the neighborhood through gauze. Not at all my kind of day.

Wish it was August, so that September would be right around the corner. I am looking forward to September, to Autumn. I'm really starting to hate this summer; it feels oppressive, stultifying, endless.

Not "hate". Too strong. There are some good days left of summer and --typically--I will regret the swiftness of their passing as winter's worst settles over the city. But there's a restlessness in me that is building, a nagging need to get going, get moving, move on, do something, make something else happen.

An image keeps popping into my head and hanging around there--it appears suddenly and without warning sometimes in the mornings, as I'm shaking off sleepiness and shuffling toward a shower, or in the middle of my workday as I'm tossing books back on shelves, or sometimes in the evenings as I'm laboring to get comfortable and give all my concentration to the book in my lap or the nonsense on my TV set--it's me briskly walking the length of Woodlawn Avenue, past all my old hang-outs, the places I used to live and the places my family used to live. The trees are blazing with color and around me the street is buzzing with activity: young mothers pushing grocery-laden strollers past chattering students slinging backpacks crammed with books, babysitters wrangling balky toddlers and Jehovah's Witnesses hawking Watchtowers, dogs straining leashes, dogs barking at postal carriers and garbage trucks, blowing, swirling leaves, churning water, swooping birds, zooming cars.

I am taking this all in, breathing deeply, savoring the cooling breeze.

A Barb(ed) Memory

2008-07-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

I can’t explain what happened with Barbara; please just don’t ask.

Okay, that’s… not strictly true. If I really think about it awhile, I guess I do know what happened. I may still not entirely get the “why” of it, but I pretty much know the “what.” Maybe I just don’t want to talk about this. Do you really imagine I’m looking for yet more evidence of my own callowness, my life-long penny-wise, pound-foolish idiocy?

I will say that our eventual estrangement was not her fault. Barb tried, really tried for a time, to keep current with me. She would call and leave these phone messages in her cheery voice, trying to schedule an afternoon luncheon, or evening drinks and dinner somewhere or other after work, just to get together to let me know what was going on in her life and to find out what was happening in mine—her treat, even.

For some reason, I just wasn’t having it.

The first of these calls caught me completely off guard. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Barbara Peterson in years. Alright, my second lie; I’d seen her two or three times, bespectacled and tall as Colossus, striding purposefully through the neighborhood, usually not far from the street where she used to live with her husband Ronnie and daughter Rachel.

Each time, she was so obviously lost in thought that she didn’t see me—she once actually walked right past me, eyes peering toward some middle distance destination, seemingly totally oblivious of her surroundings. To my immense relief, I will admit.

In the beginning, ever my mother’s daughter, I would do the courteous, civilized thing and return Barbara’s calls (hoping against hope as I did so that her answering machine would pick up), tentatively agreeing to meet somewhere.

Barb would call back to confirm and invariably want to chat a bit. Feeling more than a little foolish, I’d nevertheless use an almost missed rinse cycle or a burning dinner as an excuse to cut the call short, with the promise that we’d “catch up” with each other when we met.

Then a day or two before the scheduled get-together I’d call to cancel (hoping once again to get her machine), offering hazy explanations of illness, overwork, or family emergency, promising to call soon to reschedule.

And then dra-a-a-ag my feet about doing so.

She would wait a bit to hear from me and then initiate contact again, still desirous to meet, eat, and chat. After a while—I am not proud of this—I would just not respond, not even to acknowledge the call.

Not understanding what was going on, Barbara would (apparently) shrug and try again at a later time, still wanting to share with me all of the latest changes in her life and learn what was new and exciting in mine. And I—exasperated, sometimes angry—Jesus! Didn’t the woman have any other friends she could do this with? Why keep pestering me??—would erase her self-amused, meandering messages.

Occasionally, we’d discover we were both passengers on the same southbound bus. This would usually happen as one of us was about to disembark, and through a swaying throng we’d smile and nod and signal and stage whisper up and down the aisle, the understanding being that we’d get together soon.

We didn’t, of course. Not if I could help it.

Eventually Barbara did stop calling, no doubt mystified by my unresponsiveness or perhaps simply tired of my evasive bullshit. Relieved, I nonetheless felt guilty about cold-shouldering her.

But not sufficiently motivated to rectify things.

We did actually meet for a mid-day breakfast once, maybe it was twice, and on an earlier occasion for dinner at a corner restaurant not far from my apartment. (I remember this restaurant as extremely noisy, splashy with color and specializing in French cuisine; it has long since gone to that great Failed Eatery Graveyard in the sky to be replaced by—you guessed it, all of you—a Starbuck’s.)

As I recall that dinner, Barbara was scintillating with excitement about her new job, her ongoing coursework, and her hopes, expectations and worries for Rachel, now very much the (nearly) grown-up young lady. And beyond a few twinges of garden-variety jealousy I had no problem at all with listening to this litany of good fortune, or so I thought. I smiled and nodded, murmuring approvingly between bites of spinach crepe.

I’d always liked Barb after all (though not, as long as I’m being honest here, as immediately as I’d liked Ron, her sardonically funny ex-), and was genuinely happy for her that her life, which had once seemed to me so constricted, had blossomed, becoming full and promising. I was also truly interested to know what Rachel, whom as a teenager I’d baby-sat for several years, was up to now.

So what went wrong? I think the trouble started at exactly that point in the conversation where, following her breathless recitation of the latest wonderful new chapters in her life, Barb smiled, fixed me with an expectant look and questioned me about mine.

This was bad. This was seriously threatening because either I had no news to speak of, good, awful or indifferent, or because the most recent changes in my life were not especially positive ones. I really didn’t want to talk about any of it, and felt horribly ill at ease under the microscope of Barbara’s schoolmarm scrutiny.

I felt, if you must know, unworthy of her company. I felt like schlump, a freak, a loser. As I stammered a halting, abbreviated, vaguely apologetic run-down of my nothing-much week, I could feel both Barb’s concern and her disappointment in me, which only made things worse. I’d wanted to spontaneously burst into flames, to vaporize and evaporate into the air. I’d wanted to disappear.

She’d showed me a letter once, pulling it from her purse and sliding it across the table at me like it was contraband. It was from a long time male friend of hers and Ron’s, written in an elegant longhand, and it had so baffled her that she’d brought the thing with her, wanting to know what I made of it. I recall now only the gist of the letter, which was that he—no idea of the writer’s name—preferred Barb not attempt further contact with him. In his view, their friendship had reached a dead end and (or) had never been all that strong to begin with. He wished her well in all her future endeavors, etc., etc., but please just… stay away.

I was startled, both by the letter’s content and by Barbara’s decision to show it to me. It seemed an awfully personal thing to share with anyone. Mostly though, I couldn’t get over the fact of it—that it had actually even been written, I mean. Imagine receiving—no, imagine sending someone a letter telling him or her that the friendship between you—not romance, mind you, but friendship—was probably never real and was, in any case, over!

In the face of Barb’s bewilderment and (I suspected) underlying anger, I struggled to offer a comforting, sisterhood-is-strong type response, telling her what I knew she wanted to hear, which was that the guy was an insensitive jerk and she was probably well rid of him and his strange, silly-ass issues anyway. A “friend” indeed!

A friend in deed.

Which—I know, okay?—was crap, because as I was reading that letter what I was really thinking was: Wow! How cool is this? What balls, to just flat out tell someone that this relationship of whatever variety is not working, so let’s just leave it at that.

What I couldn’t tell Barb was that where she was floored and disturbed by the writer’s action, I felt I completely understood it, and quietly admired the writer for having had the moxie to do it. I sure as hell didn’t.

I mean look, as hurtful as that letter must have been for Barbara, at least the guy was honest with her or trying to be. I’d said earlier that I was fine with listening to Barb’s bubbly updates, but that wasn’t really true.

Here’s what was true: I didn’t want to know this woman anymore.

I contemplated the Barbara I’d known during my schoolgirl years with her family, remembering the resignation and melancholy beneath her resolute cheerfulness. She had suffered years trapped in a frustrating, unfulfilling job and a marriage built primarily on someone else’s notions of freedom and equality. And, my affection for its occupants notwithstanding, the dynamics of that household used to make me a little uneasy.

To begin with, it felt a little weird that I’d connected first and so strongly with Ron rather than Barb. Not sure why, except that my mom and me were then deep in the muck of that parent-child/ mother-daughter mania, and from the first, Ron was warmly empathetic and supportive.

For all his kindness, charm and generosity, though, Ron Peterson had definite issues and his behavior could be seriously off-putting from time to time. He could be cutting, sarcastic, and unbearably condescending towards his wife.

He could, in fact, become a controlling monster (verbally, that is; I never saw any evidence of physical abuse) with what seemed to me the slightest provocation. And that Ron would think nothing of acting that way right in front me made his tirades that much worse. It was as though he didn’t respect Barb enough—or me either, come to that—to keep his conflicts with her a strictly private matter.

Whenever Ron erupted I would try, as quietly as possible, to remove myself. I was careful never to show open disapproval, my own household having instilled in me a near-Pavlovian instinct toward blank passivity in the face of adult invective. Frozen, I’d listen to Ron’s nastiness with an averted face and a churning stomach, silently enraged at his spewing cruelty.

And yet.

I didn’t want to be mad at Ron, and I didn’t stay mad at him, because—when his mood was clear—I liked him. A lot. I liked his witty conversation, his droll observations, his way of making me feel like a grown-up whenever we talked. He showed me a consideration that seemed beyond him with Barbara. I tried not to dwell on that, but the irony wasn’t lost on me.

I knew that Ron appreciated my nonchalance about his bisexuality and his and Barb’s open marriage arrangement, regarding it I supposed as evidence of an impressive maturity on my part—at least on matters of sexual complexity. In truth—naïve and inexperienced little Catholic girl that I was—I was floored by it, initially anyway, especially when I learned of these intimacies not from Ron or Barbara but from a very matter-of-fact Rachel, then about five and a half years old. I’d gulped down my astonishment, deciding it was politic or something to adopt a sophisticated “whatever” -type attitude about such things, whether I truly felt that way or not.

On the other hand, “gaydar” is real. Did Ron’s gayness—yes, eventually he did come out as gay (And do bisexual married men really exist? Or is the bisexual husband thing just some convenient construct, some psycho-social way station, until these guys figure it out, own up already and move on?)—in some way signal mine, making me more comfortable with him, making us “click” with one another? Possibly. Personally, I rather doubt it.

Ron may have sensed or suspected my queerness, buried as it was under all the usual debris of fear and denial. But I was so clueless at the time, willfully so, it seems to me now, that I don’t trust the “fellow traveler” scenario.

So much for my supposed sophistication.

I was appalled at the ugly displays of Ron’s darker side. The worst of my antipathy however, must have been reserved for his target, Barbara, whose habit, at least in my presence, was to smile weakly and make sotto voce little jokes or vague ineffective protests, weird counterpoint to Ron’s whiny, hyper-critical rants. I would try not to look at Barbara, try not to watch her swallowing whole her humiliation, her pain—and surely her own welling anger.

I’d walk home in the early evenings, seriously pissed off… at Barb. She deserved what she got. She was a spineless marshmallow who would go along to get along rather than stand up to a bullying, self-obsessed husband. She would slog on year after year in a job she’d come to hate rather than take a deep breath, roll up her sleeves, and do whatever it took to find her way to a more fulfilling life. She was a wishy-washy lump, Barb. She was a waste of space.

She was me.

And then one day, she wasn’t anymore.

Time passed, we all went our several ways, and for Barbara came expensive seminars, years of specialized training and the happy discovery of a facility for a technology that was just beginning to boom. The resultant career change (and impressive salary upgrading) must have been sufficiently empowering to prompt Barbara to re-examine other aspects of her life. Eventually, she ended the marriage, sold the house, and became her daughter’s hero.

I was truly impressed with Barb’s achievements, and I wanted to be happy for her, too. But in my own life I was (still) floundering so badly that I just couldn’t relax around the “new” her—I felt she must be judging me, and I resented my nose being rubbed in all her joyful life changes.

I hated the childishness of my behavior, knowing it was as destructive to me as it must have been hurtful to Barbara. I tried to put the brakes on, tried to head off this stubborn whatever-it-was that was compelling me to shun her. I even tried to snap myself out of it by resorting to the strictly mercenary, reminding myself that, if nothing else, Barb Peterson could be an especially valuable friend to have right now: she could be a mentor to me. She’d learned a great deal; I could, I should, try to learn from her. Avoiding her was, I knew, wasting a real opportunity for professional as well as personal growth.

So why did I continue to run from her? And if it had been Ron rather than Barb who’d sought me out, would I have responded similarly?

If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not try to answer that one. Frankly, I don’t want to even think about it.

Alright, I’ll leave you with this: On the rare occasions when just the two of us would converse—as opposed to the three of us where Ron and I would do most of the talking and joking around—Barbara, with her direct gazes and attitude of serious listening, seemed to me to be paying closer attention to whatever I said and, I felt sure, whatever I didn’t say. I’d discovered I could snow Ron, at least about some things, most of the time.

I was never sure what I could get away with, with Barb