It took 48 hours to completely go thru one large cardboard box in my garage. Stuff from the 70’s; war photos, theater programs, critical reviews, scripts, love letters…and a packet of long forgotten fan letters, largely devoted to characters I’d played on How To Survive A Marriage and Search For Tomorrow. I realized I’d never… Continue reading FANDOM
Category: Popular Culture
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Three days and counting. I’ve already voted, many Americans have…but this is my very first early vote. I’m not sure I feel any calmer, tho I think that was my hope. Political ads irritate me, those for and against my candidate…yet they’ll continue to run. Probably the most difficult thing to accept is that we… Continue reading COMING ATTRACTIONS
THE BEATLES WERE A PART OF OUR LIVES
George Harrison is dead, and at 58, he was the youngest Beatle. Somehow that resonates more profoundly than John’s death at the hands of John David Chapman years ago. Rock stars, stars of all types seem destined to die before their time; lives lived in the brightness of media scrutiny and subject to the whimsy… Continue reading THE BEATLES WERE A PART OF OUR LIVES
MAHALIA AND PTSD
It’s why I do it. Advocacy. It’s why my own trauma is kept alive and raw. I don’t get to pack it away, hide out… heal? As if I could… Cause countless other souls, without my media presence LIVE daily with THEIR pain. And they may not have found counseling or meds or understanding. A… Continue reading MAHALIA AND PTSD
FAMILIAL IRONIES
It’s been a blitzkrieg, traveling east to DC and back today in slightly more than 48 hours…and worth every second. It’ll take me a few days to get current…and I must begin filming tomorrow morning. But I’ll make a start. The purpose of my mission: to unite with classmates from college in Munich, ’62-64. These… Continue reading FAMILIAL IRONIES
HIP HOP
OK, going into the deep end of the pool here. Got into this today with my therapist. I have NEVER had an appreciation for rap, hip-hop, what have you. I recorded a blues album back in ’82 with a producer who’d represented Curtis Blow, one of the early pioneers. Thru the decades I’ve encountered some… Continue reading HIP HOP
GLORY DAYS…
Tonite a classic Yankee victory – 2019 style. We won in the 10th, 12-10. In truth our pitching staff is questionable. EVERYONE! Starters, middle men, closers. Tonite, Yankee starter Domingo German was going for his major league leading 13TH victory! Instead he got lit up for 8 runs, quite early on. He’s not the same… Continue reading GLORY DAYS…
SERVICE
Today I served dinners to some of the 4000 homeless here in Los Angeles. I’m always mindful that many of our homeless are veterans, some from wars past and some of wars present. There are celebrities and politicians aplenty in evidence; many of their nametags superfluous but providing a leveling affect. Fame and power bring… Continue reading SERVICE
THAT’S NOT FUNNY
What constitutes humor today? What is funny? Is Aristophenes still funny? Is Buster Keaton? Milton Berle? Richard Pryor? Is there something intrinsically timeless about comedy…or does it vary with cultural trends and contextual world events? Must a joke ‘travel well’, from culture to culture, to be genuinely comedic? I love to laugh, I think everyone… Continue reading THAT’S NOT FUNNY
SAVANNAH
I was perhaps seven, when I went to visit my father in Georgia. To supplement his income as an English professor at Howard University, Dad taught summer school at Savannah State College and I looked forward to my first visit to the South, spending my summer fishing and reading, and the chance to travel… Continue reading SAVANNAH