Diamond Sky Diary

Art and the Absinthe Drinker

2009-10-28T17:14:00.016-04:00

There is something about the supposedly mystical qualities of the mind-altering substances of yore, particularly absinthe, that’s intriguing. Intriguing, that is, in the slightly forbidden way that allows you to imagine it, wonder about it, romanticize it, observe it from afar—and then slam a book closed with a shudder, just as you sense that if you turn one more page you’ll have gone too far.

I’ve often found myself mesmerized by the great volumes written and the art produced by writers and artists under the influence of absinthe. So much has been written about absinthe and its effects, its iron grip on those who were seduced by its charms, or sought refuge in is delicate green poison—hence, the feminine personification of it as “The Green Fairy” or “The Green Muse,” suggesting an imaginary femme fatale, a powerful, other-worldy force and inspiration. Some of the greatest painters in history—Picasso, Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Modigliani, Manet, Degas, and others—have represented—and/or been inspired by or created under the influence of, for better or for worse, The Green Fairy. Oddly, many of their paintings have portrayed absinthe’s “victim” as female.

Some of the world’s most celebrated literary figures—Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud and his lover, the fin de siècle poet Verlaine, Hemingway—have famously drunk absinthe, some to their detriment; some have been brought to their knees, others completely ruined by its ill effects. Whether muse or demon—or both—absinthe holds an important and mythical place in art and culture.

Why the mystique? Does absinthe deserve all the hype? The sad fact is that, however fashionable absinthe--banned in this country for decades until recently--has become, it has, in the past, driven people to ruin. But with the passage of decades and even centuries, these "ruined" writers and artists and philosophers and visionaries now belong to the ages; their pain no longer affects us personally. Their legacies have endured in spite of their personal torment and it is possible to separate the art from the artist. And suffering and art, as we know, seem to go hand in hand.

Let's be honest about the appeal of absinthe to 21st-century art lovers. There's no shame in liking the sinuous melody with which “L’absinthe” rolls off the tongue or being enchanted by the elixir's beautiful luminescent green color, reminiscent of jade. There is a certain fantastical charm to the notion of a Victorian absintheur, an eloquence—and elegance—to the “absinthe ritual,” to the Pontarlier-style absinthe glass and bistro spoon and fountain and sugar cube. And it’s easy to look at it that way—after all, there is a cushion--the cushion of time--between Edwardian and Victorian absinthe drinkers and us.

Time is a healer, and so is art. When we see the absinthe drinkers in the paintings here, we don't see the illness and suffering, the vomiting, the jitters, the tears, the lost fortunes, the broken marriages of those in the throes of addiction--we see the beauty of a Picasso or a Manet or a Degas. But if you linger just a bit and look a little deeper, you will see the pain of addiction--look at the lost expressions on the faces, the lonliness, the despair. Absinthe drinker or crack addict? It's just a question of semantics.

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A Painting That Says It All

2009-10-26T22:24:00.003-04:00

This is how I feel today. Thank you, Edvard Munch, for portraying so vividly and accurately what no words could every convey:

Bad Parenting 101: The "Balloon Boy" Hoax

2009-10-20T14:26:00.004-04:00

I’m lucky. Despite a youth fraught with loss and emotional upheaval, brought about by forces and situations beyond my control, I was blessed with parents who lived for their children. Who loved their children unconditionally and whose personal wants and needs took a backseat to the welfare of their kids. Whose mission in life was to ensure that they raised children who would be strong, honest, moral, safe, and secure. Who’d never ask their kids to do something they knew was wrong.

My family was the quintessential “we didn’t have money, but we had love” family. Our love for each other was—and is—passionate and boundless. My parents punished us when we misbehaved and, on those occasions, it truly did hurt them “more than it hurt us”—so much so that I remember actually feeling sorry for my father once when I was sent to my room after dinner for the evening. I could see the veiled look of turmoil on his face as he said “no dessert or television tonight,” but he stuck to his guns, knowing that it was teaching me a lesson—that it was helping me to learn about consequences.

My parents’ love and the strong foundation they gave me have seen me through some tough times. When I’m faced with a dilemma, I try to imagine what they would do, and it helps, though they are gone. Their love and strength have also made me savor all the goodness in my life. They were and are my role models.

What would I have done, what kind of person would I be if my parents hadn’t been the people they were? If they hadn’t taught by example and by lessons? I believe that, in general, people are inherently good, that we are born with at least a basic innate sense of human decency, compassion, and instinctive knowledge of right and wrong.

But the power our parents wield, just by virtue of being our parents, supersedes everything else—what we learn in school, in church, from our friends—at least when we are very young. So I can’t help but worry about children like poor little Falcon Heene.

The six-year-old, known now (though I hope the moniker doesn’t last) as the “balloon boy” after his media-whore father, Richard (and, likely, his mother, Mayumi) staged an elaborate hoax in which Falcon was reported to have vanished into a giant helium balloon, and his two brothers have suffered at the hands of their parents who are, simply put, irresponsible, reprehensible, selfish, thoughtless assholes. How will this little boy’s life be shaped by these creatures and what they’ve put him through?

The parents—at least the father—will likely do some brief jail time. The mother, who at the very least was aware of her husband’s antics and, more likely, colluded with him, may or may not. In any case, it is the children—particularly Falcon—who will suffer the humiliation, rage, and confusion of having parents who’ve taught them how to lie and cheat in order to get what they want.

Falcon will be teased and taunted relentlessly by classmates and peers, maybe even strangers who recognize his name, for years to come. He may seek psychological therapy. He may look for answers—or solace—in drugs, alcohol, or worse. He may eventually turn his anger to someone else—like a girlfriend or a spouse—or he may turn it inward.

Unless he has other—better, stronger—role models around him, and perhaps even if he does, he may perpetuate his parents’ legacy by replicating it with his own children.

What this father did—and what this mother either allowed to happen or actively participated in—is despicable. Their child was so scared—scared to tell the truth, scared to go against his father—that he became sick and vomited twice on national TV. The parents may serve some time, yes. They may have to pay restitution. More than likely, they’ll get a slap on the wrist. It is their children who will pay for their selfishness and stupidity for a long time to come.

All for what? So another sick, pathetic narcissist could have a shot at 15 minutes of fame.

Julius and Ethel

2009-09-30T17:16:00.003-04:00

I’ve recently become fascinated with—and riveted by—the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. And this fascination came about in the most serendipitous (actually, quite ludicrous) way.

Normally, fascination with such a topic would be out of character for me, since, among other things, I’ve never had any real interest in American post-WWII politics/government issues—and what little interest I may have had at one time was squelched by a quick overview (via a PBS special on Nixon) of McCarthyism. And spies? Espionage? My knowledge of espionage begins with Get Smart and ends with James Bond.

So how did I come to the Rosenbergs? Well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I tend to learn lots of interesting things by stumbling upon them inadvertently, so here it is:

I was looking through some bookmarked websites on my computer and deleting those that I haven’t used in order to declutter and free up some space. One of the bookmarked sites was labeled “Atomic-Age Color Schemes,” and I remembered that, about five years ago, I’d decided to change my letterhead and logo and their colors from a dated, sedated purple with block print to something more “me.” I wanted something hip but not trendy, something subtle but that definitely reflected a certain zeitgeist. Warhol/sixties/Woodstock would have been too pat, too in-your-face.

When it comes to style, color, and design, I have very diverse tastes, which include everything from true primitives and rustic to Victorian to psychedelic, and though I tend toward Old World wood-and-stone (I hate steel-and-glass) and classic earth-and-sun tones, I love some of the classic 1950s design elements: Eames and Noguchi; curvilinear, naturalistic, sleek but not “cold” silhouettes; and gorgeous, inventive, “atomic” color schemes (i.e., teal or turquoise with mustard-brown or black, seafoam green with pale, calamine-lotion pink, etc).

The site I had bookmarked was no longer working, so I Googled “atomic-age color” and, then just “atomic age,” and before I knew it, I’d stumbled on a site about the Rosenbergs. Of course, I’d heard of them and knew—or thought I knew—the basics: They were the couple who were “executed for spying” in the 50s, and they went to the electric chair at Sing Sing, which is located in Ossining, not far from where I live.

But on this site, there was a picture of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, locked in a passionate embrace and, for the first time, I studied the vaguely familiar photograph. The people in it seemed so in love, so desperate for each other.

I did some reading, and then some more, and just could not pull myself away. I delved deeper into their story and, the deeper I delved, the more questions I had. I was intrigued. One image that really got to me was a photo of Ethel Rosenberg, standing by a sink full of dishes in a housedress and holding a towel. She looked so, for lack of a better word, innocent. I felt an overwhelming sense of pity for this woman, and for the two little boys I’d read she left behind. How could this diminutive, tenement-dwelling housewife and mother have passed secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union?

I’m on my second book about the Rosenbergs and my first documentary film, Heir to an Execution, by the Rosenbergs’ granddaughter, Ivy Meeropol. Since that documentary was made in 2004, though, it’s been pretty much confirmed and accepted that Julius was, in fact, a spy and, last year, the Rosenberg’s convicted co-conspirator, 92-year-old Morty Sobell, who spent nearly two decades in Alcatraz and other prisons for his part in the crime, “confessed”—after more than half a century of denials—to being a spy himself.

Still, the only real conclusion I’ve come to so far—I still have a lot more reading to do—is that Julius indeed spied for the Soviet Union, but Ethel was sent to the electric chair for three reasons: 1) because her brother, Soviet spy David Greenglass, sold her out to save himself and his lying, spying wife; 2) because the government played to the national hysterical “red scare” and paranoid anti-Communist sentiment of the time; 3) and because President Eisenhower apparently felt that if he spared Ethel merely because she was a wife and mother—the fact that she was most likely innocent of the crime for which she was charged was not an issue—the Soviets would take that as a sign of weakness and consider it a green light to begin using female spies!

According to admitted spy Morty Sobell, Ethel’s only crime was that she was married to Julius. In 1953, apparently, such a crime warranted execution. The fact is, while she may have known of her husband’s activities, all evidence indicates that she took no part in them. And on that day when the 12 FBI men came to their small, humble apartment and arrested Julius—in front of his two little boys, who were listening to The Lone Ranger with their parents—they couldn’t have cared less. They just wanted to get the Commies.

Chilling, compelling, maddening—and very sad.

Bob Dylan thinks so, too. Here are the lyrics to his song, Julius and Ethel, recorded in the spring of 1983 at New York’s Power Station:

Now that they are gone, you know, the truth it can be told;
They were sacrificial lambs in the market place sold --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.
Now that they are gone, you know, the truth it can come out;
They were never proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

The people said they were guilty at the time;
Some even said there hadn't a-been any crime --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

People look upon this couple with contempt and doubt,
But they loved each other right up to the time they checked out --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Eisenhower was president, Senator Joe was king;
Long as you didn't say nothing you could say anything --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Now some they blamed the system, some they blamed the man;
Now that it is over, no one knows how it began --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Every kingdom got to fall, even the Third Reich;
Man can do what he pleases but not for as long as he like --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Well, they say they gave the secrets of the atom bomb away;
Like no one else could think of it, it wouldn't be here today --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Someone says the fifties was the age of great romance;
I say that's just a lie, it was when fear had you in a trance --
Julius and Ethel, Julius and Ethel.

Looking for Light in All the Wrong Places

2009-09-23T23:14:00.004-04:00

I'm looking for a light read. You know, chick-lit. Something along the lines of The Nanny Diaries perhaps, or maybe even a Bridget Jones or an In Her Shoes--something I can put down without a bookmark, pick up whereever, and not miss anything important. Something that won't stay with me for days or weeks, something that won't haunt me, something that won't change my life or challenge my way of thinking. Something that won't break my heart.

Yes, I've been rethinking my reading list. It's getting me down. It's much too heavy. I need to lighten up, I know, at least when it comes to books. That's what I tell myself, but I've been through this before--it'll pass.

Here before me--in my living-room bookcases, sandwiched between Dostoyevsky and Oscar Wilde; in my bedside bookshelf, adjacent to Elie Wiesel's Night and Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child--are stacked and strewn the remnants of my past futile attempts to "lighten up" my book list.

Let's see...I've got Rachel Ashwell's pastel-infused Shabby Chic--in hardcover, yet--which I bought during my short-lived (and very laughable) "I can do it--I can be a suburban housewife!" period in 2003. Then there's The Bitch in the House, a collection of Erma Bombeck-on-steroids essay-rants written by disgruntled wives, mothers, etc., which I bought the same year, when I'd had enough of the suburban housewife thing and tried to gracefully ease myself out of it. The book's binding has barely a wrinkle and I don't remember a word.

Why do I bother? It never works out, this light-seeking thing. The truth is, when it comes to literary pursuits, darkness is much more compelling, whether truth or fiction. Reading the dark stuff helps me write better, too. Sometimes it makes me angry--and that helps me write. Sometimes it makes me sad--and that is a writing catalyst, too.

So, I'll go back to reading The Lovely Bones and, when I'm finished, I'll tear into The Brother by Sam Roberts, a well-received biography of David Greenglass, the scum-sucking pig whose testimony--largely lies, he admitted, told to save his own ass and that of his atomic spy wife--helped seal the fate of his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, who died in the electric chair in the early '50s. After that, there's a controversial bio of Rasputin that I've got wait-listed.

Dark? Yes. But much more interesting than Bridget Jones's white granny panties.

No Lifeguard On Duty: The Empty Pools Aesthetic

2009-08-04T16:05:00.007-04:00

I’ve often delved, here and elsewhere—perhaps in an attempt to arrive at some personal understanding, revelation, or, even someday, catharsis—into the nebulous topic of melancholy. For better or for worse, it’s an indelible part of my psyche.

When I was a young child, I didn’t know that this “thing” was melancholy. But my intuition told me that, most likely, none of my paste-eating first-grade classmates looked at swimming pools in summer, filled with laughing, splashing kids, and shuddered silently at the thought of what they’d look like empty and ice-covered in winter, with the sky darkening and the wind howling around them. When they went to a carnival or a fair, they probably weren’t thinking about the carnies packing up the rides onto trailers and going home to some ramshackle flat in some moth-eaten town where they’d while away the months until next summer.

Well, maybe my friends didn’t go quite that far, but, through the years, I’ve realized that I’m not alone in my inability—or unwillingness, or both—to pop a happy pill and pretend that life’s just a bowl of cherries. Instead, I try to savor life—the light and the shadows. And I've found that many people--even the happy-go-lucky sorts--feel that way, too.

As I wrote for Crawdaddy in an essay on nostalgie de la boue, I’ve always had a fascination with—and simultaneous aversion to—images, art, music, and literature that consider the shadows--and often find value and even beauty in the shadows--without actually tipping the scales into the macabre or blatant darkness. For instance, while I love the nuances of Hawthorne and Poe, your standard-fare haunted-house and bloodsucking-vampires fare just don’t do it for me. Similarly, while rich, melancholy melodic and lyrical subtleties in a song like “Rockin’ Chair” stir my soul and make me feel more alive, Goth and death metal leave me cold and strike me as posturing.

Some time after my baby died in 2002, I decided to see a grief counselor. He offered me a little insight, but I had to fight my own battle (or, as my Mother always advised me, to "keep my own counsel."). We did, however, click on a personal level and have remained friends. One day, during the course of regular conversation, we got to talking about art and life and I mentioned to him that even as a kid, I'd found certain imagery—empty swimming pools, water swirling down storm drains, ghost towns, the smell of old books—at once interesting and spooky. I thought it was some soul-baring, outlandish revelation.

He didn’t blink an eye. “It’s very common,” he told me. “It has to do with loss. Childhood loss and fear of loss.” Because I had experienced early traumatic loss, he said, I’d developed a beyond-my-years understanding of the finite and the transitory. Seeing those pools filled and imagining them empty was a child’s way of processing the meaning of loss, the fact that nothing stays the same. Writing it now, it seems like a no-brainer—but then again, I’ve always had to take the circuitous, back-woods route to discover the obvious.

Turns out many, many, many other people have the same fascinations-cum-aversions. Some of these people are artists, writers, musicians, and photographers. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of research and exploration, and have found scores of books and websites dedicated to things like ghost towns, urban decay, and other nostalgie de la boue topics.

Recently I came across a critically acclaimed series of photographs entitled, eerily, No Lifeguard On Duty, by well-known photographer J. Bennett Fitts. The photos are of, of all things, abandoned swimming pools across America. I was amazed at both the glowing media coverage and the "me too!" web comments his work has received. They're creepy, but they touch a nerve. Maybe it's like artistic rubbernecking; on one level, it's repulsive, but you just can't look away.

Check out his pictures at www.jbennettfitts.com and see if you, too, get that sort of sinking feeling in your stomach-- followed by a sense of relief that, in fact, you're not there, you're here--safe--and that they're just photographs.

I'll See You in My Dreams

2009-07-20T23:27:00.007-04:00

I had never intended the focus of this blog to be about grief and loss, and that is still not my intention. It just happens that usually, when I am compelled to "free-write," it is because my soul is restless and when my soul is restless, and I feel that I am about to climb out of my skin, it is often because of that nagging, gnawing, lifelong shadow-companion of mine, grief.

Maybe it's because the only ways I really can communicate--or pretend to communicate, or imagine that I am communicating--with those who are gone are 1) to dream about them and 2) to write.

At one point in my life, about 20 years ago, I became receptive to the concept of lucid dreaming--and for a while, it worked. And I can tell you for a fact that lucid dreaming is not bullshit; it is a legit phenomenon. I practiced and was able to "will" my dreams, at least partially. I kept a journal during that time and felt very connected to my psyche. But that was a long time ago. I was more emotionally agile and resilient then, less wounded, less jaded, less resigned to the fate that is mortality.

When I write about it now, the New Agey tone of the language embarrasses me--I think of how I used to go to Garland of Letters on South Street in Philly to by Champa and Patchouli or Woodstock chimes, but cringe when I saw the weekend Buddhists looking for some of the dharma--crystal healing and chakra balancing is not my cup of tea at all. But being able to conjure up a dream about someone I love who's gone--that, to me, was not New Age mumbo-jumbo. It was a real experience; a gift. But it's gone now, just like those I once held and hugged and laughed with, made love with, cradled, cared for--they're phantoms.

In the past 10 years, my once fanciful, once hopeful dreams have given way to nightmares and dull-aching, bottomless-pit dreams of eternal loss--the themes are similar, but the imagery varies: sometimes I'm reaching for my Mother, who's just inches away, but I'm blocked from touching her by an invisible glass wall; sometimes I'm hearing my brother's voice, but it's garbled, as if under water; sometimes I'm placing my baby in a cradle, only to realize upon closer inspection that it's actually a grave; sometimes, I'm holding a telephone receiver, trying to connect to a departed love, excited at the prospect of finally hearing his voice again, only to find that the number's been disconnected or that he's not "at home."

It's fucked up. It's ravaged me. It's taken my youth. It's taken my innocence.

But it's given me things, too. It's given me more compassion. And empathy. And understanding. It's shown me that love does not die--ever.

Some Thoughts on David Carradine

2009-06-08T11:38:00.002-04:00

I’m gonna say this only once: I had a crush on David Carradine when I was a kid. A pubescent kid, to be exact. The year was 1974, and, like many kids—albeit, not adolescent girls—in America, I watched Kung Fu every week. My father was impressed—and a little perplexed—that I was so fascinated by what was, for an 11-year-old with pictures of Fonzie on her wall, a relatively serious and complex show. But my Mother was on to me.

She knew my type. She knew it had nothing to do with Kwai Chang Caine’s martial arts prowess or the wise life lessons imparted on young Grasshopper by Master Po. She knew it had more to do with his proclivity for walking barefoot through dusty Old Western trails with tousled hair and a five-o-clock shadow, and for the quiet strength and apparent gentleness of his demeanor that belied the ass-kickin’ rogue underneath.

David Carradine was not your typical hunk. He was not conventionally—or even unconventionally—handsome. In fact, most of my friends at that age, who were eagerly awaiting the transformation of Donny Osmond’s peach fuzz to real facial hair, would have screamed “Eeeewwww!!!” if they’d had any inkling that I thought he was something that was a whole new concept to me: sexy.

So I kept it to myself. And pretended to be interested in the Old West. And my Father continued to be impressed with my interest in Americana—however fictionalized—while my Mother half-smiled knowingly, once in a while giving me a quick wink, every time Kwai Chang Caine kicked somebody’s ass and then, sweaty and spent, drank cool water from a metal cup or winced as he rubbed a sore muscle or a bare shoulder.

David Carradine was not a teen idol. There were no pictures of him in Tiger Beat. So I resorted to Photoplay, which was on its last legs at the time and not read by anyone under 40. The only magazine story I remember had a picture of David (smiling, if I recall correctly) with his girlfriend, Barbara Hershey—whose name at the time was Barbara Seagull—and their toddler, a boy named Free. Wow, I thought, Kwai Chang Caine’s a hippie.

Kung Fu ended, but my “thing” for David Carradine did not. Though my crush dissipated quickly, my admiration for Carradine grew. At about the same time that I was discovering Dylan, listening to his music and reading about his love for Woody Guthrie, I saw Carradine as Guthrie in Bound for Glory. That was it. David Carradine had earned a permanent place in the Cool Hall of Fame.

Over the years, whenever I happened to see Carradine in a film or on TV, I watched it and, almost always, I was impressed. He even made Yellowbook cool as its lotus position-sitting spokes-guru in 2006. I generally cringe at respected actors and musicians doing commercials, but somehow, David Carradine, looking a little more like Neil Young than Kwai Chang Caine, made the commercial at once kitschy and cool.

Last week, when I found out that David Carradine had died, I got a pang of sorrow. I have to say that my heart raced when I read the words “found dead.” As speculation spread regarding how he died, my main thought was that it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was gone. David Carradine marched to his own drummer. Who is anybody to judge him?

My hope is that his family finds peace. And that his soul finds eternal comfort, and that, in his next incarnation, he is just as cool as he was in the last one. And that he is remembered for his incredible body of work, for his free spirit, for his talent as an actor and as an artist—his paintings and drawings are impressive—and for the 72 years the world had the pleasure and honor of his company.

Gregory

2009-05-31T16:22:00.002-04:00

Hot Lips was just about to lay into Frank Burns again when the phone rang. My mother clasped both hands to her heart, expecting the worst, just like she did every time the phone rang. And, just like I did every time it rang, I jumped out of my skin. Not because I was expecting bad news. But because it was so Goddamned loud. It was louder than the fire bell at school. I hated that phone. Even for 1979, it was archaic—powder blue and heavy, with a rotary dial that you could hear from upstairs and a ring that you could hear from down the block.

Nobody had powder blue anymore and rotary dials, oh my God, forget it. It was like Archie Bunker’s phone or something. But then again, we didn’t have a phone at all until 1971, and then it was only because my grandmother had gotten really sick and my mother needed to be readily accessible in case something happened. Before my grandmother took a turn for the worse, my mother would have to go to the drugstore at 7th and Porter to use the pay phone inside the store. The drugstore phone booth was not one of those scievy metal phone booths, like you’d see on the street, the kind you had to stand up in. It was wooden and had a seat and a door with a knob. It even had a little fan that you could turn on and off. I actually didn’t mind my mother having to use the pay phone, because I liked to sit in the phone booth with her and, almost always after she used the phone, she’d let me sit inside and wait for her—unless someone else was waiting to use it—while she got herself a couple packs of filterless Pall Malls and some rock candy for me.

I wasn’t really that self-conscious about not having a phone back then. I never thought we were poor; I just figured that the kids who had phones were rich, like the Brady Bunch kids. Maryanne Revak was rich, I knew. She lived on the same block as me, but she not only had a phone downstairs, but a push-button princess phone in her room, which also had a pink shag rug. Her father worked at Domino Sugar, so they could afford it. I knew they were rich, the Revaks. They even had an open staircase—exactly like the one on The Brady Bunch. You could look down from the top stair and see people sitting in the parlor down below. Nobody I knew had anything like that—nobody!

I wasn’t an envious kid, so it didn’t bother me that Maryanne had fancy steps and a carpeted bedroom. I had my parents’ love, and even at an early age I knew that not every kid got to experience the intense love that my family shared. Sometimes I wished I had a princess phone or carpeted floors, but usually, I didn’t think about it.

The only thing that bothered me was that we didn’t have a shower. Even now, it’s hard for me to say. I knew my parents didn’t have money to spare, but not having a shower? Even homeless shelters had showers! We had a shower curtain around our tub, so nobody would really know unless they opened the shower curtain while they were in our bathroom. Even when we did have a shower—when I was really little—it wasn’t built into the wall, like Maryanne’s or Debbie's and Linda’s. Their showers came out of the wall, and their tubs were connected to the wall and flat against the floor. Our tub was big and deep and had ugly claw feet that reminded me of the gargoyles on the JYC building across the street. “People pay alota money for a tub like that,” my mother told me. Yeah, sure. Where? Where do they pay a lot for a tub like that?

South Philly had always been stuck in a time warp compared to other places, and my family was stuck in a time warp compared to the rest of South Philly. While the people in our neighborhood seemed to be 20 years behind the rest of the world, my family was at least 40. Not only didn’t we have a car, but neither of my parents had a drivers’ license—or had even ever sat behind the wheel of a car. So, even in our old-fashioned neighborhood—where, at the height of disco, a scissor-and-knife man who wheeled a pushcart with a pull-down seat and a pedal-driven, motorized grinding wheel still walked through the streets hawking his sharpening services by yelling “Niy-EEVS! SIZZZ-ERRRS!—my family was considered old-school. I felt like Mary Ellen in The Waltons.

So, when the phone rang that night, I wasn’t just pissed off, I was mortified. The screens were in and the parlor window was open, so the whole neighborhood could hear our stupid antique phone, even with the fan running. Even though it was only May, my mother had the fan running continuously, “to circulate the air,” she said.

I rolled my eyes, sighed, and walked to the phone—slowly, looking back at the TV to see if Major Houlihan was finally gonna clock Frank this time. “Hurry up!” my mother yelled impatiently, still holding her heart.

I blew a huge bubble then sucked it back in before lifting the receiver.

"Hello?” I asked, cracking the gum I’d just sucked in.

“Put Daddy on, Babe.” It was Mindy, my brother Gregory’s wife, and
she sounded very serious.

“What’s a matter?” I asked.

“Baby, I can’t talk now. Put Daddy
on—please!”

“He’s not here. He went to the library…”

“Go get him. Hurry!”

“Where’s Gregor…?”

"Gregory’s in the hospital! Go get him,
now!”

I dropped the phone and ran past my mother, barefoot and crying.

“What is it? What is it?” What’s wrong?!” my mother cried, following me out the door.

I jumped off the top step, and ran through the dirty street, which was now also wet with the rain that had just started to fall. That almost-summer rain smell—wet asphalt mixed with concrete—filled the air and tears filled my eyes.

My fear hadn’t yet taken hold—at least not enough to keep me from using my upper arms to push my tiny 34-Bs together to create a semblance of a cleavage as I ran past Donny and Petie DePasquale on the corner of the 601 Bar. I didn’t know about teasing then. At 16, I was as boy crazy as a Catholic girl with strict parents and two older brothers, 6-foot-four and 6-foot-five, could be, but nothing more. In fact, compared to my friends, who’d either gone all the way or who’d at least had hickeys, I was totally innocent. “Sheltered,” is what my mother called it later. I’d French kissed, but only with steady boyfriends.

Donny and Petie were my brother’s friends, and I’d known them since I was a baby, but in the past year or two, they’d started looking at me treating me a little differently and, I’d recently noticed that they both had hair on their chests and sizable bulges in their jeans. I had never seen a penis, but I felt Billy’s after the junior prom, though only through his jeans. He was my steady boyfriend, sort of, so it was okay to touch as long as we didn’t go under each other’s clothes. I had no desire to go any further. What I felt scared me a little, and I had no problem waiting until I got married. I liked the way those bulges looked in pants, but I didn’t want to know any more.

I could see my father now, but he couldn’t yet hear me calling him. I didn’t yell as loudly as I could have; I didn’t want to scream in the street like all the dirtballs and degenerates in the neighborhood did all the time. I’d wait until I got closer. After all, this wasn’t the first time. We’d gotten many calls about Gregory, and everything always turned out okay. My father would talk to Mindy, calm her down, Gregory would come home, and everything would be back to normal—well, normal for us anyway.

I caught up with my father at Fifth and Porter, about two blocks away from our house and three blocks before the library. My dad usually went to the library on Wednesday evenings, when they were open til 8 o’clock, and I hated to bother him.

“Dad! Dad!” I cried, a little out of breath now after running two blocks.

He stopped and turned around just as I reached him, his arm wrapped around the stack of books he’d planned to return.

“Dad, Gregory’s in the hosp…”

“Jesus God,” he said, the color draining from his face. My father had been in and out of the hospital recently and he didn’t need this aggravation. But this time, I sensed sadness, not just aggravation. It ruffled me a little.

“Dad is he gonna be alright? Is he gonna be alright?” Whatever my father’s answer was would be The Answer. The Correct Answer. The Only Answer. I always felt like my father had a direct phone line to God. He was so honest, so strong, so sincere. My mother used to say he had Abe Lincoln’s morals and Gregory Peck’s face. God liked my dad. He and my dad had a close personal relationship, I always thought, probably because my dad was so good. So, if my dad said Gregory was gonna be alright—even though he didn’t know what had happened, or where Gregory was—then he was gonna be alright.

“Well, I hope so,” my father said, shaking his head slowly back and forth as he turned around and put his arm around my shoulder. “I hope so.”

As we started to walk back home, it struck me that I’d never seen my father look so shaken or dejected. Did he know something that I didn’t? They were always hiding things from me, my parents, so it wouldn’t surprise me. Always hiding things about Gregory. I’ll bet he knows something, I thought.

“Well, what if he’s not? What if he’s not, Dad?!” I demanded.

“Then we bury him.”

Gregory had been in trouble for as long as I could remember. And everyone always told me that I had an incredible memory. “Trouble” was a catchall my parents—especially my mother—used for all of Gregory’s problems. When the truant officer came to our house when I was three years old to find out why Gregory, who was almost 16, wasn’t in school, I knew he was in “trouble.” When I was four years old and my parents told me that Gregory would be spending Christmas with my Uncle Sarge and Aunt Florence—whom I’d only seen once in my life—I knew that what it really meant was that Gregory was in some kind of “trouble.” And when I was seven and I saw the reflection of pulsing red light through my bedroom window and heard my mother crying, heard my father saying “I have a young girl here, officer! I don’t want her to hear this!,” I hid my head under the covers, because I knew Gregory was in “trouble.”

In my mind’s eye, I can see myself lying in my blue-and-white plaid stroller, drinking Karo and water (that’s what the ladies gave their babies in the sixties to settle a stomach; moms didn’t worry about caffeine and sugar back then) out of a bottle, biting hard on the rubber nipple to make the sweet elixir come out faster, watching the white fringe on the canopy blowing in the light breeze, trying to kick it with my newly-polished white baby shoes.

I couldn’t have been an infant, because my shoes were hard-soled--brown soles with white stitches all around; I know, because I remember, clear as day, banging them against the metal foot rest of my coach—that’s what they call strollers in South Philly—banging them hard then soft, hard then soft, until the motion of my mother rocking the coach up and down, rolling it back and forth, lulled me to sleep. Maybe I was one, or 18 months. I was old enough to know that, when my mother whispered, something was wrong. My mother had a full, hearty voice; even her whisper was loud. But when she whispered—or spelled; spelling was even worse, but she didn’t start doing that until I was a little older—that meant something was wrong. And that something usually had to do with Gregory.

And, even as a baby, before I could form the most basic words, or articulate my thoughts or feelings, I knew that I was safe in my coach, safe in my crib, safe in my mother’s arms. And I knew there was chaos and discord all around me, in that primal, intuitive, pre-verbal way that babies know things.

So, while my mother rocked me back and forth in the coach, leaning against our front step and whispering to Pearl Learner, I looked at the fringe and kicked my feet, in tandem with the rocking motion, loud enough to drown out the whispering.
I have no memories of a cold, wet diaper against my skin; no memories of matted, sweaty hair being combed out for a class photo by a frustrated, stressed-out mother; no memories of sticky, smelly undershirts soiled with caked-on Gerber baby carrots or applesauce. That wasn’t my world. That was Petey DeNaro’s world. He lived next door and was the one of Sue and Dee DeNaro’s six kids who was closest to my age, and was never clean or fed, always smelled like piss, and had dirty black fingernails and green snot running out of his nose.

Sometimes I was jealous of Petey, though, ‘cause in the summer, he was allowed to walk outside with no shoes or socks, even if he wasn’t going in his wading pool. His mom let him go in the street and cross by himself, before he was even in kindergarten. And he was allowed to go under the fire plug at night in the summer, when the guys would turn back it on once the cops had stopped coming around for the day. His brother, Junior, had a wrench that he stole from a police car, so as soon as a cop would come by and turn off the hydrant, Junior would go in the house, grab the wrench, and turn it back on.

Usually, by 7:00 or 8:00 pm, the cops would get tired and give up, and the teenagers and the guys on the corner would turn the plug on and keep it on for hours. Petey would be under the plug with them. Sometimes, if it was really hot out, my mother would let me stay out with Debbie and Linda, while she sat on the step talking with their mother, Mary. But we weren’t allowed to leave the step, so we just sat and told stories, or listened to the radio quietly. Usually, by about 9 o’clock, Chickie or Minnie Cooper would start screaming out the window that there was no water pressure and somebody would have pity and turn off the hydrant. Then the party would break up and we would all go in.

Yeah, the DeNaros lived right next door to us, but Petey’s world was not my world. My world was one of Snowy White-washed crisp, clean undershirts and socks; downy-soft cloth diapers that were picked up weekly by Sylvia at the laundromat or “Sylvia The Laundry,” as she was know; warm baths and baby powder; three hot, homemade meals a day; saying prayers with Daddy and bedtime stories before bed—and my parents spelling and talking in Pig Latin.

"I found p-i-l-l-s in his drawer,” I’d hear my mother whisper to my father. Or
“d-o-p-e.” They didn’t call drug addicts junkies in those days. The term, the term that I remember, the term I hated was “dope fiend.” I didn’t know what “dope” was and I had no idea what “fiend” meant, but it sounded so ugly. Like “monster.”

There was a bunch of guys with alternately funny and scary names like Fat Back, Slim Back (no relation to Fat Back), Monk, Turk, and Paulie Duck, who I knew were “dope fiends.” And then there were the “good kids” who got “caught up” with the “dope fiends.” They all had regular names, like Joey Marciano, Joey Iella, Joey LaTerra, Joey Carto, Johnny Rosanno, Johnny McCabe, Tommy and Ralphie Monteferrante, and Irv Ballaban. And, of course, Gregory. Like Gregory, they all came from good homes and, like Gregory, they were all good-looking, clean-cut, well-liked, and respectful of their elders. Johnny Rosanno and Joey Carto both OD’d in the same year—1968. I didn’t know what OD meant. I just knew that they were dead. I didn’t know what dead meant either. But I knew they weren’t coming back, and I knew that after they died, my mother was screaming, crying, and praying more than usual for a long time. My Grandmother was frying breaded smelts on Christmas Eve when Gregory came in crying about Johnny Rosanno. My mother whispered to my Grandmother, but I heard her anyway: “Overdose.” Johnny was 18, the same age as Gregory.

I knew it was bad when my father said he didn’t want me to go to school on Thursday. I was in 11th grade and had missed only three days since freshman year, once for a fever and once, for two days, because of strep throat. “You better call into work, too,” my father said, in the same dejected tone he had the day before, when I’d told him that Gregory was in the hospital. “Tell him you’re not sure when you’ll be back.”

My father was just as big on not missing work as he was on not missing school, and now he wanted me to miss both. I called my boss at my after-school job at the Steak and Sub Pub in the Gallery Mall, and told him that my brother was in the hospital. “God will do what’s right,” he said. Now what the fuck did that mean, “God will do what’s right?” And who did he think he was to even bring God into this? Fuckin’ faggot!

All we knew was that Gregory was in a coma. Apparently, he’d had a seizure and choked on his own vomit, all in the span of about a half-hour, the time it took for Mindy to walk to Settlement School and pick up the kids—five-year-old Melanie and two-year-old Jessica-- from daycare. “Coma,” I said to myself. “Coma. Coma. He’s in a coma.” It wouldn’t sink in.

The phone rang all day that day, and my parents were back and forth between answering the phone and whispering in the kitchen. I had to stay home in case there was news from the hospital and, since we were going up there in an hour or so, anyway, I took the opportunity to write a break-up letter to Billy Marlette. It was something I’d wanted to do for a long time—we had nothing in common, anyway—and somehow, my brother being in the hospital gave me balls of steel. I needed somebody to lash out at, and he was the perfect choice.

I walked with my parents in total silence to 11th and Porter to wait for the trolley. It was still raining but, since Jefferson Hospital was right on 11th and Walnut, at least we wouldn’t have to walk in the rain when we got off.

There was a big poster of Snoopy on the door of Gregory’s room, which also had a small window. I thought that was odd. I’d never seen a hospital-room door with a window. When we got there, my other brother, Jeff, who was eight years older than me and five younger than Gregory, was standing outside of Gregory’s room in the hallway, along with Donny and Petie.

Petie came over and hugged me. “Ah, there she is, there she is,” he said. “There’s my girl.” Petey had always reminded me of Gregory, except he was about 10 inches shorter. He looked a lot like Sonny Bono, except with wavy hair and a goatee, like Gregory. I hugged him back and started to sob. He hugged me tighter and didn’t say “everything’s gonna be alright,” as I thought he would. That scared me. But by then, I’d stopped looking for cues. Gregory was in real bad shape.

My parents walked over to the front of Gregory’s door to speak to the doctor, who talked to them for just a minute, shook my father’s hand, patted my mother on the shoulder, then left. My father was as white as a ghost and I could see that he had tremors. “He has severe brain damage,” I heard him tell my brother. “If he lives, he’ll be a vegetable. If he lives.” I pretended not to hear as I went over to hug my mother. Just then, a priest—a very tall, bespectacled priest dressed in a black robe and clasping his black rosary in front of him--ran by and into Gregory’s room. I freaked out, crying and screaming “No!,” and started to run toward the door, but my brother Jeff grabbed me in his arms and held me with all his might as I flailed my arms and legs. “Shhh, shh,” he said, trying to calm me down. “Stop, you gotta stop!”

“Greg! Gr-e-e-g! Gr-e-e-g! Oh my God! Gr-e-e-g!” I screamed. I couldn’t stop sobbing or calling his name and had a hard time catching my breath. “Greg…Oh God! Don’t let him die! Please don’t let him die!’

My parents went to church almost every Sunday and, though my father was by birth Russian Orthodox and never formally “converted,” it was close enough that he just adopted Catholicism as his religion and was a fairly observant Catholic. My father had always said his prayers every night before bed. My mother, who was fairly religious, prayed regularly, too, but her prayers were usually in the form of Novenas to St. Jude, most likely for Gregory’s salvation, which she’d said diligently, in nine-day, nine-week, or nine-month increments for what seemed like years.

But on Thursday night, when I went into their room to say goodnight, my mother and father were on their knees with their eyes closed and their hands clasped tightly on either side of the bed praying for Gregory.

I don’t know how I missed the phone ring, as loud as it was, but I did. It was my parents’ creaky bedroom door that woke me up in my bedroom, a tandem room that was attached by another door.

“Ma…Dad,” it was Mindy, sobbing. “Ma…Dad…it’s over.” I could hear Jeff in his room down the hall, sobbing and banging on something—the wall? The floor?—and screaming over and over “What did you do, Greg? What did you do?”

My teeth began chattering uncontrollably and my stomach grumbling, as if my bowels were about to give way. My entire body was trembling severely, but I could not move. It was like being in a dream where you try to scream but no sound comes out. I could not move, couldn’t turn my head or lift my arms. I wanted to jump out of bed and run to my parents, but my body wouldn’t move. I learned later that there was a term for this: hysterical paralysis, a condition brought on by severe trauma.

My poor parents were slow to rouse. Perhaps it was denial, if not utter disbelief. I heard my father say “Wha…what?” in a slurred, groggy voice. But my mother, who wore a hearing aid but slept without it, needed to be shaken. “Mom! Mom! Get up!” Mindy called. She was crying.
“Is Gregory okay?” my mother asked.

Then there was sobbing. Wailing. Screaming.

“Mom, no. Mom, it’s cardiac arrest.”

“Well, is he coming home?”

“Ma, he’s gone.”

I heard myself screaming, I felt my eardrums aching, my stomach turning inside out from the vibrations of the screams, but it was all coming from somewhere outside of me. I felt as if I had left my body and was watching this scene from another place.

Mindy came into my room and tried to move me out of bed. I held onto the blanket from my bed, and carried it out of the room, slowly.

My parents were walking through the hallway, and my mother was wailing “My son! My son! My son!” Then she collapsed onto the floor and my father fell down to his knees on top of her, trying to lift her.

Somewhere in the tumult, my mother realized that it was May 25—the same date that her mother had died eight years earlier—and began to call for her mother.

Somehow, maybe with Mindy’s help, my body got out of a nightshirt and into clothes. Mindy’s friend Dottie showed up at 3:00 am, in the pouring rain, to drive us to the hospital. The 15-minute drive seemed like an eternity, as the rain beat mercilessly on the windshields and the car swerved and straddled the trolley tracks on 11th Street.

The whole way there, I shuddered. Amid the sobbing and wailing, I saw Gregory for a moment by myself. I put my head down on his chest and heard nothing—no breath, no smoker’s wheeze, no nothing. Just hollow, empty nothingness.

Gregory couldn’t have a Mass of Christian Burial, because he had not been baptized in a Catholic church and had not been married in a Catholic mass. That did not, of course, prohibit the Catholic church from taking my father’s money every week in the collection basket.

The Russian Orthodox wake gave me nightmares for months. The priest looked like Rasputin and chanted my brother’s name in Russian, along with some archaic and spooky Russian prayers, as he swayed the gold incense burner bearing back and forth, filling the room with the putrid aroma of frankincense that mixed with the smell of funeral flowers.

My father knelt down in front of the casket and rested his head and arms on Gregory and sobbed. I had seen tears in my father’s eyes only once, when his sister died, but now he was crying like a baby. My heart broke for him. In all those years of tough love, in all those years of spending his measly house painter’s salary on lawyers and bail and rehab and therapy, in all those years threatening to call the police, in all those years of telling Gregory to pack his bags and leave—my father really loved Gregory.

“Oh, my precious little boy,” my father cried, his tears falling on the 6-foot-4 man who was his first born. “My little baby, my precious son!”

I went into the bathroom, exhausted from grief and the physical stress my body had been through, and vomited. When I came out, the funeral director was closing the casket.

Jeff held me with both arms as I felt my legs gave way. I remember my
feet not touching the floor as the pall bearers carried Gregory’s casket through the door to the hearse.

“Don’t put him in that car! No please don’t put him in that car!” I cried. Jeff held me there until Gregory was in the hearse.

Then we all followed behind for my brother’s last ride.

Cradle Me, Mama, Cradle Me Again

2009-05-30T13:23:00.006-04:00

I grew up in the city--the inner-city, actually--and have always considered myself a city chick. It's part of my identity. Like being female. Like being my mother's child or my son's mother.

Having grown up in the "'hood," as my son calls it with pride--though it really wasn't the "'hood" back then, but a friendly, warm, working-class family neighborhood-I learned early the benefits of a sassy mouth and a "don't mess with me" attitude. The mouth, I'm afraid, is ingrained in me. But the attitude is a bit of a protective device. Except, that is, when it comes to defending someone I love or something I believe strongly in. When it comes to my family and my loved ones, I'm no holds barred.

I've always been able to handle life, to roll with the punches. But otherwise, there's nothing tough about me--not tough in the city sense, anyway. I never "hardened" like some city girls did. I always had compassion, always a sadness, could always cry at the drop of a hat--just thinking about something sad or someone being hurt. No street smarts at all, both of my brothers told me. When you're 12, being ultra-sensitive can be endearing, I suppose. As you get older, it becomes a bit more of a liability.

Still, being vulernerable is one thing. Feeling vulnerable is another. It has taken years--I've come to terms with my vulnerability. Every loss has weakened me substantially--physically, spritually, emotionally--and the effect is cumulative. And the physical pain I've had in the past couple of years uses up any tiny reserve of strength I've built up.

Sometimes I feel so fragile. Sometimes I feel that I am going through life with my arms up in front of my face, trying to deflect the blows. Afraid that if I fall, I won't be able to get back up. And when I see those words in print, I think "Boo hoo hoo, poor poor pitiful me. What a wimp I am!" And that gives me a little more strength to fight another day.

I guess this is what it is to be an orphan. I should be used to it after nearly 14 years, but I'm not. My mental image of myself used to be of a strong-willed, spirited girl eager to learn, ready to go anywhere, meet anyone, do anything. Now it is of that little girl, curled up in a fetal position, holding her doll, crying for Gregory. And in my mind, I often hear the last part of the refrain from "Stoney End"--more poignant words have never been uttered: "Cradle me, Mama, cradle me again."

The Knell

2009-05-13T13:21:00.002-04:00

Gone but not forgotten
Your insidious epitaph
creeps into my soul
my sanity
my dreams
fever dreams
dreams of quicksand
dreams of ashes
like noxious green poison

Botticelli Would Have Loved Your Face

2009-05-09T17:47:00.004-04:00

Botticelli would have loved your face
With countenance divine and eyes so dark
And wild hair full of snowy fragrant cold
Your heart of thorny pain your love so stark

Botticelli would have loved your skin
And chiseled jaw ripe dewey lips so fine
I lie asleep inside your manly womb
adrift deep in your salty honey brine

Botticelli would have loved your soul
His canvas lighted by your radiant hue
Your shadows not for anyone to own
In death he'd see eternity in you

The Sad Case of Susan Boyle

2009-04-22T14:02:00.002-04:00

Am I the only one who thinks Susan Boyle is being exploited? Am I the only one who thinks she’s been treated in a dehumanizing, patronizing manner?

Two weeks ago, the 47-year-old unemployed Scottish charity worker was a lonely spinster, completely unknown—except to the mean, cruel, self-centered people who mocked and ridiculed her for her lack of physical beauty and perhaps for her seeming quirkiness or eccentricity.

Then Susan Boyle snagged a spot on the British TV show Britain’s Got Talent. And, at first, it looked as if Susan was in for more of the same—only this time, it would be, not a private shaming, but humiliation in front of an international audience of millions. Chief among the hateful, heckling horde was smug, smirking Simon Cowell, a ready scowl on his face. There, in the eyes of many, was pitiful, plain-Jane Susan Boyle, the perfect vulnerable prey for the slithering, salivating, heartless predator that is Simon Cowell, who was ready to pounce, as he’d done so many times before. And there was the audience snickering and scoffing with anticipatory glee.

The snickers and muffled laughter continued for a couple of awkward moments as Susan answered Cowell’s questions. Then Susan Boyle opened her mouth to sing, and out came, as judge Piers Morgan later gushed affectedly on Larry King Live, “the voice of an angel.”

The audience roared and cheered and jumped to its collective feet, and Cowell’s scowl turned into a radiant smile, artificially whitened teeth a-glow, cheeks flushed, dollar signs all but radiating in his now-dilating pupils. Laurels were tossed at Susan’s previously frumpy feet, and the praise flowed out of the judges’ mouths like so much liquid shit out of a never-been-pumped septic tank. Susan Boyle was a star!

Aren’t these the same pompous bastards who wouldn’t have given this woman the time of day 10 minutes earlier? Aren’t these the same egomaniacs who would have deemed Susan Boyle unfit to have breathed the same air as them if she’d sung out of key?

Last week, Larry King joined the media circus as ringleader and though, obviously genuinely impressed and even taken with Susan’s vocal chops, proceeded to ask her a raft of moderately insulting questions, such as whether or not she was going to change her apparently too-dowdy-for-Larry look. Absolutely not, Susan told him. “Why should I?” Good for you, girlfriend! Stick to your guns. Larry and his satellite guest, Morgan, fawned and gushed disingenuously over Boyle, talked about her in the third person as if she were Simon Cowell’s prize-winning pig, and otherwise dehumanized her under the guise of kudos and congratulations. Morgan even went so far as to ask Susan for a date (gag me); sadly, she said yes. I’d be curious to know whether the date actually happens.

The whole world, it seems, is in love with Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle, whose best friend—her mother, who died in 2007—had been her inspiration and her champion, the person who encouraged her to audition for the show. Susan Boyle, who’s excited about her newfound fame not because of the potential riches that will accompany it, but because “now,” as she candidly put it, “I won’t be lonely anymore.”

Well, I hope you’re not lonely anymore, Susan. You seem like a good person. Of course, you will have lots of potential new suitors—many of them will be handsome and successful. Many will profess their undying love. I hope—I really do—that one of them is real. And I hope you love him, too. I hope you don’t mistake having people around you for not being lonely. But I know you won’t, because you’re not only talented—you’re smart. So, if you don’t find what you’re looking for—whether that’s love or companionship—don’t settle.

You were a gifted singer before last week. Nobody can take that gift from you. But now—in the eyes of those who seek to profit from your talent—you are a commodity. Should you lose your voice, should the public grow tired of you, you will be tossed out like trash by the same people who professed their love, respect, and admiration for you when they first heard the “cha-ching!” of your angelic voice. They call the shots—but only if you let them.

Don’t let that happen, Susan. You are in the driver’s seat. In our society, for better or for worse, money equals power, and power equals freedom. You’ve earned your freedom. I hope you will cherish it and not allow yourself to become a pawn or a prisoner—and, if you’re so inclined, I hope you'll also allow yourself to tell Simon Cowell to fuck off.

I Never Got to Feed My Baby

2009-04-13T21:46:00.002-04:00

It is a mother's most primal instinct--
to feed and nourish, to nurture her baby.
To give her baby food, sustenance
as she has given her baby life.
I never got to feed my baby.
I was swollen and sore,
aching for her to latch on.
But she was lifeless.
Cold and lifeless.
Lifeless little beautiful Snow White angel
with slender fingers and little bow lips.

The report said "Stomach conents: empty."
That was the final blow.

Words That Wound

2009-02-12T14:41:00.002-05:00

It’s funny—not “ha ha” funny but “strange” funny—how a smell, a sound, or even just a word can affect us. This happens to me all the time. I am going about my business, and, out of nowhere, something—something intangible but very real—comes along, blindsides me, fucks up my psyche, and messes with my equilibrium.

Sometimes that’s a good thing, even welcome—like when I inadvertently stumble upon a few bars of a long-forgotten song on the radio that reminds me of someone I love, or of a particularly happy time.

Usually, though, it’s melancholy—not necessarily unwelcome; just unsettling. Those are times when I catch a whiff of an older woman in a store wearing my Mother’s perfume, or I pass a construction worker on the street who resembles my brother Gregory, or I see a new Mom pushing a stroller and am instantly transported to when I was a new Mom.

But every once in a while, it is a brutal sucker punch. This happened just the other day, in the most innocent and banal of circumstances. I was editing an article on great restaurants with a focus on their desserts. Then came the word that cut through my heart: “macerated.” The dessert being described was made with macerated cherries. But I was catapulted to where I was the last time I heard the word “macerated.”

It was in my Baby’s autopsy report. It had been a year after her death before I could bring myself to read it. And that was the word that was used to describe the condition of her body. Until then, I’d only ever heard that word used to describe fruit. So I looked it up, and sobbed, and swore I would never look at that report again. And I never did.

Now I was seeing that word again, used the only way it ever should be. I took a deep breath and put it out of my mind, then continued, with trepidation, editing the rest of the article. I didn’t see that word again. Thank God.

Elder Abuse: An Unspeakable Crime

2008-12-07T20:07:00.004-05:00

I've always had a thing for elderly people. As I write that, I see that it is a sweeping, somewhat immature statement and, now that I am myself middle-aged, I feel comfortable saying that not all elders are good or kind or wise--and not all warrant love and admiration.

But generally speaking, I've always felt a kinship with my elders and I feel that elders should be afforded respect, the type of respect and dignified care they are given in countries far older than the United States. I think it is the duty of younger people to take care of their elders--it is, in my opinion, the natural order of things. But perhaps I'm old-fashioned, or maybe I have a special appreciation because my parents and grandparents are no longer here to give me the kind of love, support, advice, and comfort only an elder can give.

In any case, I read the other day of two young women--a term I use loosely, as "degenerates" seems more apt--who abused vulnerable Alzheimers' patients, elders they were supposed to be caring for as nursing home aides, in the meanest, most despicable ways: by spitting at them, hitting them, taunting them just for fun, touching them inappropriately, and poking them. It made my heart ache. And it made me really mad.

What will these horrible creatures tell their children, if and when they find men who are willing to bring kids into the world with such vile, cold-hearted excuses for human beings? What will they say when their daughtersask, "Mommy, what did you do when you were a teenger?" I can only imagine the pain and anger of the families of the victims, but thank God no one was hurt or killed. How could anyone do something so cruel? And why? What possible reason could anyone have to be so ruthless?

I hope these two women are punished in a way that will keep this from ever happening to another vulnerable person, but I'm sure they'll receive a slap on the wrist, because today's morals and values are very screwed up. How do they look at their hateful reflections in the mirror, knowing what they did to somebody else's parents and grandparents? I hope they never have to go through the agony of watching an aging parent or grandparent suffer from Alzheimers or any other disease. And I hope that they turn their lives around and develop compassion. It is never too late. Maybe, at some point, they will do some good in the world. If not, Karma will take care of them.

For more about this unspeakable crime, click here:How Can Anyone Be So Cruel?

Caravaggio: Bad Boy of Baroque

2008-12-06T18:38:00.009-05:00

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Actually, I've been seeing this pattern for years, but it always amuses me when I get further confirmation of it: virtually every artist, musician, or painter I admire has, shall we say, issues of some sort. (Of course, most of the human race has issues of some sort, but that's another matter.)

Caravaggio, the Baroque genius and one of the most innovative, talented, technically and artistically proficient painters--and definitely one of my top three or four--of all time, was a rogue, a misfit, a rebel, and a criminal; the bad boy of Baroque.

Unlike many great artists, whose work was not appreciated until years, if not centuries, after their deaths, Caravaggio was much in demand and considered a genius during his lifetime. Like lots of spoiled celebrities of today, he did not handle success or fame well: he spent lavishly, bragged relentlessly, and was conceited, arrogant, and difficult to get along with. He lived hard and died young. But that's where the similarities between him and today's "bad boy" celebrities ends. Caravaggio was immensely gifted, and incredibly influential. His skill, particularly with light and shadows is, in my opinion, unequaled.
He took chances in ways no other artist would have dared. His Death of the Virgin, for instance, which was completed in 1603 (also the year Queen Elizabeth I of England died) and is housed in the Louvre (reason enough to visit France), portrayed the Virgin Mary barefoot, bloated, in rigor mortis, and supposedly modeled after a prostitute with whom Caravaggio was involved--much too realistic (and too vulgar) for the time and for the commission (it was, after all, commissioned by the Church). Still, it is a riveting, disturbing, and emotionally moving painting--and is, of course, infused with dramatic light and shadows.

Even if art is not your thing, Caravaggio is an artist whose subjects--not to mention his techniques, his shadows, light, folds, pleats, creases, and textures--you can look at for ages and never see them the same way twice. He's changed the way I look at art of all kinds.

Fake by Any Other Name

2008-12-01T15:13:00.006-05:00

Disingenuous. Phony. Fake. Shallow. Affected. Artificial. Feigned. Put on. Spurious. Call it what you will, but people pretending to be something or someone else—whether that pretending takes the form of relentless name-dropping, keeping up with (or, better yet, one-upping) the Joneses, affecting the accent or dialect of a social class seen as “higher” than one’s own, hobnobbing with a social class or other group in order to raise one’s own “status” in the eyes of others, taking up hobbies or interests in order to impress others, or doing anything to make someone else think of or respond to you in a way that “srtokes” you—has been part of the human condition since the beginning of time.

It’s a ubiquitous part of American life and culture, and though it's often cause for scorn, it looks like it's here to stay. Phoniness is not always about social climbing--sometimes it's about mock social descending, as in the wealthy Harvard Blue Blood who goes about channeling Woody Guthrie or Jack Kerouac in a futile attempt to mimic the life of a creative vagabond; we all know one of those. BoBos in Paradise is a pretty good (if utterly nauseating) account of well-to-do suburbanites who drive Hummers, send their kids—Schyler and Barack--to Montessori schools and tai kwon do lessons, and live in McMansions adorned with “distressed” furniture (oh, that’s right—that was the 90s—now the BoBos have all “gone green,” eschewing fine mahogany and cherry for reclaimed woods, lumber from sustainable forests, and nasty stuff like bamboo, which they wouldn't have given a passing glance to before it was fashionable.)

Pretending isn’t necessarily a bad thing; sometimes, it's even necessary. It has its place in life and, in its broadest sense, it is the basis for art, music, and literature. Fiction, after all, is, by its nature, pretend. Acting is—acting. All art, at its core, is an imitation of life. And, in other ways, there is a point at which affectation becomes something else: fashion or design, for instance. The entire “BoHo chic” concept revolves around the pretend—and very temporary and compartmentalized--lowering of one’s social status or station—but that’s an example of where the lines begin to be blurred. BoHo chic is, after all, fashion. And fashion and style are, at their best, wonderful means of self-expression.

But that's not "fake"--not in the way I mean it. Fake is those who act as a replacement for living, who pretend for the sole purpose of impressing or eliciting envy or jealousy or admiration in or from others—whether friends, relatives, co-workers, or even strangers—to make themselves feel superior.

It's gotten worse. And the media is no help. It takes the very worst aspects of human nature and magnifies them. Isn’t it bad enough that we have to deal with this crap in our own lives, every day? I mean, we all have a friend who’s affected a new accent after “marrying up” (think of Detroit-born Madonna’s British accent, which she “acquired” within five minutes of marrying Guy Ritchie), begun using new lingo after hanging out with a new social group, or moved to an "upwardly mobile" neighborhood, pretending that it was an inadvertent move, yet constantly dropping the hoity-toity name of the town in casual conversation where it’s not pertinent. And who doesn't know someone who hates liver (doesn't everyone?) but ordered foie gras when it was "in," and now that it is "out" is secretly relieved, yet protests the maltreatment of geese as the reason for the change in taste?

I’ve always had very keen radar for that shit, and I avoid it like The Plague—or try to. Sadly, sometimes it’s just not possible, and I can’t keep up with all the new shades of fake, so sometimes I actually fall for it. I feel as if I am drowning in it sometimes. It’s starting to come from places and people I’d never expect. People I thought I knew, places I thought were real. Or am I just out of touch?

I talk about this stuff with my friends sometimes, and most of them hate it too, but they think I take too much to heart. Or else they think I’m just nuts. I see it everywhere, and was prepared to see lots of it at my son’s football games this year, but I was pleasantly surprised—there were very few football moms with baseball caps and diamond earrings trying to look cute in their husbands’ oversized jerseys or their husbands' oversized jackets, with the sleeves dangling (intentionally) a couple inches past their hands. Though I was clueless about what was going on on the field, I actually got to know some really nice people whose lives are all about their kids, not their interior decorators and their dinner parties and their husbands' impossibly demanding careers.

Still, I feel that the phoniness seeps in anyway. I have a friend who was talking recently about friends of hers who are “cougars”—I thought she was talking about a female football team until I found out that the term is FakeSpeak for older women who are on the prowl for younger men and dress and act accordingly. “Why can’t you just call them older women looking for younger guys?” I asked. “If we keep using catch-phrases, pretty soon we’ll have no vocabulary at all.” She rolled her eyes and snorted. “Whatever,” she said. “Okay—now, that one I know!” I said, and we both laughed.

Maybe we’re all just insecure. I know I am sometimes. I try not to be, but I can't help it. And why is that wrong? Or bad? Or weak? Wouldn’t it be better to be able to just say “You know, I really want people to like me, because I like people” than to feign “Oh, this old thing?” while dressed in Gucci and dripping with diamonds? This posturing--no matter how you cut it, it is all about insecurity. And fear. And a desire to be liked. And to be loved. Loving is what it means to be human—so why can’t we all just admit it and stop putting on airs?

Factory Girl: Don't Waste Your Time

2008-11-29T21:49:00.005-05:00

Think of a bowl of rich, creamy chocolate ice cream topped with a heavenly cloud of sweet, homemade, whipped cream. Now, picture a slab of rock-hard, fat-free, imitation-flavored chocolate frozen yogurt with artificial coloring and no sugar added topped with fat-free Reddi-wip. That about sums up the difference between the real Edie Sedgwick and the biopic-cum-parody that is Factory Girl.

Thankfully, I went into it with no expectations. Those kinds of films almost never live up to the hype when the hype is good, and when you're portraying iconic figures, you're practically looking to fail. In this case, the reviews were mixed, though mostly negative, so my only hope was that maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised. I wasn't.

I rarely get a chance--or have the patience--to watch a movie anymore, but I've been sick and wasn't up to writing. I had some time to myself today, and I didn't feel like reading, so I figured, what the hell, so what if I'm two years late? At least I'll get to see some cool Edie clothes. And that was the only good thing I saw. My instincts told me that this was a film I should watch alone, because the only thing as bad as being embarrassed in front of someone else is being embarrassed for someone else in front of someone else, and I just knew that with portrayals of larger-than-life icons like Edie, Warhol, and Dylan in the hands of anyone but world-class actors, I would be cringing. And even though I watched it by myself--I was still cringing. Especially at the Dylan--I mean, "Quinn"--character, over-acted by Hayden Christensen. All I can say is, no wonder Dylan threatened to sue!

Guy Pearce's Warhol was more of an impersonation--almost a parody--than a portrayal, though Sienna Miller did an acceptable job with the flimsy, contrived script she had to work with and the pathetic supporting actor (Jimmy Fallon!) she was paired with. She's pretty and waif-like and-- when made-up with heavy eyeliner and false lashes and decked out in Edie's signature chandeliers, micro-minis, tights, and mid-60s New York society pre-hippie mod--could have passed for Edie. But she lacked the spirit, the spunk, the hipness, and the charisma that transcends mere "prettiness"--it was the je nais sais quoi that made Edie Sedgwick the underground "it girl" of the mid-60s, and the reason a dramatization by someone who wasn't even born when Sedgwick died probably should not have been attempted.

Anyway, no real analysis is needed. Save your money and, even if you can watch it for free, save your time. You can see the real Edie on YouTube, read about her in George Plimpton and Jean Stein's wonderful "oral" bio, and find shelves full of books with gorgeous photos and interesting perspectives. Don't try to live it--or re-live it--through this movie. You can't go home again and your imagination is likely much richer than this poor little film.

Can't Stop Listening to Phil

2008-11-23T11:47:00.007-05:00

I know I've written about him recently, but I still can't stop listening to Phil Ochs. He was always there, he was always great, but it's almost like I didn't quite "get it" the first time around.

Maybe it comes with age. Whatever it is, I feel like I've been given a wonderful, very expensive diamond. All I can say is better late than never.

Phil Ochs is the consummate protest singer/songwriter. What's sad is that he's lumped, almost parenthetically, with every other singer/songwriter on the Village scene. And he's different.

I wrote in my earlier post that he was a topical songwriter who was not afraid to be topical, and did not strive to be timeless. Ironically, some of his songs have become timeless, because he was very attuned to human nature. His very best work is on par with Dylan's early work, something I can't believe I'm even writing, but I am, because I believe it's true. "Cops of the World" is such a relevant, biting song--it applies just as much today as it did then. Phil sings it with a crystal tenor and an out-of-tune guitar, and it's mesmerizing. There are many that I love, but two that are particularly captivating are "The Marines Have Landed On the Shores of Santo Domingo"--a very long title, but a poetic, poignant lyric and an eerily beautiful melody--and "When I'm Gone," an eerily prescient pondering that is sad without being maudlin or sentimental.

Here are the lyrics:

There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone
And I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone
And you won't find me singin' on this song when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
And I won't feel the flowing of the time when I'm gone
All the pleasures of love will not be mine when I'm gone
My pen won't pour a lyric line when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
And I won't breathe the bracing air when I'm gone
And I can't even worry 'bout my cares when I'm gone
Won't be asked to do my share when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
And I won't be running from the rain when I'm gone
And I can't even suffer from the pain when I'm gone
Can't say who's to praise and who's to blame when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
Won't see the golden of the sun when I'm gone
And the evenings and the mornings will be one when I'm gone
Can't be singing louder than the guns when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
All my days won't be dances of delight when I'm gone
And the sands will be shifting from my sight when I'm gone
Can't add my name into the fight while I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone
And I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone
And you won't find me singin' on this song when I'm gone while I'm here
So I guess I'll have to do it
I guess I'll have to do it
Guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

If you have not yet discovered Phil Ochs, drop what you're doing and go to Amazon.com. Buy the album There But For Fortune. Consider it an investment in beauty.

The Mellowing Effects of Time

2008-11-22T17:55:00.009-05:00

Today marks 45 years since the assassination of President John Kennedy, and I haven't seen a mention of it anywhere. I don't know what the country was like before Kennedy was killed; I was 15 months old when he died. But I, like everyone my age, had an awareness of Kennedy and his death all through my childhood; it was always there, lurking--which may have something to do with my melancholy nature. It was something younger Baby Boomers were sort of born into, and though we never talked about it ourselves, it was a topic of fascination and intrigue among the adults.

I distinctly remember when, though it seemed as if it were part of "history," JFK's death was still a national obsession. Then again that was a long time ago, too. When I was a kid--even when I was in high school--there was an unspoken feeling sense that America had been wounded. Sort of like the atmosphere that still hangs in the air when you walk downtown in New York--it's been seven years since 9-11, and it has gone from dominating conversation to being mentioned in hushed tones, but America is not yeat healed.

Up until the mid 80s, TV specials, films, and news-broadcast retrospectives dominated the airwaves around the anniversary date. I recall Years of Lightning, Day of Drums, old newsreels, and other programs being on TV in the living room as I helped my Mom prepare the "make-ahead" dishes for Thanksgiving on Wednesday. It seemed sad to me that JFK and Thanksgiving seemed to be so linked. Even through the mid 90s, there was always at least one or two programs on TV around this time of year that had to do with the assassination. It started to fade after Jackie Kennedy's death in 1994, and really petered out with John-John's death in 1997. Now there's nary a mention.

Camelot, it seems, is really over, and John F. Kennedy finally belongs to the ages.

Middle Age Bites!

2008-11-18T12:07:00.001-05:00

Okay, I know the fact that looking forward to the dawning of a new day partly because it means a big cup of coffee is a sign that I’m getting older. I accept the fact that the days of my giving up chocolate for a week and losing 10 pounds just like that, or sitting on my boyfriend’s shoulders at a concert on the beach are not just dead, but mummified and fossilized.

But, just how long has it been since those carefree days? This morning, as I waited for my coffee at the deli, I gazed over to a flat-screen TV in the store (they can no longer afford to put napkins on the counter, but they have a plasma TV…but that’s another story).

On the screen was a kindly old man singing the praises of Optimum Voice. Nice to see seniors getting some acting work, I thought. Now, I’ve seen the commercial hundreds of times, but never paid any attention. Today, though, there was something about the ascot-wearing old man’s voice that seemed vaguely familiar, as he facetiously asked, “Is it the way I say ‘Massapequa?’”

Then I realized that the old man with the dense white—not gray, white—hair was Barry Bostwick. Barry Fucking Bostwick! I remember when Barry Bostwick was a moderately foxy b-level/Lifetime actor, good for a little eye candy on a rainy Saturday afternoon when nothing was on TV. I know he was in Rocky Horror, but that’s not how I remember him. I remember him as the sexy villain or the passive-aggressive narcissist or the charming two-timer with the dowdy wife and the gorgeous mistress. He was one of those “older guys”—an occasional guilty pleasure among the scruffy long-haired musicians my friends and I thought were “cute”--with salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes so intense they should have been illegal.

Now he is, in the words of George Carlin, an old fuck!

Kitschy Coup

2008-11-17T21:01:00.005-05:00

Ask any art lover and he or she will tell you that kitsch has taken hold of our culture. There are Van Gogh desk calendars, Frida Kahlo coffee tables, Modigliani lamps and vases. And you know what? A lot of this so-called kitsch is available for purchase at exorbitant prices in the "gift shops" of virtually every major metropolitan art museum in the world.

The definition of kitsch is almost as broad and subjective as the definition of art. What is art? Who's to say? One person's art is another person's kitsch, and vice versa.

But kitsch, in the general and commonly used sense, connotes the bastardization of high art. It's quite a snobby concept, implying, at best, art that can be appreciated and understood for its decorative value, or by the the general public (as opposed to the cultured elite)and, at the worst, low-brow representations of "real art"--i.e., "dumbed down" for the masses.

Are kitsch and pop art similar, then? Well, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it would depend on how one defines "pop art" and, to extend it even further, how one defines both "pop" and "art." Convoluted? Extremely.

The generally accepted difference between even the best kitsch and the worst pop art is the intended effect. Pop art may be ugly, crude, simplistic, insulting, erratic--but it is not created to elicit a predicted response. For instance, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup cans. They're in MoMa. They've become iconic. And, now that they're iconic, they're something else. The very reaction that is elicited by the fact that they're now icons of an era has rendered them kitschy in the eyes of some--yet, when they were first created by Warhol, they were "art" as opposed to "kitsch" because they were created for the sake of creating, not to elicit a particular reaction. Even if you believe that the original Warhol creations are art--as most people, even pop-art naysayers, do--you have to admit that the Warhol Campbell's Soup can refrigerator magnets they sell at the MoMa gift shop are...kitsch. If you're confused, join the club.

I have an appreciation for art, but I also appreciate kitsch, as "defined" above. For instance, when I was last at MoMa, I saw an exhibit that actually made me mad. It was a bent, rusty nail hammered into a broken, splintered two-by-four. I don't remember the name of the "artist." It certainly is not kitsch--but it is, in my opinion, garbage. I have several canvas transfers--Botticelli, Van Gogh, Munch, Modigliani, and even Picasso. The fact that they are inexpensive reproductions of "the real thing" makes them kitsch in the eyes of art snobs, I know. But they make me happy. Like my son's drawings of everything from Hulk Hogan to our dog, Mojo.

By the way, I also have an original abstract painting in brilliant colors of a psychedelic Lab who looks just like Mojo--painted by an unknown (and very talented) Brooklyn artist. I can't help touching it every time I pass it in the living room--it clashes with everything, and that's one of the things I love about it. It makes me smile. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Is it art? It is to me.

I Used to Be Hip--What Happened?

2008-11-15T13:34:00.007-05:00

Once upon a time, I was a pretty hip girl. It doesn't seem as if it was all that long ago, either. Since I was always an A student who loved school and a "good girl" who didn't smoke or drink or get high or sleep around, I relied, albeit unconsciously, on a little bit of hipness--an independent mind, a love of all kinds of music and literature, an inner-city background, the ability to get along with and appreciate people of all races and cultures, an attraction to vagabonds and musicians--to keep me from being a total nerd. Had it not been for these qualities, I surely would have been hanging out with the kids who got beaten up by the "cool" kids.

But I never followed the herd, ever--except in the case of religion. I was born into Catholicism, a fancy word for brainwashing, and for most of my childhood and young adulthood, I feared the wrath of God for stupid things like my doubting that Adam and Eve were real people and that God actually made woman from Adam's rib. It took thirty years before I felt confident in the idea that God has more important things to tend to than punishing young girls for doubting the validity of ancient fairytales. But I digress.

Pastels and Sunny Florida: two things that
go against my very core. I was led astray.

As a teenager, I loved makeup and clothes, like most teen girls, but if I had to choose between buying a new blouse or a new album, the album would win every time. I wasn't terribly into trends, except for a while in the early 80s when, at age 19 or 20, I got sucked into Danskins, pastels, leg-warmers, ripped t-shirts, and a Sheena Easton haircut. I even had the "Jane Fonda Workout," and actually went to aerobics classes (two or three times--I hated it; I only went to look at the guys working out) at Socitey Hill Fitness wearing tights and a Danskin, and a headband, just like Olivia Newton John in her "Physical" video. In the same period, I also did the complete opposite, and tried to go punk, buying my entire wardrobe of leopard-print t-shirts, spiked bracelets, and leather and spandex shirts with zig-zag zippers from Zipperhead on South Street in Philly. I saw no point--and had no need--for a bra until I was in my early 20s (wow--those were the days), but that's as wild as I got.

It wasn't long before I settled back into the comfort zone I'd established at 14 or 15--wearing my brother's ripped army shirts and patchy jeans and suede moccasins, not because they were especially cool, and certainly not because they looked good (they didn't--in my Mother's words, they were "disgraceful;" I looked like a "rag-picker," she said, and periodically would try to throw away one of my tattered shirts or threadbare jeans, only for me to retrieve it from the bottom of the garbage bag, wash it, and wear it the next day) but because they were comfortable and worn--and me. These were the days when my Mother would look at me and slowly shake her head, saying nothing at all. Deep down, though, I know she was glad that I wasn't a prissy little "girly girl." And so was I.

What I want to know is, when did I become middle-aged? It wasn't so long ago that I lived out of an overnight bag--my leather duffel bag always in the trunk of my car, packed and ready to go anywhere at a moment's notice. I'd drive 200 miles at the drop of a hat, go anywhere without a map, without a plan, with no money to speak of, just because I felt like it. It wasn't so long ago that Dana and I would hop in the car, drinking extra-large Dunkin Donuts coffees at midnight, and drive from Philly to New York on a whim on a Sunday night, then get up for work at 7:00 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We rented cars and drove through the Deep South, through the Bayous of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, sat out on the hood of our car in the middle of the night, in the middle of an empty highway in Helena, Arkansas, looking at the stars, when our friends were doing all-inclusives in Bermuda and the Bahamas and getting mani/pedi combos at the hotel spa. They thought we were nuts; we thought they were missing out.

Now here I am, in bed at 9:00 pm, under the comforter and wearing a flannel nightshirt and heated fleece aromatherapeutic booties, excited, not because I just met Dylan and he was nice to me, but because I actually have at least nine hours of sleep to look forward to, because it's raining and I don't have any commitments this weekend, because I can watch the "Nancy Grace" reruns that I missed during the week and because they put new "Sopranos" episodes on HBO on Demand. I'm not complaining. I mean, I supposed I could do some of that other stuff if I really wanted to. I guess I just don't. I guess I'm content writing and being sort of...domestic. Well, sort of.

What happened?

Love is Free

2008-11-10T12:10:00.002-05:00

There are so many incredible charities and non-profit organizations out there, run by and comprising the most selfless people you can imagine. Times are tough for just about everyone, and I can’t think of a person who has cash to spare. Still, times are even tougher for those with nothing.

Even if we can’t donate money, we can still give. Time is free. And so is love. We can offer support. We can show kindness. We can visit the elderly, spend a day working in a soup kitchen, foster—or even just spend a couple of hours or a day with—a shelter animal.

If you do have a few dollars to spare, there are thousands of wonderful programs that could use your donation. One that has really touched my heart—and that can use both donations and volunteers—is The Pajama Program, which provides new, warm pajamas and books to children in the United States and all over the world. Many of these kids have never had a parent tuck them in at night, most have never had anything to call their own. What’s more comforting to a little one than a snuggly pair of PJs and a sweet bedtime story?

I wrote about this organization soon after its inception, and then again about three years ago. I’ve also done “pajama drives” for my local chapter, as have many people I know. My friend did a drive in Philly and donated tons of pajamas to the Philadelphia chapter. It was great.

Please check out their website and help if you can. Or, check out this great site, Charity Navigator, which evaluates and provides comprehensive information on more than 5,000 of the nation’s largest charities.

The Pain Never Stops

2008-11-08T15:13:00.012-05:00

It's such a dreary, rainy, raw day. I love these kinds of days usually, though--once in a while, anyway--because I can snuggle up with Michael and Alex and Mojo and my tea and my books and a sweater and all is right with the world.

But today--maybe because of the impending holidays? A dream I had that's still lingering and lurking below the surface?--I feel like I am beating off demons with a stick. The demons are the ones that have hounded me for as long as I can remember: Loss. Grief. Longing. They're always there. Always, always there. No respite, no letup. But sometimes, they hang out in the background, to give me a little breather. Not today.

It smells like Woodstock up here today; that rustic mountain firewood smell is in the air, Thanksgiving is around the corner, and so many of my loves are cold and alone in the ground. I should think of them sitting on clouds in Heaven, right? Smiling, plucking harps, singing with choruses of angels. But no, I am smelling the Frankincense, the church, the stench of roses mixing with formaldehyde. Kissing the stone-cold foreheads one last time, praying they can feel me, knowing they can't. Thanking everyone for coming. And seeing the freshly delved "resting places," taking a peek down to see just how deep they will go. How deep, all alone, they will go. Shuddering, bargaining with God not to make them go there.

How could Edvard Munch have known exactly how I feel?

I can't do the euphemisms today. The imagery is not working. I know the truth, and the truth is fucked up.

Who should I cry for today? Who should my heart ache for most today? They're always there, all of them, breaking my heart, but sometimes, often, it is Mom who holds the top spot, Mom in her cozy pink terrycloth robe, smiling and holding out her arms for me. Sometimes it's Dad in his powder-blue sweater, waving goodbye at the screen door. Sometimes I see my Rachel in her little white outfit and her pink baby blanket. One day it's Greg in his work boots and flannel shirt. Another day it's Rick with his sweet, hearty laugh.

Today, it's everybody, all at once, and it's making my mind hurt, my body sore, but I know this too shall pass--it always does, though for just a few moments or hours. It comes and goes in waves of varying intensity. Some days, though not usually, it is a ripple. Today it is a tidal wave.

So I think I'll go hug my son. I know there's a God because he made Michael and Alex.

Chiaroscuro: Painters of Light

2008-11-07T17:34:00.016-05:00

I'm the first to admit that I’m very passionate and, perhaps consequently, extremely opinionated when it comes to music, art, and literature. Personally, I think all people are, whether they admit it or not. And what a boring world this would be if we weren't passionate and opinionated. After all, beauty is in the eyes (and ears) of the beholder. That does not mean that I can’t distance myself and look at things objectively when I need to.

But one of the great things about a blog is that here, I don’t need to! So I’m just going to say it: Thomas Kincade makes me sick!! Is this what passes for art in the age of Celebrity Rehab and Bridezillas?

I know I've talked about my contempt for Kincade before. It's not that I'm out to get him or anything. It's not just that he reminds me of Dr. Phil, or that he's full of himself and self-righteous--all of which is true. Sarah Palin liking his work was just a bonus. One of the reasons I am so anti-Kincade, though, is because he touts himself as “The Painter of Light.” On some level, he has to do that to antagonize people. Or maybe it’s just to antagonize people who love art.

Let me tell you about the real Painters of Light. Foremost among them is Caravaggio, the hyperactive, brilliant Baroque-era Milanese master whose lover was a prostitute and whose passionate nature led him to murder (he received a papal pardon—three days after his death). More than four centuries later, all that is almost incidental.

Caravaggio was undoubtedly a genius. His use of chiaroscuro, a painting technique that gives the illusion of light and dimension by creating distinct shadows and contrasts (it literally translates from Italian as “light-dark”), is probably as close to perfection of the technique as Da Vinci’s use of sfumato (think of the subtle gradations of tone and color—and lack of clear lines—in the Mona Lisa). Chiaroscuro is a technique that is used often--as it has been since the Renaissance--but rarely (if ever) as convincingly or as masterfully as in Caravaggio's work.

Chiaroscuro can be used to achieve a variety of effects. In religious paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries, it sometimes served to "illuminate" holy subjects and to depict a Divine inner light emanating from a Biblical figure, as with, for instance, the Baby Jesus. In other paintings, it simply served to simulate light, like candlelight, firelight, or moonlight, and to cast the primary subject of a painting in the spotlight, so to speak.

Caravaggio's paintings are sometimes religious, sometimes secular, but almost always intense and emotional (see above). Caravaggio was also important in the development of tenebrism, a dramatic or extreme variation of chiaroscuro, which gives the illusion of people and objects coming out of darkness and into light.

Rembrandt was a master of chiaroscuro and was also, of course, a master--some would say the master--of portraiture. I prefer Caravaggio to Rembrandt when it comes to his use of chiaroscuro, but that's just a matter of personal taste. If you look at a Rembrandt painting, though, particularly of elderly people, you will see that every detail of the skin seems illuminated. You can almost feel the flesh in a Rembrandt portrait. A young person with fresh, dewy skin and rosy cheeks may be a pleasure to paint, but an elder, with wrinkles and crevices and other interesting features, must be so much more of a challenge. And Rembrandt did it better than anyone. Check out his self-portraits--he must have had an incredibly secure sense of self to paint himself, as he did, both in youth and in old age.

Then there is Vermeer. Everybody knows Vermeer now because of Girl With a Pearl Earring, aka, the "Mona Lisa of the North." The fact that the book and movie made people who'd never heard of the Baroque Dutch Master delve deeper into his work is wonderful. I love Vermeer, not just because of the gorgeous colors--particularly the rich blues; he used pure, gorgeous pigments like lapis lazauli--but because they emimnate warmth. They are drenched in light--natural, glowing, warm, soft light. He also portrays people of his time doing simple, everyday things. My very favorite Vermeer painting--and one of my favorite paintings overall--is The Milkmaid, circ. 1658. Look at the beautiful, vibrant colors, the look of serenity on the milkmaid's face, the simplicity and tranquility of the scene--though it is mundane. I just love it.

Chiaroscuro is something we, today, take for granted, which is understandable: for us, it's always been here. A good way to appreciate chiaroscuro is to look at paintings that came before--look at the flatness, the way figures and people seem to be suspended in space. Then look at paintings that use chiaroscuro--and really think about how the effects were achieved--painstakingly, stroke by stroke. Our tendency is to look at the finished product, as if it were a photograph. And if you look at paintings that way, you're sure to be disappointed. Try to imagine a time before technology; put yourself in that place, if you can, and you will have a better appreciation for the incredible talent and skill needed to pull off this technique.

The First Surrealist?

2008-11-07T11:21:00.006-05:00

I love discovering new music, literature, and art—especially when it’s old, or when it’s a known or even celebrated work or artist that somehow escaped me in the past. I remember how excited I was the first time I read Joyce Carol Oates and Anne Sexton—years after I “should” have, probably, considering the fact that I’d been an English major in college and never even heard of Oates. I felt the same way when I discovered the art of Caravaggio and Jan van Eyck; it was a mixture of excitement and disappointment, as in “how could I possibly have missed this?”

An artist I’ve become fascinated with—though I can’t say I love (or even particularly like) his work—is Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The Italian mannerist was a student of Da Vinci’s, and it shows. His technique is brilliant, his talent undeniable. I don’t know how he’s perceived in the art world, but among the general public, I’d say he’s relatively obscure (though his works hang in the Louvre). I'm sure anyone schooled in the art of the Renaissance who happens to read this will laugh--and you should!

Arcimboldo's paintings are incredibly detailed, and in terms of context, content, etc., I think he was way ahead of his time—more than five centuries ahead of his time. His portraits of people are “made” entirely of plants, animals, fruits, vegetables, and trees. His paintings have universal themes and one-word names; for instance, his allegorical and/or symbolic depictions of the four seasons and elements (i.e., "Water," "Earth").

Because a fish is a fish, a crab is a crab, and an apple is an apple, regardless of the century in which it’s portrayed, Arcimboldo’s paintings have a timeless—even contemporary—quality. LSD in the Reanissance? Apparently so! None of my friends has heard of this man; all to whom I’ve shown his work have been intrigued, perplexed, impressed, and/or amused.

Personally, I think Arcimboldo is ripe for a comeback. All it will take is some deep-pocketed Hollywood producer to think this artist is a master—or, more likely, smell an untapped money-making niche—so he can make a big-budget flick about him, go on a PR tour for the cause, pretend to be an expert, and tell the rest of us lowly commoners about the unsung master of the Renaissance we’ve all been missing.

If you're a producer or director and you're not quite sure if Arcimboldo's marketable enough, consider this: he was also the hottest party planner of his day, planning shindigs for the Milanese upper crust. Too bad he wasn't English; since Hollywood thinks all Americans like our culture spoon-fed to us in corny, rhyming sound-bites, you could call him the Elizabethan Era David Tutera.

In the meantime, check out some of his humorous and mildly disturbing pieces.

Mad About Modi...and Munch and Klimt and Matisse and Chagall...

2008-10-25T13:58:00.012-04:00

There are artists I've always loved, in all genres--from Boticelli to Van Gogh, the old standbys I go to when I need some visual stimulation, or solace, or both. Boticelli's angelic faces (my favorite portrait is below), Van Gogh's manic impasto strokes--I love it all.

I've been intrigued by Modigliani for quite some time. It took me a while to appreciate his portraits--particulary since so many of them are of naked women. The ones that weren't nudes seemed simplistic and almost formulaic. But they weren't forgettable--I went back to them, and found a sense of depth that I hadn't experienced initially.

There's an underlying sense of something unsettling in his work that made me want to explore further. It's not unsettling in a repulsive or maddening way--like Georgia O'Keefe (whose thinly veiled representations of female genitalia as flowers just don't do it for me, and who, on the "annoying" meter, ranks one step above Thomas Kincade) or Jackson Pollock, whose work I guess I just don't get; it bores me. Modigliani's work is unsettling in a way that says "there's more here than meets the eye, but you're gonna have to delve."

So I started reading about Modi, and found his life even more interesting than his work. Modigliani, it seems, was a Beatnik nearly a half-century before Kerouac began typing on that now-famous continuous roll of paper. Modi was a bohemian whose life was full of passion and craziness and torment. He died at the age of 35. His grief-sticken lover, nine months pregnant with their second child, jumped out a fifth-floor window and killed herself and their unborn child two days later, leaving their baby daughter an orphan.

I look at his work a lot differently now. It makes such a difference when you know a bit about the life of an artist--it helps you see things you may not have noticed. But there is a fine line between knowing about an artist and having some perspective, and making assumptions and reading into his or her art. It's a fine--and interesting--line.

In the same way, I've been fascinated with the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (the Poe of painting) even longer, perhaps because I relate to the nostalgie de la boue aspect of his art, with its themes of loss and longing. Of course, I've always been familiar with The Scream, but I've found many of his other sketches and paintings more compelling. Death and the Maiden, The Kiss--some are just so powerful.

And then there is Klimt, the Austrian symbolist painter who, in my opinion, was decades ahead of his time. Klimt can take the most haunting, melancholy aspects of life and render them visually vibrant and beautiful, but he does it in a way that deepens the drearier, more philosophical aspects of mortality and the human condition. He paints almost like a mosaicist and, though some of his work tends toward the erotic--even bordeline perverse--the meticulous detail in itself is worth studying; you can look at The Three Ages of Woman a thousand times, for instance, and never see it the same way twice.

As much as I tend toward the melancholy, for the past year or so, I've become immersed in the colorful work of Matisse, the color master. Seeing his work at MoMA stirred something in me. I know he is considered as significant as Picasso--and honestly, he is leaving Picasso in the dust for me--but I only stumbled upon his work inadvertently, so I am excited that there is a whole new world I haven't yet discovered. To me, his subjects and his composition are almost secondary to his color.

Because of Matisse, I have opened up to Fauvism, which I really am drawn to. Just this past spring, I found out that there is a Matisse stained-glass window at the Union Church of Pocantico Hills, less than 10 minutes away from my house, and that it was his last work of art before his death. I've been wanting to go for months, but it's hard to rally my guys during football season.

I'm also relatively new to Marc Chagall. I'm not a fan of Cubism by anyone, even Picasso--it's one of those things that I just don't "get" so I've stopped trying, and maybe one day it will "get" me--but I do love his themes, symbolism, and color. Chagall, like Matisse, also has a window at Union Church which I'm hoping to see. I love his Fiddler because--well, he's a fiddler!

The Curmudgeonly Beatle

2008-10-16T19:00:00.006-04:00

Nobody loves the Beatles more than I do; I've loved them since I was in diapers. There was a time when they could do no wrong, a time when I could tell you minute details, including at what time of day each of them was born, in what hospital, and the names of the delivering obstetricians.

But, as George Harrison astutely observed nearly four decades ago, all things must pass. At one time, the Beatles were untouchable--nobody else even aspired to their status, significance, or fame. But I think their star has dimmed considerably in the public consciousness, which is not a negative thing--just human nature. Aside from the inevitable chinks in the armor--was Sgt. Pepper really the greatest rock album of all time? Has McCartney written one great song since "Let It Be? Doesn't John's Primal Scream-influenced "Mother" seem a little less primal now? Isn't Two Virgins really, really embarrassing?--so much time has passed that things that once seemed so important have become mere footnotes, if not totally irrelevant.

John Lennon's October 9 birthday came and went with nary a mention in the press; a decade ago, it would have garnered a few lines in the dailies, and two decades ago, a paragraph and a photo. Paul McCartney's dating, and nobody cares, though occasionally, a shot of a saggy, baggy, Grecian Formula-ed Sir Macca will make its way onto Page Six. And now that Ringo has milked the All Starr Band tours dry and sung "The No No Song" 30 years longer than what most fans would deem palatable, now that his career retrospective CD and his blip of a TV show has tanked, he's gotten curmudgeonly.

The buildup to his latest tantrum started in January, when he had a hissy fit and walked off the set of Regis & Kelly when he was asked to shorten a song. His cantankerous new attitude emerged again just this week when the world's luckiest drummer issued a passive-aggressive plea to fans to stop sending him autograph requests, because after the seemingly arbitrary date of October 20, he will no longer honor them.

In a way, you can't blame Ringo. He's got to be tired. I've always liked Ringo, but have always considered him the token Beatle, knowing that he was a rudimentary drummer with a barely passable voice and a good personality. Yes, he should be thankful that anybody still wants his autograph. But at 68 years old, he's never had a private life. I guess he just wants to be left alone--by fans, at least.

I never thought I'd see the day when the silly, smiling, happy-go-lucky Beatle would become a crotchety old man. But nothing stays the same.

Bryson

2008-10-14T18:17:00.003-04:00

When I drove my son to school this morning, it was chilly, gray, and autumnal, perfect weather for Simon & Garfunkel's "America." Alex is always more open-minded and tolerant of my music in the morning, when he's still sleepy, so I figured I could get away with one more day of S&G before he tells me he can't take it anymore. Personally, I think he secretly likes a lot of the music I play, because more often than not, I will later hear him humming a melody that he heard on our morning drives to school.

As we drove the short distance to school, through the winding roads, I reached back to hold his hand for a sec, as I often do, and caught a glimpse of him through the rearview mirror, snuggly in his fleece jacket, looking quietly out the window at the peaking fall colors. "I love you, Baby," I said. "I love you too, Mom-zer," he replied.

I thanked God for him, and said a quiet little prayer for a boy named Bryson McCabe and his parents. I dropped Alex off, watched him walk with his backpack up the school steps, and waited for him to turn back for one more wave, as he does without fail every morning, and thanked God for that wave, too.

As I drove away, with "The Only Living Boy in New York" playing softly, I watched the parade of teens--some giggling, some cracking gum, some with hair still wet from showers, some with acne and braces--heading down Sunnyside Avenue to the adjacent high school. I cracked the window and heard the giggles and teenage chatter and silly banter. And I thought that Bryson would probably be doing this, too, right about now.

But instead, his heartbroken parents were preparing to bury him. I feel so sad and frustrated and mad. How can this be? How can this child's life be over? I never knew him, but I miss him.

The Peculiar Niche of Simon & Garfunkel

2008-10-06T12:12:00.004-04:00

Occasionally during the past 20 years or so, whenever I hear a Simon & Garfunkel song, I think about the duo’s peculiar place in the music world, particularly on the sixties scene. Most short bios of the pair describe them as a “sixties folk-rock duo” or something similar. Yet when I think of folk-rock, I never think of Simon & Garfunkel.

There was a time when it seemed their place in pop/rock music history was firmly ensconced, and that they were noted among legends. But I don’t know if that’s the case anymore—I think not. Despite their many hits (“The Sounds of Silence,” “I Am A Rock,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Scarborough Fair”), their highly recognizable sound, and the fact that their music is so very representative of American East Coast singer/songwriter sound of the late sixties, they were and are, as a unit, a bit of an anomaly. And as such, I think, they have been a bit overlooked.

Part of the reason, I think, is the tendency of our culture to pigeonhole, label, and compartmentalize. It’s hard to do that when something is unique. I mean, who else sounds like Simon & Garfunkel?

Granted, some—many—of their songs are, with the clarity and hindsight of four decades of living, cringe-inducing. “Baby Driver,” for instance, from the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, is blatantly embarrassing, as is “Keep the Customer Satisfied,” and both should be packed away in mothballs if not permanently laid to rest. Then there are songs like the iconic title track and “The Boxer,” a tune I once considered timeless, but now think of as a cerebral pop song. There’s also the sweetly hummable “America” (from the lofty but lovely Bookends) with its majestic drums and hokey interlude, a song I once thought was important but now see as merely nice, and the corny but catchy “Cecilia,” from Bridge, which now seems naïve and dated.

But what about the others? Where do they fit in the legend? Simon & Garfunkel were commissioned to do the soundtrack for The Graduate, a watershed coming-of-age film and one of the most popular and important mainstream releases of the decade, and their aura is all over the movie. Still, Simon & Garfunkel were not, even then, considered part of the scene—they always seemed outside the realm of hip, too square to be cool, yet too talented to be relegated to a lesser status—to that of, say, the Association.

Still, how can songs like “Scarborough Fair” and “Mrs. Robinson” not be permanently—and prominently—woven into the fabric of sixties music and culture? Have you ever seen a film about sixties culture or music that featured Simon & Garfunkel or their songs in any significant way? Why not?

S&G died, in a way, with the sixties—a decade which, in my opinion, did not end in 1969, but in late 1972 or early 73, with the dawning of glam rock and bubblegum. Of course, Paul Simon rekindled the flame in the mid-70s when he became a folk/pop golden boy in the “sensitive guy” vein—sort of like the Alan Alda of pop. There was a time, from about 73 until 77, when Rhymin’ Simon could do no wrong, and had hit after hit—“Kodachrome,” “Me and Julio,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” “Loves Me Like A Rock,” “Slip Slidin’ Away.” He became an endearing, respected fixture, indelibly linked, as always, to New York, but this time to the Saturday Night Live/laid-back hip crowd. It was almost as if he’d become a different Simon—this one had a first name, Paul—and he held court in the mainstream music world for a number of years.

The flame smoldered, to be rekindled briefly again by a Simon & Garfunkel Concert for Central Park in 1981, which sold a lot of records and garnered a lot of press, but when the dust settled, served only to confuse people. Simon reinvented himself yet again in the late 80s and early 90s with the monstrously successful (and, in my opinion, musically overblown Graceland).

He was hip again, in a Woody Allen un-cool sort of way, palling around with Chevy Chase, marrying Edie Brickell (who had a successful little run with the New Bohemians), and recording pop nuggets like You Can Call Me Al—a perfect vehicle for the MTV/VH-1 age, for which Simon and Chase did a corny video. By 1990, Simon was a musical old shoe—one with diamonds on its soles. I wonder if he’s still got a few more songs in him.

Poetic Justice

2008-10-04T17:43:00.006-04:00

Thirteen years ago yesterday, I stood in stunned silence--along with millions of others across the country--as OJ Simpson was acquitted for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. I remember it like it was yesterday: I was in Manhattan, at a music PR company that I was working with at the time on Gramercy Park, with a handfull of other publicists. Somebody announced that the verdict was about to be read and we all huddled around the TV. Just before the verdict was read, I peered down from the sixth-floor window onto Park Avenue; it was emptier than I'd ever seen it.

Within minutes, the verdict was read and, sadly and surprisingly, the reactions in the room were divided totally along racial lines. It was a phenomenon that I'd heard about and witnessed from afar, and witnessed in other times and places, but never did I think I'd witness it among intelligent, open-minded adults. A few seconds after the verdict was read, there was a mix of cheering, honking horns, and cursing on Park Avenue. I wondered if those cheering really believed that Simpson was innocent--and hoped and prayed that they did.

Yesterday, Simpson was convicted on all counts (12 of them, including armed robbery and kidnapping) for his latest cocky, egregious, criminal acts. There was no cheering or cursing in the streets that I know of. And, though nobody will dare even think it out loud, everyone knows that there were at least 14 counts, not 12, of which Simpson was found guilty.

The story has all the components of a Greek tragedy, except that Simpson has more than one tragic flaw. Hubris, though, may be at the top of the heap. Aristotle would have welcomed this case as illustration of his Poetics.

I have a mix of feelings about this. When Simpson was acquitted of murder, I felt that he'd live in his own kind of prison--that he'd become bitter, old before his time, that his friends would leave him, his fortunes would dwindle. I didn't wish it on him, but I thought that, even though he "got off," he'd have to live with himself. But psychopathic narcissists love living with themselves; Simpson seemed to be incapable of feeling guilt, shame, or even sorrow, and immune to any sort of negative ramifications.

Yesterday, for the first time, OJ Simpson looked old and tired. I wish I could have cheered, but I don't have it in me. Though I'm glad that justice is being served, I couldn't be "happy" about someone else's sorrow. Because I thought of his mother, and the hopes she had for her son and the heartbreak she suffered instead. And his children, who will now live with no parents at all. And, of course the people whose lives I believe he took and their families. And ironically, I thought of OJ Simpson and what could have and should have been for a man who once had talent, dreams, and determination, and now, even if deservedly so, has nothing.

Don't Wink at Me, Lady!

2008-10-04T12:50:00.007-04:00

If there has ever been an incentive to get out and VOTE, it is the prospect of this chick in the White House. I had to take an extra Prevacid after watching the vice presidential debate. Between the winks and the flirty gestures and the hockey mom comments and the "Joe Six Pack" remark (gag me fucking NOW!!), she still managed to say a whole lotta nothing.

She did have a lot of facts and figures at the ready (many of which were erroneous if not irrelevant) and she spared us from telling us yet again that she can see Russia from her state, but she did not say one damn thing of any substance. We know the American people are "strong" and that this land is "great" and that the American "work force is the greatest in this world." I can hear all of that in a Woody Guthrie song, and at least enjoy the music.

Tell us something we don't know. Tell us how we are going to get out of the mess we're in. Tell us HOW--not just THAT--the McCain administration is going to repair the economy.

This country has enough hockey moms--not that there's anything wrong with hockey moms. In fact, there are many in my own neighborhood--and all of them are smarter than Sarah Palin (take out the "l" and what do you have?) I, for one, don't particularly want a hockey mom in the White House--unless that hockey mom happens know how to run the country. She's not running for the office of president of the PTA at Gladys Wood Elementary School in Anchorage, for which she's clearly under-qualified. She is an actual contender for second in command of this country; I mean, she may have to fill in for the President in a pinch.

Now that Sarah Palin has asked her handlers which newsapers and magazines she reads, so that she can answer the questions of the fluffiest of reporters (Katie Couric?? I wonder how she would have fared against Walter Cronkite), maybe she can work on learning that when she's asked about the state of affairs in Georgia, the question is not referring to what's happening in the Peach State.

Some Cool Books By Taschen

2008-09-29T21:26:00.004-04:00

I've always loved cultural studies, folklore, and history. And I've always been fascinated by artifacts of different eras. Of course, I love the sixties, but I love lots of different decades, centuries, and historical periods.

Some people like reading historical fiction--like the Philippa Gregory books based on the life of Elizabeth I and her court, with intriguing titles such as The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover. These are compelling novels but, as always happens when I read fiction, as soon as there is a lull in the action, my mind wanders and part of me says "This is not real. Somebody sat at a computer and made this up." I am embarrassed to articulate that, but there you go. I so wish I could get into that type of writing--and I do love well-crafted fiction--but sometimes I much prefer to cut to the chase: I like the real thing. I mean, I am somebody who actually enjoys reading the dictionary; I don't just love words, I love etymology and I can get lost in a dictionary for hours.

In terms of pop culture and zeitgeists of different eras, I've always loved written "time capsules"--things like Sears catalogues from various eras, decorating books, fashion guides, etc., and I have quite a few original books from different decades. I enjoy the "as-it-happened" feeling I get from books written or compiled during a particular time, or collections and compilations of actual artifacts, as opposed to a person's musings or recollections. For that, I read memoir and biography.

Taschen has a wonderful series called All American Ads and each phone book-sized volume features a different decade. They are heavy, hard to hold paperbacks--behemoths--but they are completely engrossing. I bought a few of them when they first were published (and, of course, they were later released in abriged versions) and I just don't get tired of them. I have every decade from the twenties through the seventies.

Check them out if you get a chance. They contain original newspaper and print ads for everything from soap and lingerie to cars and furniture.

Mad Men: The 60s on TV

2008-09-27T14:26:00.013-04:00

When I first heard about the AMC show Mad Men, I was sort of excited. My friend told me about it after it had been on for a few episodes, and she said "It has your name written all over it." She couldn't wait for me to see it.

I couldn't wait either, since there is rarely anything of interest on TV. Well, I watched it--and I hated it. Absolutely hated it. It is full of cliches and sterotypes and I found it extremely hard to get through. I realized two things: 1) It's difficult, if not impossible, regardless of how much research you've done or how many "experts" you consult, to portray a time and place with accuracy, authenticity--and believability--unless you've lived it and 2) there is a big difference between someone born in 1962 and someone born in 1968.

Dana was born in 1968; I was born in 1962. Technically, she is a "Gen-Xer" and I am a "young Boomer" (I like the sound of that!) Even though neither of us really is in any position to speak about what it was like "growing up" in the sixties, I have lots of memories that she doesn't have, and vice versa. For instance, I vaguely remember my parents talking about "Bobby being killed" and names like "Jackie" and "Teddy" and words like "Vietnam" and "casualties" were always swirling around--on TV, in the house, everywhere. And I remember hearing about "President Johnson"--I knew that our president was President Johnson as I entered kindergarten. I remember when "Hey Jude" came out and I remember when The Beatles broke up--my brother announced it as if it were the end of the world, and I cried because I thought we'd never see or hear them again--I had no concept of The Beatles as individuals.

Dana's vague early-childhood recollections are of President Nixon resigning and of hearing about a new show called Saturday Night Live. She has no memory of The Smothers Brothers or The Ed Sullivan Show or Red Skelton. When I was six, I watched these shows and my favorite sitcoms were That Girl and Bewitched. When she was the same age, her shows were Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Just six years--but a world of difference.

But back to Mad Men. Though, admittedly, I was not yet born or was an infant during the time the show is set, I do remember things like smoking being de rigueur and people calling stereos "Hi-Fi sets"--that lasted throughout the decade. But I am pretty damn sure that not every single person who ever walked into a room chain-smoked and drank martinis constantly. And I am sure that not every office in Manhattan looked exactly like Darren Stevens' office in Bewitched.

(One of my neighbors in South Philly, trying out
the suburban lifestyle in the late 50s-early 60s)

Though the clothing obviously was well-researched, and I know runway models wore some of these fashions, I never met a woman in a shirt-waist dress with crinolines and pumps and a perfect hairdo. I never saw a pillbox hat in person. And I never heard my Mother say to my Father "Spanking is good for a child." I'm not saying these things did not exist, that they didn't happen somewhere, just not in my experience. I know pillbox hats were popular, I just don't think that every woman wore one to every function. And I wonder how many women were making home-cooked breakfasts for their families dressed and made-up to the nines.

I know the show just won a fist full of Emmys, so I obviously am in the huge minority, but, in my opinion, nothing about the show rings true and it just grinds on my nerves. All the characters look like they're uncomfortable in their customes--which look like costumes. Every time there is a scene that shows a TV screen in passing, it is something iconic--like The Ed Sullivan Show or Jackie Kennedy doing a TV interview with John John and Caroline on her lap. There was one episode in which the office got a photocopy machine, and all the secretaries huddled around it like it was something from Mars. It's really fake. I just wanna say "Okay--we get it! It's the early sixties--you made your point!"

The phoniest part of the show, for me, is the language--both verbal and nonverbal. Dialogue is really difficult to get right, and the pace, the flow, the speech patterns, the jargon--everything--is all wrong. People did not speak then the way they do now; expressions that are part of the vernacular now did not exist then. Things like facial expressions and body posturing--subtle but important aspects of any time or place--are totally off the mark. I keep waiting for one of the secretaries to roll her eyes and say "what-ev."

Dana said to me "How could you not like that show? It's the sixties." That statement said a lot about the difference in our ages. I love Dana, so I was gentle when I told her "1960 is not 'the 60s,' Hon!" And 1960 in Mad Men is not 1960 anywhere else.

Levon Helm Autograph

2008-09-24T18:45:00.000-04:00

I don't have many Band autographs at all. I always hated asking people to sign things. I've done it, of course, but not often.

This is one of only two autographs that I have from Levon Helm. The other is on the Time magazine cover featuring The Band in 1970. I suppose "Stay Strong" was Levon's version of "Live Long and Prosper" or "May Your Memory Serve You Breakfast." All very sweet sentiments.

Something Sad

2008-09-21T18:27:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago, a woman who lives nearby did something accidentally that led to her arrest on misdemeanor charges and she was ripped apart in the newspapers for endangering her child--which, sadly, she did, albeit unintentionally.

This person, very well-liked in the community, is by all accounts a wonderful, kind-hearted person and a devoted mother. She made a mistake--a careless mistake. Her child was unharmed.

Her kids have suffered so much, not because of people in the neighborhood--who have rallied around the family in support--but at the hands of anonymous "screen names" who know nothing about the family or the situation. There was a news story about the incident, it was on the Internet, and I couldn't believe some of the mean, hateful, judgmental, cold-hearted comments written below the online newspaper story about this person. Then again, there were some kind, supportive ones--which I was glad to see.

I saw her this weekend--I know her only well enough to nod and smile in passing; I didn't even know her name until this happened--at a local event and she was smiling and chatting with others, but something in her looked so sad, so lost. She lifted her hand to brush her hair out of her face, and I noticed a long, deep vertical scar on her wrist.

Again, I don't know her. But I just wanted to give her a hug or do or say something to make her feel better or let her know that others care about her--or something. I can't even imagine the torment she went through, and is still going through, just thinking that she inadvertently put her child in harm's way. I've been thinking about her all day.

It made "There But For Fortune" all the more relevant. I am not trying to sound like Little Mary Sunshine, but I wish people could be kinder and more empathetic.

15 People I Can Live Without--Now!!

2008-09-21T14:29:00.001-04:00

I can tell I'm getting cranky. I didn't fall asleep until after 1:00 am and was up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am for my son's early-morning football game. I've got the Sunday "blahs" and I just want to curl up with a good book, a blanket, a cup of tea, and Van Morrison. That's my disclaimer for what I'm about to write.

There are some people who have abused their 15 minutes (or 15 years) of fame and have w-a-a-a-y worn out their welcomes in the public arena. I realize that some of these people have already reproduced, but I would respectfully request that those who have not voluntarily remove themselves from the human gene pool NOW; one of each of you is more than enough. If you've already procreated, at least remove yourselves from the airwaves and from media of all kinds. I wish you happiness, good health, and long lives--but please do it out of public view--or at least out of my view; if I never, ever see or hear you again, it will be too soon.

1. Sarah Palin
2. Rosie O'Donnell
3. "Doctor" Phil
4. Rachael Ray
5. Paris Hilton
6. Lindsay Lohan
7. Elizabeth Hasselbeck
8. "Brangelina"--a twofer
9. "TomKat"--another twofer
10. Billy Mays (the guy with the dyed black hair and the obnoxious voice on the OxyClean commercials)
11. John Edward (the "psychic")
12. Alton Brown (from the Food Network)
13. Madonna
14. Donald Trump
15. Bill O'Reilly

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better now.

Phil Ochs

2008-09-21T07:10:00.002-04:00

Can't stop listening to Phil Ochs lately. What a pure, passionate voice. It's also great to listen to a topical writer who wasn't afraid to be a topical writer. He did not strive to be timeless. He was in his time, of his time, and a total pioneer of the protest singer/songwriter part of the folk revival, and completely synonymous with the zeitgeist of the 60s.

I love his vibrato tenor, I really like his guitar (he wasn't just a "strummer", but an innovative stylist). And "There But For Fortune" is one of the best songs of its time--or any time, because it is thematic, not just topical, and relevant, even now. Too bad Joan Baez had to cover it; she did the same for that song as she did for "Dixie."

Dave Van Ronk described Ochs so vividly and his sartorial style--or lack thereof--obviously is from the Rick Danko School of Fashion. Van Ronk said that he wore these things that "used to be suits" until they were so threadbare and shiny, you could look in their reflection to shave when Ochs stood still. I thought that was cute and made him all the more vulnerable. I love the fact that he got a gold lame' Nudie suit in the least likely era--in between Hippiedom and Bubblegum.

Ochs descended into mental illness and alcoholism, as so many artistic, sensitive souls have done. Sadly, he was too sensitive for the world as it was and took his own life. Thankfully, we have his songs and his wonderful voice. I hope people continue to discover him.

Some Bios and Memoirs I've Read Recently

2008-09-20T15:39:00.001-04:00

I love well-written biographies and memoirs. Memoirs, especially, can really give you a sense of time and place, even if the author is unknown. I really like good bios of musicians, artists, and writers, particularly intimate portraits (as opposed to just chronological, "career" bios). Here are some bios and memoirs I'v read recently, and my thoughts on each of them.

1. Jimi Hendrix: The Intimate Story of a Betrayed Musical Legend by Sharon Lawrence
A well-written, mostly credible, albeit not terribly exciting, read. It gives a good glimpse of Hendrix as a person in and of his time--but since the book was published in 2006, it also has the added benefit of hindsight. I must say that, having worked with artists who I've also considered friends, I find it hard to believe that, after nearly 40 years, Lawrence's detailed recall of the events and conversations is completely accurate. I know that writers sometimes take poetic license, but the dialogue just flows too freely to have been drawn from memory. It's a worthwhile read if you're a fan of Hendrix. For me, the bloom is off the Hendrix rose--kind of been there, done that, and I never fell for the super hype to begin with--but I'd recommend it for the unique perspective. Rating: B-

2. A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties by Suze Rotolo

This was a bit of a disappointment for me but, in fairness to Suze, it may be because my expectations were so very high that it could not have met them. When I found out, well over a year ago, that she was penning a memoir, I was really excited. I always liked Suze because I felt that she never sold out Dylan--or herself. And, unlike many of the "I was there" people who've written books about musicians, Suze really was there--at the beginning, and in a very real way. She's intelligent, well-read, an artist and teacher in her own right.

That makes this book doubly disappointing. I was expecting to really feel the zeitgeist of the Village in that era--and, instead what I felt, just a bit, was a woman who needs the money and decided to ride the Dylan train while it's still on the tracks. It's good for what it is--I mean, it can only be so bad, because Suze Rotolo lived the scene, and even if she were just reporting, that in itself would be pretty exciting. Otherwise, though, I found it lightweight, and you can feel Dylan speaking to Suze as she writes with trepidation. "Now, now Suze--don't embarrass me. You know what I like and don't like. Don't reveal anything."

Were it not for Suze's intelligence and zest for life, this would have been the American folk version of Pattie Boyd's Wonderful Tonight. Like Pattie, Suze remains very real and likable--for me, at least. And there are enough tidbits about the Greenwich Village of the day and enough dropping of eminent names to keep someone interested in that era ploughing through with interest. Rating: B

3. Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me by Pattie Boyd

When I was a kid, Pattie Boyd was like a living, breathing Barbie doll to me. At the age of 8 or 9, my friends and I used to "play London"--in which we all put on very bad, South Philly-infused British accents, wore "play dress-up" high heels, and pretended we were mods on Carnaby Street or, alternately, Beatle wives. Of course, this was in the early 70s, not the 60s, but even then we knew the previous decade had been something special. We used to fight each other to be Pattie because she was the prettiest--and the coolest.

I always had an affection for Pattie, and thought she'd been unfairly pissed on by her two husbands. So when I heard that Pattie was finally writing a book, I was thrilled, to say the least. I felt like a 9-year-old. My best friend couldn't wait, either--we were literally counting the weeks "three more weeks," "one more week." Childish, I know. When I finally had the book in hand, I set out to devour it. I did in a couple of hours--and, had I not re-read parts of it, I could have done it quicker.

Pattie came off sounding like a whiny, clueless, somewhat shallow airhead--seems like nary a page goes by when she's not "in tears"--not to mention the doormat of all doormats. There was nothing really new, no revelations, no insight--just a lot of retellings of the dinner parties and drugs and vacations and excess. Nice to have in the bathroom--you can read it in one visit. Rating: C

4. The Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk and Elijah Wald

Skip Suze Rotolo's welter-weight tome and opt for this instead. Dave Van Ronk not only was there in the midst of the Greenwich Village folk revival--he helped create it. He was on the scene before Dylan, before Phil Ochs, before Tom Paxton, before Eric. He was a true pioneer, a great acoustic blues player (and a walking musical encyclopedia), and a fine songwriter/crafter. It is written in a straightforward, punchy, conversational style--with no wasted words. Sadly, Van Ronk died before the book was completed. Elijah Wald finished it, and did a great job, but he admits that it did not turn out the way it had been planned--to give a broader perspective of the scene with other points of view. Still, I consider this book a must for anyone interested in the folk era of the early 60s. Rating: A-

5. Mr. Tambourine Man: The Life and Legacy of The Byrds' Gene Clark by John Einarson

I love this book. I think it is impeccably researched, very well-written in a conversational style with lots of information, first-hand quotes, and anecdotes. It is a great insight into Gene Clark and what I especially like is that the author, while obviously an admirer of Clark's, does not treat him gingerly or put him up on a pedestal, yet he addresses the hard issues (drugs, alchhol, demons) with integrity and empathy, neither evading them nor sensationalizing them. He could have easily humiliated Gene, but chose instead to honor him in a very honest, believable, compelling way. Rating: A

6. Edie: American Girl by Jean Stein with George Plimpton

This is an "oral biography" with many, many voices, none of which are similar. At first, I thought it was going to be a chaotic hodge-podge, but it is a totally compelling read. If you know nothing about Edie Sedgwick, this is a great place to start. I love it and just could not--and still can't--put it down. The format is deceptively simple; it took a lot of great editing to make such a cohesive read. You feel as if you're living it all with her, yet somehow, you're at a safe distance. Rating: A

7. Modigliani: A Life by Jeffrey Meyers

Like many artistic geniuses, Modi was tormented, addicted and, ultimately, tragic. But he had a vulnerability and a wildness that was very appealing--two generations before The Beats, he embodied everything The Beat Generation spoon-fed to the mainstream over the next two. This is worthy of a read if you have any interest in Modi; the artist's story is compelling enough to shine through the somewhat stodgy, pedantic prose. Rating: B-

A Sweet Memory of Eric

2008-09-19T22:04:00.000-04:00

After my baby Rachel died in the late summer of 2002, I was mentally, if not physically, close to catatonic for months. Somehow, with my husband's help, I was able to carve out enough strength to maintain a sense of calm and normalcy for my son. But on the inside, I was slowly dying.

I really don't remember much about that year. I remember Eric Andersen calling me one day to ask if I would write a revised bio for him. I had not spoken to Eric for quite a while--since shortly after Rick died--and he had no idea what had happened. When I told him, he was extremely sweet and sympathetic and encouraged me to talk about her. He asked me her name, and said it was a beatiful name. That was so important to me--just the fact that someone asked her name; she wasn't just "the baby."

After a long talk, I ended up crying and Eric said there was a way to heal. "Write your way out of it," he said. And I never forgot his words. "When you get really sad, just write. Write and it will help you."

I thought it had been at least a year after Rachel's death that Eric had called me. But today I found this book on my shelf, as I was looking for some books to lend to a friend who is very interested in The Beats. I remembered that Eric had written a piece in this book, The Rolling Stone Book of The Beats, and I opened the book to search the table of contents. And I found Eric's sweet salutation--dated October, 2002. Eric is not the touchy-feely warm and fuzzy type, but he's sensitive. "Sweet" for Eric is not mushy; it's just kind. Had a friend not asked for these Beat books, I may not have seen this signature ever again.

Until I saw this book today, I'd totally forgotten that he'd sent it to me after we talked. He knew I loved the Beat poets, and he'd encouraged me to go back and read them. Eric and I always had that Beat connection--he's the only person I knew personally who really understood and was touched by their raw passion the same way I was.

He sent this to me and, since I wasn't ready at the time, I apparently just put it on the shelf. I'm so glad I found it--and I can't wait to finally read it.

I'd Rather Have the Glass Ceiling

2008-09-13T14:13:00.000-04:00

I should start by saying that I rarely follow politics. When the dunce who watches cartoons in the Oval Office was re-elected for a second term, that was the end of my giving politics even a passing nod.

That said, am I dreaming, or is Sarah Palin seriously a contender for Vice President of this country? You know how sometimes you have a bad dream that seems so realistic, you don't realize it's a dream, and then you suddenly wake up? This is one of those, right?

Okay, I could, if I had to, deal with Thomas Kinkade "paintings" in the White House. I mean, there's no accounting for personal taste and I guess it's a step up from the Disney characters that adorn the walls now.

But from the moment I saw this woman, she rubbed me the wrong way. I had a very deep "uh-oh" reaction. And, as I sometimes do when I get an initial bad gut reaction, I second-guessed myself. Maybe it's just the rimless glasses and the 50s updo that's skewed my intuition. "I don't like her," is not fair. It's not warranted. I knew nothing about her. I had to delve deeper.

I've been trying to really read, and listen, and watch. Forget style: where are these candidates on the issues? What are they going to do for this country? I watched Palin's interview with Charles Gibson. I could not believe what was unfolding before my eyes. She didn't know what "Bush doctrine" meant. Okay, that was a red flag, but it wasn't the end of the world. I thought I heard her say "nuke-you-lar," but that's just a mental block, or maybe a tic. There are some things that are out of our control.

I watched more. I could not believe the naive, uninformed, and downright stupid answers coming out of this woman's mouth. You know how sometimes you just assume that other people know something that you don't? Sometimes something sounds ridiculous to you, so you think it has to be you who is uninformed. I mean, she's a vice presidential candidate, so she has to know something, right? Wrong.

I'd like to thank both Barack Obama and John McCain for single-handedly (or double-handedly) setting women back 100 years, Obama by not choosing the intelligent, experienced, sophisticated Hil as his running mate and McCain by plucking this dowdy moose-hunting school marm from the Last Frontier, sticking her in a $50 polyester suit from Lerner's, and thrusting her into the national political arena. If this is the bone being thrown to women, I'd rather do without. We need strong, experienced, intelligent leadership in this country, not tokens, gestures, and marketing ploys.

Isn't our great country enough of an international laughingstock?

A Place in My Heart for Folk

2008-09-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

I've been listening to a lot of folk music lately. Not folk-rock, but the early to mid 60s Village folk-revival stuff, like Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Eric, Richard and Mimi Farina.

What inevitably happens when I get into these folkie moods, though, is that I go off on an early-Dylan tangent, and that's the end of everything. Because there's just no comparison and once I'm in a Dylan mood, there's no turning back.

I've made a conscious effort not to do that this week. I'm writing a profile on Tom Paxton, who's performing in my area with Judy Collins in November. I've always wanted to write something on Mr. Paxton, but the opportunity just never arose. Now it has. He's going to be performing at the Paramount Center in Peekskill, New York, and I wanted to preview the show. I like Judy Collins, sort of, but have never been a big fan. I decided to focus on Tom and let some people who might not otherwise listen to folk music know a little bit about him, his beautiful songs, and his importance to folk music.

To prep myself for the interview and to get a sense of his early music in context, I dug out some of my folk CDs. I remember Eric telling me years ago, in his very blunt way, that I should "study" Tom Paxton if I wanted to understand the early 60s folk scene. Knowing Eric, he was probably appalled that I'd never heard of Tom Paxton until DFA covered his songs. Tom discovered Eric, and Eric has always had an affection for him and a great respect for his music.

He brought two of Tom's songs--"Last Thing On My Mind" and "Bottle of Wine"--to the Trio, and those are two of my favorite Trio songs. Rarely have I heard anything as beautiful as Rick's harmonies on "Last Thing On My Mind"--but that's another tangent.

In the past two weeks or so, I've been listening to things like Phil Ochs' "There But For Fortune," Eric's "Thirsty Boots" and "Hey Babe," and even the real corny "follow-the-bouncing-ball" reveries like the New Christy Minstrels' "Green Green" and the Highwaymen's "Michael (Row the Boat Ashore)."

I can't take it too long, and there is a definite cringe factor for me with the folk vocal-group stuff of the late 50s/early 60s Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, Minstrels, Limeliters tunes. That's a genre in itself, and I have to keep telling myself that the Minstrels' spawned both Gene Clark and Barry McGuire--two of my very favorites.
But that's another tangent.

Listening to this kind of folk is not something I can do for long stretches. But it feels good when I do. It's refreshing--and cleansing. Like swishing with Listerine.

Sometimes I Feel Like Sisyphus

2008-09-12T12:14:00.000-04:00

When I was young, I read Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, and it hit home immediately. I realized that there was not only a description of—but an entire myth about— one of my biggest fears in life. From the time I was a child, and before I could even understand—let alone articulate—it, one of my life’s goals was to avoid spending my life rolling that boulder up the mountain day in and day out.

Unlike Sisyphus, I never wanted to or even knew how to be cunning or conniving, and have always had a kind of “you reap what you sow” outlook on and approach to life. Of course, I have questioned that approach throughout my life, wondering why I’ve been “punished” by the loss of so many I love, but I’ve done my best to maintain my morals and ethics without being naïve. All I’ve ever wanted, besides the health, safety, and happiness of my loved ones, is to be able to do creative, productive things and, hopefully, to do some good for others.

Still, even as a kid, I knew on some very primal level, you didn’t have to be evil to be doomed to a life of rolling a boulder up a mountain only to have it fall down to the bottom and have to do it all over again the next day. I watched my Father, a brilliant man, the epitome of honesty and integrity, in his painter’s overalls, and I knew something didn’t fit. I knew that something, somewhere, had gone awry to put a mind and a heart that could have cured diseases or created meaningful legislation or written books into splotched painter’s overalls.

Late one night recently, my husband and I were searching in vain for something decent to watch on TV, and, somewhere among the 500 channels of garbage, we stumbled upon a program—on the Food Network, I think—about various shore “resorts” in the U.S.

What caught my attention—briefly—was a heavy-set woman in her late 50s or early 60s, talking enthusiastically about the different flavors of salt-water taffy her company made. She was wearing no makeup, her hair was unkempt, and she had that glazed-over Stockholm Syndrome look in her eye that told me that standing behind this counter with her Company vest and her Company smile, singing the praises of her Company and her Company’s product, was this poor soul’s lot in life. “I’ve been here for thirty-five years!” she exclaimed, with glaze but no sparkle in her eye. I shuddered.

I am not judging her. We all do what we have to do. I've always had a working-class ethic and always will. I think it’s what’s kept me from “pursuing” a lucrative “career”--you know, like a hedge-fund manager or something. I guess on some level, it’s because I never want to be too far from my parents—and wealth is far from my parents. On another level, it’s because I don’t believe in “careers.” I believe in passion. In dreams. I guess that’s where the “idealist” part of my temperament comes in. I believe that life is too short to strive merely to “have a good career.” What you do with the precious time you have here on Earth should be what you love, or at least what you feel you need to do in this world, because it’s in your soul—not because you’re climbing some corporate ladder. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way—but it usually does if you give it all you’ve got, mind, body and soul.

I’ve had many jobs in my life, and have always worked and been proud of that fact. I’ve never looked for a free ride—and wouldn’t accept one if it were handed to me. Working for a living is noble.—and, for most people, necessary. But thirty-five years wearing somebody’s uniform and talking in Company-speak? That’s too long.

I recognize that I have a dread of the mundane; it’s one of my many weaknesses. But that doesn’t mean I have a dread of simple things. I actually like working—if I’m working on something I care about, something that’s mine, regardless of how much—or how little—money I’m making. I’d rather make pottery and sell it on the street than be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I’d rather create something—anything—than internalize a Company credo or study an Employee handbook.

My fear is not of working. My fear is becoming a hamster on a wheel. Or worse yet, Sisyphus.

I'm W-a-a-a-y Too Clingy to Be a Buddhist

2008-09-10T21:18:00.000-04:00

I'm really disappointed. As much as I still love the fairytales I learned in parochial school, I can no longer call myself a Catholic by any stretch of the imagination (though I do feel very guilty about saying that and am scared that Purgatory awaits if I don't change my mind, and then I'll have to spend eternity with a bunch of wishy-washy people, which is its own kind of hell; maybe I do have a little Catholic left in me).

Anyway, Buddhism was beginning to make a lot of sense to me. I've been fascinated with it for many years. It is pragmatic, bare-bones, organized, and logical. There is no fluff, no bullshit, no shame, no guilt, no wishful thinking. It is full of cause-and-effect relationships, and has lots of cool words associated with it, like "karma" and "dharma." It's also really well organized, with cool numbered premises and passages like "The Four Noble Truths" and "The Noble Eightfold Path" and "The Three Marks of Existence." As an ADD person whose mind resembles a scrambled cable signal and who is in dire need of organization, I see these numbered tenets as a real bonus.

There's just one problem. It's a silly little thing called Dukkha. Dukkha, one of the Three Marks of Existence, is difficult to translate. Some say it means "suffering," but some Buddhists dispute that definition. It is more complex than that--actually, it means "the world," the whole of our human experiences--but for the sake of this little blog entry, I'll say that it means, more or less, suffering or uneasiness, particularly the suffering and uneasiness that results from our attachments to that which is earthly and transitory--which is, let's face it, pretty much everything. These attachments include attachments to love, to life, to health, to joy, and to people. When we are attached, we are bound to suffer when that to which we are attached is gone--which it inevitably will be.

See, one of the basic premises--rather, goals--of Buddhism is to become free, free of worldly attachments. To recognize that everything is transitory, everything is in flux--love ends, life ends, joy ends. Therefore, being attached results in pain, in longing. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to achieve a state of Nirvana, in which the mind is clear, and lucid--a liberated mind that no longer clings.

Sounds good, but I'm clingy! My husband's clingy, my son is clingy, my dog is clingy. I am a person who is deeply attached to those I love, who has suffered because of attachment when I've lost loved ones I've been attached to, and who would still rather suffer the longing than to never have experienced the profound attachment. I'm attached to my loves who are here; and I'm attached to my loves who have gone beyond.

As Van wonders aloud in one of my favorite songs ever: "How can we not be attached--after all we're only human." I agree. Attachment is the very essence of what it is to be human. At least in my life. Sorry Buddha. I really tried!

ADD--My Oldest Friend

2008-09-10T18:38:00.000-04:00

I've never been calm. I've never had a quiet mind. My mind has always been restless, and so has my body. I need white noise or some other humming noise to fall asleep, I have vivid dreams, and I wake up with my mind "on." Though reading and writing are part of my very being, I have a certain type of difficulty when it comes to both. I am a slow reader, not because I have a problem with comprehension or with understanding the words on the page, but because I love words so much, I tend to go off on tangents of various kinds when reading.

If a piece is well written, I'll read certain passages--even phrases and words--over and over, to savor them. If I fall in love with a word, phrase, or adage, I'll look it up and, before I know it, I'm researching the etymology. When--and if--I go back to the original passage, I'm in a different "place" and, unless what I'd been reading is so compelling that it pulls me back in, I find that I have to put that particular book or article down and go onto something else: the moment is gone.

I especially have difficulty with fiction. I am fine with short stories, poetry, and plays. It's the novels that are difficult, though I've read many--likely hundreds. If a book is slow-moving, though, I'm done. I cannot read under duress, and I just don't have the patience to hold on until the train picks up speed. I may jump around and, like a three-year-old trying not to open her presents before Christmas morning, I have to consciously tell myself not to look at the ending. More often than not, I do, and once I know the ending, unless the writing is phenomenal, I will skim through parts rather than read every word.

When it comes to nonfiction, my M.O. is to start with the index and look up all the people, places, and things I'm interested in. Once I've done that, I read the parts that seem interesting. Then I go through the rest of the book. I eventually read everything--I just do it in an ass-backwards way. And books with no indexes are the bane of my existence. If I'm in a bookstore and flip to the back of a book I'm interested in and there's no index, my attitude is "No index, no customer!" Unless it's something I'm dying to read, I won't buy it. I know--totally immature.

But it's also, as I've discovered just in the past two or three years, classic: a classic sign of ADD. Though I haven't been formally diagnosed, there's no doubt that I have ADD. I've taken several ADD assesments, and in every one of them, I scored well above the "blank and above" indicator for ADD. On one test, a score of 70 or above indicated ADD. I scored a 91. Terry Danko told me that means I have "ADDD."

I think he may be right. As my family physician has told me--more than once--I'm a "textbook case" of adult ADD. The last time she told me this (she's not very subtle) was recently, when I missed an appointment because I lost the notebook--the one I bought so I could keep track of things like appointments instead of forgetting them--in which I wrote the time and date. I'm sure that notebook is somewhere among the scores of half-filled notebooks in the notebook graveyard in my office.

I lose things constantly--not just incidentals, but big things, expensive things, important things, priceless things. I can't tell you how many times I've lost my engagement ring. I've lost my birth certificate, my social security card, my car keys, mortgage statements. I even lost my Mother's locket--which was and is so precious to me. Thankfully, I've found all of these things, but losing and misplacing important things is extremely frustrating and disheartening. It also makes me feel guilty though, try as I may, I can't seem to change it. My husband helps me tremendously by reminding me of things and by being exceptionally organized himself. Before I met Michael, my car problems were like something out of the Keystone Kops. I probably ran out of gas and either had to be towed or had to call a friend to bail me out by bringing gas two or three times a year--which is a lot, since it happens to most people once in a lifetime, if ever. Michael told me that he never knew there was an "empty gas tank" icon on cars until he met me!

Is it because I am careless? Reckless? An adamant "no" to both. I consider myself a perfectionist and try to be meticulous in everything I do. Usually, I succeed. It's just that it takes more effort--or at least a different kind of effort--for me than it does for someone who doesn't have ADD.

Luckily, I have another classic sign of ADD, and this has helped me more than I can say, as a writer, editor, and publicist: I have the ability to hyper-focus for long periods of time without getting tired or daunted. That means, I can edit, search for just the right word, make lots of media calls, and stay on task until a project is done--or until a particular part of a project is done. Or until I get restless again.

My restlessness is not limited to reading, writing, and keeping track of things. I have always been physically restless, too. If I stay in one place too long--and by place, I don't mean city or even neighborhood, I mean room, chair, or desk--I get antsy and sometimes even irritable. Snowstorms--forget it. Just the idea of knowing that I am "stuck"--even if I had no plans to go out--is enough to send me into a panic attack.

My mind wanders the moment there is a lull in conversation or activity and I am easily bored. I can tune out entire conversations when they bore me and know (usually), just by some innate sense of rhythm, when to "zone back in" so as not to offend the speaker. Afterward, of course, I avoid that person like the plague :-)

Then there's structure. While self-imposed structure is great--even necessary--for me, particularly when deadlines are looming or when I have a goal that I'm working toward, it's external structure that is sometimes hard to handle, depending on the form it takes. Some types of physical structure are welcome. I realize that part of my love for cities has to do with the fact that they are structured and grid-like and generally easy to navigate. But give me a black country road and I freeze. Having lived in a semi-rural environment for nearly a decade and a half, I don't panic the way I once did~as long as there is a streetlight or signpost somewhere.

The structure that is hard for me to take physically has to do with being--or feeling--closed in. From closed-up rooms with no ventilation to offices without windows to boxed-off workspaces to turtleneck sweaters to hats and hoods to neck scarves and chokers, that kind of "structure" and I do not mix. I am a free spirit--always have been, and that means physically, too. I can't remember the last time I had a pair of shoes on my feet for more than thirty seconds after stepping inside the house.

ADD is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a way of thinking and doing things. Lots of my heroes, including Rick, had or have ADD. I interviewed Tom Paxton just yesterday and found out that he, too, has it. It can be very conducive to creativity and productivity of certain kinds but, unless and until you realize you have it and adapt accordingly, it can cause depression--because you think you're just "scatterbrained," when that's not always the case. I've taken many steps to adapt. And at least I'm in good company.

Melancholia

2008-09-04T15:30:00.000-04:00

I’ve always found myself drawn to the melancholy aspects of life. It hasn’t been by choice; I’m sure that it’s on a subconscious yet deeply embedded level. And it’s not as if I like the melancholy aspects of life—“attraction” and “liking” are not necessarily one and the same.

From the time I was a child, I was drawn to—attuned to—the sadness of others—not in the sense that I enjoyed their sadness or wanted to be sad myself, but in that I empathized with them and wanted to help alleviate their sadness. I’m not talking about a 13-year-old who works as a hospital volunteer to help sick people (although I did that, too). I’m talking about a 6 or 7-year-old who empathized with the pain of a 70-year-old Holocaust survivor—though I had no idea what the Holocaust was or what "survivor" met—or an 80-year-old widower. I empathized so much that I took on some of the pain myself and felt added sorrow because I could not take theirs away.

My compassion for these people—neighbors, mostly—did not keep me from having fun. Like my friends, I played with dolls, rode my bike, skated, played tag and hopscotch, skinned my knees, and sometimes misbehaved. But while I played, or skated, or rode my bike, I might notice that Sarah or Minnie or Bessie or Mrs. Liebowitz were outside sitting on their steps or their benches or beach chairs, and I’d go over to talk to them. In the wintertime, I’d sometimes knock on Dorothy’s door to see if she wanted me to get her milk from Danny’s Grocery, or her carton of Camels. Or I’d go have tea with Mrs. Liebowitz and listen to her talk about her long-dead husband. I suppose I realized early on that playing, like life itself, was temporary. I didn’t know that for sure, of course—I merely suspected it. And I spent the ensuing years of my childhood wondering if my suspicions were true.

I remember my Dad taking me to the Ringing Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus when I was about eight, and feeling a sense of malaise afterward. As we were heading out of the venue—we lived within walking distance of the Spectrum, where it took place—I held onto my Father’s hand, looking behind me the whole time we were walking, not at the vendors selling cotton candy and souvenirs, but at the clowns heading to their trailers sans smiles and the elephants being corralled as handlers yelled at them impatiently. I didn’t tell my Father how I felt, because I knew he wanted me to love the circus. But I told my Mom, who told me that all the other kids at the circus were laughing and having fun—not worried about whether the clowns missed their parents or if the elephants were sad because they had to stand up in trailers. “I never heard of it!” she’d say, exasperated but smiling, when I asked a loaded question. “Go play! Have some fun!” She’d always tell me I was a good girl with a good heart, and that would appease me for the moment—but I never stopped wondering about the clowns and the elephants, and the fact that my questions weren’t answered told me that those clowns did miss their parents and the elephants were sad.

After many years of loss and introspection, I came to realize that I wasn’t born with a melancholic temperament—or a Four on the Enneagram, as I have confirmed conclusively—but I certainly was born into melancholy. The reason that I cried for Mrs. Liebowitz, and the clowns and the elephants had nothing to do with my being a “wet blanket” or a “sad sack.” It had to do with Gregory.

With Gregory, Christmas '78, five months
before he died.

It was when I was born that Gregory, my oldest brother and, from when I was a baby, the light of my life, began getting “into trouble,” as they called it in vague and hushed tones back then. Gregory was 12 ½ when I was born, and it was that year that he started cutting school. It was that year that the whispering and spelling began. Then it was “t-r-u-a-n-c-y” and “d-e-t-e-n-t-i-o-n c-e-n-t-e-r.” I learned to spell early so that by the time things like “h-e-r-o-i-n” and “m-e-t-h-a-d-o-n-e” were being spelled, I was way ahead of the game. I didn’t know what those things were, exactly, but I knew they made my Mother cry and hold her heart and my Father turn somber and old before his time. To shield myself, I developed a very keen sense for knowing and not knowing at the same time. It was called denial.

Me--Through the Lens of Rick Danko

2008-09-02T22:45:00.001-04:00

This is so random, but I thought I'd put it up just because. I found this photo recently and it made me laugh.

It was taken by Rick in February, 1994, at the Paramount Hotel in New York City. Rick said "Go get your camera," and we went down to where these "funhouse" mirrors were. He took this picture of me which, obviously, is very distorted. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of Rick--behind the camera, wearing his "bug" shirt and moccasins.

I like it because it's just like him--crazy!

Laugh, You Dreary Russians!

2008-08-30T16:39:00.000-04:00

It's a wonder I'm not bipolar, or schizophrenic--or worse. I don't mean that facetiously--I mean, it really is a wonder, considering the family dynamic I grew up with, that I'm not much more melancholy and introspective and philosophical than I already am.

Don't get me wrong; I love a good laugh. And I think I have a good sense of humor. Thankfully, I'm a free thinker and don't take any of society's rules and trappings too seriously. But, unfortunately for me, I seem to have gotten my core temperament from my Father's side of the family, not my Mother's.

My Mom had the cheerful, warm, happy-go-lucky, down-to-Earth disposition that people were drawn to. She rarely complained, even in the face of illness and personal tragedy, but instead, made those around her feel happy, comfortable, and welcome. I picture her teaching me to jitterbug and playing 500 Rummy in the kitchen with my Grandmother.

My Dad was honest, kind, loving, intelligent, well-read. Happy-go-lucky and cheerful he was not. My Father had an Old World, Eastern European mindset: Family, respect, and tradition were what he was all about. There were no off-color jokes, no inapporpriate TV shows, no profanity, no drinking, no referring to your parents with a pronoun. My Mother used to say he had Abraham Lincoln's morals and Gregory Peck's face. But when she got fed up, she would tell him he didn't know how to laugh.

Gregory Peck's face didn't do me a lot of good, but Abraham Lincoln's morals were always looming over me. It wasn't just Abraham Lincoln's morals, either. There was that dreary Russian thing. That grawing darkness that always hung over my Father's family like a dark cloud ready to pour torrents on my head. The "Nostrovia" at the holidays that sent chills down my spine before I even knew what it meant, just because it sounded dreary and scary.

My Dad was the second youngest of six children, and the only boy. Had they been a little less depressing, my aunts could have had successful careers in the funeral industry. My memories of them are of somber, stone-faced, stick-thin women dressed in black and smelling like camphor. They were "good," my Mother reassured me when I was very little and hiding under the dining room table because I knew my Aunt Olga was coming for a visit. I was an astute four-year-old, though. I quickly picked up on the fact that she said "good" and not "nice," so "good," for me, came to be synonymous with someone who wouldn't kill you but wouldn't ever hug you. The Gloomy Gene seemed to have skipped only one--my Aunt Betty--the middle sister, the sweetest one, who I always just assumed was adopted. She was married to an Italian, and I am sure some of his warmth rubbed off on her over the years. But Russian and Italian is a volatile mix; there's just too much intensity of different kinds to ever co-mingle in a harmonious way.

I liken the combination of Italian and Russian blood in my veins to the ethnic equivalent of a speedball.

On the Cusp

2008-08-30T12:09:00.000-04:00

Technically, I'm a Baby Boomer. I was born in 1962, and the time span for Boomers is roughly 1946 to 1964. According to some, the "cutoff" for Boomers is 1962. By some accounts, Generation Xers are those born after 1962; by others, it is those born after 1964.

Either way, the age span for Boomers is nearly a generation. And either way, I am on the cusp. I've always known this, and have never felt truly part of either generation. I know where my heart is--in the 60s--but that doesn't change the fact that I grew up in the 70s and spent my adolescence awash in disco.

Sixteen years ago, I wrote an essay called "On the Cusp." I never published it, or tried to, but I gave it to both Eric Andersen and, with some trepidation, to Gregory Corso. I guess I was hoping for an icon from the generation I so admired to understand what I perceived as a "predicament." I don't think either of them did.

It seems I'm on a lifelong mission to understand--if not embrace--this "straddling" of generations myself. After many years of reading, writing, and experiencing, I've gotten closer--but still no cigar. Hopefully, there will be a "cigar" in the near future.

Catholic School and Bullshit: a Match Made in Heaven

2008-08-27T18:27:00.000-04:00

I've always had a low tolerance for bullshit. I can see it and feel it a mile away, and I hate it. I just don't understand it. What is the need for bullshit? Why not just be honest and straightforward? Why lie? Why disguise? Why fucking pretend?

I have been this way all my life. When I was in grade school, the nuns used to call me "Curious Carol" because I never took anything at face value unless it made sense to me, so I asked questions. Curiosity—I know now—is a good, if not necessary, quality to have. But in Catholic school—Catholic school in South Philadelphia in the seventies—curiosity was not rewarded. I think it may have even qualified as a venial sin. Mortal sins, of course, were much more serious. Mortal sins included—at least back in the day—murder and missing mass on Sunday. (I don't know where child molestation by clergy members ranked; it was not something one asked. It was veiled by pedantic rhetoric and stoic bullshit.)

In the early days of Vatican II, the nuns loosened up a bit. In the early 70s, they gave up their long, cumbersome habits for to-the-knee uniforms and mid-shoulder veils. They also played songs like "Day By Day" and "Morning Has Broken" on their guitars at Friday morning mass, under the guise of being hip and modern and open-minded. But it was all bullshit.

When I was in fourth grade, in religion class, Sister Rosemary—who, physically, was a cross between a linebacker and a lumberjack—gave me three demerits for insubordination when I raised my hand and asked her what "manna" was. She was lecturing about how manna fell from the sky to feed the Israelites in the wilderness and what a miracle it was and how it fed so many hungry people, so I thought asking what manna was was a reasonable question. (I stopped short of asking who the Israelites were—which, of course, wasn't explained to us either—because I instinctively knew that the Israelites, whoever they were, certainly weren't Catholic, and that kind of question would make Sister Rosemary's fat, doughy face all red and blotchy, and she'd look at me with those sternly knitted eyebrows and those big yellow buck teeth, which looked even bucker when she got mad.)

So I asked her what I thought was an innocuous question because I really wanted to know what I was believing in before I said "I believe." But Sister Rosemary said I was being disrespectful. I was crushed and I cried—not because I got demerits, but because I loved God and thought God would be angry at me and maybe also punish me for something I didn't intend to do. After all, if Sister Rosemary thought I was being disrespectful and she was a representative of God, God would think I was disrespectful, too. And that would hurt me more than being punished. So I asked God silently to forgive me and, equally important (to me, anyway), to still love me.

It was probably 20 years before I was able to admit—and really believe--that a) I was a good kid b) God not only still loved me but was probably rooting for me and c) Sister Rosemary didn't know what the fuck she was talking about and had no idea what manna was so she punished me for her own stupidity. It was another 10 years before I would allow myself to believe and really internalize that most of it was bullshit anyway.

The world is rife with bullshit—always was, probably always will be. And, though I have even less tolerance for it now than I did back then, I somehow always find myself having to deal with it.

Coming of Age: Girls High and Dylan

2008-08-27T10:01:00.000-04:00

The winter of '77 might have been totally bleak and desolate, except that a whole new world had exploded open for me—in more ways than one. I'd started Girls High the previous fall—my Mother had allowed me to attend, albeit under duress: I told her flat-out that if she made me attend the all-girls St. Maria Goretti--where it was a prerequisite for students to be pregnant by junior year, engaged by senior year, and in hairdressing school upon graduation—that I would run away, or kill myself, I hadn't yet decided which.

It was the first time that I'd blatantly rebelled against my parents. They had my best interests at heart, as they always did, but this time—for the first time ever—I knew they were wrong. They just didn't understand that Girls High was the best school in Philadelphia--it was a magnet school for serious students, for college-bound girls; you had to apply and take a test to be considered, and I had been one of only three girls selected out of my entire eighth-grade class to attend.

In my parents' minds, Goretti was a better—and safer—choice: it was a Catholic school—which, I knew even then, meant nothing more than that you had to pay to attend and you'd get easier penance for saying "fuck you" to your brother than you would otherwise. But it was also close by, and safe—"safe" in the sense of "the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't." Really, they were just worried about my taking the subway from one end of the city to the other—a valid concern, no doubt. But I was sure I could take care of myself. Even though I was innocent as a lamb, I could have an attitude when I wanted to, and even feign street toughness when needed.

So with tears, pleads, and half-hearted threats, I convinced my parents that if I had any chance of going to college and following my dreams, of getting out of the 'hood once and for all, Girls High was my ticket. Plus, there were lots of things more dangerous than taking the Broad Street Subway. And my sitting in a classroom full of brainless gum-cracking Goretti guidos for four years was one of them.

Within a week of starting Girls High, I realized that I wasn't crazy—there really was more to life than watching my brothers' friends drink beer on 7th and Porter. There were other people—Girls! Teenage girls! Pretty, popular, smart teenage girls who weren't nerds!—who read books—for enjoyment. Girls who contemplated the meaning of life, who wanted more out of life than a hairdresser's certificate from the Helena Rubenstein Beauty School and a cloudy quarter-carat diamond from Penney's jewelry department. There was a different kind of existence, a life that I'd had since I was four years old—and other people had it too: a life of the mind. Maybe I wasn't nuts; maybe I was just smart.

My 10th grade Italian class at GHS (I'm
in the back row, with the black/striped
sweater, making "devil horns" over Mary
Martucci).

At Girls High, though, everyone was smart. All the girls who attended were there because a) they wanted to be and b) they were allowed to be. It was a college prep school that drew the best students from all over the city. I had some tough competition—but I never competed. I had no desire to be valedictorian. I just wanted to learn. To learn and to be—to be me.

Also within that first week, I'd developed my first high-school crush. Since it was an all-girls school, I had no choice but to fall in love with Mr. Kauriga, my music teacher. He was tall, dark, handsome—and Russian. He had a goatee and looked vaguely bohemian. And he had a cute name: Dimitri. But most important, he was a musician—he spoke my language.

Mr. Kauriga took a liking to me and was impressed by my knowledge of sixties music—a bit of an anomaly for teenage girls in the disco era. He gave me full access to the music room after school, and suggested that I use my knowledge and fascination with the music and culture of the sixties to create something. He said I could use the music department's soundproof studios to write, practice, record—whatever I wanted to do. I decided that I was going to write a play. It would be set in the sixties and the music of the British Invasion would be the soundtrack. I would need to record some songs. Actually, I just wanted to use Mr. Kauriga's studio-quality reel-to-reel, and thread the big Teac spools of tape, so that I could pretend I was in a real recording studio, like Abbey Road, or Electric Ladyland, or the Hit Factory—a little bit of training for what, at that time, I thought my future career would be: a recording engineer.

I took vocal music as an elective that year, taught by Mr. Murphy. Half of our grade would be based upon a book report of a vocalist of our choice. This is a shoo-in, I thought: easy "A." I'll just do The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies—which I knew word-for-word, fact-by-fact. But when Mr. Murphy announced the criteria and the parameters in class, he was clear: "You may write about any singer or singers of the twentieth century for whom a full-length, written biography exists. Except Carol—you may not write about The Beatles. That would be cheating." Everybody laughed, I blushed and my heart sank.

Mr. Murphy then proceeded to hand out a list of suggested biographies, which included such names as Mario Lanza, John McCormick, Barbara Streisand, Maria Callas, and lots of other people who sounded as boring as their names. About two-thirds down the list, one name and three syllables that would change my life: Bob Dylan.

Grey, Grey Winter

2008-08-26T23:14:00.000-04:00

It was the coldest, rawest winter I could remember. A desolate, damp, tattle-tale grey winter whose soundtrack was Dylan's Blood On the Tracks and Desire and Paul Simon's Greatest Hits. They were released at different times, yes, but in the winter of '77, that's what I was listening to--it was almost like I needed Paul Simon to take the edge off of Dylan. I'd listen to "Idiot Wind" and then temper it with "Slip Slidin' Away." Dylan's music was so raw and naked and forceful, I was almost embarrassed to listen to at that young age--I'd never heard anything like it before. I didn't know you could say things like "You're an idiot, babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe," and set it to music.

Everything that winter was happy for me--on the outside. It was before Gregory died, and his life seemed relatively carefree. I was a good kid, sheltered. I didn't smoke or drink, didn't have a curfew because I didn't need one. My life was about school and friends and records and shows like "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley." On the inside, though, I was a jumble of existential questions, quiet rebellion, and young teen angst.

The winter of '77 was a winter whose landscape was dotted with car exhaust-blackened snow and ice, dirty abandoned, graffitied rowhouses all 'round, and trees that would have been just nondescript, except that they were ugly and putrid. Didn't know there were putrid trees, but there were, and the only ugly trees I knew where here, in this ravaged part of the city, lining the tiny smudges of patchy littered crabgrass and weeds that passed for parks in this bedraggled urban hellhole I called home.

I imagined the aroma of fragrant pines and spruce and cedar in some forest primeval as I walked the broken concrete path that cut through the "park," adorned only with industrial orange barrels and garbage cans burning last month's rotting leaves and last year's smelly trash.

I imagined long-haired English boys in Carnaby Street and King's Road. I imagined flower children in the Haight and scruffy young men in the mountains and hippies in the Canyon. I imagined mini-skirted Mary Quant models and mods on mini bikes and lovers in convertibles and what I got were greaseball hoods dressed like Rocky and singing flat, dated a capella on 10th and Porter.

Somewhere was that scene, that timeless, placeless scene that had been with me, that had rested deep inside me, in my core, in my soul, that had resonated with me and made my pulse race, that felt like home though it was so foreign. Somewhere it existed in reality. But it wasn't in this fucking shithole, that was for sure.

Hangin' with the Dharma Bums

2008-08-26T22:38:00.000-04:00

I remember the first City Lights black-and-white softcover that caught my eye. It was Gregory Corso's Gasoline, and it cost something like $2.50. It was the mid 1970s and I can guarantee, without a doubt, that I was the only young teenage Catholic girl in the city of Philadelphia who was scoping out Robins Bookstore for City Lights titles by Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti, and Kerouac.

It was listening to Dylan's Blood On the Tracks that first opened my mind--opened it way beyond my comfort zone at the time. Remember, I was only 14--and a sheltered, innocent 14 at that. Before Dylan, I'd thought that John Lennon was the ultimate intellectual rock god. But Dylan was a whole new world. I wanted to know everything he knew. To be inspired by everyone and everything that inspired him. He was my new guru. But I had to keep it a secret, for fear of humiliation among the girls in the hood.

In smoky, seedy Robins Bookstore on 13th & Market--where dirty old men with cigars and trenchcoats used to buy their porn, across from the big old church--St. John's, I think--I'd indulge in my deep, dark secret--poetry, the poetry of the Beats. It felt irreverant, exciting, scintilating. Corso wrote about things that shouldn't have been written about--like "Greenwich Village Suicide"--in such a powerful, real, no-bullshit way. It was refreshing--and a little scary.

Fast-forward 14 years or so. I'm hanging with Allen Ginsberg--a friend of a friend who I worked with in the music biz--overhearing him whisper in his sweaty, porno-intellectual voice about the charms of "pretty young boys." I am mortified, pretending to be asleep, and that same day, my hero, Rick, the proverbial nice guy come to life, rescues me from the admittedly literary, often gentle--but absolutely profane--reality that is Ginsberg. Rick walks in, nonchalantly, smoking a cigarette, and chats with Allen--who is wide-eyed and immediately taken with him. They talk for a sec about Bob Dylan, then somehow the small talk meanders to desserts (one of Rick's favorite topics). Rick's talking about apple pie, cake, and ice cream, as the most famous poet in the world sits mesemerized, fascinated, smitten by this sweet, unassuming guy--a rock-and-roll legend.

Then Rick cuts the chit-chat short with an amiable, "Alright Allen, see ya later, Buddy," and we leave. A minute or so of silence as we walk, then Rick gently admonishes me: "That's no place for you." In hindsight, it was quite endearing.

But this Beat journey of mine was just beginning. A few weeks later, at a poetry reading/book fair in the Village, a vodka-soaked, dirty, toothless, track-marked Gregory Corso, a literary rebel I'd admired from afar for so many years, is groping at me and, before I can react, I feel his hand on the small of my back, when I turn around and grab his arm, and yell in the South Philly dago accent I forgot I had, "Oh!!! Whadaya doin?!" As genteel as a nobleman, he takes the stack of books that I have, in my naivete', brought for him to sign, and autographs every one of them. The one I remember most vividly says: "Carol--I'd love to shove a rose up your heart--without thorns."

Somehow, I was able to handle myself with him. I guess that was the Beat way of saying "hello." And, in a strange way, I admired the fact that Gregory was real--his poetry was a true reflection of him. Plus, his name was Gregory--my brother's name--so he had to have goodness in him. We actually became friendly for a while and I ended up booking and promoting a poetry reading for him in Philly. By that time, he was calling me "Kiddo" and when he autographed my last of his books, he wrote "Thanks for a nice time in Old Philly. Be Good--love Gregory."

When I told Rick about the book fair, he reminded me that instances like that were one reason women had knees. Then he said "How do you get into these situations?"

All these years later, that's what I'd like to know.