LATEST FAVORITE INTERNET MEME

 

ME AND MY KIDS WHEN THEY WERE LITTTLE

Caitlin and me in the DC communal house we lived in with her mother and brother and others until I left after it became a lesbian feminist commune for several years (c. 1974).

Me and Miles somewhere I don't recognize we must have been visiting. as we lived in Manhattan at the time where his sister would join us in a few years (c. 1977)

Me and Flynn in the new townhouse we rented in Jersey for a few years (c.2003)

CHUCK CLOSE and JACK HIRSHMAN R.I.P.

 

When I lived in lower Manhattan with my little boy, Miles, in the 1970s, I would pick him up after work from his after school program and we'd tour the downtown galleries before eating somewhere that had hamburgers, his favorite dinner. I remember seeing a show of Chuck Close's giant photo-realist portraits and both Miles and I digging it.

Early in this century I took part in a Hollywood themed benefit poetry reading at the Bowery Poetry Club that included a few movie and TV stars and after it an assistant to Chuck Close came to say the artist wanted to meet me. Close was in his customized wheel chair and very gracious in his praise of my work and I had the feeling was studying my face, I  hoped for a portrait.

The assistant got my number and said I'd be called, but never was. I figured that Close had more important things on his schedule. Condolences to his family, friends, and fans.

I ran into poet Jack Hirshman in the 1960s, but didn't get to know him until the 1980s when he sent me a letter out of the blue and we had a brief correspondence that included him sending piles of handwritten poems, which I later learned he was prone to do. Then, as abruptly as it began, he stopped sending me poems.

Though we didn't agree on everything, we were poets who shared a deep need (some would say compulsion) to write, no matter what, and did it our way, no matter what. Jack was an original in more than just his poetry, and though he had a long life, longer than many expected, he will still be missed by many, including me. Rest In Poetry, Jack.

JOHNNY

Woke up this morning with another list in my head inspired probably by catching the last few scenes on TCM of the film noir JOHNNY EAGER yesterday. There were a lot of Jimmys in my clan (my father and one of my brothers e.g.) but no Johnnys (just Johns). So here's the Johnnies, real and fictional, that came to my mind:

Johnny Eager

Johnny Dollar

Johnny Weissmuller

Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Belinda

Johnny Angel

Johnny Guitar

Johnny One-Note

Johnny Ray

Johnny Ace

Johnny B. Goode

Johnny Mathis

Johnny Crawford

Johnny Cash

Johnny Griffen

Johnny Rivers

Johnny Nash

Johnny Carson

Johnny Unitas

Johnny Winters

Johnny Thunders

Johnny Ramone

Johnny Depp

TBT

My sister Irene and me in front of our father's home repair shop c. 1952 when I was 10 and she was 15, the only two of seven kids now still alive. John, the brother between her and me died as an infant. I was always playing catch up. In this photo she's just visiting, I was working, which meant answering the phone and fixing small appliances like irons and toasters and lamps et al. This was just a couple of years before corporations started sealing the innards of these things and more so we couldn't repair them for a couple of bucks so folks just had to buy news ones. Built-in obsolescence. 

I worked every day after school and Saturdays either in the shop (a space no bigger then a walk-in closet) or on people's homes, for "room and board" (which means no pay) so eventually picked up other jobs on weeknights and Sundays. Had a resentment about that up until my 60s. But in this past decade that's faded away, among many others, thankfully.

GLORIA GRAHAME

 
Today was (still is) Gloria Grahame day on TCM, which makes me very happy. I fell in love with her as a boy in the 1940s as Vi in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and every movie I saw her in that followed, in which her unique screen presence and energy made those movies better. And then was lucky enough to meet her and work with her (held her hand in the scene) in her last movie (THE NESTING) (aka MASSACRE MANSION) in which neither of us was at our best. But I can watch her in anything, especially from the '40s and '50s, anytime and be swept away by her performance.

AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE