Some New York Snapshots

Walking back through the park, trees in full blossom, pollen wafting through the air like lazy snowflakes, one can see the result of our having refused the ports to Dubai. Turned away from our waterfronts, they are taking over our hotels. Next to the green Mansardish rootop of the Hampshire House, where I live when i'm here-- oh how long have I hungered to be able to say that, my new calling cards reading Bi-Coastal Free Spirit--, stand in letters stretching to the sky in bright red, two, maybe three stories high, ESSEX
HOUSE.
Like that. Standing atop each other. It is now known as the Jumeirah, the same symbol that gilds their airplanes painted gold on its canopy.I don't mean to sound racist, but the truth is The very Arab are different from you and me. When the Shah of Iran fell, his entire entourage or company or whatever the right word is, those thousands who had dined lavishly in tents nights before the Ayatollah took over, moved en masse to Beverly Hills, jacking up real estate prices, and managing to find the only colors in Nature that did not go together. So fuchsia was planted in clashing profusion alongside orange. And, as Rodney Dangerfield's tombstone at Westwoood Memorial reads, "There goes the neighborhood."
On the other hand, or, in the other direction, taxiing through the park on my way to an appointment, feeling sort of sluggish, I noted a group of youngish women doing yoga, so I got out of the cab and joined them. It was very Bangkok, the last place I got into a class with people yoga-ing in public, the postures moving faster than the traffic. The woman in the park conducting the class was about seven months pregnant, her belly naked over her tights, beautifully ostentatious, as Demi made pregnant bellies be. The park was full of gorgeous little flaxen-haired children, and mothers telling them "Good sharing!" One toddler in sagging jeans near the children's zoo was lagging several feet behind his mom, older brother in the pram, and I suggested she hold on to him so someone wouldn't steal him, including me. Then I told him to grabd on very tight to the bottom of his mother's shorts, and not let go, and he did, I am incredibly effective with other people's children.
Then came the good news about the Enron boys, unfree at last!unfree at last! Last night I went with a friend to The Da Vinci Code, and with every ponderous scene congratulated myself on never having been able to read the novel, my eyes locking from the bad prose. Miraculously they managed to translate every ounce of setentiousness onto the screen, the only thing more ridiculous than the scenes in the present being the flashbacks, rife with double exposures and all manner of costly historical reconstructions as pointless as they must have been costly. Poor Tom Hanks. The ridge over his nose deepened with every improbable dialogue exchange, as he seemed to hear it, and wonder what has ever made him agree to be in the picture. At one point he actually said "What am I supposed to do?" and I wanted to cry out "Get a haircut." But I will admit the film affected me-- I awoke at 5 AM in a state of terror, the terror being I dreamed I was going to have to see the movie again.
Mimi joined her little buddies this morning in the park,--New York dogs are much more social than the ones in LA. On the path by the pond, a woman looked through binoculars at the trees. "What did you find?" I asked her. "An oriole," she said, and told me she had heard that about New York, that she would enjoy it even if she wasn't a shopper, filled as it was with exotic birds. "That's what's so great about this city," she said. "Something for everyone,"
Oh, I do hope so.

Some Birthday Wu Wu

Shirley MacLaine, the Princess of Wu Wu, was kind enough to tell me what to do on my birthdayto ensure that the year ahead brings me all I want it to. Shirley always goes into the mountains or someplace peaceful and meditates on her birthday(she is also a Taurus), and it must work, because she is still going strong. So my instruction was to find a quiet place, and a half hour before my birth time in whatever zone it was(Pittsburgh, so EDT) and a half hour after, to meditate and write down three times what it was I wanted.
I was to have lunch with my friend Steven at the Beverly Hills Hotel, so he was going to find me a quiet place in the garden for my visualization. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn, found myself on the highway to the Getty, and had to come back on a jammed freeway, so when the hour was approaching I had no choice but to pull into a quiet street off Sunset and begin. Unfortunately again I am not sure whether I was born at 3:35 or 3:25 so the heavens came in for a little extra quiet and loving energy from me, and the lady whose house I parked in front of looked at me tolerantly, gave a frightened, fake smile, but at least did not ask me to move on. I will report at the end of this year how much of what i asked for actually came to be.I had to write what I wrote three times with an eyeliner pencil as it was all I had in the car.
Then I went on to lunch with Steven and his partner, and we ate well and gossiped merrily as one will in LA no matter how spiritually evolved. But besides the meditative instruction, the Daily Word, which I do read every day as I failed to get a Ritz Diary this year and the Lord works in mysterious ways, had the word for today being 'Pray for Others.' So we did that in-between courses. I prayed for my darling friend Carleen that she should get a good job, and I prayed for Joie, and I prayed for my lovely friend Pat and her puppy who's having a hard time. Then Steven said he wanted to pray for Mohammed Ali since we haven't heard much about him lately, always a bad sign. Then we allprayed for the Democrats, that they'd pull it together. Then we had two birthday cakes as Tom, Steven's friend.has a birthday tomorrow. So we got a chance to make yet another wish, candles and all.
Scenic report on the Beverly Hills Hotel: all the young girls look like Lindsay Lohan, with cell-phone attached to ear, even as they stand talking to each other while talking to someone else. All the old girls look like Cloris Leachman, probably because that's who it was. A woman pianist(a pianistess?) played songs from an era when there were songs, wearing a straw hat. Everyone was very upset about Chris being thrown off American Idol,and I was even more upset that I have actually been watching. The couple who have been most welcoming to me here are a darling pair, Tom and Pam, who are addicted, and it has rubbed off. I am ashamed of myself, but even more ashamed that he lost, as he could really sing. This is my self-consciously self-condemning while really being self-congratulatory take on 'O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.' My embarrassment at what I have become knows no boundaries except that I am very happy and highly productive, so if I am a moron in the evening, I forgive me.
Then I came home where Jamie brought me the gift of a tiny iron teapot from Japan that sits on a prayer wheel, and some mint to pass the water through. Very simple, as she pretends to be.
Next I am going out to dinner with a friend to Toscana, where the other night I ate with Vicky and we saw Tom Hanks whose hair looks really silly, long in back as if it will make people not notice it is gone in front. That's all the news from Hollywood, which is not exactly the Rialto, but we do get a lot more done, and the flowers are fresher if you get them at Trader Joe's.
Thank you all for your birthday greetings. and doooooo join me in praying for the Democrats.

Further Miracles

As I wrote of the Gerber daisies, giving us a sign that all things are possible that we didn't think were, since they stood straight up, never bending or drooping all that week, I must tell you now that the miracle continues, three week-fold. They still have their heads high, and I compliment them daily, as human beings may not be the only things that need affirmation and praise.
But it certainly doesn't hurt us. I have had the great good fortune to have my once and future editor, Bob Gutwillig, who edited The Pretenders, on my case lo these many semi-uncommunicative weeks, supporting me as I stumbled toward the finish line on the novel I am writing. I have 72, 507 words but who's counting. So I am within sight of my goal on the eve of my birthday-- Thursday, no gifts or flowers but please send me wishes as I'm not sure all of you have transferred to gmail, and my early morning messages are strangely silent, The New York Times, Peace and Social Justice,Moveon.org, and the Democratic party having been trapped in Earthlink, which as you probably know has been outsourced to India, so we may never hear from any of them again.
I have hardly been out of my apartment which I love, both the apartment and hardly being out of it, I am having such a good time writing this novel and hope all of you will, too,reading it-- will tell you the title and what happens to it when I'm finished-- but have been a few times to the Barrington dog park with Mimi, who still hasn't interacted much with the other dogs, though a corgy named Blaze fell in love with her and she had to be rescued. A trainer of a pack of huge dogs-- he walks about 13 of them and they swirl around him like fish-- said it is very like a little girl's first day at school, that she has to get to know the other kids before she will be comfortable letting go of Mama.
The jacaranda are finally in bloom along my street-- it has been unusually cold this April May, coldest since the '50s, so the fiends who run this home owners association won't turn on the heater in the pool, and I have had to drive a distance to a friend's house to swim these past mornings, as it does clear my head. Hope her gas bill doesn't kill her. I would rather it killed the board of this building, where I am not even allowed to speak at board meetings as I am not an owner-- I was told I could go but not speak. Still these are not really hardships-- I am lucky I have a friend who turned on her heater, I am lucky I can swim, I am lucky I can breathe, I am lucky to be alive,especially now as I near the finale of the book. I am nervous about even writing this, nervous about flying, nervous about doing anything to break the rhythm, nervous about this fucking administration, but otherwise life is good. My Jewru Jack is working in east Marin with the Dalai Lama on prison meditation and gave me the good news that Al Gore is alive and well up there and, more important, not a stiff, that he is apparently at last at ease and funny as he travels around with his Green documentary, so we do have someone to think about that we can like, and Jack said as he already won the presidential election once, maybe he can win it again. My friend George-Anne said not even to think about that, that we have to unseat people in the congressional election so we can impeach this jerk, but my doctor Keith said that would be the waste of a year, as it was with Clinton, and people would throw the government's not moving ahead back on the Democrats. He also said the war is the least of it-- the true sins of this administration are the killing of the middle class, the collusion between the government and oil interests, the collusion between them and the drug companies so that Plan D kills the old people on Medicare. He thinks they should stop Saddam's trial, put him back in power so that all those over there who want to kill each other can, and he will take care of Iran and find bin Laden. It was an interesting lunch.
Ahead lies an interesting dinner, and a journey to New York next week. And as it the season of jacaranda, when I usually wrote a novel when we were living in Beverly Hills, all signs are encouraging. On top of which I have baby-sat twice for my little grandboys, my son is acting almost like a human being, so all is surprisingly well. Now if we can just get rid of these dangerous morons. Love to you all,and Hi there, NSA!

Easter Friends

I doubt it will be too joyful a Sunday for Rummy. Those of you who have read these not-exactly-bulletins for a long time know that one of my closest friends stopped speaking to me because I expressed opinions, and Rumsfeld was one of her closest friends. To have earned the right front page headline in The New York Times, and a whole half page inside with all these retured generals calling for him to step down can not make him believe in the Easter Bunny.
At the same time, Judas has been elevated to Best Friend of Jesus, according to the newly announced-- it was found some time ago-- Gospel of Judas, which espouses the 'truth' that Judas was only obeying orders. It was Jesus' wish to be betrayed, so he could get on with his destiny. Sometimes we don't know who our friends really are.
As for my Friends who are literally Friends, that is to say, the Quakers, I have had to step away from attending Meeting, which I have done in my questing as Quaker-Buddhist-Jew, for many years while and whenever in California, as I spoke a few Sundays ago, during the Concerns part of Meeting(that follows the silent meditation and greeting of other attenders,) and asked that everybody there get neighbors out to vote in the upcoming congressional elections, because we have to unseat these fucking Republicans, (though I was careful not to say 'fucking') so we could impeach Bush. I was chastised afterwards by the Clerk, who is more or less the elected minister of the meeting, admonishing me that we were not allowed to be political, that if a Democrat were advocating war they would be opposed to the Democrat. I understand, and always have, that the Quakerly philosophy, advocating as it does, Peace, follows the path of passive resistance. But I don't think we can afford to be passive anymore. So I ain't going back there.
At the same time, my Buddhist is in the desert with my beloved friend and Jewru Jack at Joshua Tree, in a horrible compound called the Institute of Mentalphysics that was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's few mistakes, so it's no place I want to be. The masseur sent by my girlfriend the retired psychic Pattie to relieve my weary shoulders, from hunching over the computer, pronounced my work room 'austere' and in truth I loved that. There is nothing on the bright yellow walls of the clean, square, non-windowed workspace but a metal cut-out lettering, 'Faith,' and a beautiful watercolor of a blooming cactus, by the paintress(why not? I hate that women call themselves 'actor,') the gifted and giving Nancy Boyarsky, who brought it to my housewarming(but not too warm.) The only excess is in the flowers, which are sparingly everywhere, and keep me renewed. My studio in New York is heavy with stuff, most of it tasteful, but inarguably cluttered. So it is a spiritual joy to have become spare, at least in my externals. And I guess what I have to return to is my non-observant Jew, whose religion is writing.
I said to my friend the airheadedly focused on follicles hairdresser Dusty, that I get up, walk Mimi, do a little yoga, feed her and myself and then do nothing but write. He said to me "Isn't that what writers are supposed to do?"
The gas on the corner has gone up since March 1st, when I moved in, from $2.43 to $2.95,and the Indian who is the cashier says it is going up again this afternoon. I took Mimi to the doggie park on Barrington the afternoon it was clear with no sign of rain, where they have all the new in-bred breeds, pugles(a mix of pug and beagle) Labradoodles, and one mix that was terrier and chihuaha(Ter-a-wa?) and discovered for the first time that she's shy. Kind of reticent in the company of other dogs, so perhaps she never really knew she was a dog, as she's never been shy with people. She continues to be my best friend, as is appropriate.
And then there are all the friends I have lost, some, sadly through their passing, some, surprisingly, because they got mad I was rapt and attentive at Fitzgerald's sentencing Scooter Libby, so I feel no loss. And there are the friends I let go as I try to grow up, and the friends who, abruptly, just disappear, a phenomenon brought up by Bill Boyarsky, my friend the great newsguy, who marked friends he thought he'd have forever, who simply vanished when he wasn't writing for the LA Times anymore.
Then there are the unanticipated friends, like Anita Pointer, of the Pointer Sisters, our friendship beginning in a most entertaining way, a story I will tell in full next week when I go to the funeral of her sister, June, who died, sadly of cancer, a few days ago. I got a fortune cookie last week that said 'Am Unexpected Friendship that will prove long-lasting,' and I immediately thought of Anita, who greeted me when I dropped in on her last Sunday with "Oh, Gwen. You always show up when I need a hug." But maybe it wasn't Anita on the cookie. Maybe it was all of you. I hope so. Happy Easter.

Why Aren't We Marching?

It is interesting to see that they're out in vast numbers, the illegal immigrants, peacefully organized and protesting the loss of their chance to become citizens. What's more fascinating is why those of us who already legitimately belong here aren't taking to the streets protesting the loss of our country. It is only a matter of time-- probably just before the elections-- until we/they go into or onto Iran. The New York Times pointed out yesterday that the same kind of diction that preceeded our going into Iraq is being used by the administration now about Iran. Our forces are training for a new kind of air war. Bush is spidering his way through an ever-more entangling web of lies, shameless. But he doesn't like to say he made a mistake, and he doesn't apologize. So his only choice, in view of the enormity of his ego and the small of his brain, is more war. Where is Civil Disobedience when we need it?
It occured to me last week that what was wrong with this war, besides that it never should have started, was that there were no songs, and said I was open to suggestions..A few friends offered "Over Where?"

On the lighter side of the news, at least mine-- I have happily bi-located in Southern Cal where I am halfway through a new novel that I hope we will all live to enjoy reading, having a wonderful time in the writing of, unless I look at the papers. Tomorrow I go for my first(and probably last) lesson in Tae Kwan Doe which plays not a major part in the plot(Eureka! I have one!) but I have to know a little about. Every week I do the equivalent of a seminar, in addition to the writing, My good friend and wry journalist Bill Boyarsky connected me with a politico for the plot element I needed there, the politico connected me with a Korean for what I needed to know in Koreatown, last week I went to the Queen Mary(don't ask) and tomorrow Tae Kwan Doe. Have no idea what next week will bring-- I knew the beginning and the end of the book but am building the rest like Leggo-- no idea what was to come in-between, until it falls into place. Can say no more as my new personal aim is Silence. Fermez la pisque.
hope you are all well and have made the transition with me to gmail as Earthlink sucks and I am tired of talking to India while they pretend their names are Tex. There's an idea. Can't we outsource the presidency?

All Songless on the Eastern Front

It has occured to me that what's wrong with this war, besides that it never should have happened, is that there are no songs. The Civil War had 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,',' WorldWar I had 'Over There!' and WorldWar II had 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition', the last being the early work of the great Frank Loesser, who went on to give us 'Guys and Dolls.' A fine tunesmith, as those guys used to be known. I began to wonder what Frank could cook up, with his endless versatility, for this epic error. 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition into the head of Pat Tillman'? 'There'll be Blue Birds Over the Un-Armored Land Rover'? 'I'll be Home for Ramadan? I mean, what's a songwriter to do? Even George M. Cohan, our Yankee Doodle Dandy, would be hard-pressed to come up with a ditty for this one.

But perhaps it's the Chicken and the Egg. Perhaps if we had a really good song it would all get better. Even seem okay. Put your mind to it, all. Let me know if you come up with any ideas. I used to be a songwriter myself, when the world was young, which was one of the better bar-room ballads, when singers were singers, and presidents were presidents.

A Farewell to That Summer-- and Maureen

In my extreme youth, when I wanted nothing so desperately as to write for the theater, Freddy Sadoff of the Actors Studio introduced me to Janice Mars. Janice had a boite on Sixth Avenue, The Baq Room, where she sang in her angry,irresistible voice, and wanted one of my songs, 'Sex',from my Cole Porter manque period. She took me to sing it for "a friend"who had an apartment in the Carnegie Hall building, and as we went down the corridor came the cry "Ehhhh, Janice!"-- in the unmistakeable voice that had called out 'Stellll---a!' So there he was, at that moment the epitome of male beauty and all there was to excite longing in a teenager in love with performers. I sang my song for Marlon Brando in a shaking voice, while he played Janice's chest as if it were bongos as accompaniment. When I finished singing, he mumbled "Not bad. Tell me about yourself,kid." For one of the few times in my life, I had a hard time finding words, and just managed to get out that I went to Bryn Mawr. He immediately trilled,a la Katharine Hepburn "Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Barynnnnn Mawahrrr." Somehow it made it humiliating to be going there.
But when Janice invited me to the Falmouth Playhouse that summer, where she would be appearing with him in 'Arms and the Man'(he was directing,and playing Sergio,) I was there. My roommate that summer was Maureen Stapleton, who may well have been the finest actress of her generation, which is, alas, as of today, the generation that is no more. I was standing in line at Ralph's getting things for my St.Patrick's Day housewarming, when the TV at the checkout stand that offers cooking tips for shoppers ran a line across the bottom that Maureen was dead, at 80.
She was still quite young that summer, playing with Sam Levene and Wally Cox in Three Men on a Horse. I was being teased by Marlon, as I was very much a chub, and unable to eat in his presence, so he asked me "You on a diet, kid?" at which point Maureen said "Shut up,Natural Beauty." In the room we shared she said that night "Nobody knows what it means to be unhappy unless they weighed a hundred and eighty-two in High School," which I did,and she, apparently, had too. She had also been seduced by her parish priest before it was fashionable(and an aberration, I guess, a young girl) and so had her faith shattered, along with, I would guess,any chance of a happy relationship with men. I knew her when she was married to Max, and when a really good playwright loved her but she drove him away. I was with her the morning after she won her Academy Award for 'Reds,' when her room-- not a suite-- at the Beverly Wilshire was littered with champagne bottles, and I dragged her to see my ob/gyn because she hadn't been for years and I wanted her to live a long time.
Over those years she and I had kept up a warm connection. She and Janice had been roommates in NY when they were first starting out, and rumors were they had been each other's great love. But mostly they fought for the rest of their lives, and when Janice went to see her that last time in Massachussetts, where Maureen was hiding out -- to be close to her grandchildren she said, but no one was sure how often her daughter let her see them, --they had a terrible blow-up: Janice left and didn't speak to her for the rest of her life, which was not to be long. All of this was punctuated with interaction with Marlon,who'd been Janice's lover early in their game,and then paid for her analysis to help her get over him,and who despised Maureen's drinking, but continued to love and admire her as a friend. Maureen said Marlon's children had such tragic lives because he'd set no example, and Janice said Maureen was a fine one to talk. He called Janice when she made a CD of the album he'd kept in his desk since the '60s to tell her she was not a good singer... Brandoesque pause... she was "a great singer." He wanted her to go on the internet to plug her album but she didn't understand the internet, so they ended their conversation with a 'Fuck You!' 'No,fuck you!' SLAM. But they spoke to each other again and in that last conversation, Marlon told Janice he intended to live to 125. "Why would you want to?" Marlon:"Out of Curiosity." Not long after that Janice died,and I had a really strong feeling Marlon would follow, as there was no one around to keep him honest-- at least as honest as he managed to be having thrown himself away.
And then there was no one left but Maureen. I called her from time to time and she thanked me, but was always drunk. The last time I'd seen her, years ago in the Hamptons, she was drinking two-fisted, a red wine in each hand. But I have earlier memories, visions of the great, dear, damaged, funny woman she was. One night, on the phone, weeping, because her son was giving her a bad time. "It's hard to be seventeen," I said." Said Maureen:"it's harder being 44." One day, as we ate lunch at one of those almost sidewalk cafes on Upper Broadway, her face was transmuted into light as she looked out the window and caught sight of-- like a child, captivated, murmuring:"Balanchine."
For a while in there somewhere she wanted to do my musical-- I have a tape of her singing "New York City', hardly able to breathe. But she was a trouper when she wasn't loaded. And somehow inoffensive when she was, because her nature was so sweet, demure beneath the sometimes raucous disguise. She took off her dress once on 80th Street,in the doorway of the Dry Cleaners, because it needed cleaning. I sort of sheltered her from anyone passing by being able to see, and got her to put it back on,told her she might really want to give it to him when she was wearing something else. She accepted that might be a good idea.
Brilliantly gifted. Totally guileless. A darling woman. The end of the line for that summer.