it's gray & cold & wet

& I'm having a shitty day in a not so good year.

the phone rings.

"hello. this is John McCain..."

I slam the receiver down so hard it jumps back up.

it's too nasty out to walk to the gym. inside I'm too angry to focus.

friends

Wayne Alan Harold has made a movie abt P. Craig Russell :

Night Music DVD


in this clip Craig throws a party for some of his models   inc my friends David Meredith & Alfred Cavaretta.

many memories watching this.

casting news

following in the cinematic footsteps of
Hurd Hatfield



& Helmut Berger


will be
Ben Barnes


I took this of the young actor on the UCLA campus earlier this year.

appearing opposite Barnes in this newest adapatation of Oscar Wilde will be Ben Chaplin & Colin Firth.

one month later

original post

train a-comin'

by year's end we shd have train service between Santa Fe & Albuquerque. not at first but hopefully soon there will be a Railrunner station a quick walk from my house.

welcome to Social Security

Tuesday Weld turns 65 today.

flashback

43 years ago this month I saw Peter & Gordon perform at Akron Civic Theater as part of Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars."

this morning a friend sent me the video of "American Prayer." I was shockd to see a fleeting cameo by Peter & Gordon. earlier this year I'd seen Peter Asher in an acting role in "Bernard and Doris." but I hadn't realizd he was back with his old partner. so I googld them & discoverd that they're even doing some limitd touring.

behind the scenes

a cabaret performer whose online moniker is Marknyc5 has a fascianting You Tube page. he's found rehearsal tracks by some famous movie stars & synchd them to final film footage. so we have the chance to see the likes of Audrey Hepburn   Natalie Wood   Rosalind Russell   Leslie Caron in some of the most famous movie musicals of all time as they wd've been presentd had there been no dubbing.

warning: some of these clips are scary.

golden boy

Matthew Mitcham

Indian Market

didn't stay long. too many people.

but I did see jewelrymaker Kenneth Johnson (that's his bracelet on the above cover) with a wild new hair style. he's cut his long hair (which is beginning to gray) & has it spiked.

on the plaza

Buffy Sainte-Marie is in town for Indian Market. altho I spoke with her at a conference in Glorieta shortly after moving west   it's the first time in 44 years I've heard her perform live.

peaches

I love them but never buy them. the ones in the store are hard & don't seem to ever ripen properly.

but once a year neighbor Rita brings me a bag of ones from her backyard tree. they taste better than a sonnet.

at the movies today

I saw the trailer for a new version of "The Women." it looks like a commercial for face lifts.

I won't judge a film by its preview but -- lord -- why did they do this one when Cukor's version is a classic?

speaking of

Linda Lyke & cats . . .



here's a poster she did for a poetry reading many years ago.

circles

Cass Bricker just calld from Kent. David's sister gave her the 3 pieces of art I've been willd to pack & ship. she informd me that it'd be better to remove the glass from a Linda Lyke print. I think it was for a long-ago birthday that I gave David the print which was part of a series Linda did with my cat poems.



in spring of 1997 I took this picture of David with our dear friend Billy Berger in David's dining room on Vine St. on the wall you see the piece that will be on its way to Santa Fe.

not

a day goes by

howdy

Jean Vengua asks abt the t-shirt in the last post. indeed the image is Howdy Doody -- an early television favorite.

I had that tee for many years. when it became too frayd to wear in public I cut out the image abt 3 years ago & did a series of photos using it.



I never did anything with that project because I wasn't completely thrilld with its outcome.

from the archives

with Paul Metcalf at Hancock Shaker Village 22 years ago this month

I was so taken

by the doc "Girl 27" that I lookd for the books of its writer/director David Stenn.

this morning I began his Clara Bow bio.

Stenn & I share a deep love of old movies. we both fell for the silent era when we were just boys.

he has an almost movie-star appeal   having been photographd by such luminaries as George Hurrell & Greg Gorman. the fact that his editor was Jackie O & that he actually found Patricia Douglas & was able to film her widens his appeal.

"Tenn"

that'll be the title of a forthcoming biopic abt Tennessee Williams.

bittersweet day

it began with discovery of an obituary of someone from my Ohio past who matterd.

then a call from David Meredith's sister Wini to inform me of his bequests to me   my parents & cousin Sal.

Wini sd that near the end David woke from his coma   lookd at the ceiling & askd "are you sure you have the right person?"

Olympix

I confess. when I was younger I wrote glowingly of events such as the Olympics & the Oscars. that was before I was willing to admit that they are all abt money.

I began watching the opening ceremonies the other nite but had to turn it off long before the computer-generatd fireworks. I'm not sure which was scarier: the host smiles (orchestratd by the architects of the Tiananmen Square massacre) or NBC's too-frequent shots of the carrion that occupies the Oval Office. all I cd think of was Leni Riefenstahl.

during the cold war the unwritten story of the Olympics was governmental use of competitors as spies. I'm not sure that story has completely been told yet. now it appears to be abt illegal drug use. but then doping is to athletes what lying is to politicians. we really shdn't be surprisd. yet we continue to make role models of Olympians even when winners scream & carry on as if they'd just won "American Idol." I still don't understand how we can fill teams with professional athletes (even those with criminal records).

& did you know that the US government gives its citizens who win gold medals $25K per medal? I wonder what the funding source of that is. I presume most of our tax dollars are dumpd down the Iraq hole (while that government banks its oil revenues).

so -- let the games go on. & the commercials.

Beckham's bulge

UBIQUITOUS

from the archives

1984 photo by Roberta Elzey Berke

Chris Calloway (1945-2008)

singer / actress
daughter of Cab Calloway
goddaughter of Lena Horne
one of the stars of "Live at the Opera" which I produced in 1999

Jerry's Diner

news from Kent of an impending death.

the city will soon demolish this historic downtown diner.

Jerry's was the subject of a little book painter Robert Mayer put together in 1987. my contribution was from Postcard Memoirs. many of the other contributors have since died: Jonathan Williams   Daniel Thompson   David Meredith   Mort Krahling.

more & more Kent to me is a place of ghosts.

"o handsomeness"

the Billy Budd of Teddy Tahu Rhodes is robust. his is a physical performance. he clambers up & down the rigging at heights that wd make me wobbly. & when he removes his shirt all genders in the audience sigh. but of course this is Benjamin Britten. so he must be able to sing & sing well. & that he does.

this is probably the gayest production I've seen at Santa Fe Opera. every man on stage appears to love Billy. his mates are always touching him. & the officers have other ways of signifying emotions from like to lust. Claggart -- well sung by Peter Rose -- is a sexual bully who keeps Billy's kerchief as a sort of fetish. it eventually passes on to Vere -- William Burden -- who even as an old man appears to be able to smell Billy on the souvenir.

this is another powerful production of Britten to add to the SFO list.

pin cushion

my
hand after
planting cactus fence

got cholla

Richard Balthazar brought over cactus for a natural fence.

T. R. Q.

my late friend wd turn 65 today



probably his only naked pose




at the Woolworth photobooth




pretending to be a cow at a picnic at the Krause farm (summer 1961)



just hanging out



Tom visits me in Twin Lakes (summer 1975)

next up

James Franco has playd James Dean & Harvey Milk's boyfriend. now he'll tackle the role of the young Allen Ginsberg.

in a recent interview Franco sd:"I've always wanted to see Smithson's Spiral Jetty in Utah, The Lightning Field of New Mexico. And there's Donald Judd's center in Marfa, Texas." not many young gen movie stars talk like that.

Capra lite

"Swing Vote" isn't the kind of movie I usually pay money to see. but when the debate scene was filmd at our rodeo grounds neighbor Rita & I were in the stands behind Kevin Costner. so we went to the movie today.

in the previous 2 made-in-town movies in which I appear ("Santa Fe" & "The Maniacts")I actually appear. at least I cd pick myself out. but in "Swing Vote" we're simply part of a blur.

I tried to make Rita feel better by reminding her that early in their careers Matt Damon & Ben Affleck were extras at a similar venue in another Costner movie.

new browser

after a long conversation with a gentleman in India I learnd that Dell's warranty doesn't cover software. luckily the phone line went dead before I made a decision.

so what I've done is uninstall AVG (already have McAfee) & install Mozilla.

so far it's working. things look a little weird cause my settings are all off but I guess I'll get used to it.

damn

machines drive me nuts.

now Internet Explorer won't let me open certain sites -- inc my own blog.

from the archives

with Ernest Matthew Mickler in Key West in 1985