Born On This Day- May 31st... Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë

Bertrand Delanoë

My very own Sam Adams

Portland has an out of the closet gay mayor- Sam Adams, who lives in my neighborhood & with whom I enjoy an acquinatence. I get a thrill when he calls me by name at city meetings or just around town. My friends & co-workers are impressed & they should be. I once had my eye on a chance to be the first lady of Portland. I served on a committee- Keep Portland Moving, regarding transpotation issues, & I would always arrive early enough to be seated besides hiz honor. I would later learn that I was born in decade much too early to catch the mayor’s interest. He is a fine man & a good mayor.


Adams is not the only gay mayor of a major city: Klause Wowereit of Berlin, Ole von Beust of Hamburg, Glen Murray of Winnipeg, & the recently elected mayor of Houston- Annise Parker. Progress.


Bertrand Delanoë has been mayor of Paris since 18 March 2001, when control of the city council was won by a left-wing alliance for the first time since the Paris Commune of 1871.

Delanoë won the election for mayor of Paris, with a coilition of Greens & Socialists over Conservitives. This success in a city which has traditionally been a stronghold of the right wing was striking since setbacks to the Left across France since 2001 elections have been attributed with the weariness of the Parisian public of corruption, graft & a series of scandals of the previous administrations.


Delanoë was virtually unknown before the election of 2001, but soon gained fame for organising new & unusual events in Paris: the Paris Plages, a manufactured beach on the banks of the Sein. Built every summer to give Parisians who could not take a regular vacation a chance to relax, tan & enjoy the beach in the center of Paris. The popular program program has been in place since 2002, & has been copied by other international cities.

He also gave birth to Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night), a dawn to dusk festival of parties around the city, with museums, galleries, & public spaces open all night.


During a Nuit Blanche in October 2002, Delanoë was stabbed, while mingling with the public, by a Muslim immigrant,-Azedine Berkane, who told police: "I hated politicians, the Socialist Party, & homosexuals." A real fun party guest. Before being taken to a hospital, Delanoë asked that the festivities continue. Delanoë's wound was thought to be minor, but he was in the hospital  for 2 weeks.


Berkane was permitted to leave treatment in a psychiatric hospital after his doctors no longer considered him a threat. He has not been seen since.


As Mayor, Delanoë has worked to improve the quality of life for Parisians: reduce pollution, cut down on vehicles in the city center, a plan to build a non-polluting tram, & closing streets to become pedestrian malls. He introduced a program of giving citizens cheap rental bicycles available in stations all around Paris. The program has been enormously successful. He has outlined a plan for Autolib, where small cars would be shared. He was reelected in 2008 with 57.7% of the vote. His term is up in 2014.


Delanoë strongly criticized Benedict XVI for a statement that condom use was unhelpful & even counter-productive in the fight against HIV. Delanoë is known to be on the Al Qaeda hit list. His name is often mentioned as possible candiate for President of France in the next election.

 

Considering Walt Whitman On His 192nd Birthday

When I write about individuals from history that were homosexual, I avoid using the term- GAY, because for me, there was no GAY before the 20^th century, until I consider Walt Whitman on this, the day of his birth. Whitman was GAY, using the 20^th/21^st century definition.

Has there ever been a poet so thoroughly a man of this nation than Walt Whitman?  Whitman’s book of poetry- Leaves of Grass, holds the essence of being an American. It also reflects the ways in which America ideals have been sacrificed. Walt Whitman's personal life suffered much at the hands of the American taboo against sex.

Whitman is this country’s greatest embarrassment, if what he says about democracy is true, the American ideal of universal equality must embrace homosexuals, & same sex love. Whitman is a subversive & radical poet & American school children for the past 50 years have been carefully protected from exposure to America's greatest poet. I have always been an avid reader, & I did not read Whitman until I was finished with college, when my mother, of all people, gave me a volume of Leaves Of Grass as a gift.

A leaf for hand in hand;

You natural persons old and young!

You on the Mississippi and on all the branches & bayous of the Mississippi!

You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!

You twain! & all processions moving along the streets!

I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.

Walt Whitman was a true bohemian. He never gave into having a regular job occupation, & he was a singularly solitary man, probably not by choice. In 1819, Whitman was born in Long Island, NY. He did the usual things until he was 11, when he quit school. He ran errands for a lawyer & doctor, & then became an apprentice typesetter for a Brooklyn paper.

He taught school in several small villages in NY, & contributed articles to newspapers. In 1841 he left country life for the big city. In NYC he worked for newspapers as typesetter, reporter, feature writer & editor. Whitman took a life of theatre, cafes & nightclubs.

He went to art exhibitions, museums, the opera, watch the ships, & walked among the masses in the great city. His favorite activity was to sit near the hot, young, rugged carriage drivers, & cross back & forth on the Brooklyn ferry to mingle with the rough deck hands.  Because he was repressing his sexuality, he was a loner in a crowd, a spectator rather than a participant.

Sometime after 1855, when Leaves of Grass was first published, he experienced some sort of emotional crisis that transformed him from journalist to poet. In the manner so many gay men in NYC & San Francisco of late 1970s, he gave up being a dandy & became a hyper masculine clone.

Crowds of men & women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me.

  On the ferry-boats the hundreds & hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose
 
& you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, & more in my meditations, than you might suppose . . .

I was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,

Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,

Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,

Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word.
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, tradition,

Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met there who detained me for love of me,
 
Day by day & night by night we were together — all else has long been forgotten by me,

I remember I saw only that man who passionately clung to me,

 Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
 
Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,

I see him close beside me with silent lips sad & tremulous.
Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,

Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking & breeding,

No sentimentalist, no stander above men & women or apart from them,

No more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
 
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,

& whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
 
Through me the afflatus surging & surging, through me the current & index.

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the song of democracy,

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
Song Of Myself

When Whitman is taught in school as part of the canon of American literature, there is still much resistance to identifying him as gay, despite some fairly well documented evidence.

I share the midnight orgies of young men . . .

I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,

He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be condemned by others for deeds done,

I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?

Whitman's notebooks of this period are filled with descriptions of bus drivers, boat men, & other "rude, illiterate" men that he picked up is really in the streets of Manhattan, & "slept with," often keeping notes of their home addresses. Excerpts from his Notebooks have been collected in Charley Shively's Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados:

Peter — large, strong-boned young fellow, driver. . . . I liked his refreshing wickedness, as it would be called by the orthodox.

George Fitch — Yankee boy — Driver . . . Good looking, tall, curly haired, black-eyed fellow

Saturday night Mike Ellis — wandering at the corner of Lexington av. & 32d st. — took him home to 150 37th street, — 4th story back room — bitter cold night

Wm Culver, boy in bath, aged 18

Dan'l Spencer . . . somewhat feminine . . . slept with me Sept 3d

Theodore M Carr — came to the house with me

James Sloan (night of Sept 18 '62) 23rd year of age — plain homely, American

John McNelly night Oct 7 young man, drunk, walk'd up Fulton & High st. home

David Wilson — night of Oct. 11 '62, walking up from Middagh — slept with me

Horace Ostrander Oct. 22 '62 — about 28 yr's of age — slept with him Dec 4th '62

October 9, 1863, Jerry Taylor, (NJ.) of 2d dist reg't slept with me last night weather soft, cool enough, warm enough, heavenly.

This is the 19^th century version of John Rechy’s Numbers!

As I have been noting the protests of the right wing & religious fundamentalists to the recent legislation adding references to gay people in history to the curriculum in public schools of California, I consider how liberating it will be for young gay people to acknowledge that the most American of poets was not just a homosexual, he was gay.

I recommend the excellent & very readable- Walt Whitman: A Gay Life by Gary Schmidgall

Train Tales #3

 

I enjoy riding the MAX train. The bus always seems to have the odor of diesel, sweat & a slight hint of wet wool, & the MAX train is electrically powered & clean. I find the sound of the train pleasing. There is an on-going fantasy that I live in Westchester County & work in Manhattan, with the wife & kids picking me up at the station, in reality the wife is a husband & the kids are canine & my life is not Mad Men.

Living a life with low grade Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is not for the faint hearted. I feel a driving need to have “my seat” on the MAX: right hand side, very front behind the driver, the only single seat on the train. If I don’t get this spot I can become grouchier than usual. I start my trip in either direction just one stop from the beginning of the line; I stand a good chance of securing my favorite place. 

On a cool, rainy, spring weekday, I boarded the train & found my seat occupied by a hipster. I took a moment to center myself & breath, & then sat close to my favorite place in case it should become vacant.  I was joined in my seat at the next stop by a beautiful African-American woman of an indecipherable age, chic in her hat & gloves. 

With my nose in my book so that I would not have to engage in conversation, this woman dared to ask me: “What is that you are reading?”  I showed her the cover of Just Kids by Patti Smith & prayed that this elegant lady would not ask me to explain Robert Mapplethorpe & Patti Smith.

I have always held that everyone’s story is interesting if you can get them to open up. I told my seat partner how lovely she looked. She introduced herself as Coral.

10 year old Coral moved to Portland, from Texas, with her parents in 1945. They lived in Vanport, at the time, the largest public housing project in the USA. It was home to 40,000 people, mostly African-American, who worked in the Kaiser Shipyards. In a dramatic parallel to Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans, on May 30, 1948, at 4:05pm, a dike holding back the Columbia River collapsed during a flood, killing 15. The city was underwater by nightfall leaving its inhabitants homeless. Like Katrina, the government misled the population into believing that the damage would be slight. Many have attributed the poor response, in both cases, to the racist attitudes of officials, who neglected to respond appropriately to the destruction of a mostly black community. Amazingly, I now live in walking distance of what was once Vanport, now named Delta Park. 

Vanport before & after the flood

Coral spent 4 days searching for her parents. She was eventually reunited with her mother & father at a church shelter in NE Portland's Mississippi neighborhood. They settled in that part of Portland,  still a stubbornly segregated city. 

Coral would eventually graduate from high school & attend beauty college. She found employment at a downtown Portland salon that catered to colored ladies. She worked her way up to manager & when the owner retired in 1965, Coral bought the place & gave it the name- Coral’s House Of Hair.  

Even more impressive in racist Portland of the late 1960s, Coral & The House Of Hair became illustrious enough that she was approached to have her own 15 minute local TV show giving beauty tips to women of color. True Colors Of Beauty aired at 3:15pm, Monday- Thursday on KPTV. The show lasted 5 years. 

I was close to my stop. I told Coral that I had not expected to have such an enchanting & engaging ride into downtown. I gave her my card & offered to buy her lunch sometime. She has yet to take me up on the offer, but on the Max train yesterday, I glanced up from my book & outside of the window, & there was Coral, chic in hat & gloves. She smiled & gave me a wave. 

Memorial Day 2011

My husband is named for his uncle, his father's brother, who was killed in WW2. There is a beautiful & stark memorial to the citizens of Washington State that gave their lives while defending our country. The Garden of Remembrance is a half-acre, L-shaped garden along the sides of Benaroya Hall (home of the Seattle Symphony). Memorial walls of granite, lined by slender reflecting pools, are oriented so that the names face the western sun. In addition to the walls, a poem honors veterans who died in World War I; a reflecting pool honors those missing in action; & a fountain honors those who died in peacetime service. The memorial was designed by Robert Murase, a noted landscape architect. The Garden was dedicated on July 4, 1998.

Not long after the memorial was completed, the Husband was walking in front Benaroya Hall & glanced up & immediately (not knowing that it even existed) saw his own name engraved with the date of his death in England in 1944. He claims that his eyes went directly to it, although the memorial had thousands of names. The Husband said it was a Twilight Zone Moment.

The Husband served in the US Army during the Vietnam War Era (1971-77). I feel blessed that he is with me today & not a name on a War Memorial.

The Husband learned at his father's funeral, summer 2010, his uncle was mostly likely gay. He was a theatre & dance major before going to war & he wrote home to his brother about how cute the other service men were. The letters were destroyed, but the Husband believes it to be true & his namesake messy personal life explains many things about his family dynamics.

South Side — Tamanna Bhatia

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Born On This Day- May 29th... Funny Lady Beatrice Lillie

I feel heavy hearted that the baby queers & even the Gen Xers don't know about, or care about many of the personalities that engaged the gay people that came before them. I recently mentioned Mae West & Raquel Welch in the same sentence & a small group of 20-something gay boys looked at me with totally blank faces. It was as if I had been speaking in Hebrew.

Beatrice Lillie was an incomparable artist: comedienne, actress, & known in the 1920s- 1950s as "the funniest woman in the world. " She was born Constance Sylvia Gladys Munston, in Canada. She began her stage career in London in 1914 & she became famous for her performances in music hall & in intimate revues.

Lillie made her American debut in 1932 where she developed her own TV series during the 1950s. She appeared in films including On Approval (1944) & Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), although she worked primarily on the stage. In 1952, she created her own show; incorporating her greatest bits in An Evening with Beatrice Lillie which opened on Broadway. This show received rave reviews & she toured with it across the globe 3 times. She won a Special Tony Award for her performance in 1953. She starred on Broadway in High Spirits & replaced Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame.She wrote her autobiography Every Other Inch a Lady in 1972 before a suffering stroke in 1974.

After her death, Sir John Gielgud stated: "She was The Mistress of the Absurd, I remember Bea standing dramatically against a pillar dressed in a flowing gown which she lifted suddenly to reveal her feet shod in roller skates on which she gravely skidded across the stage".

With her trademark cropped hair style with a smart hat, holding a long cigarette holder, she was a true original, an enemy of pomposity, & the sentimental. Fortunately, many of her satirical & surrealistic comic songs: There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of My Garden, Weary Of It All, Wind Round My Heart, & my favorite- This Is My First Affair ("so please be kind & please be quick"), are preserved on record.

In the first half of the 20th century, Lillie was one of the most sought after celebrities, the darling of the social set, & the toast of two continents. Cole Porter wrote his "story of a nightmare weekend"- Thank You So Much, Mrs. Lowsborough-Goodby, for her, & Noel Coward wrote the delightfully gossipy I've Been To A Marvellous Party just or her. She gave the 1st public performance of Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

In 1920 she was married to Sir Robert Peel, making her Lady Peel, a name she used at social affairs. She eventually separated from her husband (but never divorced him). Lillie had affairs with actresses Tallulah Bankhead, Eva Le Gallienne, Gertrude Lawrence & Judith Anderson.



Do I ever give you a lift after a party at Joan Crawford's?

God Loves Gene Robinson

V. Gene Robinson is bishop of a tiny,rural Episcopal Diocese in New Hampshire, & he is at the center of a storm of controversy raging in the Episcopal Church & throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion involving homosexuality & the priesthood.

Gene Robinson is the 1st openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, & the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination. Robinson: "God never gets it wrong. The church often takes a long time to get it right. It is a human institution, but one capable of self-correction, I believe in my heart that the church got it wrong about homosexuality. There is great excitement in my heart to be living in a time when the church is starting to get it right."

He argues that the time has come for full civil rights of GLBT people. He insists that the God he knows is a God of radical inclusion, who wants to lift up all the oppressed, including women, minorities & the poor. He has opposed the Roman Catholic ban on homosexual seminarians: "I find it so vile that they think they are going to end the child abuse scandal by throwing out homosexuals from seminaries."

Robinson met his partner, Mark Andrew, while on vacation in St. Croix. Andrew was on vacation from his position at the national office of the Peace Corps. In 1988, Robinson & Andrew moved into a new house & had it blessed by Bishop Douglas Theuner, an event which they considered to be the formal recognition of their life together. Andrew currently works in the New Hampshire state government. He was legally married to Robinson in June 2008 in a private ceremony, followed by a religious ceremony, both in St Paul's Church, in Concord. Robinson: "I always wanted to be a June bride."

Today Gene Robinson turns 64 years old. Due the controversy surrounding his ordination, he plans to step down in 2013, 7 years early. Robinson: "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, you."

Born On This Day- May 29th... Film Actor Helmet Berger

It sounds like a weekend at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia: anguished souls, sinister villains & twisted Nazis, but I am actually considering Helmut Berger on his Birthday.

Helmut Beger by Helmut Newton 1970

In 1964, Helmut Berger met Italian director Luciano Visconti, who would become his partner in life. Visconti gave him his first acting role & he gained international fame in Visconti's from 1969- The Damned, a movie that fascinated me for its depravity when I was 15 years old. In this film, Berger mimics the role of Lola, as played by Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel . In the equally twisted role of King Luwig II of Bavaria in Visconti's Ludwig, Berger reached the apex of his acting career: he portrays the monarch from youth, to his dissolute final years, & creates a lunatic lord of decay drawn from his own weaknesses & depths.

Visconti introduced Berger to musicians, models &international artists: Rudolf Nureyev, Maria Calla, Leonard Bernstein & Mick Jagger. Berger had an affair with Nureyev, but didn’t appreciate the dancer’s passion for garlic & vodka. He claims one time encounter withJagger. At least I went twice with the Rolling Stones singer.

Visconti's death in 1976 drove Berger into deep despair & financial collapse. Visconti's will, in which Berger was to be heir, could not be found. The former lover of Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli, berated Berger publicly, accusing him of exploiting his mentor. Berger attempted suicide on the first anniversary of Visconti's death, & fell into alcohol & drug addiction. In his 1988 memoir- Ich, he refers to his relationship with Visconti as a marriage &  claims to be the director's widow.

Berger worked in B-movies & a few high profile films like Ash Wednesday in 1973 with Elizabeth Taylor. He also worked in TV, including the role of Peter De Vilbis on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian favorite- Dynasty. Since Visconti's death no director has been able to bring Berger's considerable talents to the screen again.

I was very drawn to Helmut Berger in the 1970s. I swooned at photos of him in After Dark magazine & in fashion layouts. Check out his work in Dorian Gray, a warped Italian version of the Oscar Wilde tale, set in sexually loose 1970’s London. Berger turns 67 today. He continues to work in film.

Berger Today

Born On This Day- May 29th... Rupert James Hector Everett

We were already big fans of his good looks & his talent. The Husband waited on Rupert Everett, in town for the Seattle International Film Festival showing of Another Country, at the then famous gay dining spot- The Ritz Café on Capitol Hill is Seattle. The Husband came home with the sordid tale of Everett’s bad behavior, culminating in his passing out, face first into a plate of food. I somehow loved the actor even more.

At 15 years old, Rupert Everett ran away from boarding school & went to London to become an actor. He starred opposite Kenneth Brannagh in the play Another Country when he was 23. He did the film version, based on the life of the  gay spy Guy Burgess, with Colin Firth when he was 25. He came out when he was 29 & the offers dried up. He gave interesting & deft performances in Pret-a-Porter & The Madness of King George, but when he starred opposite Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, the industry was abuzz with the idea of the “gay best friend” as an asset for a story line. It was unique to have a gay character who is happily partnered, not a victim, not dying, or not a sissy. He carried the film with the charm of Cary Grant.

That charm followed with roles as gay Christopher Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love, An Ideal Husband, Inspector Gadget, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Next Best Thing, The Importance of Being Earnest, & the overlooked- Stage Beauty. He is the voice of Prince Charming in the money making Shrek franchise, disproving his own theory that out actors can’t get work.

Everett has written 2 novels & a memoir, in which he included the fact that for a time he was a rent boy. I very much enjoyed reading Rupert's memoir- Red Carpets & Other Banana Skins.  He names names, something I admire in a memoir. He is honest, hugely funny & deeply wise about human nature, particularly his own. His beautiful face, his lovely manners, all his attractive qualities seemed worth the cash to me.

Rupert Everett has been urging gay stars not to come out & to keep their sexuality a secret as it could end their film career. He came out as gay 25 years ago & admitted that since then, he has been given only supporting roles.

Everett is now suggesting that aspiring actors stay in the closet as it could harm their career: “It's not that advisable to be honest. It's not very easy, &, honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out... The fact is that you could not be, & still cannot be, a 25 year old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn't work & you're going to hit a brick wall at some point. You're going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure, they'll cut you right off. I'm sick of saying: ‘Yes, it's probably my own fault.’ Because I've always tried to make it work & when it stops working somewhere, I try to make it work somewhere else. But the fact of the matter is, & I don't care who disagrees, it doesn't work if you're gay.”

Everett added that he does believe he is happier than those other major stars who are keeping their sexuality a secret: “I think, all in all, I'm probably much happier than they are. I may not be as rich or successful, but at least I'm vaguely free to be myself.”

John Schlesinger was a great director, responsible for Midnight Cowboy & Sunday, Bloody Sunday, ground breaking gay themed films. But, I think The Next Best Thing is one of the worst movies I have ever had to sit through. Drek, not Shrek. I stayed with it for Mr. Everett.

Everett turns 52 years old today & is looking his age. I would still do him. but then like Everett, I can be very shallow.

Born On This Day- May 29th... English Writer T.H. White

During the 4 decades that I was an actor, I had a tendency to immerse myself in research, of which only the tiniest touch would be timely & valuable. 

in 1969. I was cast as Merlin in the musical- Camelot at my high school. In school & university, I was often cast as older characters because I had the talent to pull it off, & well, I have always looked older than my years. Being cast as the wizard guide of King Arthur sent me on a journey through the books of T.H White’s Arthurian world: The Once & Future King, The Sword & The Stone, The Queen Of Air & Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, Candle In The Wind, & The Book Of Merlin. By the time I played Arthur's bastard son- Mordred, a rare age appropriate role, I was fairly well versed in the legends surrounding, Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere & the Knights Of The Round Table.

T.H. White wrote many books for adults & children, but he is most famous for writing writing The Once & Future King, & a series of novels based on Sir Thomas Malory's 15th Century romantic- Le Mortte D'Arthur reinterpreting the legend of King Arthur. The Broadway musical Camelot & the Disney film The Sword in the Stone are both based on The Once and Future King. Much of our historical knowledge of Arthur is owed to White's work.

White was a closeted homosexual & sorrowful, solitary, & sorry man who turning first to psychotherapy & then alcohol to deal with his perceived problem. He eventually retired to one of the Channel Islands, Julie Andrews & her husband, set designer-Tony Walton were 2 of the few who visited him. Julie Andrews: "I believe Tim to have been an unfulfilled homosexual, & he suffered a lot because of it."

White died at 57 years old, in 1964, from heart failure on a ship in Greece.

J K Rowling has acknowledged the influence of White's work on her Harry Potter novels.

 

Cheever

It is one of my favorite American short stories, dripping with martinis & angst. Written during the era of Mad Men, John Cheever’s The Swimmer begins on a summer day in an upper class neighborhood of suburban NYC. Middle aged Ned appears in the backyard of of his friends & neighbors, who he has not seen in quite some time. Before the neighbors can welcome him, Ned jumps into their swimming pool with much vim & vitality. Ned learns that with the addition of a recent swimming pool in another neighbor's backyard, he can literally swim from swimming pool to swimming pool, to his home which is miles away. He names the route Lucinda's River, after his wife. He makes this journey despite some obstacles along the way. At each swimming pool, Ned stops & chats with his neighbors. Each stop reveals more of Ned's life so far until he reaches his final destination. The story is both realistic & surreal.

Cheever, born on this day in 1912, has been dubbed the "Checkhov of the suburbs". When traveling in the late 1970s, I carried around a paperback volume of The Stories Of John Cheever, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1979.

My Aunt Sharon gave a subscription to The New Yorker for Christmas when I was 11 years old, & improbably, I actually read it cover to cover each week. I still do. Cheever was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker & is considered the very definition of The New Yorker writer.

Cheever's world is marked by the spiritual & emotional emptiness of life. He made note of the manners & morals of the middle-class with an ironic sense of humor that helped balance his bleak view. He died in 1982.  After his death, his discovered letters & journals revealed that he was bisexual. Cheever had long marriage & produced 3 children, but he also had affairs with many men.

His attitude towards his own bisexuality is shown in his writing. His early works are marked by ambivalence & stereotypes, but his later stories give into to recognition & redemption.

There is an especially well done & unlikely 1968 film adaptation of The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster looking yummy in period swim trunks. The film was directed by Frank Perry, with small roles filled by Kim Hunter, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Janice Rule, Marge Champion & Joan Rivers, with a score by Marvin Hamlisch. Check it out. Make note of a very young Joan Rivers in the trailer. She has to be proud of this credit, I know I would.

Born On This Day- May 27th... Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist & conservationist whose books make her rather the godmother of modern enviormentists.

Carson became a full time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her financial security & recognition as a gifted writer. Her next books- The Edge of the Sea & Under The Sea Wind were also bestsellers. Her sea trilogy explores ocean life, from the shores to the surface to the deep sea.

In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation and the environmental problems caused by synthetic pesticides. In 1962, she wrote Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to the American public. Silent Spring was met with enraged denial from chemical companies, but it urged the country into a reversal in national pesticide policy, including a  ban on DDT & other pesticides. Carson’s books  gave birth to a grassroots environmental movement & inspired the government into creating the EPA.

The current Tea Party wishes to un-do the EPA & because the Tea Baggers love to look backwards to “the good old days of American Values” of non-regulated pesticide use, Carson is not a hero to the far right. Sarah Palin objects to a “Nanny State” that tells the citizens what is good & not good for them. Amazing that Carson’s hard work could still be unraveled.

Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Metal Of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

In 1953, Carson moved to an island off the coast of Maine, where she became acquainted with Dorothy Freeman. The women started a relationship that would last the rest of Carson's life. Freeman was a summer resident of the island along with her husband. Freeman had written to Carson to welcome her to island life. She had read The Sea Around Us, & was pleased the prominent author would be a neighbor. The pair loved nature & loved each other. They exchanging letters when apart. They continued to share their summer love affair for the remainder of Carson's life. Carson died of a heart attack in 1964.

Born On This Day- May 27th... Party Animal Allan Carr

I have a certain amount of camp sensibilities; I am zany for a really good bad movie: Valley Of The Dolls, Battlefield Earth, Roadhouse, Terror In Tiny Town, Ishtar, The Oscar, Mommy Dearest. Showgirls is my #1 Good Bad Movie, but Can’t Stop The Music is right behind it, nipping at it’s ass.

The 1980 musical epic was the only time The Village People starred in a film, proof that it takes a village. He cast it with a lot of ex-boyfriends, but on the set they got out of hand & Carr issued an edict: “Anyone caught having sex on the set will be fired!”

Nothing says 1970s hedonism like an Allan Carr production. But then there was nothing else like very ostentacious, obese, ornate caftan-wearing Allan Carr.

Carr produced & promoted the films Grease, Grease 2, Where The Boys Are ’84, Tommy, & Broadway’s La Cage aux Folles. Carr kept was also busy hosting exclusive & extravagant events with guest lists that included most show biz legends & those that loved them. The invitations to the gatherings at his opulent mansion, with bars, a disco, & plenty of private rooms where guests could indulge in cocaine & sex, were highly coveted. Even in homophobic Hollywood of the 1970s.

He titled his parties like movies: the Roman Polanski Rolodex Party, the Rudolph Nureyev Mattress Party, the Mick Jagger Cycle Sluts Party, the Truman Capote Jailhouse Party. He invited rock stars & Hollywood royalty. You could rub up to Elton John, Groucho Marx, or the pool boy. To promote the movie Tommy, he held the opening-night party in the New York subway.

Carr’s fall from grace was as dramatic as his rise to the top. He was banned from the Academy Awards after producing what is remembered as the worst Oscar broadcast of all time, with a tone deaf Rob Lowe & Snow White singing Proud Mary. Stars like Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews & Paul Newman signed a petition banning Carr from the Oscars. Disney sued the Oscars for copyright infringement of their Snow White character. The Breakout Superstars of Tomorrow segment in the program’s second half featured 12 minutes of young actors like Christian Slater & Patrick Dempsey writhing around a giant Oscar as if it was the golden calf.

Soon after, the Hollywood establishment shunned the sizzling scandals, sex & sordid lifestyle of the flamboyantly gay Allan Carr. Grease may have been the word, but nothing lubed Carr like pretty parties, pretty caftans, pretty drugs & pretty boys.

In 1999, Carr died of Liver Cancer. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific by Ann Margret in front of his former Diamond Head Estate in Oahu, Hawaii.