A few words about Dean

I went to a BBQ to celebrate the life of my buddy, Dean, today.

Dean was the kind of guy who could be dropped at any party in America – blue state or red state – and everybody would be totally comfortable with him. He just fit it. He was such a charmer –with a twinkle in his eye along with a winning grin and chuckle that promised gentle mischief. He was just so easy to be around.

But, through forces beyond his ability to control, several years ago the sparkle left his eyes; he no longer really laughed. He died much too young, in way too much pain. He lost the ability to really be what he most desperately wanted to be: a loving husband to his wife and a secure and devoted father to his two wonderful daughters. The biggest tragedy is that his descent happened before his daughters were really old enough to know the man he was underneath, and before, his pain and sorrow; the man that we were celebrating today.

All I can say to his daughters is that the Dean that I knew was a very good man bursting with true zest for life. And, he loved you two so much. I hope that the celebration today gave you a sense of how much he was loved and appreciated by everybody who knew him. He was one of a kind, very special and very, very good company.

The Death of The Guiding Light

Keeping with my current death blog theme, I thought it would be a good idea to say farewell to the longest running broadcast (radio and TV combined) in history: The Guiding Light - dead of obsolescence at age 72.

This was the soap my grandmother watched when I was a kid, so it was the first one I ever watched. A CBS staple, it had a conservative, religious theme that appealed to her. Later on in my childhood I started watching soaps regularly, but I went for the more cutting edge ABC soaps. As a ritual for many years, I would race home from school, move my TV into my bathroom, draw a bath and spend the next 1 ½ hours transfixed watching General Hospital, One Life to Live and Dark Shadows. (Does it surprise anyone that my single favorite thing at our house is my beloved spa? Just wish I had a TV out there….) There is something just really cool about having these fictional families and towns go on forever – always available to drop in on and see what strange, tragic thing has befallen the people and place. (So, just how is Victoria Lord doing anyway? I haven't watched One Life to Live since the early 1970s – but she is still there, right?)

I never picked up the soap habit again until very recently. And, yes, dammit, I got hooked on the Guiding Light! I had read in Entertainment Weekly (EW) that they had a great lesbian storyline about two straight women, Olivia and Natalia (aka Otalia), falling in love. Now, “great lesbian storyline” is generally a non sequitur. With very, very rare exceptions, lesbians have just been royally screwed in mainstream film, TV and books for as long as those things have existed. But, given the EW recommendation, I decided to check it out. (For the record – I think the editors of EW have great taste in popular culture.)

And, indeed, they seemed like they were really doing this one right. It was a stealth storyline for many months as the two straight women were turned from enemies to friends grappling with intense feelings for each other that, for both, were unexpected and scary. The process of the women coming to terms with these feelings was done really beautifully and realistically. Of course, the plot went through many soapy twists and turns, full of angst and heartbreak, on the road to declaring and embracing their love. Olivia, played by the very talented Crystal Chappell, was particularly moving during the full arc of the storyline. Here she is in one of the most pivotal scenes on their soapy journey.

Through the miracle of Youtube, I was able to see the Otalia back-story before I started watching. Then I moved on to Olivia's back-story for the ten years she had been on the show. She was the town seductresses – outrageous, sassy, sarcastic and just a whole heap of sexy trouble. Deep down, of course, she just wanted to be loved for who she was and could never really make it happen. She always sabotaged it one way or another. And, the truth is that I feel in love with Olivia. I mean anyone who tries to commit suicide listening to Tosca has my heart!

The story of Otalia was really the story of Olivia's redemption. I was really looking forward to Olivia finally getting it right in love and getting her happy ending sealed with an epic kiss. Well, guess what? They did get their happily-ever-after, sealed - not with a kiss - but with a sweet head touch. Seriously! Here it is - the most anti-climatic denouement in the history of television.


Yep, curses, foiled again! Not one damn romantic kiss! Another lesbian story botched. GL deserves to die, if for nothing else, for blowing what would have and could have been the first truly great mainstream lesbian love story.

But, nonetheless, I had grown fond of the town of Springfield and am very happy that they reunited their most iconic couple – Josh and Reva – and that every other damn couple got to kiss a whole lot. Yep, very happy.

So, why are the soaps losing audience? Why are they becoming obsolete? I will give the last word to a man who played Buzz on the Guiding Light for 16 years, Justin Deas:

If the soaps all go off the air, some smart person is going to figure out the right way to do it and bring ’em back. But they’ll have to rethink the form and make it bolder. I mean, we in America still haven’t gotten over our sex hang-ups! The lesbians on our show can’t kiss? What’s wrong with us? There’s a greater chance that GL would have brought in a donkey for Buzz to have sex with.

Mary Travers

My first crush died yesterday: Mary (as in Peter, Paul and...) I didn’t even know she was my first crush until I was an adult and watched her sing and realized my third grade reaction to her was to be turned-on. At that age, you don’t have the knowledge to know exactly what those feelings are, right? But, now, I know that she was so hot! She had that trademark hair style with those bangs which she used continually to great effect – a little head snap and those bangs would fly up. The more intense her singing, the better the hair effect. Now, I am not a bangs lover in general. But, her use of bangs was something else. But, it was a lot more than her use of hair. She had a great, expressive voice, great lips and lots of passion in her voice and in her life. And her voice blended beautifully with Peter and Paul's voices.

Here is a link to a song, Jane Jane, that only PP&M fans will know – but it shows what I am talking about. I just found it hard to take my eyes off of her. (You Tube took down the best hair-flipping when her bangs were most involved, but this works well enough to give the idea.)

I have seen P,P&M in concert – what – 5 times? 10 times? Many times. They always put on a great show, even if Mary really didn't have the voice in her later years. The first time I saw them (with my parents, who were also big fans) was particularly memorable because I got to meet her. They would come out after a concert and sign autographs until any fans who wanted them had gone home. It was one of the big thrills of my lifetime when Mary turned to my mom while she was signing the picture below and said: “Don’t I know you?” Oh, that made my year.

She dedicated her life to song and social justice. Her passion for the music, for people and for hopes for a better world always came through.

Being weird and a control freak, I have already recorded my “death music” along with notes explaining my choices for the memorial service I assume someone will throw for me. (I know that I am just a tad audacious at times.) One of the choices is And When I Die

To quote my notes (and I hope you don't see these notes again for many a year).

This song by Laura Nyro (who died of ovarian cancer at age 50) reflects my own view of death. Really death is just a chance to celebrate the life cycle, so party down! (But, I swear there ain't no heaven or hell.) Peter, Paul and Mary, who were my first musical passion, sing the song.

So, as Laura Nyro wrote: there's a world to carry on – but let’s do it with some of the love and passion and hope that Mary had for the world.

Beat it? Sadly, no.

It's impossible to beat it. As Hank Williams sang: No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive.

Two icons died today. One was a real shock. One was expected. But, in both cases, fame took a heavy toll long before the heart attack or the anal cancer. Poor Michael. Poor Farrah. I hope that in between the very public bad times, they had some private good times.

To commemorate, we listened to our vinyl copies of Off the Wall and Thriller. I danced. Leslie watched me dance. He was still so attractive when he made those albums. He only had a little surgery by the time Thriller was released. Kids that I cared about loved him so much. (And, yes, he loved kids - I am not trying to be cute or condemn him here, trust me.) Fame is such an attractive trap.

We watched the pilot of Charlie’s Angels, too. That sucked. But, TV did then – not her fault. She had a nice smile. Too much hair. Not my type. I liked Kate Jackson. But, still - I wish her life had been easier.

Anyway, so long to both of you.

Departures and my right-brain

I saw the film Departures last night, which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It is the story of a newly unemployed cellist who returns to his hometown in need of a job. He takes the job of a Nokanshi, which is a profession to prepare the dead for the coffin (and cremation) – while the grieving family watches – through a ritual of cleansing, meticulously dressing and applying make-up to a corpse. Now, it sounded intriguing. Hey, I liked Six Feet Under and Only the Lonely, which both had their share of preparing the dead. Plus, in winning the Academy Award, the film beat out the stiff competition from The Class (from France) and Waltz with Bashir (from Israel). So, I figured there must be something to it. But, that said, I never expected the effect it actually had on me, which was simply astounding. But before you read more – have you seen the video of Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain researcher, talk about her own stroke? If not please watch it before reading the rest of this blog. It's great. So, what happened as I watched the film at the beginning was this left-brain commentary in my head: “Gee, this ritual takes a long time. It is sort of weird. The Japanese sure are meticulous. We certainly do death differently. I wonder what is going to happen to make this movie special. It is so slow...” But then, while watching another one of the rituals with cello music providing the soundtrack, the film just captured me and my internal commentary silenced. I went all right-brain, shifting to pure emotion of a surprising profundity. Big tears were streaming down my face for much of the rest of the movie. I felt this almost primal connection to everybody and elephants (because they, too, ritualize their dead). I felt empathy to all who have ever grieved and realized my tears – and the tears of the mourners - were bittersweet. That somehow this ritual was truly creating a feeling of peace and acceptance of death. And, in that way, it was incredibly life-affirming. So, like Jill Bolte Taylor, I must say that silencing the left-brain from time to time is a wonderful experience. And, this film did it for me. Opera does too - but that is a different blog...