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.

LAST CHRISTMAS

 
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.

MICHAEL LERNER R.I.P.

 
I spotted Michael Lerner in the kitchen of a Hollywood Hills mansion at an after Oscars party in 1982 when I was brand new to LA and told him I was a great admirer of his acting. This was a decade before he was nominated for an Oscar for BARTON FINK. And he responded that he was a great admirer of my poetry, mentioning specifically my then seven-year-old book ROCKY DIES YELLOW, totally surprising and delighting me. Turned out he was a book collector, like me. Everytime I ran into him over the years, we'd talk books, as well as  other creative endeavors. An extremely nice person, who will be missed.

WOMEN'S HERSTORY

Women's History Month ended yesterday so here's a list of some women heroes of mine:

Helen Keller

Eleanor Roosevelt

Dorothy Day

Martha Gelhorn

Frida Kahlo

Katherine Hepburn

Theresa Harris

Barbara Stanwyck

Billie Holiday

Ella Fitzgerald

Ingrid Bergman

Ida Lupino

Marilyn Monroe

Dorothy Dandridge

Simon Signoret

Anita O'Day

Kate Chopin

Zora Neale Hurston

Gertrude Stein

Anais Nin

Muriel Rukeyser

Diane di Prima

Mary Wells

Abbey Lincoln

Barbra Streisand

Jean Seberg

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Nevelson

Nikki Giovanni

Audre Lourde

Lee Lally

Sylvia Schuster

Angela Davis

Robin Morgan

Gloria Steinem

Shirley Chisholm

Bernadette Devlin

Bernadette Dohrn

Bernadette Mayer

Barbara Guest

Jane Freilicher

Donna Dennis

Eva Hesse

Patti Smith

Sara Rudner

Maureen Owen

Elaine Equi

Nan Goldin

Cookie Mueller

Jan Kerouac

Joanne Kyger

Bobbie Louise Hawkins

Cecilia Vicuna

Joanelle Romero

Karen Allen

Sharon Stone

Edie Baskin

Lynne Goldsmith

Susan Campbell

Annabel Lee

Eileen Myles

Elinor Nauen

Maggie Dubris

Sally Silvers

Susan Bee

Rhonda Haines

Marlee Matlin

Eve Brandstein

Anne Beatts

Wanda Coleman

Susan Dey

Laverne Cox

Janet Mock

Yvonne de la Vega

Nana-Ama Danquah

Mello-Re Houston

Susan Hayden

Patricia Spear Jones

Angela Lockhart

Nadia Owusu

Maria Serrano

Stella Keating

Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Caitlin Clark 

Caitlin Lally Hotaling

[what came to me off the top of my head going back through my life, so many more I'm forgetting in this moment]

TBT

 
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite writers, Nadia Owusu (with me in photo after we read at Pace in 2019). If you haven't read her memoir AFTERSHOCKS, do.

JENNIFER BARTLETT R.I.P.

Jennifer Bartlett is one of my all-time favorite artists, who I'm surprised to learn was less than a  year older than me. She seemed so much more mature than me to me when I was around her in 1970s downtown Manhattan. When I encountered her soon to be most famous artwork—RHAPSODY—at the Paula Cooper Gallery in 1976 I felt high from the magnificent originality of it, and embraced in a sensual joy from its achievement.

It was controversial from the get go because of its too-muchness. Made from hundreds of small square tiles, combined to create patterns or scenes or not, in ways that you could dig up close as  separate artworks or step back and get a bigger pattern or scene and then even more by stepping back further. I went back to immerse myself in it day after day while the exhibit lasted. Dragging my kids and lovers and friends to it too.

I wrote about it, but this was the pre-computer and social media era and I can't remember where it might have been published (but it may be in my archives at NYU). To me it was and is perfect, but even the person who wrote the intro to the coffee table book about it, Roberta Smith, called it "imperfect" (which came out in 1981 and I still cherish my copy, signed by Jennifer, though it's no substitute for a full immersion in the whole piece).

I loved her writing too and remember her reading at Saint Mark's an interminable list of the brand names of various products that I slowly realized was a completely unique new way of writing an autobiography. She was one of a kind (as I guess we all are) and I'm sorry to hear of her passing, though it sounds like it was for the best. Rest In Painting, and poetry, Jennifer Bartlett. 
 

GREAT QUOTE FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE WRITERS

 

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.

"POETRY MONTH" LIST

Off the top of my head, this list for "poetry month" of twenty poets I knew personally who are now gone but inspired me early in my life as a poet:

Diane di Prima

Bob Kaufman

Joel Oppenheimer

Allen Ginsberg

Joanne Kyger

Robert Creeley

Etheridge Knight

Audre Lorde

James Schuyler

John Ashbury

Kenneth Koch

Barbara Guest

Ted Berrigan

Anselm Hollo

Ralph Dickey

Michael S. Harper

Ed Cox

Lorenzo Thomas

Joe Brainard

Lee Lally

YVETTE MIMIEUX R.I.P.

When I met Yvette Mimieux in 1985 on the set of BERRENGER'S, I thought she was much older than me because I still remembered being moved by her performance in WHERE THE BOYS ARE in 1960 when I was 18 and she was already a movie star. But her obituaries say she was 80, as I will be in a few months, so we were actually contemporaries.

She was the star power for BERRENGER'S and my character, a bad guy sweat shop owner in the fashion industry, was a bit part on the first episode that became a recurring role on every episode of the short lived series (a victim of a network vs studio feud). But it was a great time for me. Shot mostly on a soundstage at MGM (though my sweatshop scenes were in a downtown LA garment manufacturer's loft) the thrill of being waved through the MGM gates and into a studio lot with my own parking space evoked every Hollywood film I'd ever seen with scenes of actors trying to crash some studio's gates.

And for at least one season, my name was in TV Guide every week, I was nominated for best newcomer by some primetime soaps fan magazine, and was asked for signed headshots that were mounted along with others behind the meat counter at Mrs. Gootch's and my local dry cleaners, and had paparazzi flashing cameras at me outside Hollywood hotspots. And I got to work with a great cast, some of whom became dear friends. 

I didn't have any scenes with Mimieux, but we talked a few times and I, along with everyone else who worked on the show, received a gift from her when it was cancelled. She was always gracious and warm and unpretentious and beautiful and somehow modestly glamorous. I feel humbled and honored to have known her. Condolences to her family, friends, and fans.

EVE BABITZ R.I.P.

 

What I remember most about the LA writer Eve Babitz's presence are her smile and laughter. We hung out in 1980s LA and I can picture her sitting at my kitchen table, maybe wearing a broad brimmed hat or having just taken it off and throwing back her head and laughing at something I, or she, said, or tilting her head and smiling at me in a way that seemed to say, are you for real?

We came from very different class and ethnic and geographical and gender and cultural backgrounds and lots more differences, but we were close in age (both born in May, me in 1942, her '43) and shared an approach to writing that was sexually more honest than most of what was published before we came along. But she was much better at not taking herself, or anyone for that matter, too seriously.

Her books and her conversation exposed me to an LA I hadn't known about with an honesty and insight I found compelling, as I did her, even if we were so different. When we lost touch over the years, I missed her, still do.  

MEMORIES

Among my r&b 45s as a 12-year-old in 1954 was this. Prescient then, history now.  

ME AND SAROYAN

 
Me c. 1978 at the only 9 to 5 job I ever had (quit after less than two years) at The Franklin Library where I designed and wrote their First Editions series newsletter (and other series readers' guides) including interviews with authors like William Saroyan, my favorite writer from my late teens to recently, 

I'm the one in the widest tie looking at Saroyan and his famous mustache instead of the camera. 

FYI

 

save da date 

JOHN FLYNN R.I.P.

 

I met John in LA in the early 1980s and we became instant friends. We hung out a lot through the '80s and earlier '90s before I moved back East. But even after, we always kept in touch. He had some health challenges when I met him and I knew of his recent heart attack but it was still a shock to hear he had passed. He was a sweet man, mostly mellow, a great friend and musician (I wish he hadn't lost a tape we made in his basement with me on keyboards doing some of my best improvising, he usually played drums), and from everything I could see an easy mate, and even after his recent heart problems remained grateful for what he had. It sucks that our bodily presence has to end anytime, and my heart breaks for his beloved, Ellie Mae (in photos), but he will live on in the hearts and minds of those of us who knew and loved him. 

BECOMING HELEN KELLER

BECOMING HELEN KELLER is a PBS documentary in their American Masters series. It's pretty well done and shapes a more realistic and complete portrait of one of my sheroes. I had a crush on her as a boy (I know, I know, I get crushes on almost everyone I encounter, in real life or through other means) and when I later read her writing and speeches in my twenties, she became a model for a life as an activist/writer. And I still have a crush on her.

 

POLLYANNA

 
A few weeks ago a friend insisted I watch the Disney movie POLLYANNA. I was way past Disney when it came out in 1960, the year I turned 18, so I'd never seen it. But, I had heard the term used in connection with me over the years even then (the original story came out in 1901) as a put down of what some supposedly more sophisticated people took to be my naïvete and childish optimism.

I had already written dark poems and stories about racism and drug addiction and more in 1960, but my usual attitude was based in a belief in the infinite possibilities of love, So when I encountered my first intellectuals and academics and literary scenesters, I was often treated as less intelligent because I rejected cynicism and even irony for sincerity and tenderness. The word "sentimental" was used as a weapon against me.

So seeing POLLYANNA for the first time was a pleasant surprise. First for the extraordinary cast of Hollywood character actors and aging stars, and then for the unfolding story, and then for the obvious message of love and gratitude conquering cynicism and pessimism. So much so that I found myself close to sobbing at the end when my friend, the incomparable psychiatrist author Mindy Fullilove, said: "that's you, Michael."

Though I don't think I'm ultimately worthy of the comparison to the Hayley Mills character's purpose and impact, I sure am gratified that someone thinks I am.

WILLIE GARSON R.I.P.

I wasn't a close friend of Willie Garson's, but I hung out a few times with him and others in my LA years and bonded a bit over both of us being from Jersey. He was a really nice guy, as well as a terrific actor, and completely unpretentious. Gone way too soon. Condolences to his son and other family, friends, and fans. 

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

Watched my favorite movie, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, on TCM tonight. I've seen it many times since it first screened in 1946 and it was always high on my various lists of favorite movies, but in recent years it has moved to the top, because every time I watch it not only do I see more and more to admire about it, I also see nothing to not admire it for.

It's of its time, and maybe you have to be from that time to be impacted by it the way I am. I was born a few months after Pearl Harbor, and my two oldest brothers were in The Army Air Corps and The Navy at the end of the war, one in Okinawa when the fighting stopped. My two sisters, who were five and seven years older than me, took me with them to the movies most Sunday afternoons (to get us out of the house for our father's weekly nap on his only day off), including to this one.

But even if this film doesn't evoke for you the same kinds of memories it does for me, it can still be admired as classic Hollywood filmmaking. William Wyler's direction is so good (aided exquisitely by Gregg Toland's famous depth of field cinematography), even the briefest scenes and the acting in them resonate. Three of my favorite actors—Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Cathy O'Donnell—give superb performances, while Virginia Mayo and Dana Andrews give their best performances ever (and Frederic March and Harold Russell won Oscars for theirs).

For me, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is a perfect film. There, I've said it.

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.