Frozen Cookies

12/23/14

I walk into a Manhattan penthouse, arriving just as a Christmas luncheon begins. There are enormous windows, and I can see it is an extremely grey and cloudy day. I don't seem to know the host and I don't know quite why I'm here. I find my way to a dining table and I sit and chat with singer Phoebe Snow. After a few minutes another guest arrives--a woman dressed in a sparkly blue gown. It's Princess Elsa from Frozen,  only it's actually character actress Mary Wickes (White Christmas, Sister Act). She explains that it's not just a costume, that she actually is an older and wiser Elsa. She joins Pheobe and I at the table where we proceed to eat cookies. 

River Deep, Mountain High

11/26/14

Anna Mae Bullock (aka Tina Turner) turns 75 today. This sketch is based on photos from her 2013 wedding. Here's a sobering thought: I'm now 5 years older than Tina was when she released her big comeback album. Sigh.

I've been lucky enough to see her in concert three different times in three different cities, each time more exciting than the last. Long may she shimmy.

Not A Hugger

10/12/14

I'm walking around New Orleans with my friend Virginia. It's Columbus day, and we're there to shoot a car commercial. We follow a dark colored sedan on foot for several blocks until we come upon the crew. Governor Bobby Jindal is there and I think to myself, "doesn't he have something more important to do?"

Virginia and I walk a few more blocks to a park where Nina Simone is giving a concert in a light rain. We find seats near the front right next to Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Nina launches into her famous protest song, Mississippi Goddam. The message is deadly serious, but the melody is so infectious that I can't help but to sing a long. Loudly.

No one else is singing and I fear I'm about to be on the receiving end of one of Nina's legendary tantrums. But to my great relief Nina looks up, smiles and nods her head in approval. The crowd starts to sing along.

The rain is coming down heavier now and the concert comes to an abrupt conclusion. I follow Nina down a tree lined street to a small brick building where her dressing room is located. But I'm not stalking her; it turns out MY dressing room is in the same building, in the basement, right next to Nina's.

I watch her gather up her bags and get ready to go. We have a brief conversation where I tell her how much I enjoyed the concert. Just before she walks out I give her a hug. Her body immediately tenses up, as if she'd never been touched before and has no idea how to respond. Wordlessly and with no sign of emotion, she walks down the hallway and disappears up the stairs.

I think to myself, "well, clearly she's not a hugger."

Jorge Porge Pumpkin Pie

Warning: This dream contains one section that is of a graphic sexual nature. That's unusual for me, so I thought I should give you a heads up so you can decide for yourself if you want to continue. 

10/8/14

With my friend Lenore in tow, I walk into a restaurant on a busy stretch of highway outside of Philadelphia. Actually, I'm more in tow as I'm struggled to keep up with her on the walk over from my hotel a block or so away.

Once inside, we get separated almost immediately. I make my way to the dimly lit bar and take the empty seat next to George Clooney.

We make small talk. He seems pretty drunk. We decide to go back to my hotel room. I can't believe my luck.

In the parking lot, George gets into a one seat convertible and starts to pull away.

"There's no room for me in the car! Besides, we can walk."

We stumble into the hotel and down a corridor where George plops down on a bench as we wait for the elevator. We run into a bunch of my relatives who are also staying at the hotel. It's pretty clear I've brought a hook-up back to the hotel.

"Who's your friend?" my cousin Sheila asks.

The twinkle in her eye tells me she may have recognized him. But George does not want to be recognized, so I make up a name for him.

"This is...Jorge." Yes, that's right. His fake name is Spanish for George. I was not very quick on my feet.

Jorge tells me he's going to be sick. I drag him down the hall looking for a bathroom. We make it as far as the kitchen, where George Clooney doubles over and vomits in front of several kitchen employees. Apparently he was also very excited because there is now a sticky white substance all over his jacket and shirt. I take a glob of it and rub it into his chest hair.

I get him back to his feet. We get on an elevator and get off on the tenth floor. We pass a banquet hall where a Kyra Sedgewick tries to say hello. We keep going until we get to my door, room number 1003. I unlock the door, push it open, and watch as George stumbles on to the bed and passes out.

I crouch down, still outside the room, to pick up the newspaper and several pairs of shoes and flip flops. There are so many pairs, I have trouble getting them all in the room.

At last I get into the room, jump into the bed and become the big spoon to George Clooney's little spoon.

A Birthday Portrait

 

I'm a day late celebrating the birth of the exquisite Eileen Brennan. No, Silly, I didn't forget. Just took me a while to finish her portrait. Besides, it's always September 3 in my heart. 

Fresh as a Lily

A very happy birthday to the incomparable Lily Tomlin and all her many personalities. 

On The Occasion of Her Ninety-Ninth Birthday

8/29/14

What a day. Not only was the great jazz and blues singer Dinah Washington born on this day, but so was my favorite old Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman. The three-time Academy Award winner (not to mention a couple of Emmys and a Tony--she was a Triple Crown winner before we had the EGOT) was born in Stockholm, Sweden on August 29, 1915. 

Her remarkable beauty made her a natural choice for Hollywood, but it was her talent and intelligence that kept her working for more than forty years, despite falling out of favor with a puritanical American public and being condemned on the floor of the House of Representatives after following her heart out of an unhappy marriage and into the arms of Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. 

When her eight year battle with cancer came to a close August 29, 1982, her sixty-seventh birthday, she was surrounded by family and held on long enough to lift a glass of champagne to her lips. I love the symmetry of checking out on the same date on which you arrived. It seems strangely classy to me, and so today I raise a glass to this classy woman who convincingly played everything from a nun to an Israeli prime minister on the occasion of her ninety-ninth birthday. 

Aren't They Something?

8/17/14

I had a dream...I'm watching TV, yet it feels like I'm actually there with the people on TV. There's a commercial with Lauren Bacall surrounded by a bunch of tuxedo clad chorus boys. They frame her as if they're about to do a big dance number. Lauren, in a kind of ugly green evening gown, looks down at her breasts, then into the camera she purrs, "Aren't they something?" 

But it turns out she's really talking about her wrists, as the commercial is for some kind of arthritis cream. 

The commercial fades to black. I now see Lauren sitting on the couch at the Oprah Winfrey Show. She is joined by a group of female models who all laugh and giggle.

 Lauren's top is made out of a stretchy, gauzy material and her breasts easily pop out when she waves her arms. She laughs uproariously at this and tells everyone it was an accident, but the twinkle in her eye tells me she knows exactly what she's doing.

[In the dream, both breasts were visible. But I was worried about being insensitive so soon after Lauren's passing, and my friend Carlos advised me that it's much classier to only show one nip.]

The Whole God Damned Picture

Estelle Parsons in Bonnie & Clyde

I re-watched Bonnie & Clyde today, which brought back many memories. I don't think I've written about it before, but if I have, well, it's like my old therapist Dr. Lowenstein used to say, "Sometimes we have to repeat the same stories over and over again so that we can really process them."  

When I was growing up I was allowed to watch almost anything I wanted on TV.  By six I was watching All In The Family, followed in short order by Maude, Police Woman, Charlie's Angels, an assortment of Movies of the Week, and of course my mother's favorite soap operas, Another World, Days of Our Lives, and The Doctors. 

I'm not saying exposing me to violent crime dramas, steamy love affairs, and biting social commentary before I could tie my own shoes was the most responsible parenting choice, but it beat the hell out of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, and I imagine it did help shape my world view, for better or worse. 

There are only two things I can remember my mother not letting me watch on TV; both were theatrical films. The first, Rosemary's Baby, became one of my favorite movies after she finally relented when I was about fifteen. The only reason I wasn't allowed to watch it in the first place is because it had been condemned by our local Catholic newspaper, The Catholic Standard & Times. Had it only been "Morally Objectionable In Part For All," it might have squeaked past her much sooner.

The other movie was Bonnie & Clyde. Even when I was a teenager, even when I was twenty, she refused to let me watch that movie. My mother's control over our family television was absolute. In most cases I could persuade, beg or charm her into changing the channel. "But Mom, it's a very special episode. Charlie is sending the Angels on a cruise!" Heck, later I even got her to let me watch The Days & Nights of Molly Dodd, which she absolutely hated. Something about the color of Blair Brown's hair set her off. 

But I digress. Any normal parent would have kept their child from watching Bonnie & Clyde because it features about 1,000 gun shots, several on screen deaths, and a murderous, impotent bank robber. None of those things bothered my mother particularly. 

Whenever Bonnie & Clyde came on TV, my mother would say, "We're not watching that. Change the channel. I can't stand Estelle Parsons in that thing."

"But Mom," I would argue, "she won an Oscar for this movie."

"I don't care what she won. All she does is scream through the whole God damned picture."

I so clearly remember her calling it a "picture," like she was Jack Warner, or Mr. Mayer sitting behind his desk on the MGM lot.

To be fair, we did enjoy watching Estelle Parsons several times in The Watermelon Man and For Pete's Sake as Barbra Streisand's shrewish sister-in-law, but my mother just could not abide her in this particular picture.

I never did see Bonnie & Clyde until a few months after my mother died. It was strange and liberating and also a little sad not to have someone there telling me I couldn't watch it. 

I smile and think of my mom whenever I hear Estelle Parson's name. I've seen her on stage a few times now and I think she's a terrific actress. And in Bonnie & Clyde  she gives a full-throttled, committed performance...but it's hard to argue with my mother's assessment. Her voice is shrill and it touches a nerve as she shrieks, and yes, screams through the whole God damned picture. 

When Winnie Met Glenn

7/27/14

I'm sitting on a bench at Barnes & Noble on a Saturday night. I'm watching a documentary about Barbra Streisand (of course I am!) on one of their monitors. Glenn Close sits down next to me and  becomes engrossed in the film.

After a few minutes she turns to me and says, "You know, I almost hired her for a job once."

Before I can even ask about it, Glenn invites me to her home to be part of her reading club. Not a traditional book club, she explains, as everyone will be taking parts and reading the books aloud. 

"We're doing Winnie The Pooh next Sunday, you'll be perfect!"

I explain that and old boyfriend had introduced me to  Winnie The Pooh, but that I had stopped reading it after we broke up.

"Well then, this is your chance to finish it!" 

Here's To The Lady Who Lunched

RIP Elaine Stritch

The Devil Made Me Do It

8/12/12

I've been holding onto this one for a while, and truthfully there wasn't much to it, but it was so vivid.

My sister and I are attending a concert at an amphitheatre. I'm not even sure who we're here to see, but we are not happy with our seats. We're up high, almost the last row. We want to move down closer to the stage, we're afraid we'll get caught. 

Suddenly a bright and garishly dressed woman (well, she's not quite a woman--she's Flip Wilson's alter ego Geraldine Jones) appears in the aisle next to our row. 

"Come on honey," she tells us, "I'll find good seats."

"But what if someone stops us?" I ask. 

As she raises her arms above her head and throws her head back, she declares, "Honey, if anyone stops us, you just tell 'em 'the devil made me do it!' " 

And with that, we follow Geraldine as she skips down the aisle to the promised land down by the stage. 

One Crazy Cat

Today is the 67th birthday of one Betty Lynn Buckley, possibly the maddest hatter in all of show business, or at least all of musical theatre. 

Known for her piercing belt and intense lyric interpretations, Betty came to national attention as the step mother on Eight is Enough and Sissy Spacek's kind-hearted but doomed gym teacher in Carrie. In 1983 she cemented her place in musical theatre by winning a Tony award for originating the role of Grizabella the faded prostitute cat in Cats.

Although  I'd long known I would eventually move to New York, the impetus for me to actually come here was auditioning for Betty's acting class at the T. Schreiber Stuidio and being invited to join. It happened so quickly. I'd come to New York for a weekend to visit my friend Tim and spotted an ad for Betty's class in his copy of Backstage. Two weeks later my bags were packed and I was studying with Betty Buckley.

Betty was a huge believer in meditation and chakra work, and as it happened at the time I was religiously (that word seems especially out of place here), meditating and focusing on my chakras daily. It seemed like it would be a good fit. 

Betty was not at my audition, but I met her just before the first class. She told me she'd looked over my resume and that I had some "nice credits." Well okay, if community theatre productions of The Matchmaker and Gypsy can be considered nice credits, then yeah, I had some nice credits. I suppose she was just trying to be polite. That didn't last long.

Each class started with 30 minutes of meditation. Not guided meditation, just "let's turn out the lights, light a candle, and all work on our chakras." This was to help center us and to put ourselves into a meditative state as we approached our work. 

Nearly as soon as a a pair of students started presenting a scene to the class, Betty would shatter any magical state that might have been created by screaming, "NO! No! I don't believe you! You're not breathing! YOU'RE NOT BREATHING!" 

Holy fuck wads, she was so nice on Eigth Is Enough. And  yes, I'd seen enough episodes of Fame to know that acting teachers yell, but did that really apply to acting teachers whose whole foundation is based on remaining calm and relaxed? 

I know I tested Betty's nerves and got a terse response when I inquired if it was okay to use the slightly different color pallet of chakras (which I had learned from that spiritual leader Shirely MacLaine) that I was used to instead of the ones that Betty prescribed. Forty-something me wouldn't have asked, or maybe even thirty something me. I would have just said, "fuck her, if these colors are good enough for Shirley, they're good enough for me." But twenty-three year old me didn't know any better. 

"These are the colors that work! Use these colors. Aren't you here to learn?"

She also wasn't too happy when I sincerely questioned the notion of praying to God if, as she claimed, we were finding God within ourselves when we meditated.

"You could do with a little more humility," she growled. Or hissed...I guess cats are more hissers than growlers.

I did have one triumphant moment in the class. The first assignment for every new student was to go to the zoo and study an animal, then come present our work to the class to guess which animal we had chosen. I spent several intense (and odorous) hours in the reptile house at the Central Park Zoo studying an iguana. When my turn came to take the floor at the class, I got down on all fours and slithered around, eyes darting, head twitching, and tongue occasionally chasing an imaginary fly. 

"Iguana?" Betty guessed.

Oh my God! I'm brilliant. I nailed it. She didn't say lizard, or alligator, or generic reptile. No, she said IGUANA! I'm going to make it in this business after all.

The next week the class was canceled. Betty Lynn had been called home to Texas to attend to her dying father.

"That's strange," said my scene partner Sheila.

"What's strange?" I asked.

"Well, I took Betty's class last summer...and her father died last year, too."  

Oh Betty Buckley, you are so fiercely talented...but you are one mad, crazy cat. 

Ruth...uh, Truth To Power

 

Thank you Madame Justice for your clear, impassioned opinion. 

After The Rainbow

                         

I'm not going to the Pride parade today for a bunch of reasons:

1) I have work to finish that I could have done yesterday if I hadn't spent the entire day drawing and playing with buster.

2) I couldn't find anyone who actually wanted to go to the parade with me, and there are few things in the world that make you feel more alone than being by yourself whilst among a couple hundred thousand people. 

3) I don't, as a rule, really like parades. I say this even though that time I saw Coretta Scott King at the Constitution Parade in Philadelphia was pretty cool, as was watching the giant Charlie Brown float sail pass the Dakota that Thanksgiving I lived on the Upper West Side. Oh, okay, and seeing Hillary Clinton march in the 2000 Pride Parade behind a truck playing the theme from Shaft ("That Mrs. Clinton is a bad motha--Shut yo mouth!") is a cherished memory. But in general, I find parades loud, overcrowded, and exhausting.

I have been thinking this week about the Stonewall riots and the origins of the Pride Parade. It's been 45 years since patrons of the Greenwich Village gay bar, many drag queens among them, fought back against the habitual harassment of the NYPD and touched off several nights of rioting, and in the process became the impetus for the modern gay rights movement. 

Earlier in the day the funeral of legendary entertainer Judy Garland and drawn nearly 20,000 mourners just a few short miles uptown. It's difficult to prove a causal link between the two events, even though Judy had a legion of gay fans and her funeral was a huge news story both in New York and around the country. Still, it's hard to imagine that she wouldn't have been on the minds of the patrons of the Stonewall Inn that night, as both homosexuals and New Yorkers.

I read several articles this week (some scholarly, others not so much) that worked hard to debunk the notion that there was any correlation between the funeral and the riots. One went so far as to claim it was actually insulting to imply that gays would only stand up for themselves when their "camp icon" had been taken from them. 

I understand the inclination to distance oneself from anything iconic, campy or otherwise, when trying to stake out  your own identity. Personally, I was mortified when I found out that Barbra Streisand was considered a gay icon. In addition to feeling exposed, I also learned that my affection for her was neither unique nor particularly special. I was devastated to realize that I might actually be a bit of a cliche.

I suffered from (and if I'm honest, sometimes still do) a form of internalized homophobia. But when I am finally equal in the eyes of the law, (we're not quite there yet) fee to sleep with, marry, raise children and estate plan with whomever I choose, what will it really mean if I continue to judge and censor myself? If I don't embrace my love of Barbra,  my love of Judy, of Ethel, of show tunes, of Provincetown, of fresh cut flowers, of fruity rum drinks, of Lily Tomlin, of the Flying Nun, of drag queens, of both the color purple and The Color Purple, and a host of other things considered culturally queer, than what have I really gained? It is not enough to be equal. We must, all of us, be ourselves in all our complicated and sometimes embarrassing glory, even if what we are is, at least in part, a cliche.

As for Judy Garland's funeral and Stonewall, I certainly do not believe it's insulting or embarrassing to think this "camp icon" played a part, even a very small one, in our struggle for equality. History books are filled with inaccuracies half-truths, and flights of fancy, and there's no reason to think that Gay History will be recorded any differently. And in the end, at least in this case, I don't think the truth is quite as important as the overriding message and the end result.

Show Your Pride

The Tale of Bebe and Pookie

I've decided it's time to make a confession and publicly tell the tale of Bebe and Pookie (and me, of course.) This tale has everything, and by everything I mean cute dogs, talk show appearances, an animated fashion designer, a performance by Deborah Harry, and me telling a bold face lie to a celebrity.

Up until the day I adopted Buster two years ago, I yearly suffered from a very specific form of Spring Fever. Like clock work, no sooner would blossoms appear on the trees and  buds would poke their little heads out from the soil, than I would start feeling overwhelming pangs to get a dog.

In 1997 I gave into temptation and adopted an allegedly full grown dog named Tess from the North Shore Animal League. The first day I had her I was walking her on 45th Street near Broadway and she jumped up on the legendary songstress Margaret Whiting, who gently admonished Tess in her husky alto voice by telling her, "Now Tess, I know you're excited but you've got to be a lady!"

It got worse from there. Tess gained 30 pounds in less than three months, destroyed my roommate's down comforter, and went berserk on a daily basis whenever we ran into a police officer on horseback. Luckily my suburbanite brother with a fenced in yard was willing to take her in.

I was scared off from getting a dog for a very long time, feeling rightfully so that I had not been responsible enough. Nevertheless, the first warm afternoon in April still set visions of puppy dogs a dancing in my head. Knowing this, in the Spring of 2003 a friend of a friend got me invited to a special taping of Isaac Mizzrahi's talk show. The episode: Doggy Adoption Day.

The place was set up like a cocktail party with audience members acting as guests, standing around chest high tables and sipping ginger ale out of plastic champagne glasses. About thirty dogs of all shapes and sizes were brought in to mingle with the party guests by a slew of shelters, including the one that so accurately estimated Tess's growth potential.

Isaac's special guests were Deborah Harry, who rocked the place with a version of Stand By Your Man, and Emmy and Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth. They each had a segment with Issac in which they discussed their love of pets, and then out came the dogs in what could best be described as a fur-for-all. There were German Shepherds, boxers, a basset hound, poodles, a liter of golden retriever puppies, and a small, predominately black chihuahua named Pookie.

It was difficult to spend more than a few seconds with any one dog as they roamed the studio both overstimulated and in search of treats, but when Pookie wound up in my arms, I did feel a pretty immediate bond. I had not come here seriously looking for a dog, I just thought it would be fun to see them all and be part of the show, and yet my heartstrings were definitely being tugged by this little fellow who indiscriminately licked my face upon meeting me.

I knew in my heart I was not ready to try it again, even six years after Tess, but my resistance was beginning to waver. Meanwhile, Issac and Bebe, accompanied by several men slinging video cameras and blinding lights on their shoulders, made their way around the room to talk to the perspective adopters, They got to my table and Isaac zeroed in on me.

"Jim and Pookie! Don't they look great together, Bebe!" he practically shouted.

"They do, Isaac, they do" she deadpanned, sounding like the straight man in some corny vaudeville routine.

I was getting the hard sell. I could feel the room staring at me as the light from the camera was blinding me like a bare bulb in some backwater interrogation room.

"Are you gonna take him home, Jim?" Isaac asked breathlessly.

"Well, I'm not sure, I..."

"Come on, Jim!"

"Yeah, come on Jim," Bebe chimed in gleefully.

"Well, I, I...YES! I'm taking him home!"

Smiles, cheers, applause. Oh shit, what have I done?

When the taping was over and Isaac, Bebe, and Deborah had gone on their merry way, I spoke with the agency that had been housing Buster. They were very nice and explained that no one was actually taking a dog home that day. An application had to be filled out and approved, and I was under no obligation to take the dog just because I had told a national television audience I'd be saving this creature from certain death at the pound. Actually, they emphasized the good I'd done just by encouraging other people to adopt. Okay, sure. I'm a freakin' hero for not taking the dog.

Anyway, I was off the hook, and although he had stolen a little piece of my heart, I did not take Pookie home. Six months later I'm standing in the autograph line at a charity flea market in Schubert alley, waiting to get my picture taken with Swoosie Kurtz (Swoosie Kurtz--that's another story!) and who is sitting directly in front of me at the autograph table? That's right, it's Bebe Neuwirth.

I feel immediately uncomfortable, and try not to make eye contact with her. but the line is stalled and I'm parked directly in front of her for several minutes. At this point it's almost insulting not to ask for her autograph. I say hello.

"You look familiar," she says.

"Doggy Adoption Day," I reply.

"Yes, that's right! You took that little dog...what was his name??"

"Pookie."

"Pookie! Yes, Pookie! How is Pookie?" she asked seeming genuinely interested.

"Oh, uh, he's GREAT!"  I just didn't have the heart to tell her I sent Pookie back to the pokey.

"Oh I'm so glad!"

She signed my autograph, "To Jim & Pookie--Peace, Bebe Neuwirth."

I felt bad about this for a while, and decided that if I ever met her again I'd tell her the truth. Either that or invent an unfortunate but peaceful demise for poor Pookie, but so far I have not seen her again. If you happen to run into her before I do, ixnay the Ookiepay talk.

#bebeneuwirth

Edge of Sixty Six-Six

Stevie Nicks, Born May 26, 1948

I have to admit I don't know all that much about Stevie Nicks, especially relative to what I know about most people whose music I like. However, I do know that just like Joan Cusack in School of Rock, I totally lose my shit whenever "Edge of Seventeen" comes on the radio. (And yes, "lose my shit" is my new catchphrase.)

The summer I graduated from high school I should have been focused on my job babysitting three young bothers, including a hyper active eight year old with a fondness for setting fires, but alas I spent most of the summer glued to MTV. They played Stevie's video for "Stand Back" just about every hour. I was obsessed with it. It had everything;  lots of twirling and shawls (of course!) and  a sexy male dancer in baggy pants and Capezios. Plus Stevie rocking out on a neon lit treadmill perched on an incline.

Given all that, really, how could I have been expected to pay much attention to those no neck little monsters? I suppose I  am lucky that the little pyromaniac didn't set the rooms all on fire (to borrow a phrase from Stevie) while I was busy practicing my twirling.

Snap Out Of It!

I am far too sentimental for my own good, and I think most people who know me would agree. But I can't help it, it's part of who I am. For instance, when I think of Cher, who happens to be turning 68 today, I can instantly access personal associations. Like the time when I was eight and my grandmother was babysitting and I absolutely forbid her to change the channel until the little cartoon video of Cher singing "Dark Lady" had finished playing on The Sonny & Cher Show. Nanny wanted to watch Cold Turkey with Dick Van Dyke. We had a bit of a war of wills. Deep down I knew I should not have been arguing with her, that I should have let take charge of the TV, but I mean, my God, it was Cher! It was Dark Lady! It was a cheesy animated music video!

My other memory of Cher is a little more bittersweet. The last time I spoke with my mom, I had been to see Moonstruck the night before. My mom didn't get to the movies very often, and so I relayed the plot to her in great detail. She seemed to enjoy the Cinderella like transformation I described and said something along the lines of  "that sounds just like that crazy Cher."

Cher is someone who is very easy to make fun of, from the abundance of plastic surgery, the sequins, the feathers, the distinctive but not really accomplished singing voice. Everybody does it, it's just too easy not to, and I am no exception. Even so, she is a survivor and a force of nature, far more than just a punchline draped in Bob Mackie, and I have a very soft (i.e far too sentimental) spot in my heart for that crazy Cher.

Philomena

Dame Judi Dench and Zombie Judi Dench

I finally saw Philomena a few weeks ago. It had everything; nuns, Irish people, old ladies, gays, politics, and its core, an odd couple who learn and grown from each other.

It's fun to see someone as worldly as Dame Judi Dench play a working class woman, but you never get the feeling that she's slumming or just putting on an act. She gives a really beautiful, nuanced performance, and of course she handles the brogue flawlessly. 

Something happened when I drew her. I was a little heavy handed trying to age her, and she started to look like a zombie. I did manage to tone it down in Photoshop, but I have to admit I kind of like Zombie Judi Dench.

The Boxer

So I've been doodling a lot of boys this week. Oh dear, that doesn't sound right at all. Let me try again: I've been making sketches of men this week, and I'm finding much to my surprise that they are kind of fun to draw. This is one I did this morning while thinking of a friend who was having a tough day.

Chanel Number 3

May 11, 2014

This has nothing to do with Mother's Day. I just found myself thinking about Jacqueline Kennedy today. Actually, that's not even true. I found myself thinking about her pink Chanel suit and pillbox hat. It's at once an iconic fashion moment and a symbol of a great national tragedy. Plus it always makes me think of a box of Good 'N' Plenties.

Mommie Dearest

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers

A Rush Of Boys To The Head

WARNING: The following dream, while not really dirty, is in questionable taste.

4/26/14

I'm attending a party at an Irish pub. It seems to be a family event, as I notice several of my cousins. Chris Martin from Coldplay is playing the piano and singing. He stops to take a bathroom break. I'm standing by the bathroom door. He nods his head as he passes me and goes into the restroom.

I want to follow him in but I'm nervous. I look around to make sure no one is watching. I enter the bathroom with the express purpose of spying a peak at Chris Martin's junk. He's just standing there and I have a perfect opportunity at an unobstructed view, but I'm overcome by an unexpected wave of decency and pass up my chance to see Chris Martin's junk.

The next day I walk into a barber shop for a shave. Chris Martin is standing by an empty barber's chair, and gestures for me to come sit. No one seems to recognize him. Without words I realize that he has decided to live a quieter life incognito as a barber. Silently, I agree to keep his secret.

#chrismartin

Oh My G-yod

Today is Christine Baranski's birthday. If Barbra's birthday is Easter/Yom Kipur and Christmas all rolled into one, Christine's birthday is more like the Feast of the Ascension; we happily acknowledge it, but we don't totally lose our shit over it.

Still, I figure this is a good time to tell the story about the day I met her. It was a grey and cloudy Veteran's Day in the late '90s. I was crossing Lexington Avenue at 74th Street (just a block away from where I ran into Carly Simon a few years earlier) with my late friend Mel. About halfway through the intersection she starts talking literally out of the side of her mouth.

"Theresmizzbarnsky."

"What?" I had no idea what she was saying.

"Theresmizzbaransky" she repeated.

"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" I snapped.

She pulled me close to her until her mouth was right up to my ear.

"There's Miss Baranski!" she over-enunciated into my ear.

"Oh my God, Oh My God."

"Be cool, be cool," Mel instructed me.

Five seconds later we were standing next to the Tony and Emmy winner waiting for the light to change. I wanted to say hello so badly, but I know the rules. I really did not want to bother her, so I stood there with all the impatience and strained self control my dog shows when I make him sit before giving him a treat. After about ten seconds I thought, "Isn't this light ever going to change?" I couldn't bear it any longer, and so without thinking I darted out into the crosswalk before the light changed.

Mel, who was clearly much calmer than I, literally grabbed me by the scuff of my neck and pulled me out of the path of an oncoming taxi, bouncing me back onto the sidewalk about two inches from Christine Baranski.

Fuck it.

"Well, I didn't want to bother you, but since I just almost got killed trying not to bother you, I might as well say hello."

"Oh my God," Christine Baranski said to me, but it was more like, "Oh my G-yod!"

She was very nice. We chatted for about a minute. I told her about the time I saw her at an AIDS benefit singing a number about how she lusted after Howdy Doody.

"Oh my G-yod! You saw THAT?!"

I told her I hoped she would come back to the theatre soon.

"I'm on my way to see a play right now!" she smiled and she quickly headed up Lexington Ave in her high-wasted tweed Katherine Hepburn pants.

She was funny, well dressed, and personable when she didn't have to me. Come to think of it, maybe her birthday is a day to totally lose my shit.

May Day, May Day!

Excerpts from An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman

This year I celebrate Jill Clayburgh's birthday a little more lightheartedly than last year with some sketches that commemorate what was arguably her best screen role as Erica Benton in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman. Collectively, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek,  I call them An Illustrated Guide To An Unmarried Woman.

I just remembered something sort of funny that happened the first two times I watched this movie. I was around sixteen when An Unmarried Woman came on network television. I was really enjoying the film, but I was tired and I fell asleep before the last scene. I was disappointed to have missed the end, but of course there were no VCRs or DVRs and so I had no choice but to wait until it came on TV again.

Several months later, in the middle of the summer, it was the Sunday night movie on ABC. I was sitting on my orange bean bag chair watching it with my mom in our living room. It was getting close to the end of the movie, and my mom kept pestering me to go get the laundry out of  the basement. I waited for the last commercial break before the final scene, and then I sprang up out of my vinyl covered tangerine atrocity and ran down the basement stairs as fast as I could. I scooped the load of laundry out of the dryer and into a basket, then bolted back up the stairs into the living room, dropping the basket on the floor. I made it back in plenty of time to finally see the end of the movie.

And I would have too,  I really would have, if only I hadn't passed out, knocking over my mother's Fresca and hitting my head on the floor. I thought I was bleeding from the back of my head, but of course my gushing wound turned out to be Fresca. Even so, my mom was so freaked out she made my dad get out of bed and take me to the emergency room.

We were in the emergency room until nearly 3AM just so they could tell me there was nothing wrong with me (well, that's subjective) and that I simply had had a vasovagal reaction from jumping up too fast. But what really mattered is that I missed the end of the movie again.

Since that night I've seen An Unmarried Woman many times, including the last scene (finally!) in which Jill Clayburgh lugs an enormous painting (a parting gift from her lover Alan Bates) through the streets of lower Manhattan. It's a funny, poignant story specifically about a woman who has to find her confidence and independence after the marriage she thought would last a lifetime crumbles at her feet, but really it speaks to anyone who is tentatively trying to rejoin the world after great heartache.

It's how viscerally Jill makes me feel that heartache, and ultimately the sense of hope she basks in that keeps me coming back to this American classic again and again.

#jillclayburgh

Tiskets & Taskets

I've been listening to Ella Fitzgerald music all day long. Not that I need an excuse to do that, but today is April 25, which is her birthday.

I've mentioned before that I was lucky enough to attend her last performance in New York City in 1992. Now, twenty-two years later, and nearly two decades after her death, having seen her just once makes me feel connected to an era that was gone long before I was even born.

I would love to have been a regular at Birdland, seen Billie at Storyville,  swung with Ella and Dinah at Newport. On the other hand, I enjoy being able to survey their careers in retrospect and get to hear all kinds of treasures unearthed from the vaults of their record labels. It appeals to the pack rat/archivist in me. Why, just a few years ago Verve released four hours of previously unissued Ella club dates from '61 and '62. If I'd been born one of her contemporaries, I would never have had the chance to hear them.

One of the smartest people I know, with pretty exquisite taste, dismisses Ella because she "ran around singing about her little yellow basket" while Billie was running a cold chill down the spine with songs like Strange Fruit and Black and Blue. Fair enough, but on the other hand Billie didn't lead her own orchestra at the age of twenty-two like Ella did, she didn't have perfect pitch, she didn't scat, and she didn't swing nearly as brightly as Ella, in my opinion. Perhaps the most important distinction (and this is not a recrimination of Billie) is that Ella managed to stay alive and performing well into her seventies. In the world of mid century jazz, awash in drug abuse, racism, and sketchy contracts, that's no small accomplishment.

High Holy Days

On every calendar in the world there are a handful of days that are special, unique, holy. And among those holy days there's always one...one day that is so extraordinary, so festive, stupendously soul rejuvenating that it turns all of the other days into jealous little bitches.

On my calendar, that day has arrived. For today we commemorate that seismic shift in the cosmos that occurred on April 24, 1942. The day the world begat one Barbara (with three a's) Joan Streisand, just a few short miles from where I sit as I write this.

I have celebrated the day since I was about 14. Long before everybody could find out whatever they wanted to know from the internet, I used to tare through the almanac in my high school library and memorize the birthdays of people I admired. I can still see the tiny little print as I poured through dozens of entries looking for the ones I wanted: Ann Bancroft, September 17; Jill Clayburh, April 30; Eileen Brennan, September 3, and of course Barbra (now with only two a's) Streisand, April 24.

I suppose it was an odd pastime, but it's not like Topps made a series called Character Actress Trading Cards. Oh sweet Jesus, can you imagine!  

"I'll trade you a Sandy Dennis for that Thelma Ritter."

"No way! Can't you see this is a Thelma Ritter ROOKIE CARD! It's worth at least two Sandy Dennises and a Butterfly McQueen. At least."

But I digress...

I was very disappointed in the drawing I did to mark the occasion last year (it was a cute idea--Barbra wearing a Barbra t-shirt, but honestly I didn't put enough effort into it) so I wanted to try to do something special this year. I thought I'd try to capture Barbra in Yentl, which I'd never done before. But that didn't seem quite enough, so I tried to imagine her as Modigliani might have seen her. With his propensity for exaggerated features and elongated necks, Modigliani would have found a natural model in Streisand.

I'm not the first person to think of Barbra as a Modigliani. In the liner notes of her very first album in 1962, composer Harold Arlen (Over The Rainbow, Stormy Weather, Come Rain or Come Shine, and dozens of other classics) asked:

"...Have you ever heard our top vocalists 'belt,' 'whisper' or sing with that steady and urgent beat behind them?...Have you ever seen a painting by Modigliani?...If you have, do not think the above has been ballooned out of proportion. I advise you to watch Barbra Streisand's career. This young lady (a mere twenty) has a stunning future."

"Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale"

I discovered early this morning that it's not only Judy Davis's birthday, but also the anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth. So I did what any sane person would do and went to work on another piece. I should note that it's also Blair Brown's birthday, and I did once have an amazing dream about her while I was in Costa Rica, but that will have to wait for another day.

The quote from Judy Davis reads,

"When I first started acting, and we would all sit down and talk about Shakespeare and how great it was, I thought, 'Well, I suppose it is. It is if you get to play Macbeth or Hamlet. But who wants to play bloody Lady Macbeth or Ophelia?' And it struck me that most women seem to be required to pit themselves against men in dramatic situations, and the men got to pit themselves against ideas or God."

Judy Davis: A Prickly Banksia

It is once again Australian actress Judy Davis's birthday. As I said last year, "her alabaster skin and that pink/orange hue around her eyes that seems to suggest a terminal case of conjunctivitis may not be every man's idea of beauty, but I find her stunning."

Last year I also mentioned that I think most movies would be better if Judy Davis were in them. I stand by that remark, and never did I feel it more than when I recently watched August: Osage County. I am not bashing Meryl Streep, I think she's great, and somehow she's managed to remain a box office draw well into her sixties, which is no small trick for an actress. But rarely does she capture my imagination the way Judy Davis does.

And so on her birthday, as I salute this porcelain skinned Prickly Banksia* with a mixed media portrait, I hope her coming year is filled with great roles, and maybe some day soon an American stage appearance.

Last year I used part of this same image, but it was severely cropped and drained of color. This year I present her in all her alabaster glory.

*Prickly Banksia is an Australian shrub with serrated leaves. I think that describes Judy Davis pretty well. I love her but I would not want to be on the business end of her serrated leaves. 

Remembering Doris Pilkington

I was saddened to read in the Irish sports pages this morning of the passing of Doris Pilkington from ovarian cancer. Literally passing myself off as a journalist, I had a chance to interview her in 2002 at a press junket for the film version of her book about the horrors of the Australian government's policy of removing Aboriginal children from their homes to train them to become part of the country's workforce.

I was inspired when my friend Virginia, who used to review movies for the Washington City Paper, brought me to a press screening of the film. We were so moved, we literally sat in our seats for a good ten minutes after the lights went up. You might say we were moved to stillness.

There were publicists for the film miling about trying to drum up interest. I handed them my business card from Gloria Steinem's office, deceitfully indicating that I contributed to Ms. Magazine. I didn't actually say that, but I let them believe it. "I work for Gloria Steinem down at Ms. Magazine." This was technically true, as I did work for Gloria Steinem, and her office was down at Ms. Magazine.

As it turns out, no one at the magazine was interested in the interview, so it was published on line at Filmbitch.com. But no matter. I spent an insightful 45 minutes with Doris Pilkington, who couldn't have been more charming. Below is the original interview from Filmbitch.

A Talk With Doris Pilkington

The Author of Rabbit-Proof Fence Talks About Her Family's Struggle

Imagine you're eighty-five years old, living in a small Australian town, and you're about to see a movie on the giant screen for the very first time. Now imagine that the film you're about to see is based on your own life story.

That's what happened earlier this year to Molly Craig, and to Molly's seventy-eight year old sister Daisy at the Australian premiere of director Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence.

Based on a bestselling book by Molly's daughter Doris Pilkington, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of Molly, Daisy, and their young cousin Gracie, who, like thousands of children before and after them, were taken forcibly from their homes by the Australian government and relocated to settlements to be trained as domestics and sent out into the Australian workforce.

The children were handpicked because of their racial heritage; they were half Aboriginal, half white, or as they're known in Australia, half-castes. With the aid of Christian missionaries, the Australian government continued this practice from 1907 until 1971.

Molly, Daisy, and Gracie were taken from the village of Jigalong in 1931 and transported to the Moore River settlement, some 1,500 miles away. Away from everyone and everything they'd ever known, the three girls were extremely unhappy in their new surroundings. Led by a defiant fourteen- year old Molly, they ran away from the settlement after only a few days.

Actually, they walked away. Following the rabbit-proof fence which dissected the country from North to South, they walked for more than nine weeks through an ever-changing landscape of desert, farmlands, and forests. Fighting hunger, rain, heat and cold, Molly and Daisy managed to stay ahead of the Australian government, which was anxiously pursuing them, for the entire journey.

Twelve-year old Gracie was recaptured and returned to Moore River just a few days sort of her destination. She died in 1983 without ever returning to Jigalong.

Talking with Pilkington, a light skinned grandmother who wore a blue house dress, matching sweater, and rain boots when I met with her recently, you can hear the hurt of an entire family in her soft but deliberate voice.

Herself a survivor of the "Stolen Generation," Pilkington says the goal of the government's program was to "breed out the Aboriginality," and the first thing to go was their traditional language.

"Every time you said a word in your [native] language, somebody would come behind you and smack you so hard that it really forced you to speak English," says Pilkington.

The film, already out on video in Australia, has had a palpable impact down under. "It's been happening all over Australia, " says Pilkington. "The journey of healing has begun for most members of the Stolen Generation. The memories, the pain, the feelings that were suppressed for decades have just come to the surface now."

"Two women came up to me at the Perth premiere and said, ‘now that we've seen that movie, we're going to find our other two sisters.'"

Pilkington was lucky to find her own mother after several decades, but knows first hand that many of the Stolen Generation may choose not to locate their lost relatives after years of being brainwashed by the Christian missionaries to hate and fear all things Aboriginal.

"We were taught that Aboriginal culture was evil, and the people who practiced it were devil worshipers and evil pagans," she says.

It was a shock for Pilkington to learn at age twenty-four that her own father was not white, as the missionaries had led her to believe, but was in fact Aboriginal. She was bitter for many years, feeling that the Christians had not only robbed her of a childhood spent with her family, but also of the ten years it took to purge herself of their teachings, time she could have spent getting to know her father instead of fearing his Aboriginal roots.

Painfully, her own sister Anabelle, whom Pilkington located after years of searching, has rejected her Aboriginal heritage and refused contact with the family, including their mother Molly who hasn't laid eyes on her since 1944, when Anabelle was just four and a half years old. Still, Pilkington has been in touch with Anabelle's children since the film opened and remains hopeful that a reunion with her sister may come about.

As proud as she is of the emotional impact the film has had on her country, Pilkington also hopes the Australian government will pay attention and make some sort of restitution to the Stolen Generation, and not necessarily a cash settlement. In Pilkington's case, the mission where she grew up still exists.

"Yes, a little bit would help, but we want compensation not in monetary terms, but we'd like to have the use of the dining room and a couple of cottages, and the mission itself, or some share in the profits now. We were child laborers there. Four year olds, five year olds. It didn't matter how heavy the task was, we did it."

For now, Pilkington is enjoying the buzz and good reviews Rabbit-Proof Fence has been gathering as it approaches its November 29th release in the United States.

As for that screening last winter in Jigalong, Doris Pilkington isn't sure Molly and Daisy fully comprehended the idea of actresses portraying them as youngsters, but they did appreciate the gifts director Phillip Noyce brought for them.

"Phillip brought Mom and Aunt Daisy frocks to wear to the film–their first time ever in long frocks," says Pilkington.

"He also gave them a bottle of Calvin Klein perfume called Escape."

Queen for a Day

Super quick birthday doodle of Queen Elizabeth II. Being of Irish descent I'm conflicted about drawing her, but I ask you, who can resist those hats??

On Wednesdays We Wear Black

NOTE: Below is a re-post of last year's birthday salute to Jessica Lange, accompanied by new artwork courtesy of my special guest artist Jackie Joyce, aka Jacqueline Patricia.

I love Jessica Lange but she scares the shit out of me. And it's not just because she recently played the sensual and sadistic Sister Jude on American Horror Story. No, she terrifies me for reasons far beyond the small screen.

Back in 1992 when I was living in Hell's Kitchen, I had two encounters with her. Well, not really encounters, more like we briefly orbited the same atmosphere.

 The first time I was walking along 47th street near 8th Avenue and I spied her on the sidewalk  with Amy Madigan, who at the time was her co-star in A Streetcar Named Desire. They seemed deeply engaged in conversation. Jessica was wearing dark sunglasses, and even though I could not see her eyes, even though  her head barely turned in my direction as we passed, I felt a shiver up and down my spine.   It was like crossing a black cat. She just sort of exuded a vibe that said, "don't fuck with me."

I did not fuck with her.

A few weeks later I went to see the play and sat in the second row. She got crappy reviews for this show, her Broadway debut. Mostly the critics felt her performance was too small to carry to the balcony of a nearly 1,100 seat theatre.

I can't argue with what people saw from the balcony, or even the fifth row, but what I saw from the second row was devastating. It was like a tiny, delicate, raunchy carving; a portrait in miniature of a lost soul.

I couldn't get it out of my mind, the horror of Blanche's betrayal by Stella, her final delusion  and her ultimate disappointment. About a week later I started having anxiety attacks for the first time in my life. The kind where your heart beats out of your chest, you feel like you're on fire, and you can't catch your breath.

God damn you, Jessical Lange! You made it impossible for me to keep my own disappointments and betrayals buried. You forced me to tare away the gauze of my own happy delusions and confront very ugly truths. Jessica Lange, you made me go to  therapy, and I fucking hate you for it.

That last part's not really true--I still love her. But she scares the shit out of me.

*************
Note: Today is Jessica Lange's birthday. It's the start of a 10 period of birthdays for some of my favorite people, including Barbra Streisand, Judy Davis, Blair Brown, Carol Burnett, Sandy Dennis, Ella Fitzgerald, Jill Clayburgh, and my identical twin aunts on my mother's side.

Lady In Blue

Lady In Blue
Billie Holiday

Last Monday, April 7th, marked the 99th birthday of Eleanora Fagan. Never heard of her you say? Well, you might know her better as Lady Day, or even Billie Holiday.

I bought my first Billie Holiday record when I was 21 years old. I hated it. I thought she had none of the clarity or dexterity of my favorite jazz and blues singers Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald. But people whose opinions I respected thought the world of her, and of course she'd been greatly celebrated by critics for many decades. Still, I felt like the child who yells out in The Emperor's New Clothes, as I just could not see her greatness.

Ah, but this is how Billie Holiday taught me persistence, or at least to keep an open mind. For nearly a decade, I would buy another of her albums (cds eventually) every year or so to see if my feelings had changed. I tried early Billie, later Billie, mid-period Billie, big band Billie, small combo Billie, in concert Billie, and in studio Billie. And year after year, album after album, I was left baffled, still not understanding why she was so revered.

Then one year I bought a compilation CD called First Issue: The Great American Songbook, which was released in conjunction with a US postage stamp honoring Billie. It had great tunes like Blue Moon, Stormy Weather, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and about 30 more. Suddenly I heard the click, to borrow a phrase from second wave feminists. Something went off in my head and I just got it. I just finally got Billie Holiday and, not forgetting their differences, was able to enjoy her just as much as I enjoyed Dinah & Ella.

I'm not sure what it was about this album that opened Billie up for me. Maybe because the songs were all so familiar already, or because the arrangements were relatively light and pop flavored. Whatever it was, First Issue became a key that let me in and allowed me to go back and enjoy all the other recordings I had shunned.

Maybe you shouldn't have to work that hard to enjoy an artist's work. On the other hand, art can challenge us as well as entertain us if we're willing to put in a little effort. Ten years of listening to albums I genuinely disliked was a bit of an effort, but it's one I'm glad I made.

#billieholiday