So having failed to take my cues from inside my own consciousness and write about losing Don all those many end-of-the-summers ago, listening to a friend who said there was nothing that interesting about widowing, I doff my curls to Joan Didion who has done it better than anyone could, except that she was spared the additional gut-wrench of watching it happen, slowly, and unashamedly parodize her best title to tell you where I am now. Having settled in Brentwood, quite surprisingly an actual neighborhood in this spread-out locale where neighborhoods don't much exist, that is to say, those little patches of community one can feel a part of and walk the streets of without being stopped by a Black and White to ask you what you're doing there, not quite ready for the answer "Walking," much or most of the interaction being on the telephone, with any movement in cars-- not even a lot of splashing in the fairly ubiquitous swimming pools, since I seem to be the only one using them for exercise, at least in my building, the pool being at the rear of the parking garage so it offers little lure for lounging-- and having forsworn, for the nonce, travel,like Napoleon's army I am traveling on my belly. That is to say, I am donning the cloak of Foodie, and touring through my tongue.
Mimi and I have been lunchtime headquartering at an amiable trattoria called 'Sortino', where I can sit under an umbrella at a table with a friend I actually have something to say to, though that, too, has become occasional and minimalistic, as I got an e-mail from my Scottish Quakerly buddy Rosie in response to one of my poems, saying I am best when I travel inside, so I am paring off people rather than pairing off, and farming my solitude. Then, down San Vicente I found an exquisite Italian restaurant called 'Pecorino', where the fior di zucchini was as light and creamy when the crunch of the breading was bitten into, oozily, as opposed to that in an impossibly noisy restaurant in Hollywood called 'Jar', which is, as the late Paris Hilton might have said if she could speak, 'Hot', except it is also tasteless. The waitress, one of the few doubling as actress women in town who was charmless and funless, announced they had 'squash blossoms,' and when I asked if she meant 'zucchini blossoms,' that most delicate of summer dishes in Rome, gave me a stare as blank as her brainpan, and brought the dish, so flat and heavy it was, indeed, squash blossoms. All this to say I will do an extensive piece on Pecorino to inaugurate my new websites, www.theworldonaplatter.com, and www.willblogforfood.net. I am transforming into my next skin, that of Foodie, since I am still cuter than Gael Greene and writing food is the same as writing about sex, with all the like adjectives, and I always did that better than almost anybody, Don would be the first to tell you if he were here.
In the meantime, I go for actual lunches, and write poems. Here, the one from Katsuya, newly opened just down the road on San Vicente.
Now whether or not you've been there
Japan is very pricey
So the tourist
Which I am,
Just passing through Life
On my way to someplace else
I sincerely hope
Feels somewhat pressed
At a sushi bar in Tokyo
So I recommend Katsuya
On the corner of San Vicente
Where the pale, stripped wooden floors
Recall a ryokan in Kyoto
And the recorded music
Sings of a vanished love
That only seemed like love at the time
For the heart was empty
And the arms ached to be full.
So much for the poem. The food, Pan-Asian or something equally affected and bullshitty unless you're having handrolls, --for example, the seared tuna and spinach salad comes with too much soy sauce. Mimi, however, enjoyed her water in a very fine ceramic bowl.
Much love to you all. We who are about to eat salute you.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Our Hearts were Young and so were Our Spades
So having been invited by a few of you to yes, tell the early Las Vegas adventure, I take you back to the time when the earth was still fertile and cold in the right places. I was just over twenty, and had come to Hollywood with my passel full of songs-- I was a songwriter then-- and had been signed by MCA in New York which is another story. Bobby Helfer,a cousin of the composer Elmer Bernstein, was the west Coast agent assigned to take care of me, and being an honest and sweet soul told me frankly that MCA was not about to offer me for projects when they could get multiple tens of thousands more for Les Baxter. But listening to my music he said "the hell with it. I'm going to sell you. That's really good stuff." (So was he, by the way. He later committed suicide on the eve of his 42nd birthday, taking 42 sleeping pills.) So he set up an appointment for me with Frank Loesser, who listened to my songs, said "Kid, you're the biggest talent since me," preceeded to make as his own several of my numbers, but hey... he was my idol, and what could I do?.
Less my idol was Jennings Lang, very high up in the agency, famously shot in the balls by Walter Wanger for screwing Wanger's then wife, Joan Bennett, later married to Monica Lewis, a saloon singer aching for a comeback. I wrote a poignant piece of material for her for which I was paid $2500, exactly the price, what a coincidence, of the yellow Plymouth convertible Jennings sold me from the MCA parking lot, the agency at the time also doubling with a car business.
Now in my convertible, I drove to Las Vegas, where MCA had set up two glittering appointments for me: I was to write a number for Judy Garland and another for Gordon MacRae. When I arrived at her hotel, Judy Garland had a nervous breakdown. Still with springs on my spirit, I bounced back and went to the Desert Inn to meet with Gordon MacRae. He was at the crap tables, and when I stepped up and introduced myself to him, he lost thirty-five thousand dollars. He growled: "Get her out of here."
Before they acted on that instruction, I put a dollar down on the pass line, and in my by then hypnotically disconsolate state threw the dice. Seven. So I took a dollar off and shot again, and said to the man across the table "Tell me how this works." He said "Shut up and keep shooting." So I did, continuing to make my point(I later learned what I was doing was called) each time taking a dollar off, saying "Somebody please explain to me what I'm doing." But everyone said "Shut up and keep shooting."
By the time I had made twenty straight passes, word had spread along the Strip to the Sands, and many serious gamblers had come to bet with me.When I said "What am I doing...?" they said, in chorus, "Shut up and keep shooting." In the end, I held the dice for over an hour, one man made eighty thousand dollars, and a man betting against me lost tens of thousands. I finally crapped out, when someone, at last, explained to me how it worked.
You couldn't cash a personal check in Las Vegas, but I had with me a company check from NBC, where I'd had the only job I ever had, as a writer for the NBC Comedy Development Program, sharing office space with Woody Allen, who was already smarter than I was, coming to work only on the day we got paid. The check was all the money I had ever earned. Carl Cohen, the heavyweight pit boss at the Sands, okayed me for cashing, as I was friends with his son(Corey Allen, the actor who went over the cliff playing 'Chicken' with Jimmy Dean in 'Rebel Without a Cause.') As I went to get my check out of the safety deposit box I passed the dour comedian Jackie Miles, and said 'Stop me, Jackie, I'm on my way to the box.' He held up his hand in sallow-faced benediction, and said "Go my child, and learn."
So I cashed it, and now, knowing how to play, played. It took me two and a half days but I lost every penny I had made at NBC.
Now, at a later time,with my friend Louise Glenn, I drove back to Vegas. My car, a convertible, top down, turned over on the way there, righting itself. By some miracle we were not killed(pre-safety belts.) A man from the cast of Toonerville Trolley came running out of his shanty and said "You're the first crash we've had here where the people wuzn't killed. This be the curve where Sammy Davis lost his eye."
Heavy credentials.
Now we proceeded to the garage where the car was fixed, sort of, continued on to Las Vegas, where i put a hundred dollars on the pass line, won, and having smartened up, immediately got back into the car. We stopped for gas in Barstow, and somebody stole my wallet. So I understood that even when I won, I couldn't.
But all through my early married years when Don and I would go to Vegas, which we did, I would sneak out as he slept to shoot craps and lose.
The night that Liza Minnelli opened at the Riviera at the height of her young celebrity, a planeload of those who were considered good press which I was for a fleeting moment, was invited to jet along. It was a rough time for Don and me, because he was having career trouble, my novel was a big success, and I had never imagined I would be doing better than my husband, and neither had he. So we had trouble. Major. We were mad at each other most of the time, I, because I had succeeded, he because he hadn't, and there was no quarter in that era fpr a woman's being more successful than her husband, or the beauty of my success being very much due to him-- with his cheering me on, spurring me, really, as I wrote The Pretenders: "Now get down there and give them one for the healthy heterosexual!" he would say as I headed down into the basement to write a libidinous scene. "This is really good," he would opine as I handed him the pages at the end of the day. "Now go back downstairs and make it worse."
But as we neared our room in the Riviera, I was afraid I would not be able breathe, with all the unexpressed disappointment and rage in the room with us. "God," I said, silently addressing that Deity I still spoke directly to at the time, the world having done little yet to disabuse me of the notion there was an Intelligence behind it all, even a world where a woman who thought men were better was being given this bitter lesson, "get me through tonight and I will give up gambling." And so it was that there descended on me perfect Peace, and the marriage that sustained me for the rest of Don's life, which was not to be very long, but during which time we both learned what a blessing it was to have someone who really supported you, fuck the money, endured.
And I never gambled again till I lost the dollar at the airport. And so it was, moving West.
Less my idol was Jennings Lang, very high up in the agency, famously shot in the balls by Walter Wanger for screwing Wanger's then wife, Joan Bennett, later married to Monica Lewis, a saloon singer aching for a comeback. I wrote a poignant piece of material for her for which I was paid $2500, exactly the price, what a coincidence, of the yellow Plymouth convertible Jennings sold me from the MCA parking lot, the agency at the time also doubling with a car business.
Now in my convertible, I drove to Las Vegas, where MCA had set up two glittering appointments for me: I was to write a number for Judy Garland and another for Gordon MacRae. When I arrived at her hotel, Judy Garland had a nervous breakdown. Still with springs on my spirit, I bounced back and went to the Desert Inn to meet with Gordon MacRae. He was at the crap tables, and when I stepped up and introduced myself to him, he lost thirty-five thousand dollars. He growled: "Get her out of here."
Before they acted on that instruction, I put a dollar down on the pass line, and in my by then hypnotically disconsolate state threw the dice. Seven. So I took a dollar off and shot again, and said to the man across the table "Tell me how this works." He said "Shut up and keep shooting." So I did, continuing to make my point(I later learned what I was doing was called) each time taking a dollar off, saying "Somebody please explain to me what I'm doing." But everyone said "Shut up and keep shooting."
By the time I had made twenty straight passes, word had spread along the Strip to the Sands, and many serious gamblers had come to bet with me.When I said "What am I doing...?" they said, in chorus, "Shut up and keep shooting." In the end, I held the dice for over an hour, one man made eighty thousand dollars, and a man betting against me lost tens of thousands. I finally crapped out, when someone, at last, explained to me how it worked.
You couldn't cash a personal check in Las Vegas, but I had with me a company check from NBC, where I'd had the only job I ever had, as a writer for the NBC Comedy Development Program, sharing office space with Woody Allen, who was already smarter than I was, coming to work only on the day we got paid. The check was all the money I had ever earned. Carl Cohen, the heavyweight pit boss at the Sands, okayed me for cashing, as I was friends with his son(Corey Allen, the actor who went over the cliff playing 'Chicken' with Jimmy Dean in 'Rebel Without a Cause.') As I went to get my check out of the safety deposit box I passed the dour comedian Jackie Miles, and said 'Stop me, Jackie, I'm on my way to the box.' He held up his hand in sallow-faced benediction, and said "Go my child, and learn."
So I cashed it, and now, knowing how to play, played. It took me two and a half days but I lost every penny I had made at NBC.
Now, at a later time,with my friend Louise Glenn, I drove back to Vegas. My car, a convertible, top down, turned over on the way there, righting itself. By some miracle we were not killed(pre-safety belts.) A man from the cast of Toonerville Trolley came running out of his shanty and said "You're the first crash we've had here where the people wuzn't killed. This be the curve where Sammy Davis lost his eye."
Heavy credentials.
Now we proceeded to the garage where the car was fixed, sort of, continued on to Las Vegas, where i put a hundred dollars on the pass line, won, and having smartened up, immediately got back into the car. We stopped for gas in Barstow, and somebody stole my wallet. So I understood that even when I won, I couldn't.
But all through my early married years when Don and I would go to Vegas, which we did, I would sneak out as he slept to shoot craps and lose.
The night that Liza Minnelli opened at the Riviera at the height of her young celebrity, a planeload of those who were considered good press which I was for a fleeting moment, was invited to jet along. It was a rough time for Don and me, because he was having career trouble, my novel was a big success, and I had never imagined I would be doing better than my husband, and neither had he. So we had trouble. Major. We were mad at each other most of the time, I, because I had succeeded, he because he hadn't, and there was no quarter in that era fpr a woman's being more successful than her husband, or the beauty of my success being very much due to him-- with his cheering me on, spurring me, really, as I wrote The Pretenders: "Now get down there and give them one for the healthy heterosexual!" he would say as I headed down into the basement to write a libidinous scene. "This is really good," he would opine as I handed him the pages at the end of the day. "Now go back downstairs and make it worse."
But as we neared our room in the Riviera, I was afraid I would not be able breathe, with all the unexpressed disappointment and rage in the room with us. "God," I said, silently addressing that Deity I still spoke directly to at the time, the world having done little yet to disabuse me of the notion there was an Intelligence behind it all, even a world where a woman who thought men were better was being given this bitter lesson, "get me through tonight and I will give up gambling." And so it was that there descended on me perfect Peace, and the marriage that sustained me for the rest of Don's life, which was not to be very long, but during which time we both learned what a blessing it was to have someone who really supported you, fuck the money, endured.
And I never gambled again till I lost the dollar at the airport. And so it was, moving West.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Viva? Las Vegas?
So having had a great negative adventure in Sin City in my youth-- details to follow unless I lose interest in telling the story-- and divested of my lust for travel, or even a vague hunger, but cherishing a friend who headquarters in Venice where I have oft been but need go to no more for reasons laid out in my pome, --he attending a convention of hoteliers and travel agents only an hour away, I hied me to that desert honky-tonk to say Hello, and maybe Goodbye, because these days one never knows. The trip there, it being Jet Blue, was comparatively pain-free except for the prospect of losing my lip gel which I didn't, which non-loss made me regret not bringing my toothpaste. I flew from Long Beach, twenty minutes more on the freeway past LAX which I recommend to everybody because you can park and there is no hassle getting out on that airline including with luggage especially since i didn't take any. Arriving in Vegas, I grabbed a cab to the Hotel Paris, a place I had discovered when staying last time at the Bellagio, there being so many drapes and velvet swags and carpets in that hostelry that the dustmites had a victory over me, and I hid out at the other casino just breathing, floors at the Paris being marble, with nothing to offend my sensibilities except the Eiffel Tower that overlooks the pool. Oh, and once you're there, of course, you do notice the ad in the elevator for weddings, saying there is no better place for saying 'I Deux.' The stomach does churn, but everybody wants to be international. Or at least they used deux.
Once checked in which was not easy as they say 'Bonjour' badly and want picture ID, still a strain to the unpoliticized spirit used to a free country which many of you remember this used to be, I went across to the Bellagio where my friend was conventioning, and joined a cocktail party filled with hotel people who invited me to guest in exotic places I no longer care to go, unless they have transportation and allow small dogs. After that we had an exquisite dinner of light Japanese fare in the only restaurant you can see through, it being constructed mostly of glass and sheet rock, which comes as a comfort to the eye after all those busy walls.
Then I went back to the Paris(thinking perhaps I would write 'The Last Time I Saw etc.') waiting for The Daily Show, calling the concierge who is on record saying 'Bonjour' and 'all of our busy staff are occupe' till you could go bair-zairque, to find out what channel Comedy Central was, but when you finally get through they don't have it so one had no choix but to think and read, not necessarily in that order. Also I needed to get a new room key, as they have those magnetic-in-the-slot ones, and mine didn't work, and after a half hour of 'bonjours' they sent up a bellman with one that didn't work either, but I couldn't go through that again, so went to sleep.
I arose, did my yoga, went to swim, throwing the dead bolt so the room was open, and I wouldn't risk standing in the hall in my wet bathing suit, took my purse with all my limited valuables(priceless ID-- what if it's lost and they don't let me into the room or onto the plane home? racing through my brain) came back to the wrong floor, found the right one, (door still open) dressed and suffered through long checkout, and went to the Venetian for breakfast, that being the hotel everyone wanted to see. It is veramente grotesque, with millions of chandeliers that look like Versace's surving sister, a canal with Gondeliers, a museum with paintings from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg where I have been(the city, not the museum, as I bolted the tour and joined a Russian family I picked up at the bakery where bread was $10.00 a loaf and they said they were better off when there was a Cold War, even though they were glad we didn't hate each other anymore) but the museum charged $15.00 and I figured Las Vegas was not somewhere you looked for Kultur, or, in view of all the young hookers, a late-life love. So instead I asked Darryl, the bartender who served me breakfast at the bar at the Venetian, the only place you didn't see faux Tintorettos on the ceiling, what was good to visit and he said Mandalay Bay. So I crossed the Strip and made my way through a number of hotels, the most peace-a-fying of them being the Mirage, because there's a fish tank behind the desk that soothes the eyes, none of the fish having a frantic agenda.
All the lobbies I saw seem to be populated in great part by Asians, Chinese being driven gamblers, the tendency having apparently spilled over to Vietnam, and disconcertingly obese people,many of them pushing baby carriages, the rest seemingly carrying unborn twins in their buttocks. Made me sad.
At last I went to the Four Seasons, the only place that doesn't have a Casino, and made a phone call saying goodbye to my friend from somewhere I could think, then tried to call his daughter in London, only to discover I had lost my credit card. Called Darryl at the Venetian, and he had it, so took a taxi back to the Venetian($12.00), asked the driver to wait, got the card, zipped to the airport (10.75) and gave him a $7.00 tip so he'd go see 'O', a spectacle I'd caught in-between allergy attacks at the Bellagio last visit that everyone really has to see if they can. 'Love,' the Beatles Cirque de Soleil, which I really wanted to see, was suspended during my stay of course, as the Universe has a way of sending out little darts of seduction to get you back to places you are better off not going. I played $1.00 in the slot machine at the airport where a man had won 13 million last week and lost it, of course, which brought my losses to $26.00 including the unnecessary cab ride. Moral of the story: even when I don't gamble I lose, and if God had meant us to go to Las Vegas, She wouldn't have taken us out of the desert.
I'll tell you the other Vegas story another time. Always leave them wanting more. Do you?
Once checked in which was not easy as they say 'Bonjour' badly and want picture ID, still a strain to the unpoliticized spirit used to a free country which many of you remember this used to be, I went across to the Bellagio where my friend was conventioning, and joined a cocktail party filled with hotel people who invited me to guest in exotic places I no longer care to go, unless they have transportation and allow small dogs. After that we had an exquisite dinner of light Japanese fare in the only restaurant you can see through, it being constructed mostly of glass and sheet rock, which comes as a comfort to the eye after all those busy walls.
Then I went back to the Paris(thinking perhaps I would write 'The Last Time I Saw etc.') waiting for The Daily Show, calling the concierge who is on record saying 'Bonjour' and 'all of our busy staff are occupe' till you could go bair-zairque, to find out what channel Comedy Central was, but when you finally get through they don't have it so one had no choix but to think and read, not necessarily in that order. Also I needed to get a new room key, as they have those magnetic-in-the-slot ones, and mine didn't work, and after a half hour of 'bonjours' they sent up a bellman with one that didn't work either, but I couldn't go through that again, so went to sleep.
I arose, did my yoga, went to swim, throwing the dead bolt so the room was open, and I wouldn't risk standing in the hall in my wet bathing suit, took my purse with all my limited valuables(priceless ID-- what if it's lost and they don't let me into the room or onto the plane home? racing through my brain) came back to the wrong floor, found the right one, (door still open) dressed and suffered through long checkout, and went to the Venetian for breakfast, that being the hotel everyone wanted to see. It is veramente grotesque, with millions of chandeliers that look like Versace's surving sister, a canal with Gondeliers, a museum with paintings from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg where I have been(the city, not the museum, as I bolted the tour and joined a Russian family I picked up at the bakery where bread was $10.00 a loaf and they said they were better off when there was a Cold War, even though they were glad we didn't hate each other anymore) but the museum charged $15.00 and I figured Las Vegas was not somewhere you looked for Kultur, or, in view of all the young hookers, a late-life love. So instead I asked Darryl, the bartender who served me breakfast at the bar at the Venetian, the only place you didn't see faux Tintorettos on the ceiling, what was good to visit and he said Mandalay Bay. So I crossed the Strip and made my way through a number of hotels, the most peace-a-fying of them being the Mirage, because there's a fish tank behind the desk that soothes the eyes, none of the fish having a frantic agenda.
All the lobbies I saw seem to be populated in great part by Asians, Chinese being driven gamblers, the tendency having apparently spilled over to Vietnam, and disconcertingly obese people,many of them pushing baby carriages, the rest seemingly carrying unborn twins in their buttocks. Made me sad.
At last I went to the Four Seasons, the only place that doesn't have a Casino, and made a phone call saying goodbye to my friend from somewhere I could think, then tried to call his daughter in London, only to discover I had lost my credit card. Called Darryl at the Venetian, and he had it, so took a taxi back to the Venetian($12.00), asked the driver to wait, got the card, zipped to the airport (10.75) and gave him a $7.00 tip so he'd go see 'O', a spectacle I'd caught in-between allergy attacks at the Bellagio last visit that everyone really has to see if they can. 'Love,' the Beatles Cirque de Soleil, which I really wanted to see, was suspended during my stay of course, as the Universe has a way of sending out little darts of seduction to get you back to places you are better off not going. I played $1.00 in the slot machine at the airport where a man had won 13 million last week and lost it, of course, which brought my losses to $26.00 including the unnecessary cab ride. Moral of the story: even when I don't gamble I lose, and if God had meant us to go to Las Vegas, She wouldn't have taken us out of the desert.
I'll tell you the other Vegas story another time. Always leave them wanting more. Do you?
Thursday, August 10, 2006
SECURITY
So we must all put aside feelings of frustration because we are not where or what we want to be. For some reason we have come into the world in an apocalyptic time, when the most we can do is try not to step into the fissures. Hell gapes, Shakespeare wrote. He had no idea. Not bad enough that life kills you anyway-- there are these suicidal homicidal lunatics who want to make sure it happens sooner. So lift your heads, hug your friends, make up with those you have offended unless they are carrying liquid that explodes.
At times like these I am moved to call my childhood friend Joanne Greenberg, who wrote I Never Promised you a Rose Garden, and has grown into a vessel of wisdom that still stays funny. When the Tylenol killer was loose-- oh, what a gentle madness that seems looking back!-- I suffered aloud to Joanne, and she assured me that there had been just as big lunatics in the Middle Ages, we just didn't hear about it because communications were slow. Now we have TV so we can learn this afternoon that we almost got killed yesterday, and it still could happen tomorrow. But Joanne sees the bright side: How wonderful that they found out! How great that all those people were in touch with each other so this could be exposed in time! Now maybe the CIA and FBI will follow suit.
Joanne was a rescue fireman in Colorado when she wasn't writing, and pulled children from privys where molesters had thrown them, so these things kind of slide in her eyes into a cosmic overview. She has just finished making the year's worth of Shabbas candles, and i consider her my Rabbi. At the same time she sorrows over Joe Lieverman and likes Coors, the company not the beer, because they did good in the community in spite of being Republicans, so I can't listen to her about everything.
Thus it is that I turn to Jack, whom some of you may remember as my Jewru, for what the Buddhists say at this time, although he is quoting a Sufi. "Undertake to overcome any bitterness that you are not up to the magnitude of the pain that has been entrusted to you." Azoy.
I had lunch with my son, my former little boy, on Sunday, to celebrate his birthday. I saw where his wild thatch of brown hair, so thick that when I was caught in whimsies of reincarnation I thought he might be a Kennedy-- he was in my belly when we lost Bobby-- had a few spikes of gray in it at the crown, antennas signalling age. It made me sad in an unaccustomed way, because i had just more or less come to terms with the truth that I was aging. It never occured to me that he would be, too.
Therefore let us all get our heads out of our asses, and delight in life while it's here. As Scarlett noted, Tomorrow is another day. Unless of course we have to fly somewhere.
At times like these I am moved to call my childhood friend Joanne Greenberg, who wrote I Never Promised you a Rose Garden, and has grown into a vessel of wisdom that still stays funny. When the Tylenol killer was loose-- oh, what a gentle madness that seems looking back!-- I suffered aloud to Joanne, and she assured me that there had been just as big lunatics in the Middle Ages, we just didn't hear about it because communications were slow. Now we have TV so we can learn this afternoon that we almost got killed yesterday, and it still could happen tomorrow. But Joanne sees the bright side: How wonderful that they found out! How great that all those people were in touch with each other so this could be exposed in time! Now maybe the CIA and FBI will follow suit.
Joanne was a rescue fireman in Colorado when she wasn't writing, and pulled children from privys where molesters had thrown them, so these things kind of slide in her eyes into a cosmic overview. She has just finished making the year's worth of Shabbas candles, and i consider her my Rabbi. At the same time she sorrows over Joe Lieverman and likes Coors, the company not the beer, because they did good in the community in spite of being Republicans, so I can't listen to her about everything.
Thus it is that I turn to Jack, whom some of you may remember as my Jewru, for what the Buddhists say at this time, although he is quoting a Sufi. "Undertake to overcome any bitterness that you are not up to the magnitude of the pain that has been entrusted to you." Azoy.
I had lunch with my son, my former little boy, on Sunday, to celebrate his birthday. I saw where his wild thatch of brown hair, so thick that when I was caught in whimsies of reincarnation I thought he might be a Kennedy-- he was in my belly when we lost Bobby-- had a few spikes of gray in it at the crown, antennas signalling age. It made me sad in an unaccustomed way, because i had just more or less come to terms with the truth that I was aging. It never occured to me that he would be, too.
Therefore let us all get our heads out of our asses, and delight in life while it's here. As Scarlett noted, Tomorrow is another day. Unless of course we have to fly somewhere.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Remembrance of Things Passed
So trying to deal with this inferno which of course has not been caused by Global Warming which we know doesn't really exist-- oh God, I hope the AC goes out in the White House-- I went to visit my beloved friend Gena Rowlands high atop Woodrow Wilson Drive. Coming back down Laurel Canyon, where I had the guts to live when I first hit Hollywood at 20, I could not resist turning into Rothdell Trail, my first address here. Tony Perkins, with whom I was besotted, said it was "where Roth first broke through the underbrush." He was clever, and as it was still a time when nice Jewish girls didn't till after, and often not even then, I brushed aside any thoughts of his distance being for any other reason than respect. Next to me lived a director who was soon to murder his gay partner, and across from me lived Nick Adams, the least interesting boy in 'Rebel Without a Cause,' who traded on the fact that he had been best friends with Jimmy Dean, several years dead so unable to deny it. Natalie Wood used to come visit him, and Dennis Hopper, who may/may not have actually been Dean's best friend, used to swing on a rope from my roof onto Nick's little side porch, crying "Fuck Errol Flynn!" These were pre-uttered-out-loud-Fuck days, so it was both funny and impressive, except seeing the width of the street today I realize he could have hiccuped himself across, and question if I might not have made that up rather than simply re-enacting it as I did in my first novel 'Naked in Babylon,' in which Dennis played a hilarious and really interesting a clef role.
I remember standing by the barbecue on my little side porch which you can;t see from the very very narrow and winding street, waiting for a call from Frank Loesser, for whom I had auditioned at MCA, singing him the best of my songs, having him respond," Kid, you're the biggest talent since me." When he left LA, he'd said "Kid, write me a musical!" so I did and sent it to him. The phone finally rang: he was returning my call, and I asked him what had happened with it. He said "Moss and I are working on something in Boston and we've used some of your stuff." Shocked, but I would imagine in retrospect also a little thrilled that I was good enough to be stolen from by men of that caliber, I still managed to say: "Frank-- what about money?" He said: "Write your parents."
Nick Adams committed suicide some years after that, and got a lot of press. Tony said: "If he had known how much publicity he would get, he would have done it a long time ago." Compassion was not Tony's strong suit..
It took me about twenty five minutes to turn the car around in the narrow space between the brick wall and the stairwell that sided the house I lived in, overhanging the street like a box, so I wonder that I ever lived through that period, as I was a worse driver then than I am now, which is saying a great deal. At the top of the steps across from the brick wall (I didn't go up them) I imagine was a little front yard, because for sure in real life (not made-up memory) Dennis stole the bigger than life-sized cut-out of Tony in 'Friendly Persuasion' from the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese where it premiered and put it in my front yard so I would see Tony greeting me when I went out in the morning, not out of just mischief or kindness but because he was really pissed at me for being in love with Tony instead of him. Not that he was that interested in me, but he was very interested in himself, and wondered why Tony was 1) the bigger star 2)the gatekeeper of my longing.
Driving all the way down to the bottom of Laurel I turned at the boulevard, and passed a sign on Sunset saying 'No Cruising;" Anyone passing this spot twice in four hours will be cited." No kidding. If only it had been there all those years ago, my whole life might have been different. Jim Morrison also lived on Rothdell Trail, but not at the same time as me. Just a point of interest.
Then came the place where Sunset splits onto Doheny Road, so I followed the divide onto where Carol Burnett's house used to be, where we lived in the guest house when Madeleine was one, and Don came out to LA to work on Carol's show. We were the best of friends then-- Carol said she would have liked to be me, as she really wanted to be a writer, and so admired me much-- but living in her guest house above the garage till we found a house, I had to make an appointment to talk to her. And the truth was I think I would have rather been a star, but I wouldn't have had myself remade to look like Julie Andrews.
The wonder no longer seems to be that I have lived this long, but that I lived through the early part of my life, as between the smallness of the road(Rothdell Trail) and the smallness of some people's hearts, it is a miracle that neither my car nor my spirit got crushed. The triumph is, quite simply, being alive to tell the tale, and the moral: don't be deflated when people don't read it.
I sing the song
Of the uncharted road
That more often than not
Leads to the greater adventure
For if the mind is open
And the heart is pure
The full breadth of the experience
Is available to everyone among us
So, when the song is over,
We will not only have sung it
It will have sung us.
I remember standing by the barbecue on my little side porch which you can;t see from the very very narrow and winding street, waiting for a call from Frank Loesser, for whom I had auditioned at MCA, singing him the best of my songs, having him respond," Kid, you're the biggest talent since me." When he left LA, he'd said "Kid, write me a musical!" so I did and sent it to him. The phone finally rang: he was returning my call, and I asked him what had happened with it. He said "Moss and I are working on something in Boston and we've used some of your stuff." Shocked, but I would imagine in retrospect also a little thrilled that I was good enough to be stolen from by men of that caliber, I still managed to say: "Frank-- what about money?" He said: "Write your parents."
Nick Adams committed suicide some years after that, and got a lot of press. Tony said: "If he had known how much publicity he would get, he would have done it a long time ago." Compassion was not Tony's strong suit..
It took me about twenty five minutes to turn the car around in the narrow space between the brick wall and the stairwell that sided the house I lived in, overhanging the street like a box, so I wonder that I ever lived through that period, as I was a worse driver then than I am now, which is saying a great deal. At the top of the steps across from the brick wall (I didn't go up them) I imagine was a little front yard, because for sure in real life (not made-up memory) Dennis stole the bigger than life-sized cut-out of Tony in 'Friendly Persuasion' from the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese where it premiered and put it in my front yard so I would see Tony greeting me when I went out in the morning, not out of just mischief or kindness but because he was really pissed at me for being in love with Tony instead of him. Not that he was that interested in me, but he was very interested in himself, and wondered why Tony was 1) the bigger star 2)the gatekeeper of my longing.
Driving all the way down to the bottom of Laurel I turned at the boulevard, and passed a sign on Sunset saying 'No Cruising;" Anyone passing this spot twice in four hours will be cited." No kidding. If only it had been there all those years ago, my whole life might have been different. Jim Morrison also lived on Rothdell Trail, but not at the same time as me. Just a point of interest.
Then came the place where Sunset splits onto Doheny Road, so I followed the divide onto where Carol Burnett's house used to be, where we lived in the guest house when Madeleine was one, and Don came out to LA to work on Carol's show. We were the best of friends then-- Carol said she would have liked to be me, as she really wanted to be a writer, and so admired me much-- but living in her guest house above the garage till we found a house, I had to make an appointment to talk to her. And the truth was I think I would have rather been a star, but I wouldn't have had myself remade to look like Julie Andrews.
The wonder no longer seems to be that I have lived this long, but that I lived through the early part of my life, as between the smallness of the road(Rothdell Trail) and the smallness of some people's hearts, it is a miracle that neither my car nor my spirit got crushed. The triumph is, quite simply, being alive to tell the tale, and the moral: don't be deflated when people don't read it.
I sing the song
Of the uncharted road
That more often than not
Leads to the greater adventure
For if the mind is open
And the heart is pure
The full breadth of the experience
Is available to everyone among us
So, when the song is over,
We will not only have sung it
It will have sung us.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
A Soggy Day in Sag Harbor
I wonder why it is we try to belong in places we don't belong. One of the sanctuaries(I tried to make it, and failed) I sought out after Don died was The Hamptons, where I rented a house in Springs, the woodsy probably downmarket part of that sooooooooooo cherished weekend and summer escape of wealthy and would-be wealthy New Yorkers. My house was a kind of loft set on the ground, belonging to a woman whose path, I think, was more self-inflicted stumblier than mine: she had a boyfriend who was an architect, so she let him build it, I am sure to increase his self-esteem, which he might have done but he forgot insulation. There were 60 foot ceilings, and it was Fall going into winter, and cold cold cold and damp. I had to keep the house at 55 degrees to keep the pipes from freezing, and that cost so much money I was afraid to turn the heat up lest my son not be able to finish graduate school. So Happy, my yorkie, very little, and a laptop, very little, and a little heater and a little TV lived in a little room upstairs where I tried to finish a novel and pretend this was a life. i had one faux friend, very rich, who let me swim in her pool even though she was too fashionable to be in the Hamptons that time of year, but I swam there in bracing winds every day just out of spite so she would be forced to pretend to be gracious which she had never been, and it would cost her money. Then, I would try to find friends.
Let me tell you about the Hamptons. The reason why Jackson Pollock and Rothko were productive, insane and drunk was there is nothing else todo off-season but be those things. You have either got to become a drunk, or join AA. I dabbled in both, not becoming an alcoholic but going with some frequency to the sushi bar in Sag Harbor and downing a great deal of Sake, as at least I could talk to the sushi master, and I went to the AA meeting in Wilton or Weston or someplace like that, because it was as close as I could come to finding friends. There was an actor in the meeting whose name I shall not tell as it's part of the covenant, but he was funny and bright and in the throes of a great love which has come to no good end and in public, so at least there were people, before I returned to my personal chill. Happy was always a sport, anywhere on the planet I took him, so made no complaint, but I think he had a better time in Germany, which should give you some idea.
So yesterday I went on the Hampton Jitney to Sag Harbor to see a friend in a play, and the rain it raineth all the time, and the sushi bar which was just six people long is now a huge, very successful and slightly overpriced restaurant, where I went first for lunch before the play, and then afterwards with my friend who had been very fine in his role indeed, and in between sushi and play ate ice cream, all the flavors I wanted in two different places because when I lived there I had restrained myself, still imagining love would come along. During the play the rains had been so torrential that the audience thought the air conditioning was turned up too high, but it was really the roof working against collapsing in the downpour. After the second sushi I stood in a doorway waiting for the bus back to town.and observed Main Street, all festooned with American flags over storefronts, and quaint architecture that whistles Americana, but finds it hard to toot in the rain.
And I came to the conclusion that there is nothing sadder than a melancholy day in a place people have pushed their way into, money having been the bulldozer, thinking one could not be both chic and cool without spending summer in the Hamptons. Even the storefronts looked down on this rainy, joyless day, flags sodden and twisted around each other outside the flower store.
The secret, I think, is to always have a resort in your heart, but see a place on its worst day before considering moving there.
Let me tell you about the Hamptons. The reason why Jackson Pollock and Rothko were productive, insane and drunk was there is nothing else todo off-season but be those things. You have either got to become a drunk, or join AA. I dabbled in both, not becoming an alcoholic but going with some frequency to the sushi bar in Sag Harbor and downing a great deal of Sake, as at least I could talk to the sushi master, and I went to the AA meeting in Wilton or Weston or someplace like that, because it was as close as I could come to finding friends. There was an actor in the meeting whose name I shall not tell as it's part of the covenant, but he was funny and bright and in the throes of a great love which has come to no good end and in public, so at least there were people, before I returned to my personal chill. Happy was always a sport, anywhere on the planet I took him, so made no complaint, but I think he had a better time in Germany, which should give you some idea.
So yesterday I went on the Hampton Jitney to Sag Harbor to see a friend in a play, and the rain it raineth all the time, and the sushi bar which was just six people long is now a huge, very successful and slightly overpriced restaurant, where I went first for lunch before the play, and then afterwards with my friend who had been very fine in his role indeed, and in between sushi and play ate ice cream, all the flavors I wanted in two different places because when I lived there I had restrained myself, still imagining love would come along. During the play the rains had been so torrential that the audience thought the air conditioning was turned up too high, but it was really the roof working against collapsing in the downpour. After the second sushi I stood in a doorway waiting for the bus back to town.and observed Main Street, all festooned with American flags over storefronts, and quaint architecture that whistles Americana, but finds it hard to toot in the rain.
And I came to the conclusion that there is nothing sadder than a melancholy day in a place people have pushed their way into, money having been the bulldozer, thinking one could not be both chic and cool without spending summer in the Hamptons. Even the storefronts looked down on this rainy, joyless day, flags sodden and twisted around each other outside the flower store.
The secret, I think, is to always have a resort in your heart, but see a place on its worst day before considering moving there.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Marilyn's 80th Birthday
A Tale of Two Shitties: It was the worst of theater and the best of theater. As intimates know, and some who are not even intimates, I have had a bad time in New York theater over the past several years because I had written a musical, and fine it was, too, that I couldn't get anybody to listen to, because I have no track record here, and what I saw on the stage did nothing to make me feel better. So when I came back to this city where I must admit I now feel a major disconnect, I had no great appetite for Broadway. Still, I enjoyed 'The Drowsy Chaperone,' and looked forward to 'The History Boys,' because I'd heard it was intelligent. I have also made a friend, a very nice woman producer, Chase Mishkin, who goes to fucking everything, and as I enjoy her company, especially as she picks me up in a London taxi lined in Burberry, I often go with her.
So it was that to my sadnesse(I use the Chaucerian spelling) I went last week to 'Hot Feet,' the black musical version of 'The Red Shoes,' which film buffs will remember as one of the great tasteful movies of all time, starring the very gifted dancer daughter of Debbie Allen. To the music of Earth, Wind and Fire. Oy.
Yesterday was 'Boys' day. I went to the matinee of 'The History Boys' where the real life happening was more electrifying than the play, Before rise of curtain, came the usual announcement to please turn off cell-phones and no taking pictures, with the added caveat that"Using cell-phones in theaters is now against the law," which met with applause from the audience. The came the play, with some admirable performances by several of the lads(used advisedly, as with sadnesse), but most especially by the teacher, a Tweedledum&Tweedledee (combined) spinning top of eloquence named Richard Griffiths. Came the key scene of the play, after much jollity in the classroom and some actual singing of a Rodgers & Heart ballad, wherein the fat round teacher is called into the office of the headmaster, to be admonished for feeling the genitals of his students while they ride with him on his motorcycyle, and being told he will have to retire. Just at that moment Griffiths, sitting there in mortified silence, heard a cell phone go off in the audience. He stared up at the offender, so much in character that He seemed still the teacher, and said in controlled tones that he could not compete with the electronics, stopped dead, and then told us that we had been asked quite politely to turn off our cellphones, that it was quite disrespectful and was in fact now against the law, that he was stopping the scene, would start over, and if it happened again, he would leave. Tumultuous applause.
So he started the scene again and when the dour headmaster asked him why he locked his doors while teaching, he said "Because I don't like to be interrupted." Laughter and more applause. Nothing in the rest of the play could measure up to that, and I found the second act just okay. I think we always give extra high marks to the Brits because we are so intimidated by their diction which makes us believe they're intelligent. And of course critics are afraid of Alan Bennett because he has such disdain for the US. I sort of love it myself, though I'm still not sure about New York.
Ah, but last night was a New York evening if there ever was one, one where most of the treasures of the city revealed themselves, and it was a joy to be here, collecting. First a dinner at Gallagher's, a steak house, can your mind get around that one in this otherwhere land of vegetarians and fish eaters?. Then 'The Jersey Boys,' the musical about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, using that sensational music, and it was fantastic. I absolutely loved every minute. I have a friend who's been five times, and I understand why. There is some technical magic with comic strips, but what it is mostly is a joyful piece of theater, and I was happy the whole time, uplifted, the way God and the Greeks meant it to be. Catharsis does not always have to be depressing.
Then today to Le Cirque to celebrate Marilyn Monroe's 80th birthday, which is today. The restaurant is glamorous but not yet quite buzzing: Beverly Sills was there and there was but one empty table by the window, and I worried that the place wasn't full(the official re-opening was yesterday) Then the couple came in and headed for it, and it was Michael Bolton and a woman in shorts. Khaki. Bermudas. It's the end of the civilized world as we knew it, forget about global warming. I think she was trying to make the bottom of her look as light as the top of him(he's losing his hair, and, apparently, his taste in companions.)
Then they brought us Marilyn's cake, with a spun candy cloche, and we made a wish and blew out the candle. I am sure our wishes were about the same subject, as Chase is doing a musical and I am with novel.
Then we went to this perfectly execrable reading of an alleged comedy, where a woman from Sunday Styles, very hot part of the New York Times for those who wish they were really reading 'Us,' comes to the Hamptons to cover the wedding of a son of a Martha Stewart-like character, to a young unlikeable woman. I thought it was going to get darkly comic about a bright woman who gardens and has been in jail because juries don't like bright women, but instead it tipped over into The Philadelphia Story, only not clever or witty, combined with a prison movie. Awful. I left at the half lest it completely undo all the joy that had built up with Jersey Boys(loved it loved it!) and Le Cirque.
Saturday I go to Sag Harbor just for the matinee at the Bay Theater because my nice neighbor Simon Jones is in a play or a cabaret I don't know what exactly, with Kaye Ballard, who is very funny and talented, and Sian Phillips who is the ex-wife of Peter O'Toole and author of a book Gena Rowlands, whom i love, gave me, and the whole thing is supposed to be wonderful. Kaye is a terrific comedienne, and is the first person I ever sold Special Material to, when I was 20. It was a song whose title I can';t remember, but she actually paid me $500. Nobody could get over it. Especially everybody else who wrote material for Kaye.
Mimi is white with a new grooming, the air is heavy with humidity so it's hard to walk with her in Central Park, and you're lucky not to be here except on occasion. Love
So it was that to my sadnesse(I use the Chaucerian spelling) I went last week to 'Hot Feet,' the black musical version of 'The Red Shoes,' which film buffs will remember as one of the great tasteful movies of all time, starring the very gifted dancer daughter of Debbie Allen. To the music of Earth, Wind and Fire. Oy.
Yesterday was 'Boys' day. I went to the matinee of 'The History Boys' where the real life happening was more electrifying than the play, Before rise of curtain, came the usual announcement to please turn off cell-phones and no taking pictures, with the added caveat that"Using cell-phones in theaters is now against the law," which met with applause from the audience. The came the play, with some admirable performances by several of the lads(used advisedly, as with sadnesse), but most especially by the teacher, a Tweedledum&Tweedledee (combined) spinning top of eloquence named Richard Griffiths. Came the key scene of the play, after much jollity in the classroom and some actual singing of a Rodgers & Heart ballad, wherein the fat round teacher is called into the office of the headmaster, to be admonished for feeling the genitals of his students while they ride with him on his motorcycyle, and being told he will have to retire. Just at that moment Griffiths, sitting there in mortified silence, heard a cell phone go off in the audience. He stared up at the offender, so much in character that He seemed still the teacher, and said in controlled tones that he could not compete with the electronics, stopped dead, and then told us that we had been asked quite politely to turn off our cellphones, that it was quite disrespectful and was in fact now against the law, that he was stopping the scene, would start over, and if it happened again, he would leave. Tumultuous applause.
So he started the scene again and when the dour headmaster asked him why he locked his doors while teaching, he said "Because I don't like to be interrupted." Laughter and more applause. Nothing in the rest of the play could measure up to that, and I found the second act just okay. I think we always give extra high marks to the Brits because we are so intimidated by their diction which makes us believe they're intelligent. And of course critics are afraid of Alan Bennett because he has such disdain for the US. I sort of love it myself, though I'm still not sure about New York.
Ah, but last night was a New York evening if there ever was one, one where most of the treasures of the city revealed themselves, and it was a joy to be here, collecting. First a dinner at Gallagher's, a steak house, can your mind get around that one in this otherwhere land of vegetarians and fish eaters?. Then 'The Jersey Boys,' the musical about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, using that sensational music, and it was fantastic. I absolutely loved every minute. I have a friend who's been five times, and I understand why. There is some technical magic with comic strips, but what it is mostly is a joyful piece of theater, and I was happy the whole time, uplifted, the way God and the Greeks meant it to be. Catharsis does not always have to be depressing.
Then today to Le Cirque to celebrate Marilyn Monroe's 80th birthday, which is today. The restaurant is glamorous but not yet quite buzzing: Beverly Sills was there and there was but one empty table by the window, and I worried that the place wasn't full(the official re-opening was yesterday) Then the couple came in and headed for it, and it was Michael Bolton and a woman in shorts. Khaki. Bermudas. It's the end of the civilized world as we knew it, forget about global warming. I think she was trying to make the bottom of her look as light as the top of him(he's losing his hair, and, apparently, his taste in companions.)
Then they brought us Marilyn's cake, with a spun candy cloche, and we made a wish and blew out the candle. I am sure our wishes were about the same subject, as Chase is doing a musical and I am with novel.
Then we went to this perfectly execrable reading of an alleged comedy, where a woman from Sunday Styles, very hot part of the New York Times for those who wish they were really reading 'Us,' comes to the Hamptons to cover the wedding of a son of a Martha Stewart-like character, to a young unlikeable woman. I thought it was going to get darkly comic about a bright woman who gardens and has been in jail because juries don't like bright women, but instead it tipped over into The Philadelphia Story, only not clever or witty, combined with a prison movie. Awful. I left at the half lest it completely undo all the joy that had built up with Jersey Boys(loved it loved it!) and Le Cirque.
Saturday I go to Sag Harbor just for the matinee at the Bay Theater because my nice neighbor Simon Jones is in a play or a cabaret I don't know what exactly, with Kaye Ballard, who is very funny and talented, and Sian Phillips who is the ex-wife of Peter O'Toole and author of a book Gena Rowlands, whom i love, gave me, and the whole thing is supposed to be wonderful. Kaye is a terrific comedienne, and is the first person I ever sold Special Material to, when I was 20. It was a song whose title I can';t remember, but she actually paid me $500. Nobody could get over it. Especially everybody else who wrote material for Kaye.
Mimi is white with a new grooming, the air is heavy with humidity so it's hard to walk with her in Central Park, and you're lucky not to be here except on occasion. Love
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