WHO WAS IT MADE UP 'TWEET?'

So as if the world had not become stupid and scary enough, not necessarily in that order, we now have a planet where our avowed worst enemy, Putin, has endorsed our most self-aggrandizing egotist, Donald Trump.  I have been told by my smartest friend, Joanna Rose, who knows him, that Trump is not stupid, and I have to believe her or she would not be my smartest friend.  So what is he doing?  I understand that the enormity of his ego makes him care not at all for the consequences of his blustery words, other than making himself even more visible. But be afraid: be very very afraid.  And come sit beside me while we shiver so we're not isolated in this.
    Am sad beyond my ability to express in words --probably for the best-- at the state of the world, with nothing worse except for the theatre, the thing I used to love most when it really was. Wanted to see the revival of Fiddler, but the musician I trust most (Steve) says Tevye is too thin and the critic I trust most (Rex) has seen enough so he isn't even going.   The moment I saw on TV was completely unmoving, and one of the few advantages of being as old as I am is having lived long enough to have actually seen Zero, than whom there could not be anyone better EVER.  And Bea Arthur was beyond wonderful, and it never mattered how drunk she was before or after, she was always on point onstage.
      I am missing friends in other parts of the world but have no intention of traveling unless absolutely unavoidable.  Wish there was something I really needed to do in Seattle, except if they could terrorize San Bernardino,nothing is unimaginable.  What a world. 
        I have several times now tried starting to read Infinite Jest but consider perhaps he committed suicide because he couldn't believe how ready the world was to consider it a masterpiece, when he knew.

WHERE TO GO/WHEN/IF?

So as madness is spreading even to places we weren't sure were there or knew how to spell (San Bernardino?) you have to reconnect with the smartest spiritual teachings, live in the moment and try to be exactly where you are, if you can focus on where that is.  Traveling between my eyebrows, I try to find Amsterdam, where I wish I was right now, though it is probably even wetter and colder than it is, surprisingly, here, though doubtless still friendlier, the unexpected bonanza that comes from having an open heart and an empty seat next to you on an airplane.
    On my desk I have several books I have long intended to read, Infinite Jest, one of the great recommendations of Ever, and The March by Ed Doctorow, a really smart and kind man who did not seem to take seriously the fact that he was held in higher esteem than almost anybody else.  I have tried several times to read Infinite Jest but have found it laborious, as with all the languages I can speak, especially after some wine, I found it tough going and not really worth the effort.  And that was only close to the beginning, knowing he had committed suicide, something I'm sorry about even though I never knew David Foster Wallace, an impressive name, although I was sorry for him that when they made the movie which I believe failed with an impressive rapidity, he was played by one who couldn't score outside of a sitcom.
       I am sad for a world that can be dominated by a manipulative jerk like Donald Trump, endorsed by Putin, which should tell us more about Trump than even he wants to know, though smart as he thinks he is, he isn't smart enough to feel uneasy with that endorsement.

THE WORST 24 hours SINCE MIMI DIED

I mean, get to know the meaning of a phrase.

You who live on the East Coast know how much I love and miss you, and except for the registered buddies, that is to say those who sign in with regular inquiries and assurances that it matters to you even peripherally that I am still alive, something it is not always easy to see even when present in Beverly Hills, my computer vanished.  Talk about isolation and fear.  Not hard enough getting through what's happening in the rest of the world, now oddly including San Bernardino, I lost what turned out to be my other best friend beside my dog.

     The good thing was I had walked home from Apple that afternoon, so knew I could not have left it in the cab or the Uber, the latest entrance into which I had espoused to try and keep myself late-middle-aged.  The borderline tragedy(for Beverly Hills) was that I was missing Ellen's evening for Share, an organization that I am old enough to remember from when Jamie's mother didn't need any work, on her face, anyway.  I had the wonderful dress, at least, though sorrow and borderline panic at not having had the time to have my hair done, so having to wear a hat that was sort-of coordinated, lacked the confidence or posture to stay long enough to face the jeweled ladies, especially since the event was walking distance from my home, although like it we were both on the wrong side of the tracks that aren't there anymore. Ellen was the loveliest lady there of course but had the selflessness not to flaunt, her husband the most gallant, telling me I look young, the most elevating word you can say to any woman in the burg, which I guess it still is.

     Grieving, having eaten in passing only one of the excellent and probably pricey hors-doeuvres, I returned home long before the real festivities I assume began, so will never know if I would have won the raffle.  Oh, the things that give you anxiety in Southern Cal.  But depression, fear and aging rise up heavy and tall when you've moved someplace you never belonged except when it's turned out to be not that wonderful everyplace else but Amsterdam and the weather there sucks as does the language.  So to get home safely and not suicidal is a plus.

      Somehow I managed to get to sleep without overdosing, and woke this morning only vaguely depressed, not quite sure what all had I missed, but sure it had been some excellent jewelry besides Ellen's. Then I went to the bank to stop all my new checks, arrived in yesterday's mail, but as I didn't have my bank card with me, the man in charge, even though I have made myself extremely present and obnoxious for the past few days as I have seemingly syncopatedly managed to misplace and mismanage everything

except the dog I wasn't sure if I ought to get, wouldn't give me the new checks without my ID which was still at home where I had just been getting the rest of the shit.  So rather than miss my appointment at the Apple store to get my new computer on which I would have to reinstall every bit of information accrued over the past many I couldn't believe how many years I'd filled in, and what books I'd written that nobody even wanted besides the ones that they had bothered to look at, when there were still publishers that cared about words and aspiration, I decided I'd return later after I got my new-- sigh-- computer.  So I taxied (no Ubers) back to the Apple store in Westwood, where are working a couple of friends I've made who teach, though I don't really seem to learn anything. And there I proceeded to take instruction on the new Apple, preferred computer of choice being the one most like the one I'd lost, even though it was no cuter than the other and less expensive.  My instructor, an amiable young fellow sent for the manager to okay me for the purchase.  He came and okayed me, and on hearing my name said: "Oh, you're Gwen Davis.  We have your computer."

     Now you need to understand that we'd been telling people my name as though it should have been famous for other than stupidity since the afternoon of the afternoon before, and had no reaction.  So it isn't just me, God, if You're there.  It's the world.  

    But it's nice to have you back, in case you're in there, whoever you are.  And the moral of the story?  I'm not sure.  Send in your suggestions.  Maybe in a world where Bin Laden is dead and it still doesn't make that much difference, things are still confusing and crappy, you better call Ellen and ask her what exactly to wear.

AN EXERCISE FOR THE SOUL

So I sit here in Self-Absorbed LA trying to care less about Self, but afraid to think too much about or pay too much attention to what appears to be happening.  Having been many things in Life, or having tried to be many things, most important of which, I still think and hope was Human Being, I am covered with a sense of not-quite-yet-but-could-soon-be Terror, actually turning on the TV which I've never done of a morning, to check if there had been any new atrocity in the night that wasn't reported yet in The New York Times, pulled in from my not-quite stoop.  I find myself particularly sad/puzzled about what might have been in the mind, if she had one, of this female terrorist, when it came to what might become of her baby.  Where did she leave it?  What did she plan, if she planned anything so well as her arsenal? What is this all about, and it can't have anything to do with a shared humanity, since that is a word that appears not to factor into what is going on.
      So scary, and yet I am lucky enough to be in a place where no one seems tuned in enough to be scared, except of not receiving the next invitation.  As you may know if you are generous of spirit enough to read this thing, I actually dressed to the eights(one short of the nines) for the party the other evening that wasn't there yet.  In fact, the lovely and caring woman who has an unexpected core of Giving and Focus-on-Others, including ones who are actual dogs, was ready herself to attend the Event that wasn't there the next night that I saved her from, having attended it the night before when it wasn't there yet either.  Understand that I understand how empty and superficial all this is, grateful to the core of my soul which I believe I still have, that I am in a position to be superficial.  Those poor victims in San Bernardino weren't even on their way to anything.
     What's worst about all this, in my estimation, is that we will never really know what was in the mind of the couple who perpetrated the violent obscenity.  I am sad for Obama even as I want to punch him that he hasn't got the balls to be angrier, even as I know that anger is no solution.  I suppose my fury is because I'd believed him at one point to be so eloquent, and I now hear how empty his words are.
     Still I shall be off soon to the Beverly Hills Hotel for the Hanukkah Celebration which I never usually celebrate myself but passed a first installment of yesterday afternoon in Century City on my way to my Apple lesson which I still observe in case there should be a future I should comment on in some reasonable-trying-to-be-dispassionate way.  I mean, I did go to Quaker Meeting on Sunday just in case there is a God, who must be so disappointed. December 7th, after all.  Remember when wars seemed to be for a reason, even one that made so little sense?

A WORLD CHANGED

So it is no longer a question of when you will travel, but whether.  I am happy that I have been everyplace I really wanted to go, except Barcelona, and for that there is always the song.  There is something way past heartbreak in what has occurred with the plane being hijacked and downed, the massacre in Paris, and now the one in San Bernardino-- huh? How did anyone even know it was there?-- because there is almost no human emotion-- wait a second, not 'almost.'  There is NO human emotion in what has taken place.  Humanity is not a factor in what these people do.  They have nothing really to live for, no aspiration.  Only a wish to destroy.  So sad, and meaningless.
     Very late in what is left of my game I am glad not to regret having been everywhere I wanted to go except Barcelona. That all of this comes on the not-yet-tail of what would have been holidays underlines the sad/and empti/ness of it all.  Worst is to read about it in the Wall Street Journal, attitude adding to the sadness. They of course do not address the underlying tragedy of the USA, that all but one Republican in Congressnwon't do anything about the availability of guns.  But not just guns.  Weapons of mass murder.
     And of course Obama is far from blameless, not tightening the availability belt until after it had become more obviously disastrous, the reining in to any extent almost useless and ineffective.  I am sad that I ever pulled for the man, and no longer believe in what he says, eloquent though it may have seemed once. Especially to him.
    But politics ain't my game.  Especially now.  The front page article on d'Amato in the Times is as close as anything comes to comedy.  So I am looking forward to shows at the Beacon by Jerry Seinfeld, since it is our comedians who have become our commentators.  But I will not be attending them as I won't be hurrying back to New York.  I'm scared as well as old, though that seems no protection against Al Quaeda who are killing women of advanced years anyway, even though they may not be hoping to get raped.
  What a world, what a world.  Bill Maher begins to seem benign as well as on target. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, THANK GOD

So I have been admonished by Joanna, my smartest friend, not to write so much about Brando, her saying he was "Not that interesting."  Of course he was to me, as I was eighteen, he was the biggest star in the world, and I hadn't get met Cary Grant.  I understand now that even Cary Grant is probably not that interesting anymore, but those who are "stars" have already faded only weeks, sometimes days, after their emergence, and they have only emerged because I was looking for someplace to hide out as the world became scarier, and it still seemed okay to go to the movies.  As it turns out, the truly most elegant of all was Gregory Peck, who had his own very tall personal style, a true education, and the most impressive of wives, who probably knew how to kill people, along with her journalistic graces.
      I have a picture now on my desk of the infant son of my friend Olivia who is in charge of many high end things at the Peninsula in Hong Kong, where I will probably never go again, because the world has become so dicey to step out into, or certainly up onto.  It is saddest, I think, because these people have no real reason to live, the only thing they have to look forward to is the afterlife, where they will finally get laid.  Bill Maher, who seems more brilliant with every passing disaster that he examines on air, speaks of how little sense any of it makes, and that we cannot possibly hope to understand because it is so foreign to our sense of values, or our sense of sense. It is the Upside of Being Old, having gone every place I wanted to go with the exception of Barcelona, but Sondheim has already written that song, as I have already writ probably a couple of times, the Downside of Being Old.  But I don't really care that I did, the Upside of Being Old 2.
     As minor as these ramblings are, they are a relief to me as I know how to find and write them on my computer, still a difficulty if I stop to consider how difficult and all-absorbing technology has become, and how unfulfilling, except probably for those who know how to use it. The world has become ever increasingly and ever more presently a scary place to be.  So I am grateful for having gone everywhere I wanted to be, as I have now written for noticeably the third time as is apparent even to me.
    Since everything is so tenuous, I actually watched the Thanksgiving Parade on TV to make sure it was still there, something I didn't bother to do even when I lived on Central Park West which I think I did for one almost winter.  The day looked glorious, and was a gift probably from God if He/She does exist.  There seems to be a great generosity of Spirit behind the parade, even though it is selling a lot of things, mostly Macy's.  I think I am grateful to be in the world while it is still a moderately great place to be, as long as you are not in a plane over someone else's air space.
    There is, certainly, an unmistakeable American glory to Thanksgiving, though as an American and an English major I know how probably little the Pilgrims really had to be grateful for.  But having lived this long and being now in California where it is not quite as nice a day as it looked to be in New York, there is still no anxiety about terrorism, I hope for good reason.
    May you have the happiest and healthiest of holidays, if you celebrate them.  And if not, why not?  Don't you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive?  For a while, anyway.
      

FRIDAY THE !3th

So it is that day I always looked forward to celebrating, being perverse or possibly aware that the universe is upside down, and the days we are most anxious about are maybe the ones that are best, if there is humor in the planning, or, indeed, any plan at all.  The movie that Marlon Brando made about himself is going to be on television tomorrow, so I have a date for Saturday night, as I still love him and remember him thin, or at least spare, fit for a queen, which I wasn't, though I did feel royal to be in his presence.  Janice Mars, my to-be-beloved friend who wanted to sing my song SEX,  as everybody did and a few stole was a close friend of his and a cast-off bed partner, as everybody was, so introduced me to him knowing that my tongue would be hanging out with stunned gratitude.  "I want you to meet someone," she said, having me show up at the Carnegie Towers building, then arguably the most beautiful one on 57th Street, now dwarfed and uglified by what the Greedy and Tasteless have built around, overshadowing.  Then she pressed the button for whatever floor it was.  And when the automatic door opened, from down the hall came the cry "Eeehh, Janice," unmistakeable.  My heart stopped.
     I have written about this before, but I want to make sure I get it just right.  At one point that was probably what Marlon wanted, but eventually set aside, replacing it with covetousness, I think, and eventually boredom.  It had to be hard for him, bright as he was, to see people so filled with longing to be with him.  He did not have that high an opinion of himself.  But he was so much brighter than most imagine, and it showed right away, intensifying my infatuation with him, more than justified.   I was eighteen, and he was, clearly, wonderful.  Besides being physically past perfect, he was funny.  He flung her across his lap, made by flopping himself into a great leather chair, and saying to me,"Tell me about yourself, kid."
     Tongue sticking to both the roof of my mouth and the bottom of it, I gave my name, and the major fact of my life up till then, "and I go to Bryn Mawr."
     "OOOOooooo," he said, Katharine Hepburn.  "Ba...rynnn Mawhrrr."A long wait.  "Sing me the song, kid." 
     I sang him the song that Janice wanted me to give her for her act.  It was called Sex.  Witty and Cole Porterish... I forgive myself ... if there was anybody you should have wanted to be like if you were writing songs those days, it was Cole Porter.
     Marlon beat out an accompaniment on Janice's chest as I sang. When I finished, he said "Not bad.  Not bad."
     I left without knowing how I had really done, but  I must have passed the test.  I was invited to join them that coming summer at the theater in Falmouth, Massachusetts.  He would be directing and starring in ARMS AND THE MAN.  I went with planets in my eyes-- stars would not have been big enough.  And I was invited!!!!
       He directed and starred.  He was terrible. He never could do comedy.
        I loved him no less.  His best friend, Wally Cox, was there for the presentation onstage the week before of another play, Three Men on a Horse, with Maureen Stapleton, who became my roommate while I was there.  She remained a good friend for the rest of her life, but would probably have been too drunk to remember.  A great lady, though seriously tilted.  And Wally became a true buddy for the last twenty-four hours of his life, when I miraculously re-connected with him.
      But back there in Falmouth, at eighteen, I was fat as Marlon was to become, and seated in the summer camper's dining room having breakfast with him, was unable to eat even that meager portion of fruit and cottage cheese I allotted myself.  "On a diet, kid?" he asked me, and when I sort of choked, added: "It's all right.  I just think most girls are prettier thin."
     Sam, his really good friend who he took with him everywhere, liked me, so I had some genuinely close-up moments and got to see what the young would-be novelist benefitted from, abetted by a friendship with the cast off fiancee, Josette Mariani, who had worked for the Strasbergs, to whom he was tied by the navel.  I went to see her when I was first in Hollywood, and we drove up to his house.  She beat pathetically on the metal-pronged window to his front doors, and closed it when he saw who it was.  Not anyone you wanted to have a love affair ended with. But I got to use the scene in Naked in Babylon, my first novel.  The old Brando tried to option it.

      When last I saw Marlon, he was waiting for a wedding at the Hotel Bel-Air, sitting on a bench.  I was with Don, who was still and always jealous of my ex-romances, no matter how unrealized.  "There's your great love," he said. "He's turned into Sydney Greenstreet."  And he had.  Enormous.
      I still love him and will watch tomorrow night.  I wish I had said Goodbye to Janice.
     

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