A REPOST FROM 2019, STILL APPLIES

 
This has always been my favorite photo of my mom, taken in the 1920s before I knew her (I came along in 1942, the last of a brood that began n 1926 the year after she and my father married), but the same eyes I still see in my mind when I think of her, and she passed in 1966, on Mother's Day (or the night before) the way I remember it.  I had been away in the military for the previous four years so never really got to talk to her as an adult, the way I later wished I had. So many questions left unanswered and things left unsaid. But from my side, I still talk to her in my head.

ANOTHER OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD LIST

TEN FAVORITE MOVIE MOTHERS

Jane Darwell in GRAPES OF WRATH

Greer Garson in MRS. MINIVER

Myrna Loy in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

Mary Astor in LITTLE WOMEN (1949)

Irene Dunne in I REMEMBER MAMA

Juanita Moore in IMITATION OF LIFE

Alfre Woodard in CROOKLYN

Fionulla Flanagan in SOME MOTHER'S SON

Viola Davis in FENCES

Keng Hua Tan in CRAZY RICH ASIANS

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 

OLD FAVORITE '60s QUOTE

 "We want to create a world in which love is more more possible."  —Carl Ogelsby (early SDS leader)

JUST A REMINDER

 

BIRTHDAYS

 

My birthday is later this month and this photo popped up of my 60th birthday party in 2002, only eight months after a cancer operation, so simply grateful to be alive with my youngest son Flynn, four, and his mother, Jaina.

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.