PENELOPE MILFORD R.I.P.

 

Penny and I got married on Valentine's Day 1982, about six months after we met. I had gone to see another actor in the play FISHING and afterwards our eyes, Penny's and mine, connected and that was that. It was a brief, passionate, volatile marriage, long ago.

What I'll remember most: her vivacious smile, her magnificent acting, her rambunctiousness, her stubbornness, and her (maybe too often misdirected) willingness to speak truth to power, including mine. Rest In peace and Power kid.

(wedding invitation by Joe Brainard)

MALACHY MCCOURT, JEROME ROTHENBERG, DAVID SHAPIRO,, TOM BOWER R.I.P.

We're halfway through the year, and I haven't marked the passing of some contemporaries (more or less). Partly because it's physically challenging these days (which is why I no longer post daily). First was Malachy McCourt, Frank's brother, who became famous first, as a raconteur bartender and popular guest on THE TONIGHT SHOW getting him backers for his own Manhattan bar, and later acting jobs in movies and on TV. 

Before Frank published his classic memoir ANGELA'S ASHES, I saw them both perform in the original version of that story, each playing multiple roles of the people in their Irish childhood, including women in kerchiefs and shawls, in a church basement to a small audience. Malachy later published his own memoir, A MONK SWIMMING, which came out around the same time as my poetry collection CANT BE WRONG, in the late '90s. We did a reading for the books in a San Francisco bar and restaurant. That's a photo of us with our friend the writer/scholar, and long gone Dan Cassidy (me with Dan on my left and Malachy my right).

Then two poet/scholars I knew passed, Jerome Rothenberg and David Shapiro. Jerome had a great impact on my generation of poets with his anthologies of world poetry focusing on the work of indigenous peoples. His own poetry impactful as well. When my SOUTH ORANGE SONNETS first came out in 1972, he sent me a postcard praising them (in my archives at NYU). He was a kind and gracious person.

David Shapiro had an impact on our generation as well.  We were both Jersey boys, but from such different backgrounds I was sometimes a bit chip--on-my-shoulder confrontational with him. He had the kind of articulate wit I didn't, and early success as a teen in the poetry world where he was admired as a "poet's poet" and in the academic world. But in the end we had much more in common than our home state and poetry (and music, him classical me jazz), including Parkinson's which he suffered from for many years with a kind of acceptance and even nobility which I can only aspire to.

And most recently Tom Bower, an actor I knew and greatly admired, and could fairly be called an "actor's actor" if he hasn't been already. You may not know his name but  you've most likely seen him in a movie or on TV. In my encounters with him, he was always so easy to get along with, both humble and grounded, never arrogant or self-centered as I could often be back in the day. I liked him and hoped he liked me.

May all of the above Rest In Prose, Poetry, Performance, and Peace.

BREATH CONTROL 12/80

So grateful that John Newt sent me this recording of me in my prime (1980, at 38) reading some of my poems and a story, demonstrating the breath control I learned from studying Frank Sinatra's and John Coltrane's techniques. 

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[archiveorg mma222-01 width=640 height=60 frameborder=0 webkitallowfullscreen=true mozallowfullscreen=true]

HERITAGE UPDATE

My maternal grandfather, Tom Dempsey, died when I was a little boy, but I remember him. I knew he was known as "the silver thrush" for his singing and that he had owned a tavern in Newark where he and my grandma Dempsey lived until she was widowed and moved in with us. 

But I never realized he was actually a vaudeville headliner back in the 1800s until my niece Lisa shared scrapbooks handed down to her mother, my sister Irene, and I saw these programs. What a delight to now picture my grandfather when watching classic movies with vaudeville scenes, like YANKEE DOODLE DANDY or GYPSY et al.

PAUL REUBENS R.I.P.

I didn't know Paul personally, though I was at the same event he was once or twice. But like so many, I adored his performance art, in his early iterations as what would become Pee-wee Herman, and the later full blossoming of that character, and the world of his imagination, in his all-welcome-here TV playhouse, and Pee-wee movies.

My only personal story about him is when I was asked to audition at the last minute for the small role of Sykes in WHITE FANG. I was told that I was up against Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens who had also auditioned for it. It would just be a cameo role for him, but would help show he was versatile enough to do other characters besides Pee-wee. 

Needless to say, I got the role and immediately flew to Alaska where it was being shot. I chose to make the character a wannabe dandy of the time but because of problems on the shoot felt I didn't do my best work. When I saw it at the premiere, and the few times since, all I could think of was: I sure would have loved to see what Reubens would have done with this role.

Rest In Pee-wee Paul, and condolences to family, friends, and fans.

LALLYPALOOZA

 
This past Sunday an amazing (to me) event occurred at The Center for Peace Through Culture in Housatonic Mass. My longtime friends (over 50 years) photographer/poet Bobby Miller and actor/director Karen Allen organized "Lallypalooza" (as the program called it) "A Celebration of the Life and Poetry of Michael Lally".

If you're anything like I used to be, you may be asking why the feck you weren't invited, but they didn't promote it cause of limited capacity (the art gallery only fit 60 and with family and their guests alone it was already half full). With almost 30 readers, some on video, many dear friends weren't included. But that was the only aspect of the event that wasn't overwhelmingly joyous.

The love in the room was enough to sustain and delight me for the rest of my story. From the minute I walked in and saw blown up photographic portraits of me through the decades taken by Bobbly (like the one in the photo here) I felt like the luckiest person alive. It was all filmed and should be available online soon.

(photo of Bobby and Karen hosting the event, by Jane DeLynn)

ANOTHER LIST!

In the  mid-1970s, I was a single parent living with my first son (later his sister joined us) on the third floor of a three story federal building on Sullivan Street in what was beginning to become Soho when my second floor neighbor and friend, Denise Bratton, moved out and left me this already antique Art Deco kitchen table (and four matching chairs that long ago fell apart) and it's been with me ever since.

Almost a century old and half a century with me I felt inspired to list just some of the people who have gathered around it in my many homes then and since:

Caitlin Lally (now Hotaling)

Miles Lally

Ana Ross-Gongora

Lee Lally

Irene Lally Koch

Jimmy Lally

Cal Johnson

Sissie Johnson

Etheridge Knight

Tim Dlugos

Ray DiPalma

Elizabeth DiPalma

Jane DeLynn

Sylvia Schuster

Marty Brandel 

Bruce Andrews

Joe Brainard 

Johnn Ashbery

Kenward Elmslie

Edmund White

Terence Winch

Karen Allen

Ted Greenwald

John Godfrey

Jim Brodey

Harris Schiff

Annabel Lee

Rain Worthington

Bill Hellerman

Kiki Smith

Elaine Gill

Steve Levine

Steve Hamilton

Alfred Milanese

Kathy Acker

Jimmy Fouratt

Eileen Myles

Edie Baskin

John McCarthy

J. J. Mitchell

Beate Nielson

John Yau

Charles Bernstein

Paul Violi

Irma Towle

Susan Rothenberg

Udo Breger

Bill Sullivan

Richard Andersen

Simon Pettet

Nathan Whiting

Charles Walsh

Emil Schneeman

Elio Schneeman

Leslie Greene

Cookie Mueller

Max Blagg

Mac Wellman

Robert Slater

Fr. Campion (Tommy) Lally

Susan Wechsler

Elinor Nauen

Maggie Dubris 

Susan Seidelman

Penelope Milford

Aileen

Bobby Miller

Beverly D'Angelo

Diane Lawrence

Mary Waranov

Dennis Christopher

Don Johnson

Ralph Bakshi

Rutger Hauer

Rob Cohen

Dale Herd

Lewis MacAdams

Ed Begley Jr.

Brad Davis

Helen Shaver

Melanie Mayron

Michael O'Keefe

Mike Binder

Jamie Rose

Tom Wilson

Joan Baribeault

Blaine Lourde

Jim Keefe

Jimmy "Buddy" Lally 

Catherine Audia Lally

Nathan Stein

Albie Selznick

Winston Jones

Bill Mohr

Rhonda Talbot 

Kale Brown

Eric Trules

Zalman King

Alec Baldwin

Lycia Naff

Neith Hunter

Kim Williams

Terre Bridgham

Jerome Sala

Elaine Equi

Aram Saroyan

Eve Branstein

Susan Hayden

Bonnie Raitt

Sharon Stone

Jeff Kobar

Walter Koch

Russel Kesterton

Carl Koch

Ty Granderson Jones

Michael DesBarres

Pamela DesBarres

Patti D'Arbanville

Stephen "Rocky" Bauer 

Peter Case

Flo Lawrence

Yvonne de la Vega

Ramona Wilson

Nick Brown

Hubert Selby Jr.

Katy Sagal

Lyndall Hobbs

John Bailey

Carol Littleton

David Milch

Rita Stern Milch

Sarah Jessica Parker

Beth Grant

Paul Harryn

Michael Chieffo

Jenifer Baxandale

Crystal 

Jaina Flynn

Flynn Lally

Michael Harris

Meg Foster

Bill Lannigan

Katy Lannigan

Marshall Norstein

Elaine Durbach

Billy Lally

Robert Lally

Sis Fennesy Lally

Naomi Greene

Donovan Lally

Ed Hotaling

Deak Hotaling

Hannah Bracken

Janet Kirker

Jeff Coleman

Sue Brennan

Stephanie Hoeler

Jim Coleman

Stefan Wrembel

Jeanne Donohue

Will Robinson

Abi Teixteira

Gwyn Kruger 

Nela Hadzic

Odell

Mim Kohn

Nance Boylan

Steve Adams

Spenser Parker

Mick O'Malley

Suzanna Caperos

Lisa Dugan

Amber Daniel

Maria Serrano

Stella Keating

Josee Funes

Marilyn Mohr

Karen Hubbard

Pina Pipina

Susan Napack

Phillipa Scott

Maryann Seibert

Angela Lockhart Aranoff

Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Beth Boily

Laura Booker

Boo Trumble

Rachel Diken

Geoff Young

Perry Ostrin

Brendan O'Connell

[This is who came to mind as I went back over the places i lived in NYC, Santa Monica, Maplewood NJ, and now Hillsdale NY...I know I'm forgetting folks so please forgive my 80-year-old Parkinson's brain...I could have checked my mailing address thing or FB friend list, but I did my best without prompts...feel free to add to it if this table rings a bell for you...]

+ John Restivo, Vivian Bresnitz, Anselm Hollo, Bob Holman, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Jeff Wine, John Voight, Chris Coreshi, Raven Chaney, Mike Graham, Mello-Re Houston, Michael Andre, Kenneth Koch, Willie Farrell, Mark Ebner, Patrice Lally Pniewski, Michele Lally Doyle, Jennifer Lally Fondots, Kim Collins, Kevin McCollister, Magdalen Powers, Paul Abruzzo, Dick Lourie, Ron Schriber, Simon Schuchat, Don Yorty, Norman  Scriviner,  Matt Hauser, Grace Cavalieri, David Hilton, Joanne Hilton Dahlgren, Sandy Bull, Buddy Arnold, John Getz, Ingrid Bolting, Chloe Chandler, Luloo Flynn Mann, Evan Mann, Isabella DesPosito, Doug Milford, Theresa Burns, Jim Bracken, Kathy Bracken, Ate de Jong, Julian Neal, Sophie Charlip. 

KENWARD ELMSLIE R. I. P.

 
This photo (taken by ?) best captures the way I remember Kenward in the 1970s when we spent a lot  of time at his place or mine for dinners and parties and just hanging out. He was, to me, an exceptionally gentle and generous person. At the time he was the wealthiest human I'd ever been friends with, and I may have been as exotic to him. 

He was a poet/playwright/performer/fiction writer/opera and song lyricist, whose most outrageous work a lot of people didn't get, but I love everything I ever read of his or saw performed. His writing was sometimes compared to the Dadaists of the early 20th Century, and he was also seen as part of the first generation of "New York School" poets who were all his friends.

His most accessible writing (though it all seems accessible to me, if you can surrender to its own logic) were lyrics for an opera about Lizzie Borden and the "only song" he wrote lyrics to that "ever made it to a juke box" as he told me, called "Love-wise"–but the writing that impacted me the most was his short fiction collection:The Orchid Stories.

Last time I saw him, I thanked him for all his kindnesses to me and as always he seemed embarrassed by my gratitude, but also touched by it. I'm still grateful.

ACTING INTERVIEW

One of the few times I've been interviewed about my acting career. My Parkinson's weak voice on speaker phone isn't always as clear as I'd like, but I think it's an interesting personal account of acting in  movies and on  TV over my lifetime. Thanks to Tommy Kovac and his Splat From The Past podcast.

Here's the link.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH and WEST SIDE STORY (2021 VERSIONS)

 
Joel Coen's take on "The Scottish Play" (it's considered unlucky in the theater world to say the real title) is receiving some high praise, but for my taste it drags a story that's a near complete drag down even further into the depths of cynicism. The production has been cited as "film noir" influenced, i.e. shot in black&white, set in spare confined spaces empty and gloomy even when outside, etc. I found all that even more depressing than the already depressing story.

And while I often admire and respect Frances McDormand's acting chops, to me she's miscast here as Lady Macbeth, her usual blunt and often cold characterizations overkill for this story. I kept being distracted by thoughts of other actors in the role. But Denzel Washington's performance as the title character had me accepting him as the tragically brutal, power-tempted, ultimately evil protagonist from his first moment on screen. Well worthy of awards nominations.

There's some other gems in the film, like the revelatory performances by Kathryn Hunter, but for my taste Coen gets a C grade at best.

This newest version of a much more loosely based musical interpretation of a Shakespeare play (R&J), repairs some of the failings of the 1961 version (actual LatinX actors playing LatinX characters and speaking actual Spanish etc.) but it changes some iconic scenes and settings from the '61 version in ways that left me missing the earlier takes (e.g. the "play it cool boy' scene and choreography).

I liked almost all the performances except Mike Faist as Riff, which veered between seeming miscast and mismotivated. But because the music is so great (to me, and I do have a personal connection to the original Broadway cast album that I heard as a teenager at a rich girl's house in 1957, before the movie version, and realized musicals and theater in general could do so much more than I had imagined possible) and the tragic story is so close to themes in my own past, I still found this new version often exhilarating and moving. B+.

PS:

Here's another list off the top of my head of ten more personal "Black History Month" icons, these not as famous maybe but all have inspired me, and many others, and I'm lucky to call all of them friends (as I do two previously posted about personal "Black icons" Quincey Troupe and Etheridge Knight):

Nana-Ama Danquah

Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Mello-Re Houston

Angela Lockhart Aronoff

Nadia Owusu

Patricia Spears Jones

Wanda Phipps

Wanda Coleman

Ty Granderson Jones

Lorenzo Thomas

[there are more but these were

the first ten to come to mind]

TICK, TICK...BOOM! and THE EYES OF TAMY FAYE

  
I put tick, tick...BOOM! and The Eyes of Tammy Faye together because the male lead in both is Andrew Garfield, the British actor who has become Hollywood's latest attempt to find a new Tom Hanks, a versatile actor who can play non-glamorous characters and still carry a movie. For me Hanks almost always pulls it off because despite looks that the movie biz usually relegates to "character actor" status, Hanks usually still has as much or more screen charisma as any star.

Despite his obvious commitment and talent, for me Garfield doesn't. What saves him in these two flicks, both flawed but watchable, is the other actors in each cast. Jessica Chaistain as Tammy Faye gives the kind of performance that wins Oscars. Her physical transformation alone will garner academy votes, but her acting goes way beyond the extraordinary embodiment of Tammy's conflicted character to stunningly precise evocations of multiple emotions at once through only her eyes! (I still will vote for Jennifer Hudson for the SAG Awards, but am guessing Chastain will win.)

Both movies contain music without exactly being musicals, but if you're a fan of musicals, which I am and have always been, then you'll probably like tick, tick...BOOM! It's setting is a musical try-out about a failed-to-be-realized on stage other musical leading up to the redemption of another musical that will be the great Broadway success RENT. Garfield gives his all and it's a lot. but again, for me, it lacked the kind of magnetism that makes me stop and watch many movie stars even in bad movies when I'm channel surfing (still).

But there are so many wonderful "supporting actors" in both flicks, even in the smallest almost cameo roles (shout out to the initially unrecognizable playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman, who I knew when he was starting out) (e.g. Bradley Whitford capturing Stephen Sondheim's physical tics), The women in both films in particular, for me, were all terrific and many revelatory, especially those who sang in tick, tick...BOOM! Let me know what you think.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM R.I.P.

 "Stop worrying if your vision

Is new.

Let others make that decision—

They usually do.

You keep moving on."

—Stephen Sondheim (from "Sunday In The Park With George")

Berry Berenson was a friend to me in my early years in Hollywood. She was married to the movie star Tony Perkins at the time and until his death in 1992. They seemed really loving to each other and I admired their relationship. And I admired her.

Though she was often noted more as Perkin's wife or as model/actress Marisa Berenson's sister, Berry was a wonderful actor in her own right (see REMEMBER MY NAME). But despite her fame-for-whatever-reason, at least around me she was always the least pretentious or self-centered person I ever met anywhere.

She came to a play I was in early on in L.A, Landford Wilson's BALM IN GILEAD, and after the performance stuck around to talk to me. One of the things she said to me that night was that she had only seen one other person in her life who had the kind of glow, I think that was the word she used, that I had, and that was Marilyn Monroe!

She was wonderful on screen and off, either in front of the camera or behind it (she was a great photographer), and I only wish, as I too often do with many friends, that I had made more of an effort to see her more often. Especially after I heard the news that she had been on one of the two planes that crashed into The World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

I knew some others who went down with the towers on that tragic day, like Father Mike Judge, but Berry is the one I think of most often. As I later wrote in a poem ("March 18, 2003"), she was:

"a woman who was kind to me when
she didn't need to be[...]
How many people have died
before you got the chance to tell them what you meant to?"

R.I.P. to all those we lost on that horrific day (and those we continue to lose).

THE BIRD! (GOTTA STICK AROUND FOR THE SLIDE)

 Click here.

IN THE HEIGHTS

I cried, I laughed, I moved to the music, I couldn't stop smiling as stars were born, a new favorite musical made a future list, I already want to watch it again (this time with the captions on so I don't miss a syllable of its delightful theatrical genius), oh and make sure you stick around for the coda after the end credits!

FRIENDS

 
longtime fried, novelist and short storyist, Jane DeLynn (gesturing) with my (then only) son Miles, who I was single parenting, me (am I holding Jane's DON JUAN IN THE VILLAGE?), and loft mate and one of the loves of my life, composer (and ex-sculptor and artist) Rain Worthington c. 1979, Duane Street NYC

actor/poet/martial arts contender, Ty Granderson Jones, dancer/singer/actor Vida Vierra, me with skinny tie and skinny soul patch, actor/poet Dennis Christopher, and actor/performer/chanteuse/poet Lisa Thayer, all old friends (and castmates from the 1983 LA stage premiere of BALM IN GILEAD) at Beyond Baroque in Venice CA 2018 

JOHNNY CRAWFORD R.I.P.

Not long after I moved to LA in 1982, Landford Wilson's play BALM IN GILEAD had its LA premiere. I missed it, but soon after was asked to replace Johnny Crawford as John The Counterman in the drama. I don't remember why, maybe he got a better paying gig, but I spent several nights watching the play so I could blend in initially with the rest of the cast before a bit at a time making the character mine.

I remembered Crawford from his most famous (and Emmy nominated) role, playing Chuck Connor's kid on the 1950s popular TV show THE RIFLEMAN. In the days before the transition to me in the play, I spent some time with him and he was as sweet and kind as you would expect. I never ran into him again, but never forgot him and am sad to learn that he passed, another victim of Covid-19. Condolences to his family and many fans.

THE PROM

 
After hearing me complain about all the depressing movies that came out last year, a friend who knows I love musicals recommended this Netflix movie musical (adapted from the stage version) THE PROM. He warned it isn't the greatest—and it isn't—but that it was a kick, and it was.

Despite it's familiar tropes and targets and platitudes (almost an unconscious parody of a parody) it's also, at least for me, a ton of fun and surprisingly moving, as the best (and better) musicals always are. I was close to sobbing at the predictably happy ending, both for that and for all the wounds of my own and loved ones and all who suffered (and suffer) through experiences of homophobia and intolerance of any kind.

And a big part of the fun is watching the cast of older stars work out. Streep kills it as a Broadway diva and James Corden keeps up with her and Nicole Kidman, who is a revelation convincingly, for me, playing a chorine who never broke out of the chorus line. Everyone in the cast is good and fun to watch, but I was particularly happy to see Mary Kay Place, one of our greatest underused actresses, even in a small role.

This flick was just the relief I was looking for.

"BLACK HISTORY"

 
My dear departed friend Lynn Manning and me at the LA club Largo in the 1990s. Every month is "Black History Month" to me, but in reference to this officially designated one I suggest you look into poet/playwright/performer, world heavyweight blind judo champion Lynn Manning and his work.