Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 09, 2012
Jesus Christ Superstar
We saw it.
We loved it.
We watched him die and then rise from the dead.
Singing the whole time.
Look---
It was the night before Easter and all through the house
Not a savior was stirring, I just have to grouse,
The eggs were not dyed, nor was ham in the air,
We went and got twofers, at the booth in Times Square …
I’ll stop now because it is 3AM and I have to drag my tired lapsed ass to bed.
(Can something that never really was be lapsed?)
Okay, I have to drag my familial historical Catholic ass to bed.
Okay, I have to drag my familial historical Catholic ass to bed.
But before I do, let me say this—
These wacky talented Canadians, via La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Des McAnuff, most of them making their Broadway debuts, were frigging fabulous.
The set was like the inside of a black and silver Motorola Android phone. Big on the Superstar part. Jesus countdown news crawling across a horizontal crawler (in lights, you know, like news)…fun as hell. (As heaven?)
Jesus played it all caged animal-like.
Judas was played by the understudy. Amazing voice.
Jesus, too---amazing singer.
Mary M, not as well.
I loved this music as a kid and I still do. It’s modern chords, with rock music and it’s sort of nasty good crucifixion fun.
As Joan Didion penned, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
At the end of the play, the words of the Gospels, lit up, crawled all over the set, moving across so you could almost read them, filling the walls. Like, this Jesus death set the tongue waggers on fire. It was powerful, moving. Not just for the Gospels but because, fundamentally, people must write and say so much stuff in order to craft their way out of the madness.
But moving away from Joan and Jesus, really---it’s about the music. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (Who once asked a friend, “Why do people take an immediate dislike to me?” and the friend answered, “Because it saves time.”)—Sir A.L.W., in my opinion, wrote his best music here, mostly because the chords here are closer and the rhythm structures more contrapuntal than in anything else he has put together.
Jesus be damned, I like a good rock opera. Ann Margaret rolling in beans, what-have-you…
Go.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Tis the Season to Eat Brisket, Fa la la la la la la la la
May your Easters, Passovers, Full Moons, Tulip Worshiping Days be full of color and surprising shenanigans.
I, for one, am not eating peeps nor waiting around for Easter Bunnies. Though we are going to a Seder where the dress code is "barnyard animal attire."
Thank goodness I have a closet full of moo-moos.
May Christ rise over your house and drop a bucket of money on it.
And remember: though there are a myriad of belief systems, they all boil down to one thing: Brisket.
Except for the Islamic Peoples. But that could change.
I, for one, am not eating peeps nor waiting around for Easter Bunnies. Though we are going to a Seder where the dress code is "barnyard animal attire."
Thank goodness I have a closet full of moo-moos.
May Christ rise over your house and drop a bucket of money on it.
And remember: though there are a myriad of belief systems, they all boil down to one thing: Brisket.
Except for the Islamic Peoples. But that could change.
ONCE
We saw ONCE tonight.
Deal is, we love the movie. The simplicity. And they did not muck it up beyond atrocious. Though, they did change the “Girl” role into a plucky pixie savior in a much more obvious way than the movie did. Like Santorum, the powers-that-be mucked with the integrity of the woman more than the man.
Remember when you used to say, “I loved the book. The movie wasn’t as good?”
Now it’s, “I loved the movie. But I didn’t like the musical as much.”
Now it’s, “I loved the movie. But I didn’t like the musical as much.”
The play grew on me by the middle of Act II. It’s always fantastic to hear extremely talented musicians musish.
The actors on stage played all the instruments, and well. Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti as the leads were lovely, if not really in any way that hot for each other.
The new musical arrangements worked well for a live audience. I did not enjoy the silly dancing here and there…part River Dance, part Spring Awakening.
Is it worth seeing? I don’t know… It’s slow. Maybe a little too slow. I actually would not have minded the slowness had the director and writers brought out more of the true dilemma of these two…which would be real vulnerability in a tough world and the tough situation they have with each other, not being available for relationship while falling in love. The writers (producers?) forced gag lines into the first act, pandering to the audience, which did not help to develop the tone they needed to make this truly effective. Sad, that.
There were some really bad jokes about potatoes and other Irishy stuff. Too bad. Wasn't needed at all.
But I don’t go to musicals for the play or for the acting, both of which are often cartoonish. It’s about the music. And in this case, the music is pretty superb so I am glad I went.
And since I am 3/8 Irish, I feel these sorts of things in a real way. At least I feel about 3/8 of it.
Ultimately, the movie was better. But you knew that even before you started reading this.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Words Heard
His enhanced earnings are going to be phenomenal, so he's not suffering.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
They're Everywhere
Winter is back. But that Mini-mid-March-Spring left its mark in non-fruiting pear trees all over the city.
Enjoy this one from Central Park.
Enjoy this one from Central Park.
Monday, March 26, 2012
A Goat Visitation
Friday Night, we went for a walk and someone was walking their goat. They were entering Central Park at Columbus Circle. The goat had a leash, but at this point it was off-leash.
It makes sense to bring your goat into the park when you are in midtown. I mostly wondered where they came from. Queens? And they took the subway in?
The goat was very calm. Since I do love goats, I was very happy.
It makes sense to bring your goat into the park when you are in midtown. I mostly wondered where they came from. Queens? And they took the subway in?
The goat was very calm. Since I do love goats, I was very happy.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
BOX: 89% funded, but we seem to have Stalled
SO if you are READING this....maybe click the LINK Below...
Have a Nice Day. From the Bottom Up.
With Gratitude and Curiosity.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Check out All Our Contributors' Great Businesses and Things They Sell
Friends,
BOX has been funded 86% in just under two weeks. Thank you all for contributing.
www.indiegogo.com/box
You can check out all the great things our contributors are up to: buy a book, buy some art, get a web site designed, eat in Australia, have a video shot in Denver, figure out your brand, see a play, get your kids coached in Acting, all of it!
www.boxthemovie.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/boxthemovie
www.twitter.com/boxthemovie
BOX has been funded 86% in just under two weeks. Thank you all for contributing.
www.indiegogo.com/box
You can check out all the great things our contributors are up to: buy a book, buy some art, get a web site designed, eat in Australia, have a video shot in Denver, figure out your brand, see a play, get your kids coached in Acting, all of it!
www.boxthemovie.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/boxthemovie
www.twitter.com/boxthemovie
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Spring List
Sometimes, you want to get all clever when you blog, grab onto an attitude and then “go for it.”
I have noticed in my, yes, seven years of blogging (it feels like seven months, but then, I have no concept of time) that people relate more to the things that are less thought out and more to the stuff that is off the cuff.
Of course, it’s because people are DYING for honesty of any kind. And honesty happens more frequently when you are not so well thought out.
With that introduction, I bring you one of my “lists” that really has no need for introduction.
1) As much as I like warm days in late winter, I prefer it when the temperature is 48 degrees and it’s a little misty. It feels fresh, like Paris
2) As we are raising money for our indie short, BOX, I cannot believe how quickly and generously people have jumped up and jumped in. I am so grateful. Money may not be love---and it sure is, partially, time---but really, it’s faith. I am so honored that people have faith in what we are doing. Thank you.
3) And now, I feel highly responsible to use those dollars wisely. So I don’t sleep. But this is not to push around any bad feelings. I never sleep. Until I do.
4) I love the daffodils in Central Park . Not only because they are a jaunty yellow, but also because of their impermanence and their yearly reappearance.
5) I never had children and I simply don’t care.
6) I mean it.
7) Jesus Christ Superstar is back on Broadway. I remember hearing that album for the first time. My father got it for free from some General Motors work thing. I loved it. The dissonance and exuberance. I can’t wait to see it again. I played certain songs over and over. My high school choir teacher was the original Mary Magdalene with Ben Vereen when it started in Philadelphia
8) I love my husband. But that’s only because he’s so loveable.
9) Come on Ugandan Episcopalians! Do something else!
10) I wonder why Conservatives are so regressive in the name of fiscal austerity and personal morality. Poor dears. I understand not wanting to waste money. I understand doing the right thing. So why did we spend all that money invading countries and killing all those people? And for the first time in history, lowered taxes instead of raising them while we did the killing?
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
An Epidemic of Bald Vaginas
So this is what I found out tonight.
The young girls today are keeping it all shaved, all the way, all the time, down in their natural area.
I was surprised to learn this. Not so much because I thought it was weird, but because it seems that I was the last one to know.
Trends are funny. I mean, I have had the same nest of hair (shrinking) and tattoo free body since the Sixties. I know, I know, hard to believe I've been around since then...but if you can't admit to a little bit o' the Johnson administration in your life, and you are a blog reader of mine, then you are probably lying.
But back to these vaginas. I would like to know---is it more about shaving or more about waxing?
And is it something that is smart to do so you can tell more what it is you are navigating into, a kind of practical practice? Or is it simply a sexy-visual thing?
Perhaps both?
God bless the vaginas. Whatever state they are in.
The young girls today are keeping it all shaved, all the way, all the time, down in their natural area.
I was surprised to learn this. Not so much because I thought it was weird, but because it seems that I was the last one to know.
Trends are funny. I mean, I have had the same nest of hair (shrinking) and tattoo free body since the Sixties. I know, I know, hard to believe I've been around since then...but if you can't admit to a little bit o' the Johnson administration in your life, and you are a blog reader of mine, then you are probably lying.
But back to these vaginas. I would like to know---is it more about shaving or more about waxing?
And is it something that is smart to do so you can tell more what it is you are navigating into, a kind of practical practice? Or is it simply a sexy-visual thing?
Perhaps both?
God bless the vaginas. Whatever state they are in.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Friday, March 09, 2012
Box News
FRIENDS! We have reached 12% of our goal in just two days. Exciting? Yes.
Check out all the latest news at our links below.
And Remember: Donation BOX is open 24 hours/Day at www.indiegogo.com/box.
Have a good weekend.
:)
Don
www.indiegogo.com/box
www.boxthemovie.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/boxthemovie
www.twitter.com/boxthemovie
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Monday, March 05, 2012
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Someone Told Me
I am having a reading of A Good Smoke, once more, in New York for producers, etc. on Thursday.
An actor in the cast sent me an email telling me my play reminded him of the following poem.
I was flattered.
I am very glad that my play, after much noodling, still reminds someone of poetry.
I do like this poem.
POEM ENDING WITH A LINE
FROM DANTE
Snow coming in parallel to the street,
a cab spinning its tires (a rising whine
like a domestic argument, and then
the words get said that never get forgot),
slush and backed-up runoff waters at each
corner, clogged buses smelling of wet wool . . .
The acrid anger of the homeless swells
like wet rice. This slop is where I live, bitch,
a sogged panhandler shrieks to whom it may
concern. None who can hear him stall or turn,
there's someone's misery in all we earn.
But like a burr in a dog's coat his rage
has borrowed legs. We bring it home. It lives
like kin among the angers of the house,
and has the same sad zinc taste in the mouth:
And I have told you this to make you grieve.
– WILLIAM MATTHEWS
An actor in the cast sent me an email telling me my play reminded him of the following poem.
I was flattered.
I am very glad that my play, after much noodling, still reminds someone of poetry.
I do like this poem.
POEM ENDING WITH A LINE
FROM DANTE
Snow coming in parallel to the street,
a cab spinning its tires (a rising whine
like a domestic argument, and then
the words get said that never get forgot),
slush and backed-up runoff waters at each
corner, clogged buses smelling of wet wool . . .
The acrid anger of the homeless swells
like wet rice. This slop is where I live, bitch,
a sogged panhandler shrieks to whom it may
concern. None who can hear him stall or turn,
there's someone's misery in all we earn.
But like a burr in a dog's coat his rage
has borrowed legs. We bring it home. It lives
like kin among the angers of the house,
and has the same sad zinc taste in the mouth:
And I have told you this to make you grieve.
– WILLIAM MATTHEWS
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Wardrobe Choices
What are you wearing on Super Tuesday?
I think I’ll put on my cross-gender, carbon neutral, socialist leaning condom dress brought to you by Obamacare with a pouch for higher learning.
I think I’ll put on my cross-gender, carbon neutral, socialist leaning condom dress brought to you by Obamacare with a pouch for higher learning.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Think of it This Way
Okay right wing people of New Hampshire
You just think it’s wrong, like it’s all new and all wrong and all scary so you preach tradition.
And tradition is against same sexes together.
But:
Think of men together as a conservative old timey thing. Like Rome Greece
I know how you love the past. You just have to go further back.
Corinthian columns. Togas. Young men with muscles. Surely, you can see the appeal?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
He's Actually for Real
Every time he opens his mouth, my flabber is so gasted, it almost tickles.
I don’t know why I think he’s so funny. Could it be a defense mechanism on my part?
Of course it is.
He is the candidate that so many people deserve. He is not a cynic, this Santorum. He is not actually manipulating. He believes the insanity that is drooling out of his mouth.
Apparently, he hates smart people. Hell, I hate smart people, too…mostly because they are often not so creative. But I would rather have a smart person running the government than a peculiar moron who wants to destroy the government except for the one little piece that would force women to accept all sperm packages delivered into their God given American vaginas.
How this man could be in a primary for anything at all is completely shocking.
But still, I find him entertaining. He’s that completely out of touch guy who believes he understands it all. Running on ego and the fumes of Christ, he gives voice to all the others who are doing the same.
But still, I find him entertaining. He’s that completely out of touch guy who believes he understands it all. Running on ego and the fumes of Christ, he gives voice to all the others who are doing the same.
I guess it comes down to superstition and using the wombs of women as the ballast to keep the fairy tales floating that makes me chuckle in wonderment.
I’m not paying attention too closely because I imagine my chuckling would turn to rage.
I must dismiss this man as an ignorant rabble rouser.
But then, I’m a coastal elite. I actually use a fork, believe in education and presume that women are not all Christian baby machines.
Okay, the chuckling is over and I have found my true anger.
Santorum, go the frack back to central Pennsylvania
Monday, February 27, 2012
Come On, Boys!
Flowers are blooming…in fact, daffodils have been poking up out of the ground since late January in places.
This is truly confusing.
But it was a very mild winter and that was nice.
What concern me are the pollens of May.
(And that, to me, concerns sounds like the correct verb in that sentence.)
And all they want to do is Frack?
You can’t Frack your way out of this.
You can’t Frack your way out of this.
But apparently, you can’t renewable your way out of this either.
So then what?
I was looking at a Terra Chips bag tonight—of course, the settling of contents inside (right, settling…the filling) was about one-third the size of the bag. So I’m getting disgusted by this big foil-y, plastic-y bag and all I could think was, “Do we really need to continue to go to war for the petroleum and to pollute like giant mad dogs so this company can make such huge bags?”
I was looking at a Terra Chips bag tonight—of course, the settling of contents inside (right, settling…the filling) was about one-third the size of the bag. So I’m getting disgusted by this big foil-y, plastic-y bag and all I could think was, “Do we really need to continue to go to war for the petroleum and to pollute like giant mad dogs so this company can make such huge bags?”
Youth—come on. You can at least do this. Insist on smaller packaging.
I ask the youth because, you know, they have more at stake here…and more energy to make it happen.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Paris and Alexander Payne
Coincidentally, we watched Paris
Paris, Je t’aime, for those who do not know and for those who need to be reminded, is a collection of short films by various connu (known) film makers, about love in Paris. Falling in or out of love, but mostly in. The last short in the series is by Alexander Payne called 14th Arrondissement.
In this short, Margo Martindale, a working Denver woman goes to Paris Paris
You can You Tube/Google 14th Arrondissement and find a bad copy of the six minute short which is certainly one way to defy copyright laws. Better still, you could enjoy it on a Netflix DVD in its intended paid-for glory by putting Paris
I enjoy the Oscars. But I really like simple people for what they do and how they are. Because it’s all so joyful and all so sad all at once. And the team of Payne-Martindale gets this, fully.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
No Surprise
A fine state you are in.
Santorum…you are the candidate so many people deserve.
Women on the Right: Thank you for noticing. Ricky is a madman who wants control over your sex organs. Keep waking up.
As Israel keeps building in the West Bank : Who will out-baby the other side? The Orthodox Jews or the Palestinians? I imagine impregnations within one month of giving birth. A population war. The ultimate cannon, controlled by men: The birth canal.
The end of February often feels like spring. February has a horrible reputation. But really, it is January--the cruelest month.
Bullets Over Broadway is the perfect source material for a Broadway musical.
I never have rice pudding in the house.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Love Her or Hate Her
She’s brave.
We saw Biophilia tonight. I was happy Bjork included songs from Vespertine, which are more approachable.
But, truly, this was something else. I love the Icelandic girl choir. The chords are tight and discordant and ethereal.
Bjork sings like no one else.
And the graphics and the strange instruments added to the other worldly fun.
Plus, the harp.
It is inspiring to see and hear something this unique. Some of the songs are transcendent. A few are annoying.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
More Proof
Another reason to hate that miserable California. Who would ever want to live there?
The clip please:
The clip please:
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Happy VD
We celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year, two days early, on a Sunday, doing what we often do. The small things.
We slept late, ate goat cheese-parsley-olive omelets, called our parents, took a five mile walk in very cold Central Park, sat on a park bench during a hard ten minute snowfall, came home, old movie clip of a train going through a tunnel, ate roast pork, watched Downton Abbey and called it one of the best days of our lives.
We’re married and middle aged. And all the ambition, singularity of purpose and hubris of youth, though propelling, is nothing compared with spending a perfectly simple day with the one you solidly love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my husband, Adam. I’m glad you're mine.
We slept late, ate goat cheese-parsley-olive omelets, called our parents, took a five mile walk in very cold Central Park, sat on a park bench during a hard ten minute snowfall, came home, old movie clip of a train going through a tunnel, ate roast pork, watched Downton Abbey and called it one of the best days of our lives.
We’re married and middle aged. And all the ambition, singularity of purpose and hubris of youth, though propelling, is nothing compared with spending a perfectly simple day with the one you solidly love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my husband, Adam. I’m glad you're mine.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Questions
Do you perhaps think that all this autism is the beginning of the extinction of mankind?
Or, do you believe it’s been around in about these proportions for a long time and for the people at the low end of the spectrum, it’s not even autism, but really just another way of being?
Lastly, did you dislike Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the movie, as much as I did?
Or, do you believe it’s been around in about these proportions for a long time and for the people at the low end of the spectrum, it’s not even autism, but really just another way of being?
Lastly, did you dislike Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the movie, as much as I did?
Thursday, February 09, 2012
The Love and Humility of Two Women
Representative Maureen Walsh speaks about love. In the face of love, she understands we are all equal. She is humbled by it. She wants to share it. She does not make a show of it. She is not angry. She is accepting. Acceptance wins the game. Always.
Madonna in the superbowl. Now, one could get snarky and talk about her shiny mask of a face. Or her minor hunchbackish aura. Her jaw line troubles. Her stilted moves. But one won’t. I do mention them in passing because no matter how much money she spends, we can all tell that her skeleton and muscle underneath are not what they used to be. She knows it, too. You can feel her humility. It hurts. And it hurts. She also seems resigned, somewhat, to Madonna-formerly-known-as-Madonna. But her need for love, to be part of it all, in lyrics and in action, is still there.
When I was a young Communist in the 80s, I found her very upsetting. All things material, girl or otherwise, decay. I looked forward to her decline. I preferred Cyndi Lauper. But Madonna was a material lesson for me. We certainly did not know each other and let’s face it---she had big plans. And I had a calendar full of summer stock auditions…
I think Madonna is on the brink of making fun of the old Madonna. She’s smart so she sort of has to. She’s a solid comedian. She was great when she guested on Will & Grace. My vote? Give Madonna a sitcom. It’s the gracious thing to do. I bet she would humbly accept it. I’m happy to write it. Any takers?
Madonna in the superbowl. Now, one could get snarky and talk about her shiny mask of a face. Or her minor hunchbackish aura. Her jaw line troubles. Her stilted moves. But one won’t. I do mention them in passing because no matter how much money she spends, we can all tell that her skeleton and muscle underneath are not what they used to be. She knows it, too. You can feel her humility. It hurts. And it hurts. She also seems resigned, somewhat, to Madonna-formerly-known-as-Madonna. But her need for love, to be part of it all, in lyrics and in action, is still there.
When I was a young Communist in the 80s, I found her very upsetting. All things material, girl or otherwise, decay. I looked forward to her decline. I preferred Cyndi Lauper. But Madonna was a material lesson for me. We certainly did not know each other and let’s face it---she had big plans. And I had a calendar full of summer stock auditions…
I think Madonna is on the brink of making fun of the old Madonna. She’s smart so she sort of has to. She’s a solid comedian. She was great when she guested on Will & Grace. My vote? Give Madonna a sitcom. It’s the gracious thing to do. I bet she would humbly accept it. I’m happy to write it. Any takers?
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
The Numbers are Sort of In
Reports say that adults under thirty-five years of age favor gay marriage by a whopping 70%.
I do not know how large a sample they used or where this sample was taken. Perhaps 70 youthful people at Bennington and then 30 working stiffs nearby in Troy?
It doesn’t matter the exact number. All polls are biased, if not directly, than by unknown variables.
But it is safe to say this. Young people are mostly completely fine with gay marriage. Thank the mainstream media (note: mainstream) and Hollywood. I wink. ;)
But if your media is mainstream and everyone is watching what Hollywood makes (and let’s face it, more of it is made in Burbank and Studio City) then honeys, that IS the culture you are living in. The people make the culture? The culture makes the people? I choose the first.
These yelpings from the religious right are the sounds of dying dogs. They know a hard gay is gonna fall, is actually falling, in the best way. They cannot stop the youthful idea of equality from taking over. Besides, young people have such a huge job ahead of them---to save the country and the world---the last thing they have the energy for is to be hateful toward their friends, relatives and roommates.
So thank you young people, for being young and seeing clearly.
To the old and the silly, it’s a new world order:
It’s here. It’s queer. Get used to it.
We don’t bite. Unless you want us to.
I do not know how large a sample they used or where this sample was taken. Perhaps 70 youthful people at Bennington and then 30 working stiffs nearby in Troy?
It doesn’t matter the exact number. All polls are biased, if not directly, than by unknown variables.
But it is safe to say this. Young people are mostly completely fine with gay marriage. Thank the mainstream media (note: mainstream) and Hollywood. I wink. ;)
But if your media is mainstream and everyone is watching what Hollywood makes (and let’s face it, more of it is made in Burbank and Studio City) then honeys, that IS the culture you are living in. The people make the culture? The culture makes the people? I choose the first.
These yelpings from the religious right are the sounds of dying dogs. They know a hard gay is gonna fall, is actually falling, in the best way. They cannot stop the youthful idea of equality from taking over. Besides, young people have such a huge job ahead of them---to save the country and the world---the last thing they have the energy for is to be hateful toward their friends, relatives and roommates.
So thank you young people, for being young and seeing clearly.
To the old and the silly, it’s a new world order:
It’s here. It’s queer. Get used to it.
We don’t bite. Unless you want us to.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Monday, February 06, 2012
The Gay Men and Lesbian Divide
As gay men grow up and get over their trauma of being gay and as the society becomes more tolerant, accepting, and even celebratory of gay men (especially in the better cities), it becomes clear to gay men that, “Hell, it’s good to be a man, in a world of liberal men, where it is still a man’s world and you can be friends with women but sort of know that yes, it’s all about the men and so the world gets heady and powerful, strong and sexy—a parade of testosterone and sinew.”
But what if you are a lesbian? You get over your trauma. Or let’s say you don’t have trauma but “made a choice” or however you have become a lesbian, and you integrate into the adult world, even in one of our better cities, and you see, clearly, that it is still a man’s world. What would you want to do in order to feel like it was all about being a woman and all about being powerful, too? Because that looks pretty damn good to you. You’d want to separate.
So though there is often this joke about lesbian separatists, it sort of makes sense. As a gay man, if you are in the mood on any given day, you can fully ignore women and just march along and feel like your tribe (men, in general) is running everything. You can’t do that as a woman. And if you do, it will take a huge amount of aggression and denial and strange internal rule changing to get that done. Or a move to the woods.
I do not know if this post is at all compassionate. I mean it to be. But I also know that I am being condemning of lesbians in our culture who try to separate while remaining upright, walking among men.
I do not know what the answer is. I want lesbians to be powerful. I want women, in general, to be powerful. I want it all to be equal (as long as it really is equal). But it never gets there. And I just wonder if this is always going to be this way as long as we are physical beings and men remain physically stronger than women, with their muscles and their height, with their external genitalia hanging out, claiming space, as if it is their birthright. No matter how you slice it.
But what if you are a lesbian? You get over your trauma. Or let’s say you don’t have trauma but “made a choice” or however you have become a lesbian, and you integrate into the adult world, even in one of our better cities, and you see, clearly, that it is still a man’s world. What would you want to do in order to feel like it was all about being a woman and all about being powerful, too? Because that looks pretty damn good to you. You’d want to separate.
So though there is often this joke about lesbian separatists, it sort of makes sense. As a gay man, if you are in the mood on any given day, you can fully ignore women and just march along and feel like your tribe (men, in general) is running everything. You can’t do that as a woman. And if you do, it will take a huge amount of aggression and denial and strange internal rule changing to get that done. Or a move to the woods.
I do not know if this post is at all compassionate. I mean it to be. But I also know that I am being condemning of lesbians in our culture who try to separate while remaining upright, walking among men.
I do not know what the answer is. I want lesbians to be powerful. I want women, in general, to be powerful. I want it all to be equal (as long as it really is equal). But it never gets there. And I just wonder if this is always going to be this way as long as we are physical beings and men remain physically stronger than women, with their muscles and their height, with their external genitalia hanging out, claiming space, as if it is their birthright. No matter how you slice it.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Superbowl and Beyond
In an alternate universe, there was a Superbowl played today. I hear my hometown won. I heard screaming outside. While at a restaurant, I saw some halftime Madonna up on the screen. She never tires of playing dress-up. Does she really feel it?
We watched SMASH tonight, the new show about getting a musical up and running. It’s bold strokes. But that seems to work. It is well shot and well acted. The neighborhood is right here. I switched to the satire of 30 Rock. I like to laugh.
This winter has been extremely mild. I do not mind. But I have to say, I hope we get some really cold days and I hope we get a decent snow storm. I remember winters like this as a kid. They sort of slid by without much action. I remember most of the late 1970’s as barely wintry winters. Not that I do not believe in global warming or anything.
I have committed to writing more frequently. It is necessary.
I have committed to exercising more regularly. It makes me feel more plausible.
Even though blogging for the blog of it is so very 2006, I seem to continue. Is it because I cannot let go of something once my paws are all over it? I don’t know. But micro-thoughts on Facebook and Twitter are best served up pithy, and I am often without pith.
Kale.
We watched SMASH tonight, the new show about getting a musical up and running. It’s bold strokes. But that seems to work. It is well shot and well acted. The neighborhood is right here. I switched to the satire of 30 Rock. I like to laugh.
This winter has been extremely mild. I do not mind. But I have to say, I hope we get some really cold days and I hope we get a decent snow storm. I remember winters like this as a kid. They sort of slid by without much action. I remember most of the late 1970’s as barely wintry winters. Not that I do not believe in global warming or anything.
I have committed to writing more frequently. It is necessary.
I have committed to exercising more regularly. It makes me feel more plausible.
Even though blogging for the blog of it is so very 2006, I seem to continue. Is it because I cannot let go of something once my paws are all over it? I don’t know. But micro-thoughts on Facebook and Twitter are best served up pithy, and I am often without pith.
Kale.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
All Mitt and a Bag of Chips
Now that Mittens has beaten up the Newt, you have to wonder, why does Newt want to continue? Is he a masochist? Or just running on ego?
It must be brain chemistry in some way. Some hit of something that is wanted. It certainly cannot be from anything rational.
But then, who am I to prognosticate? Or even attempt to spell that word?
Something could happen for Newt.
I have not been watching the debates, getting my couch cushion ready for the real one between Obama and who I assume will be that Dog-in-a-luggage-caddy-on-the-roof man.
I still find Obama to be very attractive, a rock star if you will. Mitt is all dry cleaners and hair spray and being-separate-from-the-self, except when it comes to greed.
I don’t hate greed, exactly. It’s pretty much the only reasonable response in a capitalist society where you must choose between being the hammer or the anvil.
Oh that.
I have tried to stay away from hammers and anvils…to gather enough wealth to get out of the fight. To take some higher road. I think I have failed in gathering enough wealth, but have succeeded in staying out of the meanest fights. But the reverse of that, as usual, might be true, too.
We often say what we wish we were and try to pass it off as the truth. I’m often putting a -1 in front of my thoughts and then ask myself, “Try that one on.”
So, trying on Mitt because I would never think to. He does not feel like a leader. He does not inspire anything in me. He reminds me of that guy walking through the airport in a mountain state who you have absolutely nothing in common with, whose pants are too tight in the thighs and too billowy in the calves, who is kind of physically overbearing and bullying, who would mow you down with his wheely bag if you got between him and a bag of jalapeno chips he had his eye on.
Of course, I could be projecting.
It must be brain chemistry in some way. Some hit of something that is wanted. It certainly cannot be from anything rational.
But then, who am I to prognosticate? Or even attempt to spell that word?
Something could happen for Newt.
I have not been watching the debates, getting my couch cushion ready for the real one between Obama and who I assume will be that Dog-in-a-luggage-caddy-on-the-roof man.
I still find Obama to be very attractive, a rock star if you will. Mitt is all dry cleaners and hair spray and being-separate-from-the-self, except when it comes to greed.
I don’t hate greed, exactly. It’s pretty much the only reasonable response in a capitalist society where you must choose between being the hammer or the anvil.
Oh that.
I have tried to stay away from hammers and anvils…to gather enough wealth to get out of the fight. To take some higher road. I think I have failed in gathering enough wealth, but have succeeded in staying out of the meanest fights. But the reverse of that, as usual, might be true, too.
We often say what we wish we were and try to pass it off as the truth. I’m often putting a -1 in front of my thoughts and then ask myself, “Try that one on.”
So, trying on Mitt because I would never think to. He does not feel like a leader. He does not inspire anything in me. He reminds me of that guy walking through the airport in a mountain state who you have absolutely nothing in common with, whose pants are too tight in the thighs and too billowy in the calves, who is kind of physically overbearing and bullying, who would mow you down with his wheely bag if you got between him and a bag of jalapeno chips he had his eye on.
Of course, I could be projecting.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dems and Pubs and Creativity
Someone I am related to once said to me about gay marriage, “It just ain’t right.”
He eventually got over it.
He is a Republican.
But that’s not my point, sort of.
Things change, is my bigger point. And all that change comes from creativity.
What is so striking to me is when a gaggle of good Americans sits down to watch the Superbowl this weekend, they will feel as if everything is right in the world, that this game has always been and always will be, that this “Just is right.”
But football was invented.
The commercials are truly creative.
The mistaken exposed nipple incident inspired much creativity.
Everything comes up and is new.
If you are a Democrat, you often go with that flow. If you are a Republican, it lights up your fear center and you are terrified. They’ve done map brain studies.
It is hard to face what is new. It ultimately means that all that you know will expire. Nothing “is right.” It emerges, it changes, it falls down, it is replaced.
Some forms of government and religion have had some staying power. But these, too, will continue to change.
And there is nothing you can do to turn back the clock. And if you do succeed in turning back the clock, it will not last long.
The Constitution was just the beginning. Then there were amendments. There will be more. And maybe one day, a redo.
He eventually got over it.
He is a Republican.
But that’s not my point, sort of.
Things change, is my bigger point. And all that change comes from creativity.
What is so striking to me is when a gaggle of good Americans sits down to watch the Superbowl this weekend, they will feel as if everything is right in the world, that this game has always been and always will be, that this “Just is right.”
But football was invented.
The commercials are truly creative.
The mistaken exposed nipple incident inspired much creativity.
Everything comes up and is new.
If you are a Democrat, you often go with that flow. If you are a Republican, it lights up your fear center and you are terrified. They’ve done map brain studies.
It is hard to face what is new. It ultimately means that all that you know will expire. Nothing “is right.” It emerges, it changes, it falls down, it is replaced.
Some forms of government and religion have had some staying power. But these, too, will continue to change.
And there is nothing you can do to turn back the clock. And if you do succeed in turning back the clock, it will not last long.
The Constitution was just the beginning. Then there were amendments. There will be more. And maybe one day, a redo.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Fuck a Little, Walk and Talk a Lot
There was a study. I read it on the Google and I simply can’t Google another thing so I am not going to find the link.
But it went something like this. They gave a lot of people pager-like things and then would randomly beep them. At that moment, the beepee would mark down what they were doing and how happy they were on a scale. After a year, this was all tallied up.
The happiest people were those having sex.
The second happiest were those who were walking and talking with friends.
Then, talking with friends.
The list went on and on.
At the bottom were things like domestic arguments, parking tickets, doctor visits, etc.
Not many surprises. But like most things in life, it is the number two position that can be harnessed to one’s advantage and indulged in regularly with not too much fear of someone taking it away from you: walking with friends. (And since the number one position cannot be indulged in for hours and days at a time, en principe, it cannot be chosen as frequently and is therefore useful in the extreme but not in the quotidian.)
I was with my friend, Todd, today walking and talking in the park. He posted a pic of us on FB. I got to talking about this study I remembered because it was such a nice day and walking and talking with a friend was proving to be, as usual, an enormous mood elevator.
And then I thought this—It’s just because we are monkeys on the plains with our bro’ monkeys, looking around for prospects. It just feels normal. This action reduces stress and elevates humor.
So much of what makes us happy is simple animal behavior. Being a simple animal is difficult for religionists and intellectuals to stomach. The middle class gets to it, at times, but it can often lack grace.
You know it when you feel it. Sometimes people will eat entire bags of red vines or scream at others all day long in search of altering their brain chemistry into joy.
Being a calm animal on the move, balanced with other safe calm animals, in nature, makes mortality seem less horrific, with the sunlight and trees allowing you to know it’s all forever.
But it went something like this. They gave a lot of people pager-like things and then would randomly beep them. At that moment, the beepee would mark down what they were doing and how happy they were on a scale. After a year, this was all tallied up.
The happiest people were those having sex.
The second happiest were those who were walking and talking with friends.
Then, talking with friends.
The list went on and on.
At the bottom were things like domestic arguments, parking tickets, doctor visits, etc.
Not many surprises. But like most things in life, it is the number two position that can be harnessed to one’s advantage and indulged in regularly with not too much fear of someone taking it away from you: walking with friends. (And since the number one position cannot be indulged in for hours and days at a time, en principe, it cannot be chosen as frequently and is therefore useful in the extreme but not in the quotidian.)
I was with my friend, Todd, today walking and talking in the park. He posted a pic of us on FB. I got to talking about this study I remembered because it was such a nice day and walking and talking with a friend was proving to be, as usual, an enormous mood elevator.
And then I thought this—It’s just because we are monkeys on the plains with our bro’ monkeys, looking around for prospects. It just feels normal. This action reduces stress and elevates humor.
So much of what makes us happy is simple animal behavior. Being a simple animal is difficult for religionists and intellectuals to stomach. The middle class gets to it, at times, but it can often lack grace.
You know it when you feel it. Sometimes people will eat entire bags of red vines or scream at others all day long in search of altering their brain chemistry into joy.
Being a calm animal on the move, balanced with other safe calm animals, in nature, makes mortality seem less horrific, with the sunlight and trees allowing you to know it’s all forever.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hooray for Good Things
Huge congratulations to my friends Tecia E. and John. H. for working on The Surrogate, which was a huge smashola at Sundance.
This is such great news. I can’t wait to see it.
Tecia is a world class script supervisor and John is always great in everything. And then there’s Helen Hunt, who I am glad to see is taking on a big sexy role. She has so often been cast as the angry brittle one. It was high time for this warm leap.
Keep up the great work you talented wonders.
This is such great news. I can’t wait to see it.
Tecia is a world class script supervisor and John is always great in everything. And then there’s Helen Hunt, who I am glad to see is taking on a big sexy role. She has so often been cast as the angry brittle one. It was high time for this warm leap.
Keep up the great work you talented wonders.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Mother China
It strikes me again and again that China, with its one party system, can decide what to do, do it and then do it some more.
As long as China subsidizes what it needs for material gain, we will always lose.
And we cannot stop them from doing what they are doing.
Some say it is getting more expensive to do business in China. How much more? Enough to bring manufacturing to Michigan and Ohio?
So here’s a mash up. In order for our aggressively capitalist U.S.A. to be competitive, it needs to go socialist on business development in order to truly compete.
While China acts as one nation of over a billion people, we are almost 400 million divided by ideological internecine fisticuffs—most of it in the form of obstructionist passive aggression by Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Stop your bullshit. You want something to focus on? Look at China.
If it’s so important to you to get your dopamine on by winning “the fight,” pick a different fucking fight.
As long as China subsidizes what it needs for material gain, we will always lose.
And we cannot stop them from doing what they are doing.
Some say it is getting more expensive to do business in China. How much more? Enough to bring manufacturing to Michigan and Ohio?
So here’s a mash up. In order for our aggressively capitalist U.S.A. to be competitive, it needs to go socialist on business development in order to truly compete.
While China acts as one nation of over a billion people, we are almost 400 million divided by ideological internecine fisticuffs—most of it in the form of obstructionist passive aggression by Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Stop your bullshit. You want something to focus on? Look at China.
If it’s so important to you to get your dopamine on by winning “the fight,” pick a different fucking fight.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Time to Laugh
The strange thing about recession is that thoughts become simpler. People are very much in survival mode which means there is not as much time for leisure, creativity and new ideas.
There is also less humor. It is easier to goof when the larder is full.
I would rather be rich and funny than poor and serious.
There is also less humor. It is easier to goof when the larder is full.
I would rather be rich and funny than poor and serious.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Feeling it Young
By the time I was four years old I knew something was up, that it was very important and unique and that somehow it was beautiful.
Not to be hokey or anything, but it was the understanding that I was alive and that other people were alive and the earth was really interesting and strangely, I could look at all these other people living, creatures that they were, and I was one of them. I was inside one of these creatures and it was me. I imagine this was the first moment of a bit of consciousness.
I liked that feeling and still do. It makes you very aware and it increases your connectedness to nature and to calm, deep joy. It can also make you feel very separate if other people are not noticing, “the miracle,” or harshing you about it, I say sort of in awe and sort of embarrassingly with a bit of tongue in the cheek (my tongue).
I am not religious, but I was thinking today, since death is the ultimate destination, the ultimate outcome of every story, that no matter how you slice it, this death idea figures quite large in our lives, in our identities, in our fears, in our time tables. No wonder people have built up big things around it. Institutions with architecture, even. Death is so powerful. It always wins. So let them be religious (and perhaps quiet about it so they can notice it all?) When I accept death, I feel very calm. When I do not, I thrash.
My hands have become lizardy. At times, I look at my waist and I think, “How different am I, really, than a gorilla who has been let loose for a long weekend in the Krispy Kreme warehouse?”
But even those things do not matter so much.
(Upon rereading, I noticed that I typed waste instead of waist. Another good reading of that sentence.)
I haven’t changed much since I was four. I often want to get back to the granite rocks with the schist sparkles, in this copse of trees on the edge of the property line of my house where I first sat with these ideas, alone. I was happy to do nothing but sit and be aware of what was around me. To know this was a rare event. (Even if there are zillions of other living creatures in the universe, it is still mathematically rare that there are human mammals and even more mathematically rare, still, that you are actually one of those beasts.) I felt like I was getting away with something, sitting there, not doing anything but noticing. I did not want to get caught doing that. I felt afraid that it was wrong. But deeper, I knew it was the greatest, most enjoyable thing. Perhaps I felt that it was wrong to feel so good, like when you first discover masturbation or chocolate mousse. Then you grow up and people insist on all these other stories, with guns and tits and pecking orders and wins and losses and so many other items. You hang onto them for dear life. But really, it’s just the awareness that lasts.
You can do it all. The action and the awareness. It’s just kind of tiring. But I have also been thinking lately, maybe it's okay to be tired.
Not to be hokey or anything, but it was the understanding that I was alive and that other people were alive and the earth was really interesting and strangely, I could look at all these other people living, creatures that they were, and I was one of them. I was inside one of these creatures and it was me. I imagine this was the first moment of a bit of consciousness.
I liked that feeling and still do. It makes you very aware and it increases your connectedness to nature and to calm, deep joy. It can also make you feel very separate if other people are not noticing, “the miracle,” or harshing you about it, I say sort of in awe and sort of embarrassingly with a bit of tongue in the cheek (my tongue).
I am not religious, but I was thinking today, since death is the ultimate destination, the ultimate outcome of every story, that no matter how you slice it, this death idea figures quite large in our lives, in our identities, in our fears, in our time tables. No wonder people have built up big things around it. Institutions with architecture, even. Death is so powerful. It always wins. So let them be religious (and perhaps quiet about it so they can notice it all?) When I accept death, I feel very calm. When I do not, I thrash.
My hands have become lizardy. At times, I look at my waist and I think, “How different am I, really, than a gorilla who has been let loose for a long weekend in the Krispy Kreme warehouse?”
But even those things do not matter so much.
(Upon rereading, I noticed that I typed waste instead of waist. Another good reading of that sentence.)
I haven’t changed much since I was four. I often want to get back to the granite rocks with the schist sparkles, in this copse of trees on the edge of the property line of my house where I first sat with these ideas, alone. I was happy to do nothing but sit and be aware of what was around me. To know this was a rare event. (Even if there are zillions of other living creatures in the universe, it is still mathematically rare that there are human mammals and even more mathematically rare, still, that you are actually one of those beasts.) I felt like I was getting away with something, sitting there, not doing anything but noticing. I did not want to get caught doing that. I felt afraid that it was wrong. But deeper, I knew it was the greatest, most enjoyable thing. Perhaps I felt that it was wrong to feel so good, like when you first discover masturbation or chocolate mousse. Then you grow up and people insist on all these other stories, with guns and tits and pecking orders and wins and losses and so many other items. You hang onto them for dear life. But really, it’s just the awareness that lasts.
You can do it all. The action and the awareness. It’s just kind of tiring. But I have also been thinking lately, maybe it's okay to be tired.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wintry Mix
I remembered the term. Wintry Mix. Well, I didn’t remember it. Adam, my husband, read it out loud from “the paper.” It’s sleet, snow, rain, all combined. It’s very fresh. People freak out about winter. All I think about is how much I love Iceland. How much I like clean air. I’m all for it. Plus, you know, you can’t become allergic to precipitation. Is it cold? Sure. But in about a month, all the flower shops will be filled with tulips and daffodils. I mean, if Holland can get into spring by the end of February and pass that tradition onto us and we can benefit, and we have, how much can you complain?
Use Safe Copy. Use it. It’s only fifty bucks a year. It backs up everything on your hard drive to an outside server. All your docs, music, pics, vids. It makes so much sense. Plus, it backs everything up in the same folders that you have. So it looks the same when you check it out online. And you can access the info from anything. Other computers, phone, pads of all stripes. I’ve been with this outfit for over a year and I love it. Effortless. Safe and amazing.
Safe Copy
Governor Brown and his bullet train from LA to SFO! Thank you! Come on now. Let’s do it! I want a bullet from LA to NY. Please? Could we please? I’d sit for the fifteen hours. Fly through Kansas at 250 miles per hour. Read some. Be thanking Allah I was on the solid ground instead of bumping through the thin air. Plus, the more we fly, the more we warm up the air, the more the air gets unstable, the bumpier the flights get. It’s a negative loop of pain. Get me off that hell tube. Get me on that train.
Henry Wolfe, my friend and talented musician, check out his music. He’s writing new songs all the time. Go to his sight. Download his songs. Buy the tunes online. You can do a search at the iTunes Store under his name. I especially love Buzzards. When it comes up on my iTunes cycle, I stop everything and only listen to that and do nothing else.
Henry Wolfe
I was making a reservation on the phone for a hotel today. I couldn’t tell if the person on the other end was at the hotel or a booking agent. I asked him to just tell me who he was. I was concerned because, you know, it was a random phone number and I could be handing over my credit card info to anyone. Plus, three different windows popped up for the same hotel in comparison. You know, that whole internet assault. So he tells me who he is. I could tell he was lying. Said he was with the hotel. I was annoyed that he was lying so I said I was going to call the hotel directly. I was cheerful and low key but I hung up. He called back and left me a message. He said, “Fuck you asshole. I’m watching you.” It was a threat. What small outfit was he the booking agent for? Expedia. Yes, Expedia, that little travel concern we’ve all heard of. I emailed Expedia to tell them what happened. I got a form letter apology within three hours. Onward. People are in distress these days. And Expedia, even, doesn’t care. Sad world. What next? I ask someone at Citibank to check on a fraud claim and they tell me to go fuck my mother?
Speaking of fucking your own mother…wouldn’t you have to actually get erect for that? What on earth would have had to have gone down in your sexual imprinting that made it so you could get an erection for such a journey?
I am doubling down on the piano and learning all the Gershwin Preludes. They are really beyond my level…but I am using whatever piano lesson techniques I have under my belt, my ease of reading music, along with my O.C.D. to repeat and repeat and repeat the fingering until it’s so in my hands, there’s no way I CAN’T play it. Interesting, playing an instrument. Great place to shove a lot of energy. Clears the mind. And it’s not really creative. It’s tasky. When you finally learn it and you add some feeling to it, that’s a creative thing. But more instinctual than anything else. I dig it. Plus, if you’re learning Gershwin, you can’t really say you are wasting your time.
I am doing so much career stuff right now that there’s little time for writing. (Coordinating. Selling. Yep, it’s like having a booth at the craft fair…except people don’t buy little things all day long. They wait forever and ever…and then finally, there’s one big sale.) Need to write more. I have to mix it up better.
Starting this horrendous habit of small pads with chicken scratch all over them all over my desk. Can apartment chickens be far behind?
If you really want to feel like you did when you were a kid…like all free and like it’s all new and fun, you just have to let go of everything. What made it so fun to be a kid was that you didn’t have a ton of experiences and a mountain of knowledge to weigh you down. You just lived. Of course, assuming you are an adult reading this, you can’t be irresponsible and chuck it all. You have to take care of things as an adult using experience and knowledge. Pretty much. And instinct. But any short or long periods you can steal for yourself to forget it all, you will find yourself laughing a lot and having a good time.
It’s January 20. Ground Hogs are getting nervous.
Use Safe Copy. Use it. It’s only fifty bucks a year. It backs up everything on your hard drive to an outside server. All your docs, music, pics, vids. It makes so much sense. Plus, it backs everything up in the same folders that you have. So it looks the same when you check it out online. And you can access the info from anything. Other computers, phone, pads of all stripes. I’ve been with this outfit for over a year and I love it. Effortless. Safe and amazing.
Safe Copy
Governor Brown and his bullet train from LA to SFO! Thank you! Come on now. Let’s do it! I want a bullet from LA to NY. Please? Could we please? I’d sit for the fifteen hours. Fly through Kansas at 250 miles per hour. Read some. Be thanking Allah I was on the solid ground instead of bumping through the thin air. Plus, the more we fly, the more we warm up the air, the more the air gets unstable, the bumpier the flights get. It’s a negative loop of pain. Get me off that hell tube. Get me on that train.
Henry Wolfe, my friend and talented musician, check out his music. He’s writing new songs all the time. Go to his sight. Download his songs. Buy the tunes online. You can do a search at the iTunes Store under his name. I especially love Buzzards. When it comes up on my iTunes cycle, I stop everything and only listen to that and do nothing else.
Henry Wolfe
I was making a reservation on the phone for a hotel today. I couldn’t tell if the person on the other end was at the hotel or a booking agent. I asked him to just tell me who he was. I was concerned because, you know, it was a random phone number and I could be handing over my credit card info to anyone. Plus, three different windows popped up for the same hotel in comparison. You know, that whole internet assault. So he tells me who he is. I could tell he was lying. Said he was with the hotel. I was annoyed that he was lying so I said I was going to call the hotel directly. I was cheerful and low key but I hung up. He called back and left me a message. He said, “Fuck you asshole. I’m watching you.” It was a threat. What small outfit was he the booking agent for? Expedia. Yes, Expedia, that little travel concern we’ve all heard of. I emailed Expedia to tell them what happened. I got a form letter apology within three hours. Onward. People are in distress these days. And Expedia, even, doesn’t care. Sad world. What next? I ask someone at Citibank to check on a fraud claim and they tell me to go fuck my mother?
Speaking of fucking your own mother…wouldn’t you have to actually get erect for that? What on earth would have had to have gone down in your sexual imprinting that made it so you could get an erection for such a journey?
I am doubling down on the piano and learning all the Gershwin Preludes. They are really beyond my level…but I am using whatever piano lesson techniques I have under my belt, my ease of reading music, along with my O.C.D. to repeat and repeat and repeat the fingering until it’s so in my hands, there’s no way I CAN’T play it. Interesting, playing an instrument. Great place to shove a lot of energy. Clears the mind. And it’s not really creative. It’s tasky. When you finally learn it and you add some feeling to it, that’s a creative thing. But more instinctual than anything else. I dig it. Plus, if you’re learning Gershwin, you can’t really say you are wasting your time.
I am doing so much career stuff right now that there’s little time for writing. (Coordinating. Selling. Yep, it’s like having a booth at the craft fair…except people don’t buy little things all day long. They wait forever and ever…and then finally, there’s one big sale.) Need to write more. I have to mix it up better.
Starting this horrendous habit of small pads with chicken scratch all over them all over my desk. Can apartment chickens be far behind?
If you really want to feel like you did when you were a kid…like all free and like it’s all new and fun, you just have to let go of everything. What made it so fun to be a kid was that you didn’t have a ton of experiences and a mountain of knowledge to weigh you down. You just lived. Of course, assuming you are an adult reading this, you can’t be irresponsible and chuck it all. You have to take care of things as an adult using experience and knowledge. Pretty much. And instinct. But any short or long periods you can steal for yourself to forget it all, you will find yourself laughing a lot and having a good time.
It’s January 20. Ground Hogs are getting nervous.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Movies that Begin with M
I really liked Moneyball
and Melancholia.
First, Moneyball.
Don’t you love getting screeners? This one came from S.A.G. And there we sat.
This is a movie about, primarily, looking at things in a new way and having the bravery to give that a shot in the midst of a group-think entrenched culture. Secondarily, it is about math. Baseball figures into it, too, of course. But that’s not the main thing here.
It’s sort of a dorky, nerdy movie with Jonah Hill pulling the statistics to teach Brad Pitt how to win by using pure formula. (Sort of cynical, sort of great strategy.) But what the deal is here…it’s the acting, the smart script, the directing. And isn’t that why you go to the movies? I know, many people go to the movies for fun and the script does not have to be that smart. Fine. Sure. But for the adults in the room, it is pleasant to have something well thought out.
With screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller (Capote), you have a good helm going on.
The movie is purely enjoyable. Well done. Suspenseful. And I am, you know, no big baseball fan. But now, I sort of am. Maybe.
Brad Pitt made some crazy pact with some crazy devil. He’s about my age and he still has all that hair? How?
Brad Pitt’s acting really is great. But when you have had a life looking like that, being what he is, no matter how bad things get for your character, you always sort of look like people are probably looking at you and so you’ll probably be fine. Extremely good looking people have a great resource, themselves. We all know people hand things to people like that. This is a prejudice, I understand. And underneath the symmetry and the eyes and the nose and the pout and the thick follicles on the pate, maybe real pain lurks. But it’s hard to take it too seriously. Strange how beauty conceals or deceives or who-knows-what.
And he has that wife…
But really, best acting Brad’s done, seems to me. The cast, all around, is solid and interesting. Jonah Hill is clear and has almost no false moments. Growing up, our little Jonah.
Moneyball, see it. Today.
I loved Melancholia and I don’t care who knows it.
This thing is poetic, doesn’t make exact sense, is a bit over the top, has a mix of Brits and Americans and other European Whiteys at an upper class wedding that makes it all seem like the U.S. and G.B. are one nation. Parents from one country have children from another. This just slips along.
But the bigger picture might be, “IF THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END, WHO CARES ABOUT ACCENTS!”
Wagner, two sisters of differing bad temperaments (Kirsten Dunst is a depressive, her sister, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the anxious one), Lars von Trier directing magnificently as a bright blue planet is about to swallow up the earth?
By the end, I wanted to kill myself. You will, too. You have to see it.
It’s so beautiful and bleak. Who cares if the first part of the story is a bit unbelievable. (The wedding.) Or that you don’t understand how the super depressed main character, Justine played by Ms. Dunst, could ever land a good looking seemingly normal lad like Alexander Skarsgard or be promoted to director level at her ad agency considering what a mess she is.
Is she just a mess, now, because everything has nastily come together? Realizing she doesn’t like her job or her husband and the world is coming to an end? I don’t think so. It seems like she’s been like this for a long time. So, you know, it’s sort of hard to swallow.
But Lars von Trier (Nazi or not?) is going for full romanticism here. Let’s let him have it.
You don’t get to see things like this that often, if ever.
I didn’t recognize Keifer Sutherland until the credits. But I do that. I knew he was Kevin Bacony, but I knew it wasn’t Kevin. One gets dim with time…
But Kirsten Dunst’s breasts will wake you up. They could have called this thing Melons Cholia. (I tap my mike. Is this thing on?) It’s wonderful to see someone so beautiful in so much pain. She did a great job. With an insane witch of a mother (Charlotte Rampling) and loser nut father (John Hurt), divorced and seething, you could easily see how these two sisters ended up how they ended up.
There is this intense isolation. The world is ending and these simple rich people are all alone. And they have to face it.
I once worked for a man who had me open his mail during the whole Anthrax scare. He was very wealthy. The one percent of the one percent. He said, “I guess it doesn’t matter how much money I have, I could still be killed.”
Yep.
But even better: When the world is about to end, the truly mad turn sane. The vibration finally suits them.
Visually arresting. Emotionally reaching into poetic truth. Go.
and Melancholia.
First, Moneyball.
Don’t you love getting screeners? This one came from S.A.G. And there we sat.
This is a movie about, primarily, looking at things in a new way and having the bravery to give that a shot in the midst of a group-think entrenched culture. Secondarily, it is about math. Baseball figures into it, too, of course. But that’s not the main thing here.
It’s sort of a dorky, nerdy movie with Jonah Hill pulling the statistics to teach Brad Pitt how to win by using pure formula. (Sort of cynical, sort of great strategy.) But what the deal is here…it’s the acting, the smart script, the directing. And isn’t that why you go to the movies? I know, many people go to the movies for fun and the script does not have to be that smart. Fine. Sure. But for the adults in the room, it is pleasant to have something well thought out.
With screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, and director Bennett Miller (Capote), you have a good helm going on.
The movie is purely enjoyable. Well done. Suspenseful. And I am, you know, no big baseball fan. But now, I sort of am. Maybe.
Brad Pitt made some crazy pact with some crazy devil. He’s about my age and he still has all that hair? How?
Brad Pitt’s acting really is great. But when you have had a life looking like that, being what he is, no matter how bad things get for your character, you always sort of look like people are probably looking at you and so you’ll probably be fine. Extremely good looking people have a great resource, themselves. We all know people hand things to people like that. This is a prejudice, I understand. And underneath the symmetry and the eyes and the nose and the pout and the thick follicles on the pate, maybe real pain lurks. But it’s hard to take it too seriously. Strange how beauty conceals or deceives or who-knows-what.
And he has that wife…
But really, best acting Brad’s done, seems to me. The cast, all around, is solid and interesting. Jonah Hill is clear and has almost no false moments. Growing up, our little Jonah.
Moneyball, see it. Today.
I loved Melancholia and I don’t care who knows it.
This thing is poetic, doesn’t make exact sense, is a bit over the top, has a mix of Brits and Americans and other European Whiteys at an upper class wedding that makes it all seem like the U.S. and G.B. are one nation. Parents from one country have children from another. This just slips along.
But the bigger picture might be, “IF THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END, WHO CARES ABOUT ACCENTS!”
Wagner, two sisters of differing bad temperaments (Kirsten Dunst is a depressive, her sister, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the anxious one), Lars von Trier directing magnificently as a bright blue planet is about to swallow up the earth?
By the end, I wanted to kill myself. You will, too. You have to see it.
It’s so beautiful and bleak. Who cares if the first part of the story is a bit unbelievable. (The wedding.) Or that you don’t understand how the super depressed main character, Justine played by Ms. Dunst, could ever land a good looking seemingly normal lad like Alexander Skarsgard or be promoted to director level at her ad agency considering what a mess she is.
Is she just a mess, now, because everything has nastily come together? Realizing she doesn’t like her job or her husband and the world is coming to an end? I don’t think so. It seems like she’s been like this for a long time. So, you know, it’s sort of hard to swallow.
But Lars von Trier (Nazi or not?) is going for full romanticism here. Let’s let him have it.
You don’t get to see things like this that often, if ever.
I didn’t recognize Keifer Sutherland until the credits. But I do that. I knew he was Kevin Bacony, but I knew it wasn’t Kevin. One gets dim with time…
But Kirsten Dunst’s breasts will wake you up. They could have called this thing Melons Cholia. (I tap my mike. Is this thing on?) It’s wonderful to see someone so beautiful in so much pain. She did a great job. With an insane witch of a mother (Charlotte Rampling) and loser nut father (John Hurt), divorced and seething, you could easily see how these two sisters ended up how they ended up.
There is this intense isolation. The world is ending and these simple rich people are all alone. And they have to face it.
I once worked for a man who had me open his mail during the whole Anthrax scare. He was very wealthy. The one percent of the one percent. He said, “I guess it doesn’t matter how much money I have, I could still be killed.”
Yep.
But even better: When the world is about to end, the truly mad turn sane. The vibration finally suits them.
Visually arresting. Emotionally reaching into poetic truth. Go.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Opinions Requested: Husbands, the Series
Do you like this?
I’m feeling fencey.
Husbands The Series
I mean, in my marriage, I’m the tall cute Mormon one. But still…
I watched all episodes. They’re short. Funny, smart, good mood switching back and forth. Full negotiating. Light. At times even vulnerable. Shallow but more on that later. Shallow might be the new deep. Because deep is so often self serving.
My thumbs want to go up. They are tentative thumbs. Am I old?
I’m feeling fencey.
Husbands The Series
I mean, in my marriage, I’m the tall cute Mormon one. But still…
I watched all episodes. They’re short. Funny, smart, good mood switching back and forth. Full negotiating. Light. At times even vulnerable. Shallow but more on that later. Shallow might be the new deep. Because deep is so often self serving.
My thumbs want to go up. They are tentative thumbs. Am I old?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Interesting Hell
I’m the kind of person who is very sensitive to drugs. If I take a regular dose of Nyquil I’m out for 14 hours. If I take just one small red Sudafed, I stop eating for six hours and lose a pound. It’s sort of freakish.
This does not make me a good candidate for addiction, however, I have always liked to smoke stuff and so I have to not do that, so I don’t.
On Monday, I went in for a little procedure, no biggie, but it required that I take two Percocet, which is, of course, oxycodone and acetaminophen. The latter enhances the former, which is an opiate. I took two 325 milligram tablets.
Eight hours later, I took two Tylenol.
Then I stopped all that.
This is where the trouble came in.
When I take an opiate, like most people, I am high as balls and walk around wondering how the world ever got so pleasant. It’s like all the sights and sounds with none of the worry. Basically, it’s like living in a movie. Fine. That lasted about two hours.
Then, the nausea, then the come down, then the four hour nap.
Fine.
Then ten hours of sleep.
Fine.
Then, a depression so severe, a hopelessness so profound, I had to go, “Oh man…this is clinical depression. This is the end. I am bipolar. They say online here if you’ve been putting everything in order, that’s even a sign of suicidal tendencies.”
Then I thought, “I’m always putting things in order. Plus, that’s what I always do at the end of the year.”
So, I’m sitting on the brown sofa and I’m thinking, “You’re just super duper depressed and it’s probably the Percocet. So let’s do a little experiment here. No need to panic, like this is forever. Do what you do when things are simply awful.”
And this is what I did. Instead of panicking, thinking I was going to be depressed forever, because that’s what depression does to you, I just accepted it. I accepted that I was completely miserable and that my brain was in a state of hating itself and that the only thing I could do was to just be with it.
Within five minutes it was gone.
I have noticed, in general, that all things once accepted, dissipate. And now even things caused by narcotics? I guess that works, too, accepting away your chemically induced misery.
This is a powerful notion, acceptance. And though Western culture is pretty much held up by the three tent poles of goals, drive and acquisition, I guess you can do all those things accepting as you go along.
It can make even the worst opiate induced depression lift.
Learning to accept the unacceptable is a brilliant counterintuitive action.
Accept everything you loathe and it will go away. Perhaps.
Doing the exact opposite of what you are naturally inclined to do always brings about an interesting new twist. It wakes you toward the other side. You don’t hold on and, zwoom, you are somewhere better.
If you hate this blog entry, accept it, and very soon you will no longer see it.
This does not make me a good candidate for addiction, however, I have always liked to smoke stuff and so I have to not do that, so I don’t.
On Monday, I went in for a little procedure, no biggie, but it required that I take two Percocet, which is, of course, oxycodone and acetaminophen. The latter enhances the former, which is an opiate. I took two 325 milligram tablets.
Eight hours later, I took two Tylenol.
Then I stopped all that.
This is where the trouble came in.
When I take an opiate, like most people, I am high as balls and walk around wondering how the world ever got so pleasant. It’s like all the sights and sounds with none of the worry. Basically, it’s like living in a movie. Fine. That lasted about two hours.
Then, the nausea, then the come down, then the four hour nap.
Fine.
Then ten hours of sleep.
Fine.
Then, a depression so severe, a hopelessness so profound, I had to go, “Oh man…this is clinical depression. This is the end. I am bipolar. They say online here if you’ve been putting everything in order, that’s even a sign of suicidal tendencies.”
Then I thought, “I’m always putting things in order. Plus, that’s what I always do at the end of the year.”
So, I’m sitting on the brown sofa and I’m thinking, “You’re just super duper depressed and it’s probably the Percocet. So let’s do a little experiment here. No need to panic, like this is forever. Do what you do when things are simply awful.”
And this is what I did. Instead of panicking, thinking I was going to be depressed forever, because that’s what depression does to you, I just accepted it. I accepted that I was completely miserable and that my brain was in a state of hating itself and that the only thing I could do was to just be with it.
Within five minutes it was gone.
I have noticed, in general, that all things once accepted, dissipate. And now even things caused by narcotics? I guess that works, too, accepting away your chemically induced misery.
This is a powerful notion, acceptance. And though Western culture is pretty much held up by the three tent poles of goals, drive and acquisition, I guess you can do all those things accepting as you go along.
It can make even the worst opiate induced depression lift.
Learning to accept the unacceptable is a brilliant counterintuitive action.
Accept everything you loathe and it will go away. Perhaps.
Doing the exact opposite of what you are naturally inclined to do always brings about an interesting new twist. It wakes you toward the other side. You don’t hold on and, zwoom, you are somewhere better.
If you hate this blog entry, accept it, and very soon you will no longer see it.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Ten More Months
So, as Mitt wins and gets this thing sewn up, we then have to face this creature for ten more months.
He’s craven.
The Republicans are getting the candidate they deserve---a slick, greedy guy who would sell off his own mother.
I do not know why I wake up every day surprised by what most people desire: endless wealth.
Along the way…look, we know the morality tales…
I am very interested in hearing the insider cash stories that Mitt hath lived.
This is not because I am against big chunks of cash, exactly. I don’t care so much how rich someone is. I am usually more jealous about fame. Plus, I’ve never been hungry or unclothed or unhoused.
I look at greed in a way that is curious. Like, why would you want to be bothered with all that stuff? It seems like a huge responsibility.
I’m in my middle years and I often look around and wonder how I can get rid of the stuff I own now. It’s all a nuisance and gets in my way.
Politics seems a big fight about how money is controlled. Will it be a sharing game or a might-makes-right game? Or to give the Right their point of view, Will it be a merit game or a lazy-tries-to-take-it game?
I don’t understand, since this country is so divided right down the middle, why both sides can’t just agree that this-this-and-this we’ll share and this-this-and-this will be full-on free market stuff.
But then again, societies get more complex over time, not simpler. So drawing it up and saying, “Yeah, we’re going to settle on these two lists and move on to other things. Like solving energy problems and population problems.” Besides, people like to fight. Anything for a fight. Maybe it’s an adrenalin surge followed by a dopamine surge that people live for and the money is secondary.
A lion licking its paws after taking out a wildebeest.
I try to stay out of the way.
He’s craven.
The Republicans are getting the candidate they deserve---a slick, greedy guy who would sell off his own mother.
I do not know why I wake up every day surprised by what most people desire: endless wealth.
Along the way…look, we know the morality tales…
I am very interested in hearing the insider cash stories that Mitt hath lived.
This is not because I am against big chunks of cash, exactly. I don’t care so much how rich someone is. I am usually more jealous about fame. Plus, I’ve never been hungry or unclothed or unhoused.
I look at greed in a way that is curious. Like, why would you want to be bothered with all that stuff? It seems like a huge responsibility.
I’m in my middle years and I often look around and wonder how I can get rid of the stuff I own now. It’s all a nuisance and gets in my way.
Politics seems a big fight about how money is controlled. Will it be a sharing game or a might-makes-right game? Or to give the Right their point of view, Will it be a merit game or a lazy-tries-to-take-it game?
I don’t understand, since this country is so divided right down the middle, why both sides can’t just agree that this-this-and-this we’ll share and this-this-and-this will be full-on free market stuff.
But then again, societies get more complex over time, not simpler. So drawing it up and saying, “Yeah, we’re going to settle on these two lists and move on to other things. Like solving energy problems and population problems.” Besides, people like to fight. Anything for a fight. Maybe it’s an adrenalin surge followed by a dopamine surge that people live for and the money is secondary.
A lion licking its paws after taking out a wildebeest.
I try to stay out of the way.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
The Tree of Life
We sat through it. We had the WGA screener.
It won best damn picture at Cannes. It is visually incredible. Its narrative…honestly, it’s silly.
Let’s let The Atlantic do the work for me because I can’t even…
Review of The Tree of Life by someone else
It won best damn picture at Cannes. It is visually incredible. Its narrative…honestly, it’s silly.
Let’s let The Atlantic do the work for me because I can’t even…
Review of The Tree of Life by someone else
Friday, January 06, 2012
My Third Fight
My first fight was unremarkable in that I did not fight, but was choked, because it was seventh grade and I had a crush on D’s girlfriend and he did not like this. Additionally, he was living a mean streak at that little point in his life. I was tricked into going down to the woods to hang out, “Come on, Donald, everyone’s going”—and I was ambushed. What he did was, he choked me. And kept choking. Why choking? I don’t know. But it was terrifying and undeserved. He kept yelling at me that N was his girlfriend. Not mine. He wanted to choke that truth into me. I agreed. Okay. N is not my girlfriend. I’ll stop following her around. I left crying. I have seen D since. I do not recall him ever apologizing.
Strangely, on the way home from that episode, a guy a year younger than me, M, got in my face on the street. He said I called him a faggot at the carnival the week before. We had these carnivals that came through town. They set up in the ball field. My house was only two blocks away. Exciting times. And I was at the carnival every night. So M said I called him a faggot. I said I didn’t. Truth is, I never talked to him my entire life. I had always seen him around. He was pretty cute. In fact, D, above, was very cute. So two good looking kids on the same day decided to pummel me. So as M was trying to pick this fight with me in the street, about me calling him a faggot at the carnival, he steadily pushed toward me, backing me into a parked car along the curb. I was pretty pissed off because I had already been mangled by D down in the woods less than thirty minutes ago. So there I was backed up against a car and I decided to just haul back and pop this M right in the face as hard as I could. I hit between his eye and his nose. It took him by total surprise. He was so much bigger and stronger than me. I knew he’d kill me if he started to beat me. So I had to end it quickly. He cried. I ran. I saw him a week later in school. He said that it wasn’t me that called him a faggot at the carnival. He didn’t say he was sorry. But he sort of did. I had this feeling that no one would ever mess with me again.
But I was wrong.
D was tall and lean, with rock and roll hair. M was crew cutted and muscular, a much scarier person to face. And then there was M.A. My third and very brutal fight.
I guess middle school is the age when boys just want to pummel each other. About a year or more after I did not call M a faggot and D had choked me into tears, I was walking along, shopping or what-have-you, in downtown Suffern, my town, at that time a fine town of middle class things like banks and a stationary store. I was acting a little tough because that’s what I did a little bit at that time of my life. Then this not-good-looking kid, A., a year younger than me, who wore stained T-shirts, kept his hair cut like it was the early 70s when it was the late 70s, smoked cigarettes right in front of adults, and got terrible grades, you know, a dirtbag, he decided to pick a fight with me. It was along the lines of, “Hey, you’re a faggot,” in the 70s meaning of it, meaning, you’re square and uncool, like how M. thought I used the word on him at the carnival. By this age, I was well established in middle school, liked, and almost a foot taller than this A., who was one of the shortest kids in his class. I did not understand how he did not understand how futile this attack on me would be.
In addition, A. was at one time best friends with someone who I used to be best friends with. There was really no reason to fight. But clearly, A. wanted to kick some ass and for some reason he thought I was kickable. So he’s calling me a faggot and telling me he’s going to kick my ass and I’m thinking, “You’re a mouse. Just stop this.” Then I thought, “He can’t be for real. He’s a pipsqueak. Oh my God, does he have a knife? Is he going to try to knife me? Did he save up for a knife and he just bought it and now he needs to try it out on my flesh?” But he did not pull out a knife. He did keep up with the aggression. It was bizarre. He was friends with friends and he knew my younger brother well, he was, basically, in the ally sphere of my life. This whole thing was ridiculous. So I said to him, “A., stop it. Right now.” I said it like his older baby sitter, like a wise person who was setting someone straight. I even had this older brother compassion for him. I wanted to say, “Don’t be silly.” I didn’t say that.
I could not, in my rational world, understand why the hell he was doing this. And then he started kicking me. I ran away, toward the bank. It had a long hedge about three feet tall in front of the solid concrete. Solid building with columns. Almost romantic. I was laughing at how silly A. was being. Like a Chihuahua coming after a beagle. But he persisted. And he came around the bushes and he started grabbing my hair and then I started grabbing his hair. Total girl fight. (Sorry, girls.) Okay, professional wrestling? Anyway, we are grabbing each other’s hair and because he is so short, all he can do is kick me. This was no longer funny and I was no longer interested in being some sort of understanding big brother. And he keeps kicking me in the shins. It hurt like hell. But because he’s my brother’s age and friends with so many of my brother’s friends, I can’t help but think of him in this brotherly way and I keep saying, “Stop, stop or I’m going to put an end to this that is going to be awful.” And he wouldn’t stop. He was determined to give me as much physical pain as he could. (What the hell happened to him that day at home? What was wrong with him? I don’t know.)
So then, I gathered my strength, with his head of hair in mine, and I gave him one last warning, “You gonna stop?” And he said no and kept kicking. A little dirty mutt, tobacco stained fingers, hair flying.
So I took his head and I smashed it into the bank wall. Just once. But very hard. I meant it. This had to end. It must have been very painful because he stopped. And he cried like a little boy. He couldn’t believe I did what I did. I left him holding his head on the lawn. He was so pathetic and I felt so bad for him. But I had to move on. He lived. It was unfair fighting.
That’s how I fight…never. Or completely unfair.
That was the last time someone tried to have a fight with me. I don’t think A. went around and told everyone, “Don’t pick a fight with Donald Cummings, he’ll smash your head into a bank wall.” But I do think that once you do smash someone’s head into a bank wall, people sort of sense it and they leave you alone.
A. became a huge stoner and I do not believe he finished high school. Whenever he saw me in the halls at school, he just glared. I used to smile back at him. I felt sorry for him. And I was confused because he was such a skanky little ruffian and he had this regal sister.
You see, strangely, his much older sister was a big Broadway sensation at the time in a revival of a very famous musical. She was the lead. Everyone went to see her. In fact, it was the first Broadway play I had ever seen. And she is still in Broadway musicals today. It made no sense that this woman, who was basically doing something very close to what I wanted to do, had this sad little stoner, dirty brother. And I thought that if A. knew how much I thought of his sister, how into her and the musical she was in I was, he never would have gone after me that day. Maybe. And I wondered why his sister, with her success and her grace, did not come back to Suffern to fix this kid up.
Maybe she escaped the family with her great singing voice and was glad to never return? Maybe A. was her half brother or something?
What was wrong with these people? I never found out.
That third fight was the end of all that ugly middle school boy stuff. The skull against cement sound, just thinking about it, it makes you wince. Whenever I see that bank, or one like it, I do wonder if there was something wrong with me for having done what I did. It was outsized, to crack his head into the wall, and I could have maybe figured out something less severe. But I did not want a protracted painful engagement. I was improv-ing. I was expedient.
Strangely, on the way home from that episode, a guy a year younger than me, M, got in my face on the street. He said I called him a faggot at the carnival the week before. We had these carnivals that came through town. They set up in the ball field. My house was only two blocks away. Exciting times. And I was at the carnival every night. So M said I called him a faggot. I said I didn’t. Truth is, I never talked to him my entire life. I had always seen him around. He was pretty cute. In fact, D, above, was very cute. So two good looking kids on the same day decided to pummel me. So as M was trying to pick this fight with me in the street, about me calling him a faggot at the carnival, he steadily pushed toward me, backing me into a parked car along the curb. I was pretty pissed off because I had already been mangled by D down in the woods less than thirty minutes ago. So there I was backed up against a car and I decided to just haul back and pop this M right in the face as hard as I could. I hit between his eye and his nose. It took him by total surprise. He was so much bigger and stronger than me. I knew he’d kill me if he started to beat me. So I had to end it quickly. He cried. I ran. I saw him a week later in school. He said that it wasn’t me that called him a faggot at the carnival. He didn’t say he was sorry. But he sort of did. I had this feeling that no one would ever mess with me again.
But I was wrong.
D was tall and lean, with rock and roll hair. M was crew cutted and muscular, a much scarier person to face. And then there was M.A. My third and very brutal fight.
I guess middle school is the age when boys just want to pummel each other. About a year or more after I did not call M a faggot and D had choked me into tears, I was walking along, shopping or what-have-you, in downtown Suffern, my town, at that time a fine town of middle class things like banks and a stationary store. I was acting a little tough because that’s what I did a little bit at that time of my life. Then this not-good-looking kid, A., a year younger than me, who wore stained T-shirts, kept his hair cut like it was the early 70s when it was the late 70s, smoked cigarettes right in front of adults, and got terrible grades, you know, a dirtbag, he decided to pick a fight with me. It was along the lines of, “Hey, you’re a faggot,” in the 70s meaning of it, meaning, you’re square and uncool, like how M. thought I used the word on him at the carnival. By this age, I was well established in middle school, liked, and almost a foot taller than this A., who was one of the shortest kids in his class. I did not understand how he did not understand how futile this attack on me would be.
In addition, A. was at one time best friends with someone who I used to be best friends with. There was really no reason to fight. But clearly, A. wanted to kick some ass and for some reason he thought I was kickable. So he’s calling me a faggot and telling me he’s going to kick my ass and I’m thinking, “You’re a mouse. Just stop this.” Then I thought, “He can’t be for real. He’s a pipsqueak. Oh my God, does he have a knife? Is he going to try to knife me? Did he save up for a knife and he just bought it and now he needs to try it out on my flesh?” But he did not pull out a knife. He did keep up with the aggression. It was bizarre. He was friends with friends and he knew my younger brother well, he was, basically, in the ally sphere of my life. This whole thing was ridiculous. So I said to him, “A., stop it. Right now.” I said it like his older baby sitter, like a wise person who was setting someone straight. I even had this older brother compassion for him. I wanted to say, “Don’t be silly.” I didn’t say that.
I could not, in my rational world, understand why the hell he was doing this. And then he started kicking me. I ran away, toward the bank. It had a long hedge about three feet tall in front of the solid concrete. Solid building with columns. Almost romantic. I was laughing at how silly A. was being. Like a Chihuahua coming after a beagle. But he persisted. And he came around the bushes and he started grabbing my hair and then I started grabbing his hair. Total girl fight. (Sorry, girls.) Okay, professional wrestling? Anyway, we are grabbing each other’s hair and because he is so short, all he can do is kick me. This was no longer funny and I was no longer interested in being some sort of understanding big brother. And he keeps kicking me in the shins. It hurt like hell. But because he’s my brother’s age and friends with so many of my brother’s friends, I can’t help but think of him in this brotherly way and I keep saying, “Stop, stop or I’m going to put an end to this that is going to be awful.” And he wouldn’t stop. He was determined to give me as much physical pain as he could. (What the hell happened to him that day at home? What was wrong with him? I don’t know.)
So then, I gathered my strength, with his head of hair in mine, and I gave him one last warning, “You gonna stop?” And he said no and kept kicking. A little dirty mutt, tobacco stained fingers, hair flying.
So I took his head and I smashed it into the bank wall. Just once. But very hard. I meant it. This had to end. It must have been very painful because he stopped. And he cried like a little boy. He couldn’t believe I did what I did. I left him holding his head on the lawn. He was so pathetic and I felt so bad for him. But I had to move on. He lived. It was unfair fighting.
That’s how I fight…never. Or completely unfair.
That was the last time someone tried to have a fight with me. I don’t think A. went around and told everyone, “Don’t pick a fight with Donald Cummings, he’ll smash your head into a bank wall.” But I do think that once you do smash someone’s head into a bank wall, people sort of sense it and they leave you alone.
A. became a huge stoner and I do not believe he finished high school. Whenever he saw me in the halls at school, he just glared. I used to smile back at him. I felt sorry for him. And I was confused because he was such a skanky little ruffian and he had this regal sister.
You see, strangely, his much older sister was a big Broadway sensation at the time in a revival of a very famous musical. She was the lead. Everyone went to see her. In fact, it was the first Broadway play I had ever seen. And she is still in Broadway musicals today. It made no sense that this woman, who was basically doing something very close to what I wanted to do, had this sad little stoner, dirty brother. And I thought that if A. knew how much I thought of his sister, how into her and the musical she was in I was, he never would have gone after me that day. Maybe. And I wondered why his sister, with her success and her grace, did not come back to Suffern to fix this kid up.
Maybe she escaped the family with her great singing voice and was glad to never return? Maybe A. was her half brother or something?
What was wrong with these people? I never found out.
That third fight was the end of all that ugly middle school boy stuff. The skull against cement sound, just thinking about it, it makes you wince. Whenever I see that bank, or one like it, I do wonder if there was something wrong with me for having done what I did. It was outsized, to crack his head into the wall, and I could have maybe figured out something less severe. But I did not want a protracted painful engagement. I was improv-ing. I was expedient.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Gender and Desire
I went to the Brooklyn Museum today with my brother-in-law to see the exhibit, “Gender and Desire.”
It was okay. Some enjoyable art. But this is the deal---when you lump a bunch of paintings together to make some sort of sociological point, it might be good for the museum, but is it good for the artists?
This collection, put together originally at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo, was someone’s idea. And that’s nice.
But is that idea bigger than the idea of each individual piece of work, so much so that the work is experienced in a compelling way? Were these the paintings that happened to be available and sort of “fit the bill” so they were procured?
I don’t know…
It was okay. Some enjoyable art. But this is the deal---when you lump a bunch of paintings together to make some sort of sociological point, it might be good for the museum, but is it good for the artists?
This collection, put together originally at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo, was someone’s idea. And that’s nice.
But is that idea bigger than the idea of each individual piece of work, so much so that the work is experienced in a compelling way? Were these the paintings that happened to be available and sort of “fit the bill” so they were procured?
I don’t know…
Monday, January 02, 2012
Don's Early Home Movies
Happy New Year and how fat are you?
The last few days around here have been celebrated by eating multi-grain healthy waffles from Trader Joe’s, covered with coffee ice cream, chocolate syrup and crumbled walnuts. Why? Well, hell, when you’re all in for the holidays, why the hell not?
And now, like everyone else, I am going to repent and starve and get a little cranky.
But this is the good news…New Year’s makes me want to clean out everything. Closets, inboxes, files, you name it. We dropped off a huge load of old clothes and things at the Housing Works Thrift store on 9th Avenue.
And I had this other thing on my mind. A cousin of mine wanted some pictures of his dad, some pics that I had from my aunt…and so it was time to get that finished, too. And then I thought while I’m at it, I might as well upload the precious ninety minutes of ancient footage I have that includes lots of extended family members…so my forty-five cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone else could always have access…you know, they’re in the lobby of some overdone hotel in Dubai and they can pull out their smart phone and go, “See that? There? That’s me in 1968. Some called it the summer of love. I called it the summer of diapers.”
Much of the footage is wonderful. Much of it is water damaged or light damaged or both. Most of the shots focus on my older sister, my younger brother and me. (I’m the slightly taller boy with the bigger skull.) The white haired lady on the rocking horse is my mother’s mother, also known as Nanny. In big family get togethers, the ones with the more dolled up hair are from my mother’s side, the Italian Porcellos and DeFranzas. The Americana looking ones from casting central are from the Irish side, the Cummings.
It’s all very sweet and looks very innocent to me.
Note to everyone, just fast forward as you go. This is not high art.
To extended family: If you take some time and fast forward, you will surely find footage of you from back in the day. Before Watergate, before Iran Contras, before Monica’s blue dress, before the Interwebs…(This is the same footage from the DVD’s some of you have.)
Happy Days are here again.
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Don’s Early Home Movies
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