one thing today

I am watching Feud - about Truman Capote and his socialite swans … who killed him after he tried to kill them.   They do this thing in the series thats becoming more popular, even though I think it tends to be more confusing than not. Time jumping. back and forth and back again … like in Fellow Travelers - but not like in Funny Girl - where she sits in a theater and remembers back - the movie unfolds and it ends a little later that theater night when Omar Sharif shows up and says his final adios. In this new trend … 1985, 1955, 1975 - it gets confusing.   Would Psycho be better if it opened with Norman and the fly in the police precinct? Would Gone with the Wind be better if Gable told Scarlett he didn’t give a damn in the first minute of the movie? The older I get the more I think ... just tell the story straight through - and one more thing ... more is less, more or less, most of the time.  

  There’s a big dog in my neighborhood who insists on sitting a lot. He sits much more than he walks. His lanky companion/owner is extremely patient with him. He never rushes him. He never yanks his leash. Tonight I watched the guy suddenly break his modest stride when pooch, several feet behind him, decided to take another lengthy T hand time out. Gentle   is the wisest way to deal with him and that’s how his very placid, nonchalant seeming sidekick always proceeds whenever they are out and about in the neighborhood. Restraint isn’t always a two way street.  

  CBS Sunday Morning devoted the entire show to Charles Osgood.  He believed all words were wrong except for the right one and every story could be improved by being shorter. He said the biggest challenge regarding excellence in journalism was to throw the newspaper on the porch rather than on the roof.  He loved music and baseball and radio and was big and curious and sharp and human and did it all right for a very long time. I'm not sure they make them like him anymore but I hope, every once in a while, they, whoever they are, do. 

There's something singular about the Picasso show.  The majesty is palpable. The army of security peeps is on the job but hungry for human interaction. The work is playful. It challenges you to be bold, to live outside your box and soak up all five senses. You don't want to leave the gallery.  You want to hang out and see new stuff within the frames. Such a fun time with a pal who thinks it's fire fun, too. 

  Television is about characters.  Movies are about stories.  Theater is about ideas.  David Mamet says he can't go to plays because he can't get up and leave. 

  Went to see Harmony tonight at the Ethel Barrymore Theater - where 58 years ago Jessie and I saw Wait Until Dark with a crazy beautiful Lee Remick and Robert Duval aka Boo Radley (who almost died in his cellar from the damp ).  The theater is gorgeous. Its exterior was modeled on the design of public baths in Rome, with a two-story terra-cotta grillwork screen. The interior decor combines Elizabethan, Mediterranean, and Adamsesque styles. The most elaborate interior element is the boxes, which feature a sunburst pattern over a columned portico.  

  As the sky signed off today, I saw an easy going young boy on the street with a Xavier High School sweater on managing clunky metal crutches that looked way too big for him. I looked around to see who was with him and finally realized he was alone.  Behind him, a towering smiling guy talked to a tiny woman.   She was three feet, maybe a little more max. As I passed them Tall Guy said to Itty Bitty Sidekick -   I t was so good to meet you. Have a great night. They bumped fists, he stepped up his pace and moved on.

I am eight or nine. Kevin is two and a half years younger. It’s just past noon on a summer day. We are hanging out on our front porch, most likely reading about Kryptonite or talking Flintstones or Three Stooges . Kenny, my oldest sisters star football player main squeeze, pulls up to the house in his big finned tomato red Chevy Impala convertible with two of his rowdy friends in tow. He honks a few notes on his horn and shouts, “ hey Kev, we’re hitting Point Lookout. Suit up and jump in .” My brother races inside and in a flash, he runs down our walk to the curb, trunks on and towel in hand. I feel lonely. I indict my brother - and not our mother - for my dark place that afternoon that set some very wrong things in very semi-perpetual motion for a very long time.

I wanted to come off a lot more, uh, a lot more brutal- simply, as I said before, just simply to show that I was going on, and someday I was gonna be bruised and battered enough to be able to understand some other way of life.  Lance Loud, Dick Cavett Show 1973

  I haven’t   been in touch with an old friend for a while … a couple of years say … emailed him out of the blue … thinking of u kinda thing … he replies and tells me he’s had a a heart valve replacement …prostate c … rheumatism … a deep melanoma .. sudden loss of hearing … zero libido   … and I think and think that old grateful gratefulness and straight talk to myself   … thank g it wasn’t/isn’t me … and then feel bad bout thinkin’ that … but I do … and good god all Moses … like in ’24, with all this war and germs and advancing age gettin’ all arrogant and advancing faster than tomorrow   … you can’t be a sissy with all this here and now. You gotta buck up and take it like a woman.  

  Why Do Eyes Get Shiny When High?  Eyes can seem shiny or glassy  after heavy alcohol use or cannabis use . This is due to these substances' effects on a person's central nervous system and its ability to regulate standard functions, such as blinking.

Has anyone NOT seen the smiley zaftig girl who sings I have type 2 diabetes but I manage it well … the commercial that plays everywhere everyday all the time for what seems like forever.   She puts out pluck like she’s auditioning for Unsinkable Molly Brown and for some reason, I hate, hate, hate it. I turn the channel or fast forward every time I see it. Don’t the peeps who pay for it understand the law of diminishing returns . Don’t their family and friends tell them … hey, enough is enough. I’d rather see ten save the children or shaking mongrels mini movies than watch that fucking dreck one more time.   Yeats would exclaim -  Things fall apart, the center cannot hold and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.  

A beautiful woman on the street today wearing a beautiful white cashmere coat which made me wonder what I’ve wondered many times about people who are enshrined in white clothing on these grimy, greasy, cryptic, blotchy, smeary mean city streets.   How do they do it? Do they have some kind of miracle solvent that solves the problem of having black gory gook of some kind on their at risk attire? Do they never ride the subway or go near a stranger as they traverse what they traverse? Are they extra vigilant when they eat, drink, come upon a big corner puddle? Is their life a constant battle to ward off the inevitable darkness? It makes me dizzy just to think about what their future holds. If I were a courageous conceptual artist wannabe, I would survey and see what they might disclose to me that would help me understand how hard it is to live a life of constant, cautious worry.    

  After watching the Sopranos for the third time … there are hundreds of questions as to why the did what they did and didn’t do what they didn’t do.   But one thing keeps running through my head every time he utters it, and he utters it a lot. Why didn’t Carmela or AJ or Meadow of Melfi or Janice or any number of his many sophisticated girlfriends, or his sister who moved away to live a normal life, or one of his erudite attorneys, his FBI guys - why didn’t one of them once - sometime over the decade - correct him.   It’s “mother” not “mudda.”

  Looking out my window yesterday and who do I spot sauntering down the street minding his own business -  Saint Nick himself, Santa. He looked exhausted after the holiday - not carrying anything, taking his fine old time reaching the corner. And then, when he’s out of my window frame, believe it or not, here comes Ms Claus, dressed just as shabbily as her formerly crazy busy ball and chain. They were mirror images of each other, except for his flowing, triangle shaped white beard, maybe triple the size of a pizza slice. And to top things off, this morning on my way to the deli, when I see the not so little woman, she tears me a new one with fouler language than a Hells Angel methed up with food poisoning.   Tourettes.  

  They're gonna shoot a movie in my apartment building with Bill Murray and Naomi Watts. Increases our reserve fund by 40K.  Maybe I'll be able to thank him for letting me use his stereo a zillion years ago when I worked at SNL for a while. For years now, word on the studio lots and streets says he's become a big, difficult nut. All I know is when he tried to become a serious actor and starred in Razors Edge and invited me and M to his premier party at the Russian Tea Room - we stuffed ourselves with caviar on little pancakes and felt like our lives were gonna be filled with more glamorous nights like that - accent on felt, not fact . But can't complain. 

Glory be!   In case you’re one of my maybe 3 followers (or go 3 blogs back) - fab news - Big Mom is back. Smaller and with a mask over her face - which makes me think she may have been seriously sick. She’s playing with her two four eyed adorable munchkins across the street as I write. Makes my day, maybe my week.  We'll see. For about three hours last night, late, I thought I lost my mom’s wedding ring that I asked her for when I was twelve. For a while, was resigned that I lost it on the street after I was playing with it on my pinky finger on my couch. Made me realize there’s nothing else I would rather not lose.   I love watching people walk down the street across the street  - especially twosomes. Kids are so much more bouncy and alive than us old, earthbound, lumbering sloths.  

Spent the snowy afternoon in Julius’ - the oldest gay bar in the city. Was fun, young and old and a light, fun, warm buzz - maybe the first time I’ve been there this century.   This is a photo of the famous '66 Sip-in. Julius' has been open at 10th and Waverly Place since the 1860s, although not always as a gay bar. A century later, drinking while gay was considered illegal in New York state.  Any bar or restaurant could be raided or closed for being “disorderly.” One man buying another man a drink, or flirtatious conversation, was enough grounds to be charged with disorderly conduct. Kissing was disorderly conduct.  Three men challenged this interpretation of the law in court. Homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973. On April 21, 1966 Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell and John Timmons walked through the door to engage in a “sip-in.” This was inspired by earlier “sit-ins” to desegregate diners in the American south.  At Julius

I wanted to keep my bedroom window open. It shuts by itself if I don't brace it with something.  I used one of my first journals from some time in the 70s. It blew in the wind and I grabbed a shot of my young life put down on paper. 

I have these across the street neighbors. Two women - or there used to be - and twin boys, now around six maybe. I first noticed the little family when the boys began to run around loose and frenzied with always a watchful eye on them. They blasted out of their building like they hadn’t seen daylight in months. Big Mom, who seemed way tougher than Small Mom, bought a bicycle built for three that she locked up in front of their building. It was stolen a number of times and she finally gave up. I haven’t spotted her for many months. Her partner stopped smoking and now walks a little ugly city dog instead. The two boys still bound around like dizzy, happy creatures. They wear glasses now which makes them even cuter. I wonder about Big Mom. Gone away? Dead? I don’t know which would be worse. I hope she’s on a long business trip that reaps giant rewards.