Finishing The Hat... For The Husband

Finishing the hat

How you have to finish the hat

How you watch the rest of the world

From a window

While you finish the hat

Mapping out a sky

What you feel like, planning a sky

What you feel when voices that come

Through the window

Go

Until they distance & die

Until there's nothing but sky

& how you're always turning back
 too late

From the grass or the stick

Or the dog or the light

How the kind of woman willing to wait

Not the kind that you want to
 find waiting

To return you to the night

Dizzy from the height

Coming from the hat

Studying the hat

Entering the world of the hat

Reaching through the world of the hat

Like a window

Back to this one from that

Studying a face,

Stepping back to look at a face

Leaves a little space in the way
 like a window

But to see

It's the only way to see

& when the woman
 that you wanted goes,

You can say to yourself,
 "Well, I give what I give"

But the woman
 who won't wait for you knows

That, however you live

There's a part of you
 always standing by

Mapping out the sky

Finishing a hat...

Starting on a hat..

Finishing a hat...

Look, I made a hat

Where there never was a hat

Stephen Sondheim

1984

 

Order, Design, Composition, Tension, Balance, Harmony

"Pretty isn't beautiful

Pretty is what changes

What the eye arranges

Is what is beautiful"

Lil’ Jake, the Hip Hop artist & The Husband’s design partner, suggested a viewing of Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George on DVD. An interesting proposition with the 3 of us working so much & keeping different hours. The Boys’ Fort duo finish at the shop around 7:30pm, just in time for me to go to bed at 8pm (I get up at 4am).

I resisted at first, but Lil’Jake needed the distraction, I gave in & at 8pm, we settled in to watch the Broadway cast in the 1985 Pulitzer prize winning musical. I had never seen the show in any production, but I knew the score. The Husband would repeatedly listen to the original cast album in the mid-1980s & I always enjoyed it also. At some point I became aware that act one’s Finishing The Hat moved him deeply & was one of his favorite songs.

Sondheim is criticized as too cerebral & clever, & cynical. However, I am very moved by Sunday In The Park With George. There is a significance, sophistication & soul to this musical that goes well beyond what I expected.

The story, a work of fiction, centers around the life of the painter Georges Seurat & his most famous work- A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. But, it's not about the painter, or even about the painting. The subject is art. The theme is the art of making art & the search for significance & meaning in life. It's about connecting the dots to the world around you. It's about living life fully & not giving into the mediocre, standing back from the dots that make up our lives & seeing how it all fits together, allowing the perspective to be placed into the proper place.

This DVD has frozen in time, the heartbreakingly young Mandy Patinkin & Bernadette Peters in a perfect alignment of the Broadway stars. I can’t help but feel that all the artists involved: director & book writer-James Lapine, Stephen Sondheim, orchestrator/musical director Jonathan Tunick, & the company of actors were at the very apex of their considerable talents

Bernadette Peters & Mandy Patinkin have dazzled me in their stage, film & TV work. I have been fortunate enough to have seen them live on stage in other roles, but this may be their very best work. Because live theatre is so ephemeral, great performances can been lost. Having a well filmed record of this musical makes me feel better about have missed the chance to have experienced it live in 1984. Someone find a new project for Patinkin! Here, he is a marvel, singing the songs with stunning styling & with a rare range of expression.

Sondheim's score is a thing of greatness & genius. Each song is remarkable, held with the highest possible craft & talent. There is also the brilliance of his usual orchestrator- Tunick’s arrangements of the pointillist score. The effect of the smart, sharp sparkling songs & performances, & the astonishing arrangements is absolutely breathtaking.

Someone once was of the opinion that I fell in love with The Husband because he was beautiful. Beautiful he still is.  But,this is not true, no matter what you may have heard. I fell for him because he created art. Beautiful & unsettling art.

Dot, the Bernadette Peter’s character, is George’s model & lover. Dot exists only for her relationship to George & his art. In the opening song, she says that she finds George physically attractive but the thing she loves most is his painting, his talent. For me, profund talent can be an extreme aphrodesiac. What Dot loves most is the thing that will forever keep them apart. She wants to be the center of his universe, yet she can never be because his art will always come before her. She can only come close when she is the subject of his work.

Order, design, composition, tension, balance, harmony…these words also apply to my life. Note to self: in 2012, learn to infuse what is left of your life with an attention to design, with a healthy tension, with a more thoughtful composition, with genuine balance, with light & harmony.

"Anything you do,

Let it come from you.

Then it will be new.

Give us more to see..."

I Will Take: Man That Stephen Would Like To Share A Martini & Cigarette With

November Song... If I Ever Loose My Faith

You could say I lost my faith in science & progress

You could say I lost my belief in the holy church

You could say I lost my sense of direction

You could say all of this & worse

If I ever lose my faith in you

There'd be nothing left for me to do

Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world

You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV

You could say I'd lost my belief in our politicians

They all seemed like game show hosts to me

If I ever lose my faith in you

There'd be nothing left for me to do

I could be lost inside their lies without a trace

But every time I close my eyes I see your face

I never saw no miracle of science

That didn't go from a blessing to a curse

I never saw no military solution

That didn't always end up as something worse but

Let me say this first

If I ever lose my faith in you

There'd be nothing left for me to do

Sting

1993

Tags: If I Ever Lose My Faith in You (From CMT Crossroads), Sting, Sting Videos

Sting was my #1 crush in the late 1970s- early 1980s. I was a peerless Police fan. I found them punky & rough & I was obsessed with the bass player, lead singer/songwriter. Now the kids at the place of my employment think that this is easy listening elevator music. I think this version is perfectly placed pop.

One Of My Favorite Books Of 2011

Take care, be kind, be considerate of other people & other species, & be loving.
John Lithgow

I loved this book. Writing a memoir can be a treacherous task. I have been writing mine for the past 3 years,using this little spot on the Internet. I have been tempted, on occasion, to rewrite my life, as if I could do it all over again, seeking to justify prior actions, even the unjustifiable. But instead, I have been offering up the truth. Some memoirs withhold so much they drain the story of all interest.

Professional actors have an additional challenge: their fame gathers an audience, but their skill stirs skepticism.

John Lithgow's Memoir- Drama could be read as a one-man show. A theatrical performance. Filled with many photographs, Drama brings you through Lithgow's theatre career in great depth. If you love the theater, you'll enjoy this book immensely. It dissects the many characters he has played, gossips other cast members, talks about the preparations for productions, & brings you through to opening night & beyond.

Admirably, Lithgow gives it all, displaying himself, flaws & all. The first 1/3 of the book, I thought he seemed like a perfect boy who never gave trouble; but later, a frail human side shows through, & the author shares the things he learned about himself along the way, including drug use, nervous breakdowns & adultery. Lithgow & I seem to have a great deal in common, except his story is wrapped around a successful career, with Tony wins & Oscar nominations. Mine goes from supporting roles in regional theatre, some commercials & tiny parts in TV & film, to last summer’s solo show in my back garden- The Seven Ages of Steve.

Drama begins & ends with recollections of his father Arthur Lithgo, an actor, director & producer of note, has an ongoing place in his son's development.

Like me though, Lithgow does not hold back featuring his own failings & failures. He holds the view that to an artist, everything in life can be used to advance understanding. He is smart leave his own ego’s needs out of the picture until there is a payoff, usually at his expense.

Serendipity placed him at Harvard at the zenith of the Camelot moment. He could not have known that he was experiencing the end of an era. His first freshman semester was jarred by the Kennedy assassination in Dallas; his final senior semester was bracketed by the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

His memories of Harvard are warm but not sentimental: "However you responded to the pressures of the place, one thing was clear: to thrive at Harvard, or even to survive there, you must stake out some domain where you can succeed, & move into it like an invading army."

Lithgow’s combination of drive & desire to learn & develop are the trough-line of the book, which focuses on his early years of struggle & accomplishment. Though the chronological thrust of the book ends with the late 1970s, he intersperses subsequent developments throughout. It was at this point that he found happiness in a marriage that has endured the subsequent 3 decades.

The Husband & I saw Lithgow on Broadway in the musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. We loved the show & his performance was delicious. He has been a favorite sense we saw him in The World According To Garp. I recommend this book highly. Lithgow's messages are of broader reach. Drama shares the wisdom of a master of the art of living.

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.

On This Day In Gay History- Harvey Milk Is Murdered

After receiving death threats, Milk said: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."



On Nov. 27, 1978, Harvey Milk was shot twice in the head by conservative & disgruntled supervisor Daniel White. Mayor George Moscone was also killed. White confessed to his crime, but was only given 5 years in prison plus parole. His lawyers argued that junk food caused his depression. That argument, dubbed the Twinkie defense, was later banned.

Milk's death made him a gay martyr. His supervisor seat was given to openly-gay politician Harry Britt. A year after Milk's death 100,000 people demonstrated for gay rights in Washington D.C. chanting "Harvey Milk Lives." He was also the inspiration for Cleve Jones' AIDS quilt & his bravery help spur on the modern day gay rights movement. Today, many gay social institutions are named after Harvey Milk, including The Harvey Milk School in NYC. In 2009, the State of California named Milk's birthday, May 22, Harvey Milk Day. Conservative Christians remain outraged.

I Will Take: Man That Stephen Would Like To Take A Road Trip With... For $400, Alex

Born On This Day- November 26th... Wayland Flowers

In no small way, I abhor & I am horrified by dolls & puppets. I feel that they easily come to life & that they have a hold over their handlers. I find the art of puppetry to be suspect, sinister & slightly sickening. Such is the case of Wayland Flowers & his puppet- Madame, who was far more famous than her creator.

Preparing for this post Indeed, I was shocked to find that there is little biographical information available about Flowers while Google reveals that Madame still retains a following.

Wayland Flowers began to practice puppetry at an early age in his native Georgia. In the 1960s, Flowers moved to NYC, where he was an assistant puppeteer for kiddie's television shows. He also developed Madame, an adults-only puppet, a freakish & flamboyant old fag hag in garish gowns, tiaras, & rhinestones.

Flowers performed with Madame in cabarets & gay bars, where her acerbic & camp observations about sex, men, & life, gave Flowers a following that led to frequent TV appearances on variety & talk shows.

By the late 1960s, Flowers & Madame had become regulars on my favorite show Laugh-In, at the time, the #1 show, known for its cutting-edge topical humor that challenged network censorship. Flowers was able to perform a coded campy gay perspective parlayed through his puppet.

Since Vaudeville raunchy old ladies have been a staple of ribald comedy, able to use sarcasm,the double entendre & sexual innuendo & still be perceived as amusing rather than offensive, probably because old women were thought to be past any serious sexual stuff.

Flowers could take this humor even farther, with an an old lady who was not only ugly, pretending to be a great beauty, because Madame was wood & wire.

Flowers gave prime-time TV the attitudes of gay men taking the first baby steps of gay liberation, a point of view that could have have been regarded as pointedly offensive to mainstream audiences, without having to do any censoring.

In the1970s, Wayland Flowers &Madame appeared frequently on TV, as the hosts of Solid Gold & on Hollywood Squares. After a decade of guest appearances, they replaced gay Paul Lynde, as the center square. Flowers & Madame were in the center square on the last episode of Hollywood Squares in June 1980. Peter Marshall asked Madame the final game question of the series: "Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert & Strauss lived in the same place. Where did they all live?" Madame: "At the YMCA!"

In the 1980s, the puppet/human relationship took a very peculiar turn in Flowers's career. Madame got her own sitcom- Madame's Place, in which she played the lead role, interacting with the other actors as if she were human. Flowers was nowhere to be seen. His work as Madame’s voice was the only evidence of his presence & wasn't given credit. Madame, as I always suspected, seemed to take over, overshadowing Flowers until he became literally & figuratively invisible. As a result very little attention was drawn to his personal life. The public did not seem to notice when Flowers died in Hollywood at 48 years old, in1988, a victim of the HIV epidemic. Madame was buried with him.

I Will Take: Man That Stephen Would Like To Sit Next To At A Dinner Party... For $300, Alex

Turkeys

Today was my first sort of a day off in November, sort of, because this morning, I did go to the store that I manage in Downtown Portland. I assisted The Husband as he did new displays for me. I do my own displays most of the year, but for the holidays I needed to pull out the big guns & the store does not take well to being too merchandised. I brought in my own designer. We were done by noon. We returned home & had the rest of the day off, both of us, at the same time. I am not certain that this has ever happened in this decade.

I supervise, school, schedule & support a rag-tag selection of 15 young people, 19-32 year olds. I put together a little publication I'll call, let us say- Stuff It With Steve. It is rather like a cross between the school paper & community bulletin board. The document has several regular features: Sales Goals, Sampling Schedule, Snippets, Steve's Stuff. I start the piece with a quote about food & next, a food trivia question.

I just had to know. I had been puzzling over the crew for a few months. How motivated are they? Just how smart? In this week's edition, the quote & the answer to the trivia question were the same:

Food Quote Of The Week: "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country...The turkey is a much more respectable bird, & withal a true original native of America." Benjamin Franklin

Food Trivia: A bottle of sparkling wine- Krug, for the first correct answer (no Iphones!)- Who Famously Said: "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country.....The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."

 
Only one young person got the trivia answer & he used his Iphone.
 
 

I'll Take: Man That Stephen Would Like To Take A Bath With... For $200, Alex

Born On This Day- November 23rd... Bruce Vilanch

I can't quite fathom the idea of Bruce Vilanch being hired by homophobes- Brett Ratner & Eddie Murphy to write the Academy Awards Ceremony this year. The Academy did the correct thing by hiring back the best Oscar host ever- Billy Crystal. Don't you agree? Ratner & Murphy? The Oscar telecast always is subject to some tweaking, but butching up The Academy Awards seems perverse. What new Producer Brian Glazer should do, besides bring on Crystal: add production numbers, Rob Lowe & Snow White, Sasheen Littlefeather, a streaker & Cher!

Vilanch with a bevy of beauties

Jewish, hairy & very funny, Bruce Vilanch has rarely been seen in public wearing anything more formal than blue jeans and one of his many smartass T-shirts. His own website calls himself- "the man who put F U in funny."

Vilanch's career as the man who writes funny things for funny people to say began when he was writing celebrity features for The Chicago Tribune, & schmoozing with whatever celebrities or semi-celebrities were in town. It was there that he met then-struggling nightclub singer Bette Midler, & the pair became fast friends. It was Vilanch who gave Midler some helpful career advice: "You’re pretty funny. You should talk more onstage". He wrote for Midler's 1974 Broadway show, Clams on the Half Shell, then moved to LA to write for The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. When that show ended, Vilanch wrote jokes for anyone who'd hire him, including Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, Paul Reiser, Elizabeth Taylor, & Robin Williams. He wrote Midler's Divine Madness act of 1980 & has been the Oscar Broadcast head writer, pulling off quips backstage, on the fly. Vilanch is a notable “script doctor”, who is brought in to punch up other writer’s screenplays. A prolific comedy writer, his resume includes classics like The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, The Star Wars Holiday Special & The Brady Bunch Hour, plus numerous awards shows, including several Emmy winning gigs with the Oscars.

He was head writer & a panelist on Hollywood Squares for 4 years, writing gags for the other panelists while his friend & client Whoopi Goldberg ran the show. Vilanch has also toured as Edna Turnblad in stage productions of Hairspray, shaving off his trademark 30 year old beard. A 1999 documentary, Get Bruce, chronicled Vilanch's day to day life. He has the amazing distinction of having acted in Mahogany & Ice Pirates. Vilanch works tirelessly for gay rights.

Bucket List Item #1

As I get monthly offers to join AARP, I am trying not to face the facts, what name am I to give it? Senior reminds me of high school. I think Old, while succinct, is too small a label, besides 60 is the not so very old for my generation. The Husband prefers Portland's own term- Honored Citizen. I am thinking of going with Baby Boomer Bucketlister. I can start the list with this: one of my most intoxicating, exultant periods of life was a week spent in Venice with The Husband in October 20 years ago. Romantic, redoubtable Venice.

We would find a favorite spot vowing to return, but never able to find it again, as if it had gotten lost, not us.It is a rare experience to walk Venice in the fog, sinister & seductive. I think about our time there when I spot the 18th century Ex Votos on our mantle that we found in a tiny shop in the Dorsoduro, near The Guggenheim.

On my Bucket List: Venice during the Holidays. Venice in the snow, empty of Americans, German & Japanese. I want to see it snowing in Venice before I am done.

Maybe my song isn't happy enough but I,

I see it take flight with the snowflakes above me.

My coffee gets cold as I'm staring in throws

At the snow that keeps falling outside.

& traveling light is a curse & a blessing

For someone like me whose heart has gone missing.

So get on that plane, as the snow turns to rain

& I'm writing your name on the clouds.

And see you in London or maybe in Paris.

Berlin will be waiting, and so will we roam.

& maybe I'll see you again when it's snowing in Venice

& I will be on my way home.

Oh la Venezia

Mi fa cosi bene

Esco ogni sera e vado a ballare

Che ben atmosfera, che bellissima neve

Non c'e' proprio niente che mi posso mancare

Maybe I'll see you again when it's snowing in Venice

& I will be on my way home

Elizibeta

2011

I'll Take- Man That Stephen Is Simply Zany About... for $100, Alex

What is David Byrne?

Goody Goody

Livinging without an automobile has forced an adjustment to a routine as old as our 32+ year relationship. In our decades as a couple, we have never had a pantry, a larder, or shelves of food stuffs. The Husband, who does the cooking, had always purchased what we were have for meals that day, judging what was inspiring & fresh.

Menu planning was unheard of. The most perfect era for this lifestyle was during the mid-1980s. We lived, for a period, in the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Really, we had a condo right inside one of the best & biggest farmers' markets in the USA. We would simply lock our door & hundreds of vendors offering fresh produce & scrumptious baked goods were steps away. At the start of the day,The Husband would get into his slippers & within minutes, return with espresso & pan au chocolat. He would gather the best seasonal, fresh produce & pastas for dinner.

For the first time in our considerable life together, we are forced to do weekly grocery shopping. This includes making a list for the week, unheard of for 3 decades. I reserve a Zip Car for early Monday mornings & travel to our closest big grocery store to put together a week's worth of essentials.

This Monday, I threw in a bag of Paul Newman's chocolate peanut butter Oreo style cookies. The Husband, at nearly 6 feet & 160 pounds, is helpless before baked goods & I am an enabler. Sure enough, the cookies were gone within 24 hours. I consumed 2.

After I discovered the empty bag, I sent a text to The Husband: " I am providing the answer to one of the SAT questions- A bottle of whiskey is to Stephen as a bag of cookies is to The Husband."

Classic Closet Cases On Their Birthdays

It was just last January that Calvin Klein threw a 21st birthday party for his gay porn star/model boyfriend Nick Gruber (he graduated high school in 2009!) at a hot NYC nightspot- Indochine. The invitation actually read: “It will be the hottest ticket for New York’s gay & fashion elite”? I guess that was quite the statement, the guest included: Anna Wintour, Steven Klein, Donna Karan, Daphne Guinness, Ingrid Sischy , Vera Wang, closet case Evan Lysacek, my occasional lover-Andy Cohen, Ian Schrager, & “100 male models”.

Klein & Gruber broke up in July, & got back together within 3 weeks, when they were seen holding hands on the street & kissing in broad daylight in NYC. They apparently are still together.

I am actually appreciative & approve of Klein's design philosophy of minimalism, extreme simplicity, clean & modern & his trademark earth tones.  It pains me to know that is rather a douche. 

In the early 1970s Klein was the first designer to win 3 consecutive Coty Awards for women’s wear, & in 1975, he was the youngest designer of ready-to-wear clothes ever elected to the Coty Hall of Fame. Klein: “the clothes are simple, comfortable but stylish clothes, nothing over scale or extreme”. His achievements in clothing & home designs are a sort of triumph of his particular brand of classical styling.

Perhaps more than for his designs, Klein became famous for his ads, some of which skirted on the scandalous. One series of ads featured a teen aged Brooke Shields modeling a pair of blue jeans & informing us: “nothing comes between me & my Calvins.” Klein's underwear ads, with photographs by Herb Ritts & Bruce Weber used models like Mark Wahlberg made me cheer for men as objectified sex objects. I once stopped mid-stride to gape at a gigantic Mary-Mark above Times Square. Klein turns a convincing 69 years old today.

----------------------------------------------------

I like her well enough. I certainly appreciate her talent & dedication to the craft of acting. I don’t love her enough to shoot a President, although it was a sad day for me when John Hinckley missed. I first noticed her as Becky Thatcher in a crappy musical version of Huckleberry Finn (produced by Readers' Digest, no less) in 1973. I thought- “wow, that little girl sure is butch, just how I like my girls!” But, I turned around & she really held my attention & interest in the wonderful Scorsese flick- Alice Doesn’t Live Her Anymore.

Alicia Christian Foster began acting in commercials when she was 3 years old, & her first important role came in 1976 in Taxi Driver as a preteen prostitute. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Also that same year she starred in the cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane. She finally won that Oscar for Best Actress in 1989 for playing a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, Jodie Foster received a 2nd Oscar & international acclaim for The Silence of the Lambs. She received her 4th Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994) a film that I truly disliked, although I do a first rate imitation of her work in this film. Other popular films: Maverick(1994), Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Brave One (2007) & WTF?-Nim's Island (2008), all of which I found dreadful or at least peculiar.

Foster's films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. She has also won 3 Bafta Awards, 2 Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, & has received 2 Emmy nominations.

Deeply in the closet, Her recent "mid-life crisis" was probably the subject of much speculation at soft ball practices, therapy sessions & over wholewheat muffins in bakeries around Hollywood by the entire lesbian community of L.A.

Foster had dramatically ditched 55 year old Cydney Bernard, her partner of more than 15 years - for Cynthia Mort, 33, a highly intelligent, big deal writer, who has made a name for herself by giving viewers some of the most explicit sex talk on TV, & was an executive producer on Will & Grace. Mort dumped Foster for her former girlfriend Amanda Demme.

Foster opened the closet door a crack when she accepted the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award in 2007. Foster: "Thank you to beautiful Cydney, who stuck with me through all the rotten & the bliss".

About the breakup, Foster stated: "Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it & I go: 'I think I'll just kick it.'"

More peculiar than Foster’s inability to fully come out of the closet is her defense of crazy, abusive, homophobic, anti-Semitic Mel Gibson. Foster & Gibson have a history, they appeared together in Maverick. This year Foster had to live with the jokes for her bomb- The Beaver, in which she directed & co-starred with Gibson. Gibson's big comeback movie grossed less than one million dollars.

This year Foster is on the short list for an Oscar nomination for Carnage, written & directed by Roman Polanski, based on the acclaimed play God of Carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza, & featuring Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz & John C. Reilly.

Foster turns 49 years old today. She has never actually acknowledged her personal life or relationships. For somebody of her power, influence, & fame being silent is cowardly. She thinks Mel Gibson is "incredibly loved." Why are her gay fans, who fell in love with her in Bugsy Malone, not saying that she is no longer a role model, & hold their applause?

Thought Of The Day

“All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening.”
Alexander Woollcott

Happy Birthday, RuPaul!

It has been pointed out by some friends & some readers, that my blog is all abut love, love, love. Not always; I can get crabby & I have a long list of things, people, events & behavior that get under my skin... but, I do love drag queens, & I love the Supermodel Of The World- RuPaul. I love her & I love him. I love PuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. I love the music. I truly love the gender-fuck.

RuPaul Andre Charles: actor, drag queen, model, author, & singer-songwriter, RuPaul considers himself an introvert: "in my career I've always said that I'm an introvert masquerading as an extrovert. So I get to be an extrovert when I'm in drag" Happy Birthday, Ru! Looking fabulous at 51.

November Song... Out Of My Head- Fastball

 

Sometimes I feel

Like I am drunk behind the wheel

The wheel of possibility

However it may roll

Give it a spin

See if you can somehow factor in

You know there's always more than one way

To say exactly what you mean to say

Was I out of my head? Was I out of my mind?

How could I have ever been so blind?

I was waiting for an indication

It was hard to find

Don't matter what I say only what I do

I never mean to do bad things to you

So quiet but I finally woke up

If you're sad then its time you spoke up too

Was I out of my head? Was I out of my mind?

How could I have ever been so blind?

I was waiting for an indication

It was hard to find

Don't matter what I say only what I do

I never mean to do bad things to you

So quiet but I finally woke up

If you're sad then its time you spoke up too

Was I out of my head? Was I out of my mind?

How could I have ever been so blind?

I was waiting for an invitation

It was hard to find

Don't matter what I say only what I do

I never mean to do bad things to you

So quiet but I finally woke up

If you're sad

 Then its time you spoke up

Too

Scalzo

1998

The Sad Song Of Glenn Burke

"They can't ever say now that a gay man can't play in the majors, because I'm a gay man & I made it."
Glenn Burke

In 1970, Byron Burke helped lead his Oakland high school basketball team to an undefeated season, a state championship, & all-tournament honors. He was a great all-around athlete who reportedly ran the 100 yard dash in 9.7 seconds & was also an outstanding baseball player.

It was his baseball skills that caught the eye of the LA Dodgers. One coach labeled Burke as "the next Willie Mays." Besides being a great baseball prospect, Burke also was gay, a gay man in professional sports, in the USA, in the 1970s.

Burke made his debut with the Dodgers in 1976. Early in his career, Burke felt he had to hide his sexuality from his teammates. When he began to reveal bits of his gaynes, it naturally drew the disapproval of baseball establishment.

Ironically, the very team that courageously challenged baseball's status quo of racism in 1947 as it stood behind Jackie Robinson, did not make the same stand when it came to Burke's gayness.

In an attempt to cover up his homosexuality, the Dodgers' management offered Burke $75,000 if he agreed to get married, to which Burke slyly responded: "You mean to a woman?"

Not only did Burke refuse to participate in any closet charade, he began an affair with homophobic Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda's estranged gay son. Coach Billy Martin would introduce other players to Burke as:"The Faggot".

Burke was traded to the Oakland A's before the 1979 season. Though back at home, things in Oakland didn't improve much for Burke. He refused to live the lie.

By the end of the 1979 season, Burke was no longer in baseball.

Many of Burke's teammates & managment were aware of his homosexuality during his playing career, & that his sexuality & the reaction that it provoked, led to the early end of his baseball career.

Burke’s honesty & courage ran ahead of society’s There's no way Burke's story, circa 1979, could end any way other than it did, a promising career ending before it truly began.

It wasn't enough for Burke to be a Major League Baseball player, if it meant compromising who he was. With the Dodgers, Burke possessed a very nontraditional attitude while playing for one of the most corporate sports franchises at the time. But, it wasn't just the Dodgers; homophobia continues to be the norm in Major League Baseball, & attitudes were consistent, & in most cases intensified, in locker room.

Burke's wanted to be a professional athlete & an openly gay man, but the conflicting emotions too much, despite Burke's enormous personality & athletic prowess.

After his premature retirement from baseball, Burke found solace & acceptance in San Francisco's Castro district. In the Castro, Burke was a celebrity acknowledged for his athletic ability & his gay identity, which for a while, seemed to be what Burke needed. he continued in sports after retiring from baseball. He competed in the 1986 Gay Games in basketball, & won medals in the 100 & 220 meter sprints in the first Gay Games in 1982. His jersey number at Berkeley High School was retired in his honor.Burke came out in a 1982 article published by Inside Sports magazine.

Burke turned to drugs to fill the void in his life when his career ended. An addiction to cocaine destroyed him both physically & financially. In 1987 his leg & foot were crushed when he was hit by a car in San Francisco. After the accident his life went into decline. He was arrested & jailed for drugs & for a time was homeless man living on the streets in the same Castro neighborhood that once celebrated him. He died of AIDS complications at age 42.

The tragic story of Burke is a tragedy faced by many gay people- unfulfilled dreams. It seems even more so for Burke; his dreams were in sight. Burke was not the first gay athlete in professional sports. He was the first who was unwilling to compromise. I wonder if Burke gave much thought to the price his courage would demand of his life. But Burke wasn't accepted. 30 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier Burke broke the gay barrier, living an out lifestyle in the major leagues. But in the 34 years since no one has followed in his footstep. Burke would have been 59 years old today.

Out: The Glenn Burke Story, is a documentary from 2010 produced by Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, it tells the tragic story of Burke's legacy as the first openly gay Major League Baseball player.It is available On Demand & on NetFlix.

In & Out

The husband accepted very part time work in the early autumn. He wanted to bring in some much needed cash flow to our lives. It was painful then to witness him miss the opening weekend at his own shop; he felt a heady mix of distress, despondency, doubt. Standing together at a bus stop, an unusual situation, The Husband attempted to articulate his attitude & this is what come out:

Stephen: "Really... how can it be that bad?"

The Husband: " I just want to get in & get out... give them what they want, get in there & really work & get out as fast as I can."

Stephen: "That is an apt description of your love making techniques."

The Husband: "This exchange will not be in your blog. Do you understand?"

The bus came, but I had forgotten my wallet so we had to go separate ways at that very moment. Before returning home, I took time to jot- "the old in & out" in my notebook.

Maxims By Steve

"Show me a man with both feet on the ground, & I’ll show you a man who can’t take his pants off."

Reflections On An Autumn Evening

I have been fortunate to have enjoyed acquaintances with all sorts of human beings: very young, very old, different races & nationalities, men, women, straight, queer, very rich, very poor, the gamut of sizes, types & dispositions. I have had fewer close friends & lovers, but love them I did, with deep, devout, & diligent devotion. Yet, when pressed, I will own up to hating humanity.

An adherent to the concept of Karma, I had to have been some sort of son-of-a-bitch in past lives. I don’t much care for the masses, but I found myself, in this life, front & center, facing the public, working in front of an audience or in restaurants or retail… & I don’t actually like people. Every day I was made to face people & attempt to make them happy, satisfied or entertained.

As a news junky, the human race never disappoints in their savagery & stupidity with heady mix of depravity, malice, heartlessness & disregard for the beautiful, fragile, blue orb that we are forced to share.

Yesterday I met Geoff at Boys’ Fort. He is a handsome, lithe, robust, sparkle-eyed gentleman of a certain age. We ended up chatting on for a while & Geoff told me this story: Middle aged Geoff was living in San Francisco, working as a designer, when he fell in love with a younger strapping, athletic “farm boy from the mid-west”. Geoff & Roger made lives for themselves, both working long, difficult days & attempting to sock away some savings. They lived paycheck to paycheck, as so many of us do, yet found a way to invest.

When the couple had been together a decade & a half, they found little time to be together or enjoy each other. Slowing down to enjoy their time, Geoff was diagnosed with cancer. Roger saw him through chemo, surgery & recovery.

Geoff & Roger took a moment to evaluate & contemplate their lives together, & very much in love, they decided to jump off the cliff of comfort. They "moved some money around”, sold a lot of their treasures & moved to the much less expensive Portland, living in a small condo in the Pearl District.

As Geoff was recovering from a second bout with cancer he encouraged his strapping farm boy to get back to exercising & train for the marathons that Roger used to love to run when they first became a couple. Roger wanted to make Geoff happy & hopeful after his long illness.

Rodger went for a run & dropped dead from a heart attack at age 51.

Within 24 hours, Roger’s family had a hired a lawyer & because they were not legally married in Oregon, Roger’s parents were able to take everything. Every book, piece of art, stick of furniture, Christmas gift, everything that 16 years together brought in to their lives was gone within 3 weeks, including the bank accounts that they shared. Some assets still in California were spared because Geoff & Roger were married in that state & registered as domestic partners, but Roger’s family tried to take that also & Geoff had to spend money on a lawyer to protect & defend his interests. Geoff: "I was left with nothing but my grief"

I am heartsick remembering Geoff’s narrative, yet Geoff’s spirit was somehow bright. I have not been able to stop thinking about him.

"Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made."
Immanuel Kant

On that note... this month the 7 billionth person was added to the planet & the Black Rhinoceros became extinct, a victim of poaching.

Born On This Day- November 14th... Composer Aaron Copeland

I took my very first steps as a performer being an instrumentalist performing symphonic music. Really. I studied piano from ages 6 to 17 & I played the string bass in school orchestras, the Spokane Junior Symphony, & the Tanglewood Youth Symphony. As with so many of my talents, I was bit of a dilettante. If I had really applied myself, I might have been 3rd chair string bass in the 'Possum Holler Symphony Orchestra or in the pit orchestra at the Chateau De Ville Dinner Theatre.

My string playing did come in handy twice in my acting life. My character played the cello in Sondheim's A Little Night Music in 1977, I portrayed LM, who played the bass, in a long run of the rockabilly musical Pump Boys & Dinettes in the early 1990s & I played the piano in Private Lives in college. 

He lived a very cool life as an openly gay man during an era where such a thing could be professional suicide. Unlike many gay men of his age, Aaron Copland was neither ashamed of or tortured by his sexuality. He apparently understood & accepted it from an early age. Throughout his life he was involved in relationships with other men. His affairs were mostly with younger men, usually musicians or artists, whom he mentored, including composer Leonard Bernstein, dancer & artist Erik Johns, photographer Victor Kraft, & music critic Paul Moor.



Copland was an American composer of concert & film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers". While his orchestral music & his ballets found success on the stages & in the concert halls of America, Aaron Copland sought to enter another arena, the emerging industry of motion pictures. He saw this as both a challenge for his abilities as a composer & an opportunity to expand his reputation & audience. However, the tendency of studios to edit & cut movie scores went against Copland’s desire for creative control over his work. Copland found a kindred spirit in director Lewis Milestone, who recognized the benefits of allowing Copland to supervise his own orchestration & refrained from interfering with his work. This collaboration resulted in the film Of Mice and Men (1939) that earned Copland his first nomination for an Academy Award. In a departure from other film scores of the time, Copland’s work largely reflected his own style, instead of borrowing from the late Romantic period. He rejected the common practice of using melodies to identify characters with their own personal themes.

His score for William Wyler's 1949 film, The Heiress won an Academy Award. Several themes he created are encapsulated in the suite Music for Movies, & his score for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel The Red Pony was given a suite of its own. This suite was one of Copland's personal favorites. It is difficult to overestimate the influence Copland has had on film music. Virtually every composer who scored for western movies, particularly between 1940 & 1960, was shaped by the style Copland developed.


Copland was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in composition for Appalachian Spring. His scores for Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940), and The North Star (1943) all received Academy Award nominations, while The Heiress won Best Music in 1949.Copland's best known piece of music is probably Fanfare For the Common Man (1942), a popular choice for opening ceremonies, with its dramatic opening fanfare, & turned into a worldwide pop hit in the 1970s by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Copland's homosexuality was documented in Howard Pollack's biography, Aaron Copland: The Life & Work of an Uncommon Man. Music critic Paul Moor, Copeland's lover in the 1950s:  "By some miracle Aaron remained as free of neurosis as anyone I've ever known. He was one of the dearest, kindest, most thoughtful & fundamentally good human beings I've ever known." Copland died of Alzheimer's disease & respiratory failure in Sleepy Hallow NY, in 1990, just weeks after his 100th birthday.

Remembrances Of Things I Forgot

“If H. G. Wells had been funny & Oscar Wilde obsessed with time travel they might have mated & produced Bob Smith, who has written the funniest & wildest ride imaginable through the recent past & near future.”
Edmund White

 “It’s safe to say your relationship is in trouble if the only way you can imagine solving your problems is by borrowing a time machine.”


How much of my life has been lived with the nagging: “What if”? I have a frequent inner-dialogue filled with “if I could go back & do it again, I would…”

Simply one of the best books I have read in a very long time Bob Smith’s Remembrances Of Things is filled with the full sweep of life’s experiences: love, lust, loggerheads, lenity, levity, lampooning, loathsome evils & legitimate indignation, yet the book is perfectly balanced storytelling from witty start to moving finish.

In 2006, comic book dealer John Sherkston decides to break up with his physicist boyfriend, Taylor. Taylor announces he’s finally perfected a time machine for the government. John is sent back to 1986, where he finds “Junior,” his younger, more innocent self. When Junior starts to flirt, John wonders how to reveal his identity:“I’m you, only with less hair & problems you can’t imagine.” He also meets up with the younger Taylor, & the unlikely trio teams up to plot a course around their future relationship missteps & problems, prevent John’s sister from making a  calamitous choice, & stop George W Bush from becoming the president.

It is a cosmic, comic, cross-country, time-bending course, where John confronts our country’s blunders & his own mistakes with the lesson that a second chance at changing things for the better also brings new chances to fuck it all up.

Edgy & droll, Remembrance Of Things I Forgot ponders dying romance, relationships’ dysfunctions, suicide, NYC, California & recent American history with a smart mix of sly comedy, science fiction, political satire, social scrutiny. The Smith zingers had me laughing out loud on the MAX train. I was so in love with the characters that I forced myself to slow down my reading because I didn’t want the book to end. Buy this book.

Goings On At Post Apocalyptic Bohemia

The Husband, your host & Junior

The Husband (passing through my work space): "Little screws, razor blades, & ink..."

Stephen: "What was that?

The Husband (in the kitchen): "Little screws, razor blades & ink..."

Stephen: "What are you talking about?"

The Husband (passing through my work space): "Little screws, razor blades & ink... that is what I need from the store before I go to Boys' Fort."

Stephen: " Well I am going to take it. Little Screws, Razor Blades & Ink is just what I have been looking for in a title for the second volume of my memoirs."

The Husband (looking at me across my work table): "Oh my! The title couldn't be more indicative of your middle years. Consider it yours."

(Stephen raises his eye brows & grins)

The Husband (exiting front door): "Little screws, razor blades & ink..."