For some reason woke up with a list forming in my mind of my ten top favorite authors sixty years ago when I was 21 in 1963! Here they are in no particular order:
Diane di Prima
Bob Kaufman
James Baldwin
LeRoi Jones (later became Amira Baraka)
Walt Whitman
James Joyce
Fydor Dostoevsky
William Goldman
Jack Kerouac
Lilllian Smith
When I first saw this film a few years ago I dug it, with some reservations. But watching it this holiday season, I was totally won over, so much so that it is, for now, my favorite Christmas movie. I teared up, I laughed out loud, I felt overwhelmed with love and melancholy together. And had some profound revelations. Not bad for a small flick with an entirely George Michael soundtrack.
Photographer/poet Kevin McCollister's haunting image created on Hollywood Boulevard on Halloween 2023
Not a great photo, but a memorable holiday moment in the living room of the Santa Monica home I was renting in 1983. Me surrounded by three great musicians: jazz saxophonist Buddy Arnold in black, my son and budding bassist, Miles, and the iconic guitarist Sandy Bull with one of his kids. I'm wearing a seasonal sweater from the 1930s passed down from one of my older brothers, and Beatle boots I bought in 1962 pre-Beatles so called then Spanish boots. I still have the sweater and the boots and live again with Miles, Buddy and Sandy no longer with us.
I eat dark chocolate every day, and I'm not stopping. But, I found this internet meme hilarious.
The Night John Lennon Died
___________________________________
One warm night, when I was a kid,
we were all playing ringalario in
the high school field at the bottom
of my street when Mrs. Murphy, known
mostly for the time her hair turned
purple when she tried to dye it, stuck
her head out the door and yelled across
the street to us, “Go on home now and be
quiet, Babe Ruth just died.” And we all
did go home where everything was somber
and serious and adult and strange,
worse than when one of the family died,
because then there were outbursts of
emotion as well as jokes and stories
and good drunken parties, but
the night Babe Ruth died, everyone
felt as sad as if it was a close close
friend or a sister or a brother,
but no one was really related so
there was no call for an actual Irish
wake or funeral party. I couldn’t help
remembering that night again, the
night John Lennon died. Nobody
threw a wake or a party where we
could all get drunk and high and
have a good cry together. We all
went home and wandered around our
rooms and heads looking for answers,
unable to sleep or forget or accept
or understand what had happened.
It had to be a mistake and it was,
a fucking senseless, horrible,
deadening mistake.
It’s hard to
recognize even the most familiar
things. I don’t know where I am
half the time, the other half I’m
flashing on some song or line or look
or attitude so close to my own
personal history I thought it was
mine. But it ain’t, cause it’s gone
with John and I feel like I got to
go do something now to spread a
little joy and loving and honest
fucking answers and questions about
the world I live in and the only times
we ever have, our own. I hope I’m
not alone.
(C) 1980 Michael Lally
[from my book Another Way To Play]
Woke up this morning to a text from a fiend with a photo of Father Mike Judge, the Franciscan chaplain to a NYC fire brigade who died at Ground Zero on 9/11 and who we knew. I replied with the single word SAINT. Which then led my mind to generate an alphabetical list of dead folk who are personal saints in any world, or heaven, I have a say over (i.e. in my heart):
SAINT ANNE FRANK
SAINT ANTHONY (DINOVI)
SAINT AUNT MARY (LALLY)
SAINT BASQUIAT (JEAN-MICHEL)
SAINT BERRY (BERENSON)
SAINT BILLIE (HOLIDAY)
SAINT BIRD (CHARLIE PARKER)
SAINT CAL (JOHNSON)
SAINT CANDY (DARLING)
SAINT CAMPION "TOMMY" LALLY
SAINT CLIFFORD ("CLYDE" HEARD)
SAINT COOKIE (MUELLER)
SAINT DIANE (DI PRIMA)
SAINT DOLPHY (ERIC)
SAINT DOROTHY (DAY)
SAINT DOUG (LANG)
SAINT DOUGIE (STEINDORFF)
SAINT ED (COX)
SAINT ELIO (SCHNEEMAN)
SAINT EMILY (DICKINSON)
SAINT EVA (HESSE)
SAINT FANNIE (LOU HAMER)
SAINT FRANK (O'HARA)
SAINT FRED (HAMPTON)
SAINT GRACIE (ALLEN)
SAINT HARPO (MARX)
SAINT IRENE (DEMPSEY LALLY)
SAINT JACK (KEROUAC)
SAINT JIMMI (HENDRIX)
SAINT JIMMY (SCHUYLER)
SAINT JOAN B. (BARIBEAULT)
SAINT JOAN G. (LALLY GLOSHINSKI)
SAINT JOAN R. ("BAMBI" ROBINSON)
SAINT JOE (BRAINARD)
SAINT KENNY (GRAHAM)
SAINT LEE (FISHER LALLY)
SAINT LEWIS (WARSH)
SAIINT LOUIS (ARMSTRONG)
SAINT MALCOLM (X)
SAINT MARILYN (MONROE)
SAINT MARSHA (P. JOHNSON)
SAINT MARTIN (LUTHER KING)
SAINT MCCARTHY (JOHN)
SAINT MEL (JOHNSON)
SAINT MIKE (JUDGE)
SAINT NATALIE (WOOD)
SAINT NORMAN (LEAR)
SAINT OTIS (REDDING)
SAINT "PRES" (LESTER YOUNG)
SAINT ROSE (MCBRIDE LALLY)
SAINT SELBY (HUBERT JR.)
SAINT SIMONE (SIGNORET)
SAINT SISSY (JOHNSON)
SAINT TED (BERRIGAN)
SAINT TIM (DLUGOS)
SAINT 'TRANE (JOHN COLTRANE)
SAINT UNCLE JOHN (LALLY)
SAINT VERONICA (LAKE)
SAINT WALT (WHITMAN)
SAINT WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
SAINT WILLY (FARRELL)
SAINT YVONNE (DE LA VEGA)
There are more in my head but I can't get them out. How 'bout yours?
