Summer Song- Something's Coming

Could be!

Who knows?

There's something due any day

I will know right away

Soon as it shows

It may come cannonballing

 Down through the sky,

Gleam in its eye,

Bright as a rose!

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach

Down the block, on a beach

Under a tree

I got a feeling there's a miracle due,

Gonna come true,

Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.

Something's coming, something good,

If I can wait!

Something's coming, I don't know what it is,

But it is

Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,

Phone will jingle, door will knock,

Open the latch!

Something's coming, don't know when

 But it's soon

Catch the moon,

One-handed catch!

Around the corner,

Or whistling down the river,

Come on, deliver

To me!

Will it be? Yes, it will.

Maybe just by holding still,

It'll be there!

Come on, something, come on in,

Don't be shy,

Meet a guy,

Pull up a chair!

The air is humming,

& something great is coming!

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Maybe tonight . . .
Bernstein/Sondheim
1957

Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Earle Granger

Friday, when I should have been composing a post for this, my little spot on the internet, I watched back to back Hitchcock on AMC. I thought I had seen all of Alfred Hitchcock’s Hollywood period films & some of his early British silent & early talkies, but I had somehow missed- Marnie, from 1964. I finally watched this film in amazement & afterwards I felt I needed to put together a post on my impressions of this nearly nutty psychological thriller about a frigid & fragile person, who is raped by Sean Connery, but then I thought- why, when I live it every day?

Immediately after viewing Marnie, I dug into my at least 5^th time with Rope. I am always up for a little Farley Granger. Granger had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s- into the new century. He was well known for starring in a pair of films Hitchcock with legendary homosexual subtext- Rope & Strangers On A Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of a bank robber caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".

The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for its continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his many lovers was Post Apocalyptic Bohemain favorite- Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in his memoir- Original Story By.

Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope & Strangers On A Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Include Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor last spring.

Born On This Day- March 2nd... Marc Blitzstein

Born On this day in 1905, Marc Blitzstein was a composer and lyricist of enormous innovation & influence. Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile & fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creations included films scores, Broadway musicals, operas, art songs & chamber pieces. A prominent leftist and social maverick, Blitzstein constantly pushed at the edges of convention in mid-20^th century America in both his work & his life.

With Bernstein

Despite being open about his homosexuality, Blitzstein married when he was 23. He & his wife- Eva Goldbeck, stayed married, united deeply by love & loyalty to leftist causes, until Goldbeck's death in 1936. Because of the era, he needed to be publicly closeted, but Blitzstein was honest about his homosexuality with friends & colleagues. His erotic life seems was exclusively gay. His homosexuality provided the sympathy for outsiders that motivated & inspired his political activism. Goldbeck’s death affected Blitzstein deeply & prompted him to do The Cradle Will Rock.

Interest in Blitzstein & his work declined in the 1960s and 1970s, I have met few people, even in the theatre, who know of him, but he was a significant figure in the history of American musical theater. Some attention to Blitzstein resulted from Tim Robbins' film Cradle Will Rock (1999), which centered on the creation of the original staging of The Cradle Will Rock. In the film, Blitzstein is played by Hank Azaria & is portrayed as gaining inspiration through the ghosts of Bertolt Brecht & Eva Goldbeck. Her death affected Blitzstein deeply & prompted him to dive into the production of The Cradle Will Rock (1936-7), which was cancelled before it even opened because of its anti-establishment, pro-union sentiments. However, it opened Off-Broadway later that season.

In 1958, Blitzstein received a subpoena to appear before the House Committee On Un-American Activities. Testifying in a closed session, Blitzstein admitted his membership of the Communist Party that had ended in 1949, & challenging the right of HUAC to question him at all, refusing to name names. He was recalled for a further public session, but after a day  sitting in a waiting room, he was not called. By 1959, the McCarthy Hearings were running out of steam, but the strain that the experience dipped Blitzstein into despair & deep depression.

Blitzstein's life was troubled & he suffered. He would hang out in dangerous spots, approach the rough trade for rough sex, & ending up in situations that more prudent gay men might have avoided. I have been there myself.

In 1963, Blitzstein decided to spend the winter in Martinique. In January 1964, Blitzstein found himself, 58 years old (the same as I am now), in ill health, in a Martinique waterfront bar, late at night, with large amounts of cash, drinking too much, & trying to pick up 3 sailors, & who amongst us has not? After leaving a bar, one slipped into a nearby alley with Blitzstein to have sex. The others followed & all 3 robbed him, beat him & stripped him of all his clothes except his shirt & socks.

The police found him crying in the middle of the night, & took him to a hospital. He bled to death from internal contusions & he died the next evening.

Leonard Bernstein: "He was so close a personal friend that I cannot even begin to measure our loss of him as a composer. I can only think that I have lost a part of me, but I know also that music has lost an invaluable servant. His special position in musical theatre is irreplaceable.”

In my research if found this, part of a letter to Blitzstein’s sister, dated 1924:

“I am nearing an adjustment which will be productive of many things. I think I have often given the impression (even to people who are close to me, like you) of a mental Organization so in control that the emotional aspect had gone sterile or wasn't born yet. That has been a very small part of the truth. What actually went on was a mechanism, built up of fear, which tried to douse the emotional urge; but which was much less powerful than that urge. I knew it was bad for me; I lacked courage to express the emotional - sexual aux Fond - thing. I think you guess - you know - what all this is about. It has become imperative at last that I cut out the "balance," the "control" (I am a pretty good actor, I project well, nearly everybody thought it was the real thing", and let out what has been secret and furtive in me for so long. Shame is the single largest enemy; the sense of being sick, of living a diseased life, is another. Now, I accept what I, really, know all it involves. In this light, it is absurd to assert that there are no sins; there are definitely Cardinal sins - sins against oneself, against one's law. My sin is, has been ... the willingness to corrupt my nature."

Summer Song #37... Cool

Boy, boy, crazy boy,

Get cool, boy!

Got a rocket in your pocket,

Keep coolly cool, boy!

Don't get hot,

'Cause man, you got

Some high times ahead.

Take it slow & Daddy-O,

You can live it up & die in bed!

Boy, boy, crazy boy!

Stay loose, boy!

Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.

Turn off the juice, boy!

Go man, go,

But not like a yo-yo schoolboy.

Just play it cool, boy,

Real cool!

Sondheim/Bernstein

1957

Born On This Day- August 25th... Leonard Bernstein

In the beautiful New England spring of 1972, I appeared as the Street Singer in a production of The Three Penny Opera produced by a friend at Adam's House at Harvard. At the same time Leonard Bernstein was giving a series of lectures at his Alama Mater – The Unanswered Question. Always absorbing & frequently brilliant, Leonard Bernstein's The Unanswered Question were comprehensible & persuasive discussions of music's history & forms, with particular emphasis modern music. He addressed the average intelligent listener who is not musically trained but wants to know what makes music work & what is meant, for example, by "tonal" & "atonal."

It required some concentration, but Bernstein, a superb teacher, kept technical terms to a minimum, illustrating what he meant with musical examples. I was lucky enough to go to 3 of the 6 lectures, being invited by the maestro after he thrillingly talked to me & gave me advice about singing Kurt Weill’s songs in TheThree Penny Opera when he attended a dress rehearsal of our production.

I already understood his place in music history, especially for his music for West Side Story, On The Town, Wonderful Town & Candide. I didn’t expect to find him so totally sexy & hot, but then, I often find men who are supremely talented to be sexy. I love Jewish men, especially charismatic, one of a kind major 20th century talents, with a flowing mane of hair & the ability to look me in the eye & touch my hand while telling me what he thought I was getting right & what I was missing in my performance. I went home that night simply swooning & with dreams of being the lover of one of history’s most important musical figures.

He may well be more famous among the general public than any other conductor before or since. He wrote 3 symphonies, 2 operas, 5 musicals, a mass, & numerous other pieces. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s & 1980s, Leonard Bernstein was undoubtedly the most visible proponent of classical music in American culture. Through his outgoing personality & resourceful uses of the media, particularly TV, Bernstein introduced 'highbrow' culture into the homes of middle America, while also defending rock & roll as 'real' music & supporting radical causes.

In spite of Bernstein's speaking out for unpopular causes, he was outspoken on civil rights & Vietnam, he was, for much of his career, unwilling to risk exposure of his homosexuality. Indeed, the social mores of the 1950s & 1960s meant that revealing his homosexuality would undoubtedly have destroyed the celebrity & influence he had attained. Later in life & after the death of his wife in 1978, Bernstein became quite open about his being gay.

He left behind an unprecedented amount of recordings & videos, leaving us with a legacy to be experienced for generations to come, & the memory of one 19 year old boy who melted at having been in his presence. My crush on him never diminished. He was born 93 years ago today.

Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Granger

He had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s through the early aughts. Farley Granger is known best for starring in a pair of Alfred Hitchcock Films with legendary homosexual subtexts: Rope & Strangers on a Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for it’s continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

  3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his many lovers was Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in Laurents memoir- Original Story By. Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope and Strangers on a Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Count Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor this spring.

Born On This Day- April 15th...Renaissance Man, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

In his childhood, the Husband was so entranced by a book on the life of Leonardo da Vinci that he taught himself to write in "mirror", that can only be read by holding it up to a reflection, a skill practiced by the often secretive Leonardo. The Husband can still do the mirror writing to this day & is himself, a bit of a Renaissance man.

Self Portrait

Leonardo da Vinci was denied an education & a profession because he was born out of wedlock in 1452. One of the few professions for the son of a middle class notary & a peasant girl was art. Despite the stigma of being a bastard Leonardo mastered anatomy, architecture, botany, cartography, engineering, mathematics, music, poetry, science, sculpture, sketching, &… painting. He used to sleep 2 hours every day. A left-handed dyslexic, he tried to paint with both of his hands. He was a loner, but also adopted a child which he raised with extra care. He destroyed most of his work.

When he was 24, Leonardo & 3 young companions were arrested on the charge of sodomy. No witnesses appeared against them & eventually the charges were dropped. Although he was not convicted, the accusation may have tormented Leonardo throughout his life. It seems clear to me that Leonardo was homosexual. He kept his private life very private, but throughout his entire life, Leonardo surrounded himself with attractive men. His relationship with the beautiful curly haired Gian Giacomo de' Caprotti lasted 20 years. In the last 10 years of Leonardo's life, his companion was the much younger Francesco Melzi, who would later serve as the executor of Leonardo’s estate.


Leonardo possessed the greatest mind of the Italian Renaissance. He wanted to know the workings of what he saw in nature. his inventions & scientific studies were centuries ahead of his time. He was the first person to ingunuity, & intellectual inquiringness show him to be the epitome of the Renaissance spirit. 6 centuries later, the world is still in awe.

Born On This Day- August 25th... The Great Leonard Bernstein

In the beautiful New England spring of 1972, I appeared as The Street Singer in a production of The Three Penny Opera at Harvard. At the same time Leonard Bernstein was giving a series of lectures at his Alama Mater named – The Unanswered Question. Always absorbing & frequently brilliant, Leonard Bernstein's The Unanswered Question were comprehensible & persuasive discussions of music's history & forms, with particular emphasis modern music. They addressed the average intelligent listener who is not musically trained but wants to know what makes music work & what is meant, for example, by "tonal" and "atonal." It required some concentration, but Bernstein, a superb teacher, kept technical terms to a minimum, illustrating what he meant with musical examples. I was lucky enough to go to two of the six lectures, being invited by the maestro after he thrillingly talked to me & gave me advice about singing Kurt Weill’s songs in Three Penny when he attended a dress rehearsal. I already understood his place in music history, especially for his music for West Side Story, On The Town & Wonderful Town & Candide. I didn’t expect to find him so totally sexy & hot, but then, I often find men who are talented to be sexy. I loved Jewish men, especially charismatic, one of a kind major 20th century talents, with a flowing mane of hair & the ability to look me in the eye & touch my hand while telling me what he thought I was getting right & what I was missing in my performance. I went home that night simply swooning & with dreams of being the lover of one of history’s most important musical figures.

He may well be more famous among the general public than any other conductor before or since. He wrote 3 symphonies, 2 operas, 5 musicals, a mass, & numerous other pieces. Throughout the 1960s, 70s & 80s, Leonard Bernstein was undoubtedly the most visible proponent of classical music in American culture. Through his outgoing personality & resourceful uses of the media, particularly television, Bernstein introduced 'highbrow' culture into the homes of middle America, while also defending rock & roll as 'real' music & supporting radical causes. In spite of Bernstein's speaking out for unpopular causes- he was outspoken on civil rights & Vietnam, he was, for much of his career, unwilling to risk exposure of his homosexuality. Indeed, the social mores of the 1950s & 1960s meant that revealing his homosexuality would undoubtedly have destroyed the celebrity & influence he had attained. Later in life & after the death of his wife in 1978, Bernstein became quite open about his sexuality. He left behind an unprecedented amount of recordings & videos, leaving us with a legacy to be experienced for generations to come, & the memory of one 19 year old boy who melted at having been in his presence. My crush on him never diminished.


Patti Lupone & Kristen Chenoweth doing Glitter & Be Gay from Candide.