When I lived in NYC in the mid-1970s, & I was studying at HB Studios, I was living with my sorta boyfriend- WCK3 ( who was studying at Julliard) & I working at ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers). This was a fabulous job as a “music monitor”. I had a small cubicle in the ASCAP building, with a huge window that looked out at Lincoln Center & a smack on view of the Chagall tapestries at the Metropolitan Opera House. It remains one of my favorite jobs of all time, & one of the perks was frequent house seats for Broadway musicals.
The big musical of the moment was a little thing called- A Chorus Line, but my own favorite was the somewhat less popular- Chicago. I loved this show, directed & choreographed by Bob Fosse & I saw it when ever I got a chance. It starred Chita Rivera, Jerry Orbach & Gwen Verdon. At some point,Gwen Verdon fell ill, the victim of swallowing a feather from her costume & she was replaced for 1 month by someone named Liza Minnelli. I was so excited to see Liza up close & personal. ASCAP secured, for me, 2 tickets for her 1st night in the role. WCK3 could not attend, but he suggested that I bring his friend & classmate at Julliard- Bebe.
I felt bad that I had been taunting Bebe, because she shared a name with the Seattle Zoo’s famous gorilla. Beebee & BoBo were a very famous gorilla couple at the Seattle Zoo, & WCK3’s friend had to suffer through my gorilla jokes. I was glad to have a date for Liza’s Chicago debut, & Bebe seemed to have forgiven my ribbing. We had a great date at the theatre, with drinks at Joe Allen’s after the show. I wish that I had been portentous at the time, about my date was Bebe Neuwirth. I would loved to have told her that she would someday go on to win a Tony Award as Velma Kelly, in the most successful revival in Broadway history- Chicago (She would also be the 2nd Sheila in that other show- A Chorus Line): “Hey Bebe…someday, you will wina Tony award for this show & you will go on to be a big Broadway & TV star (winning 2 Emmy awards for her take on Dr. Lilith Sternin on Cheers), how about a kiss? She was a swell date. I regret not trying to make out with her at the end of our evening.
Things turned out pretty well for Bebe. For the last year she has been starring with Nathan Lane in The Aadams Family on Broadway. Bebe never thanks me in her award speeches, although I was the perfect date, footing the cost of the tickets & the drinks, & every bit the gentleman. Today is Bebe Neuwirth’s birthday. I will never forget our date.
He wasn’t gay, but he sure gave gay people something to sing about. Many of his tunes are connected to gay sensibities & gay culture in the 20th century. As a young Musical Theatre Queen, Jule Styne played a significant role in my early love of theatre music. Styne the versatile, prolific songwriter whose tunes became standards for 3 generations & the composer of such classic Broadway musicals as Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes & Funny Girl, was born on this day- December 31st, in 1905.
Among Styne's enduring songs are: the Oscar-winning 3 Coins in the Fountain, I Don't Want to Walk Without You, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, Everything's Coming Up Roses, & Don’t Rain On My Parade.
His name was always less familiar than his music. This was probably because of his very flexibility. Styne: "You write as well as who you write with," & he usually let the lyricist & the star set the tone for the score.
Styne: "If you can't be a collaborator, you don't belong in the theater, & I am the greatest collaborator there is."
Styne estimated that he had written 2,000 songs, had published 1,500 and had 200 hits. Styne: "I'm talking about hit hits. The others were popular, but there were 200 hit hits: It's Been a Long, Long Time, It's Magic, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!, Time After Time, People, Five Minutes More.
In Hollywood, he teamed up with Sammy Cahn for the romantic: I've Heard That Song Before,I'll WalkAlone & 3Coins in the Fountain. On Broadway, he shifted from satire: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Leo Robin, to drama- Gypsy with Stephen Sondheim, to glitter- Funny Girl with Bob Merrill, & also working with Comden & Green on shows including 2 On The Aisle & Bells Are Ringing.
His songs often bore the stamp of the singers who introduced them: Carol Channing, Judy Holliday, Doris Day, Mary Martin, Barbra Streisand & Ethel Merman. How gay is that?
He once told an interviewer that he preferred to write the music before the lyrics, as he had done on Gypsy, his collaboration with Sondheim. Styne: "When the music is written first, the lyricist will do his best job because he is not writing to his own preconceived rhythmic notions."
Don't Rain on My Parade
Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
Everything's Coming Up Roses
Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry
I Fall In Love Too Easily
I Still Get Jealous
Just In Time
Let Me Entertain You
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Long Before I Knew You
Make Someone Happy
The Party's Over
People
Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)
He currently manages a hotel in the heart of Hollywood, where he lives with his cat Booky. Joe Dellesandro: "I've lived such a full life. I've had such great things. There were some hardships, but overall everything has been great."
Joe Dallesandro, a.k.a. “Little Joe,” was the greatest of the Warhol Superstars, the only one to really break out of the film underground & have a career in cinema. I would have credited his success to his looks, but what I really went for was his cool attitude. Dallesandro could also, he just acted like he couldn’t. He identifies himself as bisexual.
Dellesandro did his first bit in Warhol’s The Loves of Ondine (1968), after accidentally walking onto the set & getting cast on the spot. He appeared in other Warhol films, including Lonesome Cowboys (1968). When Paul Morrissey began to direct Warhol’s films, Joe starred in almost every one: Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), Heat (1972), Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), & Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1974).
Dellesandro later moved to Italy, where he starred in European art films, working with directors like Louis Malle, & Serge Gainsbourg. He also led a rather wild life there. Then, after the death of his brother Bobby, who had worked for Andy Warhol as a chauffeur, Joe moved back to the U.S. in the 1980s & worked on a variety of Hollywood films &TV series: Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, Sunset with Bruce Willis & James Garner, Critical Condition with Richard Pryor, Gun Crazy with Drew Barrymore, Wiseguy, Miami Vice & Matlock.
He was definitely mysterious, & he had obviously been around. In Flesh, he played a male hustler. Lou Reed was talking about Joe in his lyrics for Walk On The Wild Side: “Little Joe never once gave it away/Everybody had to pay & pay.” He hustled well enough to make it as a movie star. John Waters: "JoeDellesandro forever changed male sexuality in cinema.”
I always felt a connection to Joe. I wanted to work with Andy at the Factory & star in his underground films. A photograph of his crotch bulge encased in a tight fitting pair of jeans is featured on the cover of the Rolling Stones 1971 album, Sticky Fingers. It was taken by Andy Warhol. He filled the jeans very nicely & a 17 year old Stephen got a lot of use from that album cover.
Typical owners Kitaro will be studio musicians, DJs and performers of electronic and psychedelic mood music, the usual players and musicians are just obsessed with the idea to the creation, retrieval and transmission to others is really a new experience. More after the break...
"Golden Arrow" In Switzerland, summed up the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve. Unlike Hollywood's Oscars, his hour-long version of the award in Switzerland. Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve, Geneva or Watchmaking Grand Prix, presented at the Geneva-hour festival, a panel of judges composed of journalists watch magazines. Some believe that it should not be, because these magazines publish advertisements of those who participate in the contest. Nevertheless, the competitors of this prize is still there. And every member of the jury, in addition to employment, has a name and reputation. This year the prize was awarded in eleven categories. More images after the break...
Early 1980s, Seattle: I couldn’t help but notice him, mid-30s, lithe, sad expression, with a head of dark curly hair & almond eyes. We would ride the same bus, sometimes coming & going. I was never able to muster the courage to speak to him; his beauty was out of my league, intimidating & off-putting. So, I was more than a little surprised when he broke the ice by smiling across the aisle from me & holding up a well worn paperback copy of The Sheltering Sky. I was reading the same book in the same edition at the same time. He moved over to talk to me. We slowly became bus buddies because of our interest in Paul Bowles.
His name was invented: Jaxith. He was a costume designer & we knew a lot of the same theatre people. When he was kicked out of his home & disowned by family at age 16, he not only took a new name, but invented a past. He purchased snapshots at thrift shops & put them in a scrapbook with annotations containing names, dates & fictional events. We had a cocktail date once & he brought the scrapbook. It was truly a work of art. In his made up life, he was a direct relation of Marilyn Monroe. He was a survivor, but he couldn’t survive HIV in 1984. I thought of him this morning as I contemplated Paul Bowles for a birthday post.
Paul Bowles was one of the last surviving members of a generation of artists whose work shaped 20th century literature and music.In the Introduction to Bowles's Collected Stories (1979) Gore Vidal states: "his short stories are among the best ever written by an American: the floor to this ramshackle civilization that we have built cannot bear much longer our weight. It was Bowles's genius to suggest the horrors which lie beneath that floor, as fragile, in its way, as the sky that shelters us from a devouring vastness".
His music, in contrast, is as full of light as the fiction is of dark. During the early 1930s he studied composition with Aaron Copland; his music from this period is reminiscent of Eric Satie. In NYC in the 1930s, he became one of the most important composers of American theater music, producing works for Tennessee Williams & others. Bowles: "climaxless music, hypnotic music in one of the exact senses of the word, in that it makes its effect withoutthe spectatorbeing made aware of it.” At the same time he continued to write concert music, using some of the melodies & rhythm of African, Mexican, & Central American music.
Bowles was born in NYC in 1910. His father was a cold, inflexible man, full of secrecy, characteristics that would mark Bowels's life & writing. As a boy, Bowles had few friends & found solace in writing. He attended college, but academic life did not interest him, & he left for Paris abruptly in 1929. From 193, he would spend most of his life outside the USA.
Bowles's literary reputation focuses on his fiction, but until he was 35, he showed more interest in musical composition & poetry. Bowles was gifted in a number of fields: music for plays & films, short stories, autobiography, travel writing, & translations.
In Berlin, he met Stephen Spender & Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood later gave the name Sally Bowles to the main character of Goodbye to Berlin (the source for the musical- Cabaret). Bowles visited North Africa & travelled around Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria & Tunisia. He was entranced by what he perceived to be the transcendental nature of North African life as well as by a society tolerant of homosexuality. Over the next decade, Bowles composed a good body of music including sonatas, song cycles, & music for stage productions including Doctor Faustus directed by Orson Welles, the orchestration for George Balanchine's Yankee Clipper (at Lincoln Kirstein's request), & made early recordings of North African music.
In childhood, Bowles was fond of a homosexual uncle. While on a visit, he entered a room where men were dancing intimately together. The uncle's anger at his nephew, who had not been alarmed at this sight, gives light to Bowles's attitude to homosexual behavior: He liked to examine sexuality from a dispassionate perspective for its psychological suggestiveness. In his most explicit homosexual story, Pages From Cold Point (1947), a boy tries to seduce his father.
In 1938, he had married Jane Auer, & in 1947, they went to live in Tangier. Jane Bowles had published 2 Serious Ladies, & explored gay relationships in both her life & in her fiction. He was mostly gay & she was almost exclusively lesbian. They were devoted to each other.
With the arrival of the Bowles, the Tangier cult developed rapidly. American writers & artists William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg,Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, & others - visited & socialized with the couple; the ambience of Tangier, & the tolerant of experimental drug use & sexual expression proved liberating & stimulating.
Jane Bowles, always on the edge of a sexual scandal, died in 1973. Paul Bowles continued to attract interesting personalities &, in his discreet way, gained a cult following. He was very stable, & continued to produce a steady stream of work until his death in 1999.
His translation work started with the Sartre classic No Exit (1958) but became more significant with his translations of previously unknown works by Moroccan writers.
Paul Bowles lived for 53 of his 88 years in Tangier. He became identified with the city: during his life visitors would seek him out, & he became a symbolic American expatriate, & the city became the symbol of his expatriate status.
Bowles died of heart failure at the Italian Hospital in Tangier in 1999 at the age of 88. He had been ill for some time with respiratory problems. The following day a full page obituary was featured in The NY Times. Although he had lived in Morocco for 53 years, he was buried in Lakemont, New York, next to his parents & grandparents.
One of my favorite books in 2010 was the charming & touching, I, Shudder, by Paul Rudnick. This very funny memoir is rendered in Rudnick's gorgeous, zinger filled language & reminds me of the need to keep my wit sharp when facing life's many obstacles & absurdities. I, Shudder is one of a series of humorous collections that I went for in 2010, a not very funny year. It is from a writer who ranks with David Sedaris & Augusten Burroughs as one of the most gifted & hilarious social observers.
Proudly open about his homosexuality, Paul Rudnick is one of the most interesting comic writers at work today. He uses sharp wit & gentle satire to comment on contemporary mores. Unlike many satirists, his work is generally more positive than negative. Rudnick knew he was gay by the time he went to Yale University, where he received a B. A. in theater.
To me, Paul Rudnick has a wicked way with a set up & a joke, & he is great with the one-liners, but a sustained & complex plot seems to elude him. But, I still find him to be a world class comic writer & I always relish his pieces in the New Yorker. I first came to know him from his terrifically funny play- I Hate Hamlet, a play about a struggling actor & his haunted apartment. The New York production was noted mostly for the tantrums thrown by actor Nicol Williamson as the ghost of John Barrymore. Although the original production closed after fewer than 100 performances, but it has had several successful revivals in regional theaters.
I loved his column in Premier magazine, which he wrote under the name Libby Gellman-Waxner. Rudnick came into his own with Jeffrey, an ultimately life-affirming comedy about a gay man in New York City negotiating his need for love & commitment in the age of AIDS. A nearly universally appreciated play, Jeffrey has been produced throughout the United States & around the world. The original off-Broadway production won an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, & the John Gassner Award for Outstanding New American Play.
Rudnick has also written & script-doctored screenplays.In I, Shudder he writes of the original version of the film Sister Act, which he intended as a raucous Bette Midler vehicle. When the movie studio recast it as a Whoopi Goldberg showcase & revised his script, he insisted on using a pseudonym in the credits. Rudnick also wrote the screenplays for The Addams Family & Addams Family Values.
Mr. Rudnic grew up well aware that his was one of the few Jewish families in Piscataway, N.J., but he assumed that everybody must be gay like him. Rudnick: ''When it finally dawned on me that there were straight people on the block, I felt sympathy for them.''
Rudnick successfully adapted Jeffrey for the 1995 screen version directed by Christopher Ashley, starring Steven Weber, Sigourney Weaver, Patrick Stewart, & Nathan Lane. The gay romantic comedy became a great hit with gay audiences.
Rudnik's most famous film is In & Out, about the accidental "outing" of a small town schoolteacher by a former student on national television. Loosely inspired by Tom Hanks' acceptance speech at the 1994 Academy Awards in which he thanked a gay former teacher, the film is well liked by critics & audiences. Directed by Frank Oz, produced by openly gay- Scott Rudin, & starring Kevin Kline & Tom Selleck, In & Out is particularly interesting for its approach to homosexuality,a serious "problem" in most films. The film uses the conventions of classic screwball comedies. Although the homophobes are properly skewered, the film is full of good humor. In & Out seems to me to be less a satire, & more a comic vision of a more relaxed & accepting middle America in which gay people are free to be themselves & are still loved by family & community.
Any temptation Mr. Rudnick felt to relocate to L.A. & concentrate on films ended with his inability to get a driver's license. Rudnick: ''The last time I took the test, they had those plastic cones for parallel parking, I nudged one, & the guy said, 'You just killed a child.' & I said: 'I did not. I just killed a rubber cone.' ''
Today is his birthday. He turns 43. Give his recent memoir a read. He has a new novel coming out in early 2011, & I can’t wait!
Attend the tale of Billy Tipton. I first became aware of her when she passed away in Spokane, the city that I grew up in, & the the truth was discovered. She lived as a man from 21years old until she died at age 74. Her 3 adopted sons never suspected a thing. Here is the fun part: Tipton lived with 5 women over 5 decades, all of them attractive, even vava vavoom. She had intercourse with all 5, none stumbled onto the truth that her husband was a woman… well, #4 figured it out eventually. Like 1000s of fans, they were taken in by one of the great performances of all time.
Dorothy Lucille Tipton decided to become Billy Tipton in 1935, ostensibly because it was the only way an aspiring jazz musician could get work in an almost exclusively male business. The ruse wasn’t all that difficult. Billy's face was boyish, and her figure full, but not curvy. She had sizable breasts but no waist. A sheet wrapped around her chest, men's clothing, & a bit of padding in the crotch, & she passed. Billy was actually boyishly handsome; women found him adorable.. A talented pianist, horn player, & tenor, he quickly found a gig with a band.
At the start Billy was strictly a cross-dresser, making no great effort to hide her gender during her off hours. She lived with a woman with the unusual name of Non Earl Harrell, in what was assumed was a lesbian relationship. Initially they were based in Oklahoma City, but by 1940 they had moved to Joplin, Missouri, then an entertainment center. There Billy began to pretend to be a male full-time, a pose he would adopt for the rest of his life.
Billy & Non Earl broke up in 1942. After a relationship of a few years with a singer named June, Billy took up with Betty Cox, a pretty 19 year old with a striking figure. The couple were together for 7 years. Betty claimed that they had a passionate heterosexual relationship, including intercourse. She even thought she'd had a miscarriage. I sometimes think I don’t really know my Husban. But after the first 7 years, I think I knew which sex he was. JustlLike the Husband & I, Billy & Betty made love only in the dark. Doesn’t everybody? Billy never removed his underwear & wore a jockstrap that was fitted with a "prosthesis." He wore massive chest bindings at all times, supposedly for an old injury. He would not let himself be touched below the waist. He never shared a bathroom. Betty may also have been distracted. Acquaintances said she went out with other men while she was with Billy, & while she appears to have been genuinely fond of him, in some ways this may have been a marriage of convenience for both.
The turning point in Billy's life came in 1958. He had his own jazz trio & a growing reputation, & a new hotel in Reno wanted to hire them as the house band. He seemed on the verge of a fairly successful career. But instead, he took a job as a booking agent in Spokane, Washington, & playing with the house band at The Tin Pan Alley. He played mainly swing standards rather than the jazz he preferred. His performances included skits imitating celebrities like Liberace & Elvis Presley. In some of these sketches, he played a little girl, but he never impersonated a woman, & he would make jokes about homosexuality Perhaps he feared fame would lead to the discovery & decided he'd gone as far as he dared.
In Spokane, Billy was living with a call girl, but in the early 1960s he left her for a beautiful but troubled stripper named Kitty Kelly. She claimed she & Billy never had sex, but in other respects they lived a stereotypical suburban life. They adopted 3 boys, but neither could handle the kids during adolescence, and after a bitter quarrel in 1980 Billy moved into a trailer with his sons. From there it was all downhill. The boys split, his income dried up, he refused to see a doctor. He remained in Spokane, living in poverty, until he collapsed & died in 1989. The paramedics who were trying to revive him uncovered the truth. Death must have come as a relief; he had been pretending for 54 years.
Paradises, of which many dream since childhood. Dunbar Rock, Honduras
If you plan to visit Cuba; in the near future, do not miss the Island Bay (Bay), located 70 km from the coast. The island itself is nothing special, but the rock Dunbar - it's something....More after the break...
Here are top 24 adventure towns of the United States according to National Geographic. These adventure towns offer something for everyone, whether you love hiking, skiing, biking, kayaking, climbing, snowboarding, or a little bit of everything. Stay for a long weekend or the rest of your life, after the the break...
"Roses are red, violets are blue, I am schizophrenic, & so am I."
Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, once said of him: "There's absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix."
Open about his neuroses & hypochondria, Oscar Levant, was addicted to prescription drugs & was frequently committed to mental hospitals. Despite his afflictions, Levant was considered a genius in many disciplines. Levant: "There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."
Levant was sad, ironic & self-deprecating & wildly talented. I have every reason to think that he was gay. Levant's life proves to be more interesting than that of his good friend, the legendary George Gershwin, who he possibly was involved romantically. Perhaps this is because he lived for so much longer, & because of Levant's numerous talents other than music.
Levant was a notorious wit; he was so funny that he could afford to be obnoxious & insulting & still count on being a welcome guest in the homes of his many celebrity friends..
A perceptive musical theorist, Levant about the art of composing for films; it was he who coined the phrase "Mickey Mousing," in reference to movie scores that slavishly commented upon the action. The longer he stayed in Hollywood, the more he became famous as a "character" rather than a musician.
The public first became aware of Levant's acidic wit when he was a frequent guest on the Information Please radio program. From 1940 onward, he spentmore time as an actor: Humoresque (1945), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), The Barkeleys of Broadway (1949) & O.Henry's Full House (1952), in which he co-starred with Fred Allen in the Ransom of Red Chief segment. He was at his best in 2 classic MGM musicals: An American in Paris (1951), where he appears in a dream sequence, playing every member of the orchestra in a performance of Gershwin's Concerto in F; & The Band Wagon (1953), in which he & Nanette Fabray play characters based on Adolph Green & Betty Comden.
Oscar Levant's personality can be summed up by 2 of his most oft-repeated witticisms: "In some moments I was difficult, in odd moments impossible, in rare moments loathsome, but at my best unapproachably great;" & the self-deprecating "I am the world's oldest child prodigy."
The son of a Pittsburgh repairman, Oscar Levant went to New York at 16 to study music under such masters as Stojowski, Schoenberg & Schillinger (I just can’t stop with the alliteration). Before reaching his 20th birthday, he had gained renown as a concert pianist, teacher, band leader & composer. In the early 1930s, he played a minor role in the stage play Burlesque withCher. During his time in Hollywood, Levant became BFFs with George Gershwin & by the mid-1930s Levant was perhaps the greatest interpreter of Gershwin's works in the world.
While he continued with his popularity & circle of friends into the 1960s, Levant's mood swings & increasingly erratic behavior began having professional repercussions. He was nearly banned from television when he quipped about Marilyn Monroe's conversion to Judaism: "Now thatMarilyn Monroe iskosher, Arthur Miller can eat her". As time went on, only late-night host Jack Paar would risk having Levant as a guest, & when Paar left TV in 1965, so, for all intents and purposes, did Levant.Paar in later years would sign off by saying, "Good night, Oscar Levant, wherever you are."
In & out of mental institutions during his last 2 decades; his final film, Cobweb (1955), was set in a sanitarium, he became dependent upon pain-killers & other prescription drugs. Despite his deteriorating physical & mental condition, he was able to turn out 3 terrific memoirs:, A Smattering of Ignorance, The Unimportance of Being Oscar and The Memoirs of anAmnesiac. Oscar Levant died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 66.
He composed one of my favorite songs of all time, a song in my own repitoire:
Here are just some of his quips:
“Spinoza said rituals are all based on fear. My faith destroyed, I put down the book.”
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left."
"I only make jokes when I am feeling insecure."
"So little time & so little to do..."
"I'm a concert pianist, that's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment."
"I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."
"I have one thing to say about psychoanalysis: fuck Dr. Freud."
"The only difference between the Democrats & the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too."
"Everyone in Hollywood is gay, except Gabby Hayes... & that's because he is a transvestite."
"It's not a pretty face, I grant you but underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."
When asked by Jack Paar what he does for exercise, he replied, "I stumble, then fall into a coma."
"Leonard Bernstein is revealing musical secrets that have been common knowledge for centuries."
Asked by Jack Paar to describe his reaction to Milton Berle converting to become a Christian Scientist- "Our loss is their loss."
Overheard at a dinner party: "The best kind of guests are the ones that know when to leave!"
“Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.”
“I don't drink. I don't like it. It makes me feel good.”
“I envy people who drink - at least they know what to blame everything on.”
“I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.”
"Strip away the false tinsel from Hollywood, and you find the real tinsel inside."
"It's not what you are, it's what you don't become that hurts."
“Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.”
The Husband & I survived Christmas Day the only way we could & not fall to pieces. The Husband put the presents for Michael out of sight. I settled in to a day of heavy TV viewing that would be distracting & possibly make us laugh a bit. I made room on the DVR storage by watching a marathon of the Sundance Channel's Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, Beverly Hills Houswives, Chelsea Lately, & Top Chef Masters. I self-medicated. I called the parents & thanked them for all the warm & warm hearted holidays & the thoughtful, tender, tasteful gifts of books, albums, bicycles (5,8,11), trip to Europe (15), 1955 Jeep Willis Stationwagon (16), 1959 T-Bird, black on black (18), & the Etch-A-Sketch (54).
The Husband & I did our best to not slip deeper into deeper melancholia. I got a bit messed up. The Husband napped. Warm & wedded to each other; our 31st Christmas & worse for the wear.
Whenever life hands you a lemon, make it into lemon flavored vodka, I always say, huh? You know, there’s a certain point in life where you either move forward & try to participate in a way that is interesting & hopefully useful, or else disappear. I chose the former, & that is just how I am. There are huge chasms along the way. I suffer from serious suffocating depression, but that doesn't accomplish anything. I try to change anything & have a bit of fun. How I react to setbacks is the fundamental choice I have to make each day. I wake up in the morning and say, “Oh well, a new day, let’s get it going, what’s ahead?” & just go do it one more time.
How can I keep it simple? There are so many layers. This story is straight out of Dickens & I title it: The Worst Christmas Ever, or A Tale Of Two Shitties with Great Expectations at Bleak House.
He was brought into our lives by the most nefarious of people- RCK, one of several in a cast of characters that land on the doorstep of Post Apocalyptic Bohemia when something is really wrong & they are need help. I call them- The Strays.
RCK dropped back into our lives after dropping out 3 years ago. He disclosed that since he had left us in a blaze on Christmas Eve 2007, he had lost his job, his house, his automobile & his cat. After stints in the psych ward, rehab & jail, & after spending a year sleeping in parks & under bridges, he was going to attempt to put his life right, & even though he had screwed us over in the past, RCK was beseeching us for help. Right out of Oliver Twist, RCK had an orphan attached to him. He introduced us to Michael.
Michael’s story is one of the saddest to be told. He was given up for adoption at birth, but never adopted. Michael was in & out of foster homes the rest of his life. He was placed in a good Christian home in Coos Bay, where he was passed around to family members to be sexually abused. Released from that horror, he was next sent to central Oregon to a family that beat him so badly that he lost the use of one arm, which stayed the same size as Michael grew; he can’t use that arm or hand at all & he keeps it tucked into the jacket that he never removed in our view.
Michael, who will be 17 years old in less than a month, has been living on the streets of Portland since he was 13. At some point, he briefly found shelter with a gay couple, who got him hooked on crystal meth, & who took turns using him. RCK seems to have found him in a park in late summer & took to being his protector. Hooked on meth himself, RCK was moved by Michael’s story, & took to giving Michael solace & looking out for his best interests.
We allowed RCK to store what he had left in his life in our garage, do his laundry, & shower at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. He declined offers to sleep on our couch, I imagine because he stayed up all night, & I was more than a little relieved.
I see now that RCK was grooming us. A master manipulator, he was methodical & knew just how to play us, working at the Husband’s predisposition to feeling guilty, & around my desire to do the right thing while protecting my own subtle, susceptible sympathies.
We slowly got to know Michael. He is a tiny little bird: 5’6’’, 120 #, & looks to be around 12 years old, pretty, sly, intelligent, street smart, a deeply, & mournfully damaged. RCK would bring him by & the Husband would make them food. I had a dewy-eyed, dreamy reaction to the sight of Michael as redesigned by the Husband. The Husband, it seemed, had purchased a pair of Levi 501s, a tight black nylon shirt with zippers, & pointy black boots for the boy. When Michael proudly modeled his new outfit, I realized that the Husband had created a petite, pint-sized, pocket version of himself. He had made a Husband mini-me.
RCK continued to drop by our home to shower & regroup, with the lad in tow. RCK slowly insinuated that we could/should foster/adopt Michael. It immediately seemed out of the question, but the Husband was moved by some guilt about his role as a father in the past, & even I saw the possibilities in saving this young life. I realized that I would need to become a role model, a position I never dreamed of fulfilling. I would need to give up whiskey & Mary Jane!
I didn’t need or want to move too fast, much to RCK’s ire. I started asking questions: was it legal for us to harbor a 16 year old, does DHS let you choose your foster child, are we out of our minds? I went to the owner of my business, who has fostered a child & is married to a former State Supreme Court Judge. She advised against it: “what will you do if you discover he is Bipolar, very possible considering his life so far? Are you prepared to deal withthat?” This proved to be true when we discovered that Michael had been off his meds for Bipolar disorder & ADD.
Agonizing over my selfishness, I advised RCK that we would like to be Michael’s Gay Uncles, but due to our finances, health problems, small house, & emotional state as a couple, we felt we were not a good choice for foster parenting or adoption. We would help with clothing. I would help him with his paperwork & the money to file for emancipation. We would help get him into a school or get his GED. We could take Michael to movies, plays & museums. We could act as family, if not The Family.
RCK had texted that Michael had bolted & had not been heard from. Would we contact him if we heard from Michael? Last week, Michael, who does not have a phone, was able to call the Husband & ask for help. He had spent the very cold & very rainy night in a park & wanted help. The Husband had Michael locate the closest intersection signs; we Google mapped his location & drove on I-205 in the most ghastly traffic as the heavens opened up with profound, pelting rain. I texted RCK with news that the boy had made contact us & we were on the way to get him. Michael called once more & I instructed him to stay put, we were on our way.
At the location, Michael was nowhere to be found. We drove around a ½ mile radius, in the winter rain, praying that we had not got it wrong. We were deep in SE Portland, not in our hemisphere. We were in a panic & crying when RCK texted with news that the boy was back safe with him. Michael always returns to RCK. We had already surmised that the kid was in love with his benefactor & we saw this as a possibly insurmountable obstacle to his moving forward.
Mid-week, we heard from RCK . Michael wanted to spend the holiday with us & the husband didn’t even blink when we understood that we could provide Michael with a real Christmas. We spent the 23rd gathering cool clothing for the kid.
I worked 3:45am-6pm on Christmas Eve. The Husband brought Michael to my store & I introduced the kid to my staff, including a young Puerto Rican Gay Boy. They had lunch & were off to a movie. I noted that Michael seemed calm & happy. I even saw him laugh. Late afternoon, I saw the husband & his mini-me walking across the plaza at Director Park. My heart was once again opened up to the possibility of fostering or adopting. The staff had remarked that the Husband & the kid looked alike.
I returned home after a 14 hour workday to a fire in the fireplace, holiday music playing, candles lit, homemade spaghetti on the stove, & wrapped Christmas gifts waiting for the kid. The Husband met me with deep sadness & a touch of panic in his demeanor. It seems that the kid had spent the day attempting to get away. Michael had talked about nothing else all day. The 3 of us sat down & had an honest discourse. Michael: “Please don’t hate me. I can’t do this. I have a friend I need to see. I can’t stay here. I have serious problems & I can’t be at your house. Don’t hate me. I am selfish. I need to do what I need to do.”
The Husband & I realized that Michael would be fleeing no matter what we did; & I understood that stopping him would be tantamount to kidnapping. I gave Michael my Tri-Met Transit Pass, which allow him to travel on any bus or train. I collect $2 bills, & the kid had been fascinated by them. I gave him a $20 bill & a handful of $2s. The husband gave Michael a sweatshirt to wear under his jacket & my favorite pair of boots that the orphan had been eyeing. The Husband drove Michael to our Max Train station.
When the Husband returned home, he was in deep despair, we stared at the pile of gifts for the kid, we both sobbed, & I took 2 doses of Citalopram, crawled under the covers & cried myself to sleep.
Sometime in the night, RCK texted that Michael was with him. On Christmas morning, the husband handed me my tea, hugged me & whispered- “the worst Christmas ever?” I had to concur. “God Bless Us, Every One!”
Happy Holidays. Today's the big day... that day that we eagerly await for as soon as the Halloween pumpkin is tossed on the compost heap- the Feast of Stephen or Boxing Day or Wren Day. Well actually, this is the start of The Week of Stephen. It begins today - the Feast Day of St. Stephen, to whom it shall be noted, was the 1st Christian to be stoned, no small significance to me personally.
At Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, birthdays are celebrated with a week long celebration honoring the recipient with a series of celebrations & kindnesses. We start today with St. Stephen’s day & wraps up onJanuary 3rd with the birthday of yours truly. Today, I am going to start to prepare for my birthday with a week of being celibate, doing a cleansing fast: no alcohol, no pizza… unless I should slip up & end up getting drunk & getting laid.
St. Stephen was stoned to death in 34 AD by a mob led by Paul (when he was still Saul). In Acts it says: Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses & against God." So they stirred up the people & the elders & the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen & brought him before the Sanhedrin. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place & change the customs Moses handed down to us." Since Stephen was the first martyr, he's referred to as a protomartyr, a word we only get to use once a year.
Good King Wenceslas is the big musical number for St. Stephen's Day. The tune was originally written for the song, Tempus Adest Floridum (It is time for flowering), a 13th-century spring carol first introduced in the 1582's Swede/Finn co-production: Piae Cantiones. Perhaps you have seen it? If you've never really listened to the lyrics to GoodKing Wenceslas, they deal with the Bohemian King going out on St. Stephen's Day to give alms to the poor. A rich Duke’s page is freezing to death but Wenceslas's footprints provide magical warmth…. or something like that.
If you live in the Anglo-land, then you don't need to have Boxing Day explained... unless you're from the USA or Ireland, the only Anglo-ish countries that do not celebrate it. On Boxing Day, you give a gift to your inferiors. This seems to me to be very patronizing & classist, or rather-very English. "Oh it's nothing. Just a little something I, your superior in class, got for you, one of the lower orders." Even the English seemed to have realized this seemed a bit condescending, now they just use today to take advantage of after-Christmas sales, to buy stuff for themselves. Back in a time far way, the Husband & I would travel from our home in Seattle to one of our favorite cities- Vancouver BC, to enjoy the Boxing Day sales. Merchandise at the Canadian stores- Eaton’s & The Bay Company etc, would be marked down 60%, which with the strength of the US dollar against the Canadian(those were the days!), would make for terrific savings. We would then spend our saved money on dining out at the swellest spots in Vancouver, & leaving tips for our inferiors.
In Wales, the people of my own heritage, they have their own peculiar brand of St. Stephen's Day acknowledgement. On what they named- Gŵyl San Steffan, it is customary to bleed the livestock & slash female servants with holly branches. How can we can explain the Welsh?
Why no Boxing Day in Ireland? The Irish celebrate- Lá an DreoilÃn, or Wren Day. Before I looked it up, I thought- "Oh, Wren's Day. They must venerate the little birds on this day." Actually, traditionally on this day, young hooligans called- Wrenboys got together & hunted down the tiny, defenseless creatures. Then they'd go around with the dead wren's tiny corpse fastened to the end of a pole, singing songs & drinking. Wrens have a reputation for treachery in Irish culture & legend has it that wrens betrayed Irish forces during a Viking attack & so the Irish on this day kill the wrens out of revenge. By the 1930s, wrens were almost extinct in Ireland. That will teach a lesson to those traitorous wrens!
"The world is a king, and, like a king, desires flattery for a favor; but true art is selfish & perverse, it will not submit to the mold of flattery.” Beethoven
I celebrate what I claim has to be the very worst day for a birthday, January 3rd. The tree is dead in the corner, the credit cards are maxed out, everyone has made a resolution to diet, stop drinking & go the gym, not a single person is interested in partying. Other Capricorns complain about holiday birthdays, but I think it would be swell to have been born on Christmas Eve. The house is beautiful, everyone is dressed up, spirits are high, children are delighted, & if you have been a good boy, & there may be something special for your birthday & for Christmas, just for you, under the tree.
Lucky Bob Smith, with a birthday on December 24th, plus he is pretty. Witty & gay!
Smith is the first openly gay comedian on The Tonight Show. I own & very much enjoyed his Memoirs; Openly Bob & Way To Go, Smith. But nothing had prepared me for how much I would love his first novel Selfish & Perverse, one of my favorite books of 2010.
In Selfish & Perverse (the title comes from a quote from Beethoven about artists), a down & out L.A. TV comedy writer Nelson Kunkel, seems to get himself into more than his share of awkward situations before finally resolving to visit Alaska for the summer, hoping for a romance story with handsome, butch fisherman/anthropologist Roy. Their mutual interest in anthropology lead to a tour of the La Brea tar pits, & to Nelson becoming a national TV news laughing stock, which makes escaping to Alaska more palatable, particularly after he not only gets caught necking in an elevator with Roy, but also getting stoned in star Dylan's trailer before the show's taping, & subsequently fired, then the flirtatious star hints about visiting Roy in Anchorage.
Dylan, fresh out of prison after being arrested for drug offenses while caught naked on TV tripped out of his head, decides to make his post-rehab debut as the guest star on the late night comedy show, where Nelson struggles as the "script-coordinator" feeding funny lines to ego crazed actors. Then Dylan, the ferocious flirt, insinuates himself into both Nelson & Roy’s lives. Intrigue, a lot of sex, & bon mots follows in a hilarious blend, & in the process encapsulating the absurdities of modern gay life. Will Nelson be able to choose between L.A. & Alaska & between Roy & Dylan?
A new novel- Remembrance of Things I Forgot will be released sometime in early 2011 & I can’t wait.
Not gay, but absolutely one of my most important musical figures in my considerable lifetime is Chesney Henry Baker, Jr., a trumpet player & singer with matinee idol beauty, emotionally remote performances, & a well publicized drug habit.
In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. The Quartet's version of My Funny Valentine, featuring a memorable Baker solo, was a major hit, and became a song with which Baker was intimately associated.
The Quartet found success quickly, but lasted less than a year because of Mulligan's arrest and imprisonment on drug charges. In 1953, Pacific Jazz released Chet Baker Sings. In the year I was born, 1954, Baker won the Downbeat Jazz Poll. Because of his chiseled good looks, Hollywood studios approached Baker & he made his acting debut in the film Hell's Horizon, in 1955. He declined an offer of a studio contract, preferring life on the road as a musician. Over the next few years, He became an icon of the West Coast jazz sound, helped by his good looks & singing talent.
Baker was a heroin user since the 1950s, & eventually saw his musical career decline as a result. At times, Baker pawned his instruments for money to maintain his drug habit. In the early 1960s, he served more than a year in prison in Italy on drug charges; he was later expelled from Germany & Britain for drug related offenses. He settled in Northern California where he played music in San Francisco between short jail terms served for prescription fraud. In 1966, Baker was severely beaten after a gig in San Francisco, sustaining severe cuts on the lips & broken front teeth. From that time he had to learn to play with dentures.
In the 1970s, Baker returned to Europe. From 1978 until his death, Baker resided & played almost exclusively in Europe, returning to the USA roughly once per year for a few performance dates. From 1978 to 1988 was Baker's most prolific era as a recording artist.
In 1983, another of my favorite artists, Elvis Costello, a longtime fan of Baker, hired the trumpet player to play a solo on his song Shipbuilding, from the album Punch the Clock. The song was a top 40 hit & exposed Baker's music to a new audience. Later, Baker often featured Costello's song Almost Blue in his live sets, and recorded the song on Let's GetLost, a documentary film about his life.
In the early morning of May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his 2nd story room of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. Heroin & cocaine were found in his hotel room. His death was ruled an accident.
To get to know this amazing musician try Let's Get Lost, which shows him as a cultural icon of the 1950s, but juxtaposes this with his later image as a drug addict. The film, directed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, & shot in black & white, includes a series of interviews with friends, associates & lovers, interspersed with film from Baker's earlier life, & with interviews with Baker from his last years.
With a breathy, walking-on-eggshells trumpet tone similar to the sound & achy, whisper, weathered & weary vocals, Baker delivers piercing takes on a number of standards: JustFriends, My Funny Valentine. Elvis Costello joins Baker on blue embered versionss of TheVery Thought of You & You Don’t Know What Love Is. Baker recorded over 50 albums. Everyone should have at least1 Chet Baker CD in their collection. I recommend- Chet BakerSings (1953) & Chet Baker Sings & Plays (1963).
Starting weight: 400 lbs. Finale weight: 219 lbs. Lost 181 lbs., 45.25 percent
The 28-year-old sales rep from Vicksburg, Miss., won “The Biggest Loser” and took home the $250,000 prize. This season’s “Biggest Loser” and winner of the $250,000 grand prize, Patrick, joined the show after hitting his personal rock bottom. He lost his job, he was forced to borrow money from family members just to make ends meet and he felt certain he would die young. Patrick has since transformed his life by losing an impressive 181 pounds and has put all of those worries behind him. ee the amazing transformations and pounds shed by the contestants, which included four players who started the show at over 400 pounds. 9 More after the break...
This morning marks the signing of the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning on homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, was signed into law by President Barack Obama. I never dreamed...
A gay, 20th Century artist is right up my alley. Gay history, art history, NYC in the 1970s, all my interests intersect with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Born on this day in middle class Brooklyn. His father, an accountant, was Haitian & his mother was Puerto Rican. As a teenager, he left home to live in lower Manhattan, selling hand painted tee shirts & postcards on the street. His work began to attract attention in the early 1980s after a group of underground artists held a public exhibition-The Times Square Show.
Basquiat's unique visual vocabulary of graffiti symbols & urban rage challenged accepted notions of art. His vivid paintings incorporated such diverse images as African masks, quotes from Leonardo di Vinci & Grey's Anatomy, Egyptian murals, pop culture, & jazz. Critics called his work childlike & menacing & neo-primitive.
Basquiat associated with other artists whose work drew from popular culture: Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, & Keith Haring. Haring: "Basquiat’s stuff I saw on the walls was more poetry than graffiti. They were sort of philosophical poems . . . . On the surface they seemed really simple, but the minute I saw them I knew that they were more than that. From the beginning he was my favorite artist."
Embraced by the art world, Basquiat soared to international fame. In 1982 his work was exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Rotterdam & Zurich. He was the youngest artist ever to be included in the prestigious German exhibition, Documenta 7. In 1985, he appeared on the cover of The NY Times Magazine. After Warhol died on February 22, 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression became more severe. After an attempt at sobriety during a trip to Maui, Hawaii, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose in his art studio on Great Jones Street in New York City's NoHo neighborhood on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.
Several major museum retrospective exhibitions of Basquiat's works have been held since his death. The first was the "Jean-Michel Basquiat" exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1993. It subsequently traveled to museums in Texas, Iowa, & Alabama. Another major & influential exhibition was the "Basquiat" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005.
Until 2002, the highest price paid for an original work of Basquiat's was 3 million + at Christie's. in 2003, Basquiat's large piece- Profit I, owned by drummer Lars Ulrich of the heavy metal band Metallica, was set for auction again at Christie's. It sold $6 million. In 2008, at another auction at Christie's, Ulrich sold a 1982 Basquiat piece, Untitled (Boxer), for $13,522,500 to an anonymous telephone bidder. The record price for a Basquiat painting was madein 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for $14.6 million.If you are interested in him. & you should be, try the 1996 film- Basquiat, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat & David Bowie as Andy Warhol. Or try the2009 documentary Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child.
