2 Directors Share A Birthday on February 28th

Two talented directors share a birthday. I can't help reflect on what a difference it must have made in one man's life to have been in the closet & the other to have been able to be openly & unmistakenly GAY.

The life of Vincente Minnelli, the director of classic MGM musicals like Meet Me in St. Louis, Gigi & An American in Paris, was as peculiar asthe dream ballets that became his trademark. Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in 1903, he grew up the only child in a family of traveling performers in the Midwest. His mother, Mina Mary LaLouche LeBeau, played the ingénue in stock melodramas, while his father, Vincent, conducted the Minnelli Brothers Tent Theater orchestra). In young adulthood, the pathologically shy, stammering Lester, who had had a penchant for trying on his mother’s clothes, read a biography of the flamboyant painter James McNeill Whistler & decided to reinvent himself as a worldly aesthete, working as a window dresser in Chicago before making his name as a designer of lavish theatrical sets in New York. It was there that he became “Vincente.”

Once he moved to Hollywood as a director in MGM’s stable, Minnelli quickly built a reputation as a fearsome perfectionist, despite his passive, retiring personality. A closeted gay man, Minnelli had been known to sport “light makeup” & yet, he married 4 times , most famously, toJudy Garland & he fathered two daughters, including the perpetually re-self-inventing Liza Minnelli.




6’6’’ & Texan, the improbably named-Tommy Tune is an actor/dancer/singer/choreographer/director, & the winner of 9 Tony Awards, the only person in theatrical history to win in 4 different categories & to win the same Tony Award 2 years in a row.

Tommy danced onto the Broadway scene in the chorus of Baker Street in 1965 & hasn't stopped since. I saw him in Michael Bennetts’s Seesaw in 1973, for which he received raves & his first Tony (Best Featured Actor in a Musical). He directed his first show, the off-Broadway production of The Club in 1976. he directed & choreographed The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, A Day in the Hollywood/ A Night in the Ukraine (his 2nd Tony- Best Choreography), Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9, Nine (his 3rd Tony-Best Direction of a Musical), My One & Only (his 4th & 5th Tony-Best Choreography, Best Actor in a Musical). Stepping Out, Grand Hotel (Best Choreography, Best Direction of a Musical), & Will Roger's Follies (Best Choreography, Best Musical).


Tommy Tune has an art gallery in Tribeca . In his 1997 memoir Footnotes, he writes about what drives him as a performer, choreographer & director, offers stories about being openly gay in the world of theatre, his partners David Wolfe & Michael Stuart, about his days with Twiggy in My One & Only & meeting & working with his many idols.

Song Of Bernadette...

Happy Birthday, Bernadette Lazzara! Of all the Broadway Divas: Betty, Barbara, Patti, Chita, Kristin, Audra, Chita, Carol…or even Angela, the one with the most special place in my heart & on my stereo is Bernadette Peters. I first saw her in George M! in 1968 & I absolutley fell in love with the voice, the va va voom curves, the cinnamon curls, the dramatic chops, & the crack comic timing. But, it is really about the voice. She has been working on stage for 57 years: Curley McDimple, Dames At Sea, George M!, On The Town, Mack & Mabel, Sunday In The Park With George, Song & Dance, Into The Woods, The Goodbye Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, & Gypsy.


Bernedette does amazing work for animal rights with her organization with Mary Tyler Moore- Broadway Barks & is the author of a popular children’s book of the same name.


I have seen her many times in musicals & in concert. My personal favorite was Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway in 1999. But again, for me it is all about the voice:

2 Wrongs Don't Make A Right, But 3 Lefts Do

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Born On This Day- February 27th... Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky

She came into my focus as my mother sat me down & explained the entire Elizabeth Taylor + Eddie Fisher – Debbie Reynolds= scandal equation to me at age 5 years old. She remains my mother’s favorite star; they are the same age & born in the same month. She is a favorite of mine & I think she is the last of the great Hollywood Royalty, & very possibly the most beautiful woman of all time. I love her deeply.

Elizabeth Taylor has been a trusted friend to the gay community, & we have loved her right back. She was very close friends & a confidant of gay men: Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, George Cukor, Noel Coward, James Dean & most famously to Montgomery Clift. Were there ever any 2 actors at the apex of their beauty, more stunning than Taylor & Clift kissing in A Place In The Sun?

Elizabeth Taylor is a conundrum: truly classy, but perfectly campy, deeply kind, but shamelessly embarrassing, perennially lonely, but serially monogamous. Pills, coke, booze, men, the commercials, the mascara, Studio 54, the guest apperances on soap operas… Elizabeth Taylor & I got through the 1970s together. She gave audacious performances in film adaptations of “gay” plays as Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer & Cat On A Hot Tim Roof, & Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I appreciate that she has had a taste for expensive pharmaceuticals, rich fabrics & rich men. I tremble at the thought of 8 tumultuous marriages & a public denunciation by the Vatican as a home wrecker. I love her for her dramatic tracheotomy scar, of which she was never ashamed. I appreciate her love affair with jewelry that inspired a book simply titled My Love Affair with Jewelry… it looks handsome on the shelf with my own volume- My Love Affair with Whiskey. I admire her unswerving devotion to her friends, to gay people, & for gay activism & attention to fund raising for HIV/AIDS. My feelings are simpatico as Elizabeth & I both have lived with incidents replete with slurred speech, inelegant gestures of elegance & displays of dignity in the face of devastation & ruin. She turns 78 today.

"But I Simply Can Not Do It... Alone!"

Before we were an item, & for the first few years that we were a couple, the Husband & worked on many theatre projects together, in many different capacities. I directed him in The Shadow Box (1978) & he directed me in Noel Coward's Hay Fever (1979- for which he also did the costumes, sets & lights). We acted in the same pieces a few times, always hard on the Husband because I am always an audience favorite. Still, the Husband has considerable talents as a performer himself, with excellent acting chops, better than average dancing skills, & a sweet singing voice. We have toyed with the idea of having some sort of act as a duo, something fun for us to do as a couple. So, we got back to the gym, practiced on weekends & came up with a little act that we debuted last Saturday night for a small gathering of friends & acquaintances. We were fortunate enough to have this performance on tape:

Alvy Singer: "That Sex Was The Most Fun I've Ever had Without Laughing."

Alvy Singer: "A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies... & I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."





I lived in NYC in the mid-1970s. NYC then is not the NYC now. I lived in Manhattan during the time that the city was bankrupt, with the garbage strike, a major power blackout & Son Of Sam. Still, I was living in the center of culture & I loved it, & I never took it for granted. Everyday I would say- “wow, I live in New York City!”


I lived with my former college boyfriend- WCK3 (who was attending Julliard) on the Upper West Side (87th between Columbus & Amsterdam), which in that era was the frontier. Brooklyn, except for Brooklyn Heights, was no-wheres-ville. I once went to a party in Prospect Heights & I was scared for my life. If someone had told me that in the next century, Brooklyn would be source of all things hip & that citizens would choose to live in Hoboken, I would have thought them daft.


I was in NYC to study acting at HB Studios with a very inspirational teacher- Austin Pendelton. I had what I think was my favorite job ever, working at ASCAP as a music monitor. I had a cubicle with a window that looked directly on to Lincoln Center. It had a a bird's eye view of the fountains & the Chagall tapestries at the Metropolitan Opera House.

The American Society of Composers Authors is is a membership association of more than 370,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, & music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing & distributing royalties for the public performances of their copyrighted works.  ASCAP makes giving & obtaining permission to perform music simple for both creators & users of music. I was given reel to reel tapes with 6 hours from random radio broadcasts. I would have to listen & list all the pieces of music, even bridges & cues. Anything beyond 6 hours would bring me a bonus. ASCAP chose staff with different musical expertise, mine being the Great American Songbook- popular & theatre music from the 20th century. If you had a tape with music that you were not familiar with, I could patch through to the expert in that genre, & have them listen & help you out. I was always delighted when I had a tape from some rural station doing the Farm Report, with so little music I could breeze right through a 4 hour tape, but I would need some help identifying the hillbilly tunes. I don't know my Flatts & Scruggs.


To make ends meet, I worked part time in the box office at the Metroplitan Opera House. Danny Kaye had a series of concerts for children to introduce them to classical music & opera. At one point in the performance, Danny Kaye would speak about how many people it took to present an opera. The curtain would rise on all the staff, crew, & performers that could be spared from their work & rehearsals would be standing there- 200+ bodies. For years I presented my acting resume with a credit for appearing in the Danny Kaye Concerts for Children at the Met. I would have my sack lunch sitting in the house of this gorgeous theatre & watch rehearsals for American Ballet Theatre (in the Met that season) & for The Dialogues of the Carmelites  & Einstein On The Beach. ABT had a new, hot & very interesting new dancer who had just defected from Russia- Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov. He looked yummy in his rehearsal gear.


We met "cute" in the stationary store at ground level of the ASCAP building. I eyed him, he glanced at me, we managed to be in the same aisle looking at the same notebook. This is how  cruising was done before the internet. He was Bronx born, Jewish, neurotic, seeing a shrink, smart, & funny. He was a former rabbinical student, now setting out to be writer. He was also a Stephen. He was very handsome (he looked like a young Frank Langella) &  quite cosmopolitan. We kissed, but didn't have sex until the 5th date.  I was impressed. Any kind of restraint was new to me. Our relationship was right of Annie Hall, a film we saw together at the Carnegie Hall Cinema. I was, of course, playing the Diane Keaton role- west coast & wasp. He showed me a New York I wouldn't have known about on my own. He took me on a tour of the homes & haunts of famous writers: Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, Dylan Thomas, Truman Capote, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Chaim Potok, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mel Brooks, Herman Melville & more. We made visits to the Plaza Hotel, Algonquin Hotel, The White Horse Inn, the Chelsea Hotel & Washington Sqaure. We made frequent stops for martinis.

On a beautiful spring day, Stephen & I walked from The Cloisters to The Battery- 11.5 miles of Manhattan history. We started drinking about mid-town, stopping about once an hour to "refresh". Then we went back to his floor- through, pre-war 2 bedroom, book filled apartment across from The Bronx Zoo, where we smoked joints & watched the Academy Awards. Rocky won Best Film over Network & Taxi Driver. I could only be consoled with 3 hours of making love... New York Style. Stephen was "gifted."


Stephen & I broke over geography & because we had a dead shark on our hands. He had no need to leave the 5 boroughs of NYC, & I was exhausted from having 2 jobs just to barely get by in this, the toughest of cities, &  I moved back to my beloved West Coast. We did not stay in touch. I soon met & fell in love with the man who would become my Husband & lived happily ever after... but I still think about Stephen & our year of living Annie Hall. Maybe he will read this.

300th Post

Here is a quick visual summary on how my day is going so far.

Cat: who wants to make love with me? Anyone? Hands up! Anyone... No?... Well I'll just be over here making eyes at you as I display my feminine wiles to these stuffed turtles- in case you experience a change of heart. How about if I stick my butt a little further into the air? Do you like that? Can I see a show of hands for some lovemaking? Everyone line up.. I'm going to arch and make some attractive noises. You're not lining up.. You must be busy. How about a quickie in the pantry then? I'll follow you all the way over there by doing the sexy inchworm to get you in the mood. The pantry is just this way, come along! *inch* *stretch* *inch* stretch* ...

Star Fucker

The Husband has occasionally accused me of being a star fucker.... not completely untrue, but that is another post for another day.


I have always been attracted to talented people & I have sometimes had crushes on guys, foremost, because of their talent. Hey... it is what first brought my eye to my future husband who is first rate-A+ designer/artist.


In my little insignificant lifetime, I have been fortunate enough to have met some very famous & fabulously talented people. I have been directed by Cameron Crowe, Lawrence Kasdan & Gus Van Zant. I have worked with some extraordinarily talented actors.


When I was in college in LA, my friends from Theatre Department & I had the audacity to crash the Metro-Goldywn-Mayer 50th Anniversary Party & premiere of the film- That's Entertainment. The entire event was Jack Haley Jr.’s idea. This event was attended by M-G-M's Royalty: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Donna Reed, Esther Williams, Lassie, Jimmy Durante, Ava Gardner, Shirley MacLaine, Louis Jordan, Jane Powell, Jackie Cooper, Debbie Reynolds, Howard Keel, June Allyson, James Stewart, Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston, Margaret O' Brian, Marge Champion, Janet Leigh, Tony Martin, Cyd Charisse, George Burns, Nannette Fabray, Buddy Ebson, Merle Oberon, Myrna Loy, Donald O' Connor, Ginger Rogers, Johnny Weissmiller, Roddy McDowell, Alexis Smith, Keenan Wynn, Eva Gabor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jack Haley, Tom Drake, Adele Astaire, Dan Daily, Vic Damone, Gloria Swanson, Andy Williams, Dennis Morgan, George Hamilton, Marjorie Main, the Nicholas Bros, Virginia O Brien, Ann Rutherford & many others. A few people on the list were not M-G-M stars, but it was the largest premiere I had ever known of, & all the "anyone who is anybodies" were on the red carpet on this evening.

My friends & I had planned it months in advance, reserving a suite at the hotel & "borrowing" formal wear from the costume department. I got in by attaching myself to Dennis Day, who's daughter was a schoolmate. I sat at Merle Oberon's table & I still have her place card. I met & chatted with many stars. My most memorable moment from this evening was a conversation with Elizabeth Taylor (breathtaking in a yellow gown with yellow jewels), who asked me about myself. I explained that I was theatre major at Loyola Marymount. She told me that her training was all done at the studio. M-G-M had its own program of speech, elocution, singing, & dancing. She touched my arm & whispered to me that she hated her speaking voice & thought she would have been better thought of as an actor if she had had "Greer Garson's voice". She was friendly, tiny, & lovely.


I have been fortunate to work with some wonderful actors that also turned out to be really great people.

I got my SAG card for an episode of Murder She Wrote, which at that point had not been on the air. This episode was the 3rd one filmed. My scenes were shot on the rooftop of a building in Belltown in Seattle. I spent a lot of time with Angela Lansbury sitting under a large umbrella, so neither of us would get sunburned. I had to remind her that we had met once before- in the parking structure of the Shubert Theatre in LA, after a matinee of GYPSY (she was the best Mama Rose ever!). I had stopped her as she was getting into a very ordinary automobile (no limo & driver), that she was driving herself. I told her how much I had loved the show & told her that this production of Gypsy was the high point in my young theatre going life. Ms. Lansbury took time to ask about me & again I told her that I was a theatre major at Loyola Marymount. She was gracious, charming & funny.


When I was filming I LOVE YOU TO DEATH, I ended up by default, having lunch with Joan Plowright, as we had both been dismissed early from the set. She asked me about the California poppies that were growing in the cracks of the sidewalk at our location in a vacant lot in Tacoma. I told her all about the flowers & we had a long conversation about gardening. I later sent her some California poppy seeds & she returned the gesture with a lovely thank you note. I never once mentioned Lord Olivier during our hour together.


Also on that shoot...when the van picked me & Kevin Kline up to go to location, Mr. Kline extended his hand & said- "hello, I am Kevin Kline". I said- "no kidding!" He asked me about the Seattle theatre scene & I congratulated him on his recent Oscar win & new baby. He was manic & zany on the set. Tracey Ullman was very serious on set, but we did chat a bit.


I have worked with Matt Dillon twice. He always had lunch with the crew, not in his trailer. Working with Keifer Sutherland in The Vanishing was very much the same. He put himself out as” just one of the guys". They were both personable & great to work with.

When filming DRUGSTORE COWBOY, Matt Dillon stayed & fed me his lines for all of the reverse shots of me. He didn’t have to, this job is often done by a P.A. One afternoon in Seattle, I was in the antique store that the Husband worked at. We were standing with a small group of friends & the owner of the shop. Matt Dillon & entourage entered the shop. Our little group buzzed about Matt Dillon being in the shop. The Husband said to our group- "Steve knows Matt Dillon" & everyone just sort of snorted, smiled a bit & looked like- “yeah, sure he does". Matt Dillon looked around the shop, our eyes met & he said- "Yo, Steve, my man!" Our little group had whiplash from their double takes.


I was a minor celebrity in Seattle in the 1980s-90s. In the mid-80s I had a very good & very showy role in a hit show- ER/EMERGENCY ROOM that ran for 18 months to sell out audiences. I appeared very nearly naked in this show, & I had a 90 minute workout, 6 days a week at the gym. My character in this play did something & said something that became a bit of a "catch phrase" in Seattle during that era. For the next few years I would be stopped almost every day by a stranger who would imitate me in ER/Emergency Room. The Husband hated it, I think. I was also in print ads that were used on the sides of buses, on billboards & as a full page on the back of the Seattle Times. I used to see myself all over town. One billboard was at the end of the Fremont Bridge, & we had a peek-a-boo view of the billboard from our bungalow in Wallingford. There I was...lit up in lights!


In all my dealings with famous folk, I have never asked for an autograph from anybody. But, I am happy to sign them for the fans. I still feel it is a gigantic cosmic mistake that I don’t have my own TV show- Steve!.

No good conversation ever began with the words, "My Dad cut my hair once..."

See my beautiful baby girl who does NOT need a haircut? Before...

Dear Fathers of the Universe & World:

If you ever get the notion in your helpful brain that you should, in fact, cut your daughter's lovely hair as a 'surprise' for your wife, I'm going to go ahead and advise you that this is not a plan that will earn you brownie points, unless you are, in fact, Vidal Sassoon. Whom you are not. All brownie points earned thus far will be VOID. NULL AND VOID AND NULL. You will be in brownie point debt. Hell even. Dog House Brownie Point HELL. No brownies will ever be made again unless I happen to crave them.

You may not cut her hair. EVER. Even if it 'seems' long. Even if there is a plane propeller, a wild badger, grandma's pacemaker, gum, bread dough, a money clip full of money, a hot wheels track, Amy Winehouse's weird legs, a barbie head, an airplane banner, car parts, an Olympic medal, a missing person, the power line, your iphone, the holy grail, a basket of kittens, Jesus, a chainsaw, chicken wire, you career, a machine gun or the meaning of life tangled into it. Just step backward with the scissors and consult the girl's mother. If someone has broken in and has placed a gun to your head, instructing you to cut your daughter's bangs off at their source, stall them until your wife can get there so that you can ask her if it's okay. Which it isn't.

She's 2 and even she knows she's ticked.

Secondly, choosing the day that she falls on her face and gets herself a HUGE goose egg in the middle of her forehead is not a good time to lop off said "hidey hair". She now looks like Mick Jagger after a particularly druggy show and I'm going to have to explain it to everyone. Stranger: "AwWWww, what happened to her?" Me: "Yeah, her Dad did that" Then the stranger gasps and dials up the cops... Hassle.

Thirdly. You chose a mullet. My beautiful baby girl has an honest to God mullet. If you wake up with a picture of a clown crudely shaved into the side of your head- do not be surprised. It took me a YEAR to grow out the natural mullet she was born with. A YEAR.

Look: She has the same haircut now as this guy from, "don't judge my hair dot com".

After.

The only way you can tell that the following photo is not a true picture of her, is because she doesn't have an addam's apple or a shaving cut on her neck in real life.

All kinds of creepy.

Love Michelle.



PS....Edited to add:

Nope. It didn't magically get better overnight.
:(


I'm too mad to care about grammar.

Quote Of The Day

"How are things going Mr. Torrance?"

 "Things could be better Lloyd."

Dysfunction Junction, What's your Function?

I have an almost teenager.

This morning he got very upset with me because his sister's lunch had yogurt in it and that made it bigger than his lunch. You can see the problem here.. He doesn't like yogurt and it comes home warm, wasted and uneaten appx 103% of the time, but that is entirely beside the point. He clings to his new household moniker of garbage guts like it's his glorious, crowning achievement and life's work completed. Nobody else is allowed to have more food. He takes it personally. Whether or not he likes yogurt- That's not the point, you see. We just don't get him. No we don't. Help us.

Kid: *suspicious face* Uhhh.... Why is HER lunch bigger than mine? I am working on my new fat roll. I've grown and used my last one all up. I should have the bigger lunch. This makes no sense. No sense at all.

Me: Hers is bigger because you don't like yogurt. You want a yogurt? Here. Have one! Now you also have a peach yogurt making your lunch the exact same size. The fate of your future fat roll is well insured.

Kid: Well I have chili and she has a sandwich..

Me: Uh huh.... You have buttered bread AND chili and yogurt and a granola bar and fruit and cookies and money for chips later. Plus you said that you are sick of sandwiches.. so I put chili in. Because it's your favourite thing. You're welcome??

Kid: She has strawberry milk and I don't.

Me: That's basically for two reasons. The first is that we obviously love her more and that can be clearly measured through meticulously quantifying your lunch sizes, the second is that you are signed up for the chocolate milk program at your school and she doesn't get chocolate milk at hers... So she takes milk in her little milk container. All kids have milk?- CHECK.

Kid: *thinking of more reasons to prove that the entire world is conspiring to starve him to death* Well I'm the one who is growing. Remember? I ate an adult sized portion of fettucine alfredo last night AND a loaf of bread AND a salad AND ice cream??

Me: I remember because I paid for all of that. You poor thing. Secondly, your sister also grows so that isn't the most sound argument I've ever heard... Why don't you waltz over to the pantry and pick out more stuff and put it in your lunch yourself if you find that the service here is inadequate?

Kid: WELL I WOULD but I can't fit any more food into my (giant) lunch kit.

Me: *tap tap* Kids are starving all over the world. There are kids going blind in sweatshops painting your heroscape game pieces...... Some kids don't get lunches.. You have both of your arms, 29387429384729342323 more analogies about worldwide pain and horrible suffering.

Kid: *blink* *blink* *looking over at the tv with one eyeball, keeping the other one fixed on me*

Me: I saw your eye wandering. I know you're not listening..... hey..... helllooooo???.... KID..... hey..... PSSST... HEY!

Kid: ......Huh? I was listening.

Me: Guess what! You are officially old enough to make all of your own lunches! Congratulations. You've passed the teenager self entitlement test. If we have to keep making your lunches, we're going to also start including love notes written to you on the backs of your baby pictures, cut out to be heart shaped. You know the baby picture I'm talking about... you're wearing Grandma's purple high heels and you're naked and you're wearing a huge straw hat, watching TV... It's SO cute! Or maybe the one of you in your homemade Robot halloween costume from grade one!....

Baby wipe box feet! Dryer vent legs! SO Cute :)

Kid: You wouldn't dare.....

Me: Oh I would. Your imaginary audience will LOVE it.

Kid: *silence*

Me: WAPOW!! *flexing arms/walk like an Egyption dance* Now scamper off to school you little munchkin, before I drive you there dressed like-A-THIS! *displaying Neil's beer print pajamas & Robo-Roach Sweatshirt, Vanna White style, moving on to my morning hair as previously discussed here*.... And don't forget to have a wonderful day!

Time for my victory coffee.

Steve! The Live Experience with Special Guest Star- Dinah Shore

I still have my wits about me in my late 50s. This is despite decades of sustaining myself on my 3 major food groups: Whiskey, Pizza, & Mary Jane, & yet, I am still a font of show business trivia. I recently demonstrated that I can name the composer & lyricist, Broadway show, stars, director & producer associated with almost any song from the first 6 decades of the 20th century, all to a small audience that could have cared less. But, like most people who have made it to their 6th decade, I can get a bit addled if I am not concentrating.

This week I was continually hearing radio & TV spots for a big major, multi-media, high tech event with the provocative title of Walking With Dinah Shore. This event was teasing me with the offer of dazzling & astounding, 20 million dollar arena spectacle with 15 life size & life-like Dinah Shores walking the earth once more!



I had always found Dinah to be a charming, even underrated singer & TV personality. I would sometimes catch her on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show (“see the USA in your Chevrolet”) in the late 1950s, her television musical specials in the 1960s, & her 2 talk shows- Dinah & Friends & Cooking With Dinah in the 1970s. I recall trying to wrap my head around the Burt Reynolds + Dinah Shore romance. I was somewhat bewildered that she was Jewish, but her ticket to fame was her “Southern Charm” (I tought Jews were only in NYC or L.A). I have been out of the loop on how her name became connected with something having to do with Palm Springs, Golf & the Lesbian version of the White Party.



But nothing flummoxed me as to how there was touring extravaganza with 15 animatronic Dinahs, that was soon to fill The Rose Quarter Arena in Portland, “thrilling for all ages”, before moving on to Lake Tahoe. It seemed that I was loosing my touch with the pulse of what was popular. & here I was, thinking how cool I was to be in late middle-age & enjoying the musical pleasures of Vampire Weekend & Lady GaGa. I was loathed to admit that I wasn’t GaGa for Walking With Dinah Shore.



To add to my confusion, I misunderstood the morning news, & I believed that the Dali Lama was having a joint press conference with Tiger Woods.

Words To Live By

“Well, I could make an effort to be liked, but I’d rather be hated than inconvenienced.”

                                        Wilhelmina Slater

Wystan Hugh Auden... Born On This Day- February 21st

He was British in 1907, but he chose the USA as his home. In the 1930s,he once lived in an apartment in Brooklyn with gay artists Carson McCulllers & Benjamin Britten. A friend & contemporary of Christopher Isherwood, W.H.Auden’s work has perhaps the widest range &the greatest depth of any English language poet of the past 3 centuries. Auden wrote in a voice that addressed readers personally rather than as part of a collective audience. His styles & forms extend from ballads & songs to haiku & limericks to sonnets, prose poems, & constructions of his own invention. His tone ranges from spirited comedy to memorable & profound, often in the same work. His poems manage to be secular & sacred, philosophical & erotic, personal & universal. This poem- Funeral Blues opened new interest in Auden’s work when it was featured in the film 4 Weddings & a Funeral:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos & with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


He was my North, my South, my East & West,
My working week & my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'


The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon & dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean & sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Auden on the left, with Stephen Spender, center & Christopher Isherwood on the right

He wrote much erotic poetry, most not published in his lifetime, & by erotic, I mean dirty, really dirty:

               

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack & the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.


I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady & slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll of my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.


Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse & massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.


Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich & thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

(written in 1948)

Born On This Day- February 21st... Billionaire David Geffen

I married once for love. It was worth it & it had to be done. A psychic told the Husband that we have had some sort of relationship for many lifetimes. I love him & I married him for love. I married once for love & the next time... I am going to marry for money. I have my eye on David Geffen. he turns 67 today. I hope he received my birthday card.

David Geffen is probably the most successful business person in the entertainment industry, with net worth estimated at $4.4 billion in 2009 (Forbes). Geffen made his money the old fashioned way, starting in the New York mailroom of the William Morris Agency. His overly aggressive style fit right in at Morris where he quickly became the agent for rising East Coast music talent. By the time he was 27, he had his first multi-million dollar deal by signing songwriter Laura Nyro to Columbia. As an independent agent, & with his own label- Asylum, Geffen became a real player in the music biz, representing established artists/groups & creating new ones: The Association, Janis Joplin, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. In 1971 he was able to sell Asylum to Warner Bros. for $7 million & became head of Warner's Elektra/Asylum label in 1973. He retired the first time in 1976, burned out & dealing with a cancer diagnosis that turned out to be a false alarm.


The next phase of Geffen's career started in 1980 when he came out of retirement to start Geffen Records. He signed some of the biggest acts including Elton John, Donna Summer, & Neil Young. Tough & controversial, Geffen was often at legal odds with his artists & partners. He gained a reputation as a money man who exploited the talent. Geffen rose above it all, & signed Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith, Don Henley, Peter Gabriel, & Cher to send Geffen Records to sales of $300 million by 1990 & then more success in the 1990s with Nirvana & Sonic Youth. Geffen Records was sold to MCA in 1990 for stock, & Geffen received $710 million when MCA was sold to Matsushita Electric 3 years later. The prolific Geffen  produced movies during this period: Risky Business, Beetlejuice, The Last Boy Scout, Lost in America, & Little Shop of Horrors, & Broadway shows- Cats, Miss Saigon, & M. Butterfly.


In 1994, Geffen founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg & Jeffrey Katzenberg, where he focused on the music component of the business by running DreamWorks Records. DreamWork's pop music business was less than stellar, but he did catch the trend in country music with stars including Randy Travis & Toby Keith. In 2003, Universal Music Group purchased DreamWorks Music for $100 million. In 2005, Viacom/Paramount agreed to pay $1.6 billion to acquire DreamWorks SKG. Geffen paid $33 million for his founder's shares, worth about $600 million in the acquisition. He is the de facto head of the much feared Velvet Mafia.

I think his billions would look good on me & I would make my personal trainer, yoga teacher,& personal assistant very happy. &… I would take you all out for lunch, cocktails & shopping. Feel free to use the Malibu house anytime you want!

A better blog than the last one, but kind of in bullets.

1.

Neil says that I look like Syndrome from the Incredibles in the morning:

Maybe. Maybe if Syndrome & Donald Trump & Don King got together & had a love child it might be me in the morning. Uh... I guess it's maybe time to visit a salon.

2.

These people deserve more subscribers. Go there, damn you. Subscribe. Leave comments. Show them some nerd love. Get them started. You will get to brag later that you were one of the first to subscribe.

Texitoba (formerly Amberbunny) -Amber. My longtime blog bud. She migrates between Texas & Manitoba- we don't remember why. She stopped blogging for a while, but she is back with a new, hilarious blog. You'll love Amberbunny. Honest. Me love her longtime. Look up, "Orange Neck Arms" on her blog and see if you can figure it out. I'm still wracking my brain.

think.stew - New to blogging but not to writing. He writes for a newspaper column. Dave was my highschool English teacher and I taught him and his daughter at guitar camp. So I'm his old guitar teacher pupil. I hate saying I'm someone's 'old' something. It makes me feel all long in the tooth. My teeth are only medium length tyvm. The point is that we're all aging and can't escape it unless you're that wretched Mila Jovanovich, who has somehow sidestepped it. What was I talking about?? Right. New blogs. Anyhow, go there and give it a read. The latest entry is about merits of nostrils that don't age.

3.

Last night, while at the theatre, Neily snuck over and put a flower on my windshield. I was so thrilled by this. I didn't know it was him, so I was like, Either I've been random act of kindnessed or marked for a car bomb. Either way I feel special. So I tweeted it on twitter like this:

Then someone retweeted it with the same caption but this picture:

It never stops being funny.

4.

Sock Zombie Winner Announced Here. HelLLlloO? Where's my winner?

The Tooth Hurts- A diamond amongst the gravel?

Well. I'm glad that contest is over. Now I can resume randomy publication.

So last night I took Ben to the movie, "The Tooth Hurts". *SPOILER ALERT* I foresee it toppling even the likes of Valentines day at the box office. The Rock delivers a startlingly palpable depiction of aging pro hockey player, Derek Thompson, who has settled into his popular, albeit uninspired, role of thug and is known for knocking the teeth out of his opponents. He is so snugly tucked into his infamy as such, that he no longer finds any reason to expect more from himself

He reaches such a comfort level in his misery that it has not allowed him to score a goal in nine years and he is on the verge of being dethroned by a bigheaded new up-and-comer who challanges Thompson's image at every turn with such slanderous slights such as "Old timer" and "Pops". His personal life takes a turn for the worst when he begins to lose hope and takes a stance of brutal honestly, even when dealing with children, telling them that their dreams and aspirations are too far fetched to ever become reality; going so far as to tell his girlfriend's 6 year old daughter that there is no tooth fairy and that her talented son will likely never become the rock star that he dreams of.

He is woken one morning to find that he has sprouted fairy wings and a summons to Fairy Land where is taken under the watchful eye of Julie Andrews, the no-nonsense head fairy, who charges him with publicly obliterating the dreams of children and is thusly sentenced to serve as a tooth fairy for two weeks. He very awkwardly takes on the role, much to he chagrin of his nerdy and enthusiastic fairy case worker, Tracy, who was born without wings and sadly doomed for office work. Through persistence and empathy, Thompson learns the importance of allowing oneself and others to strive for a seemingly unlikely goal, which revives not only his career but renews the bond between him and his new step-family as he breaks free from his jaded point of view & learns to say, What if.

It reminds us of the constant battles we have to reconcile ourselves with in the face of frustration. When we are at crises, do we just give in to ourselves, wallowing in bitter discontentment indefinitely? We are put in mind of how that brand of toxin seeps into the lives of the people around us and poisons them from us. A lesson that most of us can hold onto.

Yep. I am pretty sure you're all misting up and buying your movie tickets online in another window as I type this. Want to know something even funnier? Neil read this and said, "So it was good? I mean it sounds like it was better than I'd have expected. You know, the Rock has two degrees."

Me: No, of course it wasn't good. Do I even have to tell you how nauseating it was? The Rock plays a hockey star gone reluctant tooth fairy and saves the day. I threw up in my mouth like 11 times. What we learned is that it's okay to break into your girlfriend's house in the middle of the night in a silky outfit to share secrets with her children without her knowing.. Inappropriate. What annoyed me was when he got caught, she wasn't like, "What in the hell is going on here..? I'm calling the cops immediately.", she was all, "AwWWwWWwww... you broke into my kids' room in the middle of the night in a fairy costume without my knowledge after I broke up with you.... I love you."

Neil: Oh. Then why did you write this?

Me: I unno. To see if I could write a glowing review of 'The Tooth Hurts"?

Neil: I see....

I'm pretty fun to live with I think..

Kids... Don't Try This At Home!

This is a bit of a tawdry tale. Please, don’t be too shocked or too displeased.

I attended college in Boston the year after graduating from high school. I chose Boston because it was so far away from Spokane, where I grew up. I loved Boston that year. If you are from the West Coast, Boston seemed like being in Europe. There were buildings from the 17th century. People had funny accents. I had never heard of hoagies or frappes or rotaries, & “regular” coffee meant cream & sugar. Boston in the early 1970s was an excellent place to be a young person; the city seemed to be filled with students from all the different colleges.


On a very frozen, but clear New England day, my friend Lynn & I dropped some acid (so nonchalant) & set out for an adventure. We decided on the Sheraton Back Bay which connects to the Prudential Tower with, what at the time was the best view of Boston.


Our elevator stopped on the 4th floor & a nicely dressed woman entered. When the lift started to move, our elevator guest turned to us & questioned- “Can I use the bathroom in your room”. We explained that we were not guests in the hotel. She then stated- “I know it sounds odd, but I really need to go & I am not scary or a weirdo. I just really need to go & I can’t use public facilities.” Lynn & I again explained that we were not hotel guests & were merely going to the observation deck for the view. The woman, with more urgency & an edge of panic- “I know you are staying here & I need to use the bathroom in your room. You need to let me use it!” We equaled her intensity & dropped our edge of politeness as we were adamant that we had no hotel room.


The woman stared us down, hiked up her skirt, squatted & peed on the elevator floor. I kept thinking… why is this happening while I am tripping? We didn’t stick around for the viewpoint.

On the way home, I remembered that I had a walnut study due for drawing class the next day with my favorite teacher- Tomie DePaola, & I had neglected to buy some walnuts to use as models (could I fake a walnut drawing?). As I voiced my concern to Lynn, she exclaimed- “Oh my God, what a stroke of luck. Right there, on the sidewalk…look, it’s a walnut! What are the chances?” I could not believe my good luck, & I picked up the walnut & stuck it in my pocket. A few block later, I pulled the walnut out to marvel at the luck of finding a walnut on the sidewalk, just as I needed one for drawing class. The walnut felt different in my hand. It was melting. It was not a walnut after all, but a frozen turd & it was changing form as I held it in my warm hand. This discovery sent my friend into a fit of laughter so intense that she peed her pants, which then froze before we made it back to her room.


My question to the universe that afternoon: why do these things happen when I am tripping on acid? & all this was happening while my future Husband was in the US Army protecting us from the godless communists.

This is what I was listening to in Boston, Winter 1972/73:




David Bowie
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars


Nick Drake .
Pink Moon


The Rolling Stones
Exile on Main St.
Curtis Mayfield
Superfly


Donny Hathaway
Live


Lou Reed
Transformer


Stevie Wonder
Talking Book


T. Rex
The Slider


Al Green
I'm Still in Love With You


Roxy Music
Roxy Music

In which I Announce the Winner of the Sock Zombie.

For fairness, I let my kid do the picking from THIS glorious mug of Neil's that I pilfered from his office of animator wonders and treasures:



Also, I let him choose because I hand-cut each entry and placed them into the mug, shook it up and then couldn't fit my manhands into it to retrieve a paper. I should have thought this through. (Sciency-Mathy term about judging measurement) is not my forte.

Here he announces the winner and complains about my handwriting:

Congratulations to KEEPEE-YAN YON AWACK..

You da winna. That's right. Yes- That's how I announced it. You da winna. Say it with me. ya da wanaa. yer der werner. Yer wern... What is wrong with me? Nameless entrant and twitter buddy, 'KeepingYouAwake', who swears to me that he is a deformed freak and only needs a homemade flair button maker to complete him, will hopefully be solaced with a sock monster. Alas, I have no homemade button maker to offer.


Some highlights from his house-of-horrors collection:

"The Wooden Boy. He holds his bowl laboriously, full of fake mustaches. Carved from a single piece of wood, and I am not positive he's not really alive."

The fact that this is used as a fake mustache holder really just goes to show that everything has a use.

"Classic Car Dash for your wall. This is a GIANT art piece, made to look like the interior of a classic car. It has working dimmable dash lights, a working clock and (drumroll) a functional stereo and speaker."

I want this for my wedding.

"A plaster cast of Falstaff from Shakespeare fame. Won this in a random auction box once. Everyone needs a fat guy getting drunk for their desk."

It reminds me of my Dad... who isn't even drunk, nor does he have a beard. But he does take vacation photos of himself comparing his belly to Buddha and such and then puts them on the foozebook, so.. some of these things explain my personality.

So, Guy with no name, Email me your address and stuff and I'll send this dude out. Everyone , go to his website and read the rest of the entry, though. High-larious. These are only three of I think... 34.

I have preeminent guilt for not having consolation prizes for everyone. Like... everyone should get a ribbon. I lived for those when I was a kid and we had to do track meets. Look! I got 8 ribbons! All were green and said 'participant' and were jauntily cut with pinking shears at the bottom, except once when I got 3rd place in high jump. THAT one went on my bedroom wall, framed by my NKOTB posters and album cover (yes- stuck to the wall with a sewing pin) for the Chanda the Zoo's baby Elephant single that my sister bought for me as a souvenir on her class trip to Calgary. Highly sought after. I cherished the crap out of it.

♪ ♫When Kamala found out she was going to be a mooother
She blurted out the news to Bandara the faaaather
And all the animals honked and hooted to each oooother
The zoo is gonna have a baby elephannnnnnt!

Chaaanda the zoo's baby elephant
Born in the mammal house, right in his element
Born here in Calgary and that's very releeeevant
'Cause that makes him an honorary Calga-rary resident
Chandaaaaaaa♪ ♫ ♫

I listened to it a lot, clearly, since I can still recall the lyrics perfectly and instantly. Jealous? Okay maybe I still sing it a lot. Whatev. You don't know me. You don't know what I've been through. Oh right, this has nothing to do with the contest- except that I've made a participant ribbon hoard-award so that all the successful participants can place it into their blog and happily show their depressed parents the communist prize in mediocrity:


I will say that the hand chosen runner up by me, who wins nothing but a wince, though, is KRISTEN, who submitted a portrait of her husband; a terrible portrait of her husband; THIS portrait of her husband:

Nice right? No it isn't. But here is the interesting news about that: It was painted by, in prison by, lovingly by, commissioned by...... John Wayne Gacy (!). I know, I nearly fell into my oatmeal when I read this. Read the story here. This is her husband- painted by Gacy. Think about that. What do you do with a possession such as this? You leave it at a church, that's what. You just take it straight to a church and tell them that your soul is tainted from touching it. There, they will pour holy water all over it, but it will burst into flames and the holy water will just evaporate leaving it intact and stuck to your hands, so you'll try throwing it into a river, but it doesn't sink. It just hovers over the water and flies back to your wall. Right in your dining room. Then Christopher Lloyd breaks through the wall in green dry-icy-smokey-light and tells you that he is looking for this painting for his boudoir, since he's the antichrist. So you get a crow bar and you hit it and hit it and curse it and hit it and jump on it, but NOTHING HAPPENS, or maybe you get sucked into the painting and you have to sit there beside Kristen's husband, badly painted by a serial killer for all eternity. It is just too creepy for this universe. The brown burning flames in the background are an interesting touch, though. You know, it IS pretty neutral and would go with almost any decor.

You know, Kristen says it doesn't look much like her husband. Do you know why, Kristen? Because it looks like John Wayne Gacy minus the mustache. I think it's actually a self portrait and you could definitely sell it on ebay as such. Put them beside each other and you'll see it. Do it.

Maybe he could have like, set up an art stand in the park or something instead of serial killing everyone. That would have been a much more positive outlet.

Anyway, you all are lucky that I was drawing names from el homely purple mug, because that would have been the hands down, undisputable champion of creepy possessions and there were some pretty questionable entries- the highlights of which are to follow. It'll be like the closing ceremony of the the Fuglympics where we all unite and celebrate the diversity of our hoarding disorders.

Thanks for participating you guys! This was great! I can't wait to think up a new contest.

Also, sorry you didn't win, Mom! I did put your name in- since I KNOW what kinds of things you own *cough* drunk cowboy lamps*... *cough* clowns to watch your guests in the guestroom*..... *cough* man sized skeletal robot that you bought for my 5 year old child while I was in the hospital to place beside his bed, insisting that we keep it because you paid $20, even though it gave us all night terrors and said, "We. are. Friends." and had bare eyeballs.... *cough* panda painting from roadside fleamarket, he which now that I think about it, might have also been painted by a serial killer in prison. I know though, you like it.

*EDITED TO ADD- Also, I must have picked up the consolation prize idea from Will in my travels. Credit due for genius gathered.