Time keeps on slipping...

Every once in while in my computing I will go to my own blog and then I am ashamed at the fact that a month or more has gone by where I haven't written anything. I've written this before but I am very used to writing in a private journal. As much as I enjoy attention I am challenged by the idea of a public journal. So listen all three of you who read this... I am going to attempt to become more public. No, not with a sex video or a drunken stumble outside a trendy nightclub, by just writing about the most boring things... for example, I am sitting here typing in my blog while my cat Parker sits to my left watching my fingers dance across the keyboard. I cleaned the kitchen (or am in the process) and I actually did a bit of caulking today.
So you see?
Hello... wake up...
yeah, you were reading my blog.
It's ok. I'm sorry I woke you.
But it's just after two in the afternoon did you really need a nap?
You didn't intend to nap?
Oh.
Wow.
That was harsh.
Ok.
Well, I promise that this is going to get more exciting.
Perhaps if I actually stray away from my computer and involve myself in some excitement I will have something to type about.

I did have an exciting evening on stage with Laura Freeman last night.
The Judy Garland Duets show went very well.
Once a week we become eight year olds playing in the backyard.
I will write more about the show later.

I am actually bored now.

Talk to you soon.

Paperless...

I would like to try an experiment.
I would like to go paperless.
This means live my life without paper.
Can I do this?
Or is it more realistic to just start cutting down on paper but then notice all the moments in life when paper is being used or could be used and what the alternative would best be.
Uh oh...
Toilet Paper.
Uh oh...
Cat just threw up and I need to use paper towels...
Uh oh...

I will get back to this.
But first a word from Bounty! The quicker picker upper.

Summerish...

Today it is summerish. Not summery... but summerish or summeresque. I like it a little cool and sunny.

And that is all I shall write. I'm going out to enjoy it.

Sunday.

I haven't written in awhile. I am so used to having written in a private journal for so many years that sometimes I don't really know how to write in a journal that I know can be read by others. It's a good exercise though. What do I have to hide anyway?

We are going to go down into Lincoln Park to the Paul Frank store. There are a whole bunch of very cool stores on Armitage Avenue. I like stationary stores too and I know of one near there. Sunday kind of stuff to do.

We are wanting to either clean or upgrade the cushions on our front porch furniture. We left the cushions out all winter and remarkably they are still in one piece. But dirty of-course. I washed one of them as a test in our washer and it came out as one big giant puffball. (The batting inside atleast)... Jason thinks that by drying it it might calm down a bit. The other idea would be to dry clean them. I suppose I could always just wash the surface of the cushions by hand. It's one of those things... replacement cushions the right size are HARD to find.

Barbra singing “Funny Girl”

As “BabFab 2” approaches, Three Cat Productions annual Barbra Streisand Birthday tribute show, as writer and directer... and host...(see? just like Barbra!) I am happy to share my love of this artist with other people who love her as well. Here is a clip from her upcoming DVD release of her 2006 live concert. She sings, “Funny Girl” from the movie of the same name. I have to say that when I heard her do this live, it truly sounded like we were all crowded onto the soundstage in 1967 hearing her record it for the first time.
She has grown so far past the “character” she played in “Funny Girl” but can go back to that place with ease. Our golden memories of Barbra are hers as well. Ya know what I mean?

NOTE: The above mentioned clip is no longer available. But you can see Barbra's performance on the recent DVD of her 2006 concert.

Excrutiating... Mmm Hmmmm....

I couldn't even finish watching this it made me so uncomfortable... watch his band mates squirm and look very distressed. Show biz has many an interesting folk... I did like his memories of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine... I TOO was a fan of that and the plastic models he talks about. But everythying about this interview is just PAINFUL... as I said, I couldn't make it to the end... so please tell me how it finishes out.



FOOTNOTE: Ok, I did manage to make it to the end and it seems to have a happy ending. But what an interesting cat he is! Over all, the interviewer handled it very well. They band mates probably just shrug... oh well. This is Billy Bob... chancelor of Cosmic Cowboy music...

JoJo can has Cheezburger...

The infamous JoJo...

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

Now THIS one is ridiculous... I love that my spectrum includes Ashley Tisdale and Dick Cheney!!!

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

This time it got it right... people have told me that Kevin Spacey and I could have been separated at birth. We don't really look like each other anymore though. But this pic does I guess... and Robert Deniro? I like that! Oh, and Richard Pryor and I are just IDENTICAL COUSINS all the way. Me and Rich... one pair of matching bookends...

inspiration...

Do not adjust your screen... YES I am writing a new blog entry! Yay!
I was inspired to write because I just took a stroll through the Fine Arts Building. This is where my office/studio is and I just LOVE this building. Aside from new wiring and some of the light fixtures in this building and the modernized bathrooms and stuff like that, it is pretty much the same as it must have been back in the early part of the 20th century. I marvel at some of the people who have had studios here in the past. For some reason on the 10th floor right in a row are three of the famous inhabitants that worked here. Number one is W.W. Denslow who was the illustrator for The Wizard of Oz. He has been and is one of my inspirations and “heroes” if you will. I discovered him when I was a child and found the original “Oz” books at the library. Ah, the smell of those old books and the delightful illustrations this man provided for the very first book. He only illustrated the first book and then the other Oz books were illustrated by John R. Neil. But Denslow... especially the way he drew the Cowardly Lion has always been a favorite of mine. The photo on the right is a picture of him IN his studio on the 10th floor. And the sea horse icon is his signature. If you see that on an old cartoon/illustration, then you know who drew it. The W.W. stands for William Wallace.

Another “biggie” back in the olden days had his office on the tenth floor right next to Denslows although they didn't work there at the same time. It was this little known architect named Frank Lloyd Wright... have you ever heard of him? He contributed many things to this building including the design of the windows in MY office and some of the other windows and elements throughout the building.

THIRDLY... this is something I just learned today. On the OTHER side of Denslows office was another cartoon/illustrator, John T. McCutcheon. He is famous for the illustrations you see below, contributed to the Chicago Tribune for more than 40 years and won the Pulitzer Prize. I remember this illustration from either seeing it in a book, library, or reprinted... it was originally published in 1907. This STYLE of drawing and the way it was colorized for the newspaper... I have always loved this kind of thing. And also, the fact that it's autumn... you can almost smell the smoke in the cold air when you look at this. That is what I love about some illustrations, they can evoke SO much sense memory and emotion.

What a great time it was in the early 1900's and little did these artists know what an impact they would have on me... another illustrator who has the privilege of working in this great building.

It's been a long long time...

I don't regularly blog because I have so much going on that it's hard for me to narrow down ONE thing to talk about or write about. It's hard to be the stenographer for all the stuff going on in my head. But writing can be a zen like experience. I have done the morning pages routine in which you write three pages full of mind dump. It's theraputic. It seems like it will take forever to do. You have to just write from your train of thought. It is definitely something you KEEP to yourself. But it empties out a lot of the noise up there.
I have a lot of noise. I hide behind the noise. The noise can sometimes get in my way and I let it. Even now as I am typing this there is an inner critic sitting there laughing and saying, “what are you doing? Do you really think anyone cares to read this crap?” and I have to nod and say, “thank you... but shut up ok?”
PROJECTS - O - RAMA!
I have one zillion projects going on. That is the official count. Well, it FEELS like one zillion only because it's a gigantic wall of projects all glued and stuck together like some third grade art project hanging in the hallway. Looking at it en masse it looks like a gigantic mess making absolutely no sense at all. So because I wear the glasses that perceive this, it remains just that.

Fun with my face...

 

Self portrait using Photo Booth with my Mac.

I'd like to name this “person” Bruno.

It's been too long...

Sorry I haven't written in this blog for twenty seven years.
I have been very busy. I directed a holiday show, starred in my OWN holiday show, did a house concert out in the burbs and performed at the Chicago Cultural Center. Meanwhile hardly a present has been bought.
I am awaiting the arrival of my “planner pad.” I know. Planners. My sickness. But it is so frustrating waiting for this thing to arrive... I feel like I am five years old running down to the mailbox and then slumping away shoulders sagging, head hanging, letting out a big sigh. “All I got was a rock...” But I will get it soon. And I am determined... here's the thing... I am DETERMINED to actually USE it for an entire year.
Nobody thinks I can. You see, I will start with a system... that's what we planner geeks call our calendar book things... a system... and then about a month... a week... sometimes a DAY into it, I don't like it anymore and I set up a new system. Meanwhile all the things I am “Planning” on doing are on hold. It's such a ridiculous catch 22. To have ADD and use a planner is something I have been struggling with for years. It's a sick twisted mess and a waste of calendars... I am determined to use the planner pad... the choice for calendar 09... for ONE WHOLE YEAR.
Do you think I can do it?
If you said yes, I say thank you. But even I know that it is going to be a challenge.
Oh, and if you WANT a planner, I can make one for you with all the planner back-wash I have.
Just let me know.
For awhile I thought I would do this as a side job... put together planners for people. Kind of like a planner broker or as I like to call myself, “The Planner Whisperer.”

Hey... atleast I'm not addicted to heroine.

Parker...

My drawings...

I have begun a new blog (in tandem with this one) that will showcase a daily drawing. Either something from my vast archive (seriously) or something I did that day (usually on the train!)
So go lookie look... here

in dreams...

I have the coolest dreams.
So real, I go about the next day feeling like it wasn't a dream but something that actually happened. (I know... Dorothy...) but the one I had last night was very interesting. I was time traveling. I was back in the early seventies. So I was wandering around and seeing how different everything was. I was in Chicago looking at buildings that used to be there and how things were “back then.” One of the funniest moments in the dream was when I was at a bar with the group I was hanging with (my Mom included). Someone was having drink after drink and as they went up for another round, I warned them that they might be over-spending. I said, “Careful... those drinks are 75 cents!” (Knowing full well that in future years they would be marked up enormously.
I wonder how much drinks WERE in the early seventies?

At other points in the dream, I turned on tv to watch an old kids tv show that I had forgotten about. I sang the theme song along with it. (Ofcourse I did!)
I opened up a fridge and saw a slice of cake my mom had made (from the early 70's but fresh and new!) So I ate it. It was amazing.

And well, that is about all I have to say about that.
And guess what? Yay! I get to go to bed again!!!!

Andrea McArdle interview

Anyone who knows me KNOWS that I am a fan of the show “Annie” and of Andrea McArdle. I have loved her ever since I saw her on “The Annie Christmas Special” way back in December of 1977. Although I never saw her perform the role onstage, I DID see her portray Belle in “Beauty and the Beast” at the iconic Palace Theatre on Broadway.
Any hoo or rather, “annie-hoo” (yuck yuck) here is a very delightful interview of Ms. Mcardle while she is in New Hampshire performing the role of Fantine in Les Miserables. (Note: with her now twenty year old daughter playing Eponine... which she points out.) My favorite part is her impression of Carol Channing.

Stepford Sam...

This freaked me out. I was browsing through the tribune online and saw a picture off to the side and thought, “what the hell is Sam's picture doing in the news?” Well, it was (of course) another cat, but I was startled (yes, startled) by the similarity... it's Sam's long lost twin brother! Or perhaps, a “Stepford” version of Sam. Same looks but a really banal and creepy personality? Doesn't really care to wake me up in the morning. Obeys everything we say...
I like the real “smoolie” better. (That's Sam's nickname... don't ask.)

Need a good laugh?

Kristen Wiig is one of the funniest comedians to come along on SNL. She is a mix of Carol Burnett with a bit Lily Tomlin thrown in. Right up my alley. Watch her as the fourth and most interesting sister in this musical act...

Saturday Morning mind dump

I am sad that [Title of Show] is closing on Broadway. Have you heard about this show? Have you listened to the hysterical cast album? I am hoping it will continue on... and I am channeling that the original cast might take it around to various cities... are you guys listening?

We have new upstairs neighbors and today they are moving their furniture up the back porch stairs. Clomp, clomp, clomp. Nice people. They have a dog. A huskie. These are just random facts and the various miniscule things I know about them. Let's see what else... well, I met them because their toilet overflowed and was dripping into OUR bathroom. Nice way to meet your new neighbors. I thought it was funny that they were so profusely apologizing. I mean, it's not THEIR fault. What were they thinking I would do when I opened the door to their knockity knock... I would open the door in a ratty robe and curlers (scotch taped to my head) and say, “Who the hell do you think you ARE?!!! Overflowing your toilet... what is WRONG with you?!!!! I know you did it on purpouse. You Toilet overflowers you!!!!!”

No. I shrugged it off. I mean it kind of freaked me out at first because the water that was dripping was not CLEAR water. So, that disturbed me. But when you live in a world of kitty litter, you start to become immune to... wait, that's kitty litter I am talking about, the tidy little litter that you put in a bag... (sounds like a catchy slogan, huh?) No, this is HUMAN!!!!!!!! Arrrrgghhhhhh!!!!!

But it was only the color that it was because of seeping through the floor boards. Seriously. But it still freaked me out. Hepititis nightmares danced in my head as I mopped it up and tried not to get any of it on me. And ofcourse as I am cleaning it up, it drips ON my head. Unclean... unclean!!!!

How we take for granted our sewer systems.

Ok. So I will continue on a sewer rant.
Up at my sisters, they have a natural well that to me, is about as UN-natural as it can be. Mainly because their water smells like rotten eggs. THEY are used to it. ME who comes from the city of purified to within an inch of it's life H2O from the faucet (yet we still drink Brita)... to me, it just absolutely REEKED... is that how you spell that? It stank. In the shower you are aromatherapied with this overwhelming sulfer smell. And yes, I quoted Glinda while in the bathroom, “what a smell of sulfur!!!” (for my own entertainment).

My sister asked me, “You can smell it? We can't smell it anymore.”
Well, yes, you can smell it. “Aren't you concerned what this may be doing to you over time?” I the paranoid city folk asked. “No.” Sis shrugged going back to her Soduko puzzle.

When I was a kid we used to be able to ignite our water. Another incident of natural well, with natural gas coming from the well and indeed, you would run the faucet and then light a match by the water coming out of the faucet and like a pilot light on a stove, it would light up, ignite... fire surrounding the stream of water. Isn't that weird? It was one of our house tricks, to amuse company when they came over. That and our singing window panes, but that's another story.

Ok. Mind clear. Off I go to seize the day.

Planet of the Apes...

Creationism has been something I have been irritated with of late.
I read that in 2005 53% of people polled believed that we came from “Adam and Eve.”
And according to “creationism” it all began only 400 years BC.
And don't even get me started on Intelligent Design.
Adam and Eve and gardens and talking snakes... snow white and dopey and singing and dancing mice and puppets that become real live boys and and and...

HOW can people actually believe this?

A higher power? Yes. I believe in a higher power. I don't know what it actually is. I can feel it at times. A bearded caucasian man? Only if that is what you want to see him as. We all can have our own vision and I like it that way. This higher power GAVE us an imagination to allow us to deal with things that we don't actually know about, but FEEL and in order to put it into a framework we can understand, we attach an image to it. I mean scan the globe and see all the many versions of this higher power in the form of Buddha and that really cool Hindu multi armed elephant. Now THAT is imagination being put to good use.

Going back to Adam and Eve... I want to say to people, “so, let me get this straight... we are unable to access all sorts of information from zillions of years ago, so much of it all a huge mystery... YET we just so happen to know the names of the first two people on earth.

Oh and Noah... let's wrap our intelligence around THAT one. There are lots of Flood stories and interestingly, they spread across many cultures. Even native Americans had THEIR own story passed down through the ages. Whether or not there WAS a guy named Noah and that he actually managed to get ALL the animals (two by two) onto this state of the art vessel is where the storytime aspect takes hold.

I mean, think about it. Stories are told with a lot of imagery. Before TV you listened to the radio and had no choice but to envision what was being told to you. YOU had that creative license. Back in ancient times, stories told around campfires (or whatever) would get rather dull unless the storyteller added extra stuff to the story to beef it up. You know, the whole, “Hey! Listen to ME tell the story... mine has talking snakes!” As soon as these stories at whatever level they had reached via word of mouth became WRITTEN... that is when they sort of “died ” in a way. Now they had a permanance in whatever form they were in when written. The written word is very powerful. When people see something written there is this universal first notion that it is true. If it is written it is true. But that is not the case.

Not everything you read is true.
In a way, it is almost like tabloids... write whatever will sell the paper.
Write whatever will sell the book. Write whatever will get people to pay attention and scare them so you can control them.

Let ME decide how I see it. And let's not take it so literally.
The minute something has happened, your memory of it will distort. Depending, a few years will go by and the event that you remember will morph into something beyond whatever it originally was. But it is possible to remember the feeling you had and the more you think of it, the more fond you become of it and those heartfelt feelings can play wonderous tricks on your mind and memory. We turn many of our past experiences into their own little fairy tales.

Once upon a time... in the beginning... two households both alike in dignity... it was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies...

THE END?

Liza with a Zeal!

We went to see Liza Minnelli not knowing what to expect. In the last year I read news reports of her collapsing onstage, I saw some youtube video footage of her not doing well. It made you think she was again in the shadow of her mother, fighting against demons, losing the battle.

BUT... last night in Hammond, Indiana at the Horseshoe(?) Casino (where they STILL smoke inside - yuck!) Minnelli was in absolute TOP form. I was thrilled. To hear that familiar clarinet begin playing the opening of “Maybe This Time” which she just sang as good as if they were going for a second take in the filming of the movie. I liked it that when she sang (referring to romantic interests) that she was hoping her new man would be, “not a loser anymore, like the last time and the time before..” She rolled her eyes while singing this line. Very funny. Good to see that she has a great sense of humor about herself. At the end of the song (and only the fourth or fifth song in the show) the audience was on it's feet, cheering.

She paid tribute to her godmother, entertainer, vocal arranger Kay Thompson (who worked at MGM in the 40's and wrote the Eloise books - based on Liza's childhood incidently)... she had four guys with her and they did this wonderful tight harmony and tight choreography ala nightclub shows from the 40's and 50's. TOTALLY up my alley. Loved it. Revelled in the fact that with Liza holding the ropes, you were truly seeing the real deal. The last in a line of Hollywood royalty. Stare hard, soak it in. Her voice, yes, it was challenged, notes were shaky, but it was this energy she had in her that just burst out of her. And as the show progressed, it got EVEN better. By the time the encore came and there she was “start spreadin' the news...” she was claiming her corner of the universe, with one of her trademark songs. (We had already been treated to “Cabaret” which again, was great). And there she was, belting out “New York, New York” and going for the key change and the place went wild. Hey! Screw oil, THERE'S our new energy source! Whatever it is she manages to pull up from out of nowhere could very well fuel jet planes and send them around the world a few times non-stop.

There may have been times in these last years, one would think it was time for her to throw in the towel, but with this new show, the Kay Thompson material, she saddled up the horse and climbed back up on top. WE WERE JUST THRILLED. And I am speaking for myself, Jason and the audience around us. Afterwards, there was a buzz in the air and also, maybe it was just me, but a kind of shock that she pulled off what she had just pulled off. This is a good reason to truly not buy into anything you read about. If you wanna know how she's doing, go to the source itself.

Jason said that at the end of the show, an older woman was crying saying that it was like seeing her mother onstage again. It was. It wasn't just that though, it was seeing the heritage. Always being compared to her immortal mother, you can see WHY when you see her in person. There IS an uncanny resemblance... or is it just that her Mom was WITH her. I'd like to think that just as Liza as a child watched her mother from the wings, that NOW her mother is returning the favor and then helplessly, caught up in the excitement, joins her.

When you see Liza on stage, you realize that this is her family trade. A long line of performers... her Mom, her Dad, her aunts (the Gumm sisters) and her grandparents who were vaudevillians.
Not to mention her godparents (Thompson and this composer guy... ever hear of IRA GERSHWYN?! And all of her parents comrades and friends... you know, Uncle Frank, Uncle Sammy, all the great greats.

And so with her, you saw it all... vaudeville, film, stage, broadway, nightclubs all accumulated now into this sixty two year old woman, thinned down, scissor legged again, eyes dazzling again... Liza with a ZEAL! Yay!!! Fireworks, fourth of July, America... it was HER Olympic category... and she was winning more medals as we rooted for her all the way.

Thank God.

So needless to say, I had a VERY good time.
:- )

Happy Birthday Karen!

Happy Birthday to my big sister Karen. Karen is a writer and I keep pestering to do her website. Hopefully soon this will become a reality because she really is good. I remember as a kid, a little sneaky bratty little brother, I LOVED to snoop around her desk. She had this cool corner desk (one of those kind of colonial modular kid bedroom set ups.) And I loved the SMELL. What was it? A mixture of all the projects she worked on, painting little plaster statues, hodge podging pictures onto wooden planks (with the pictures edges burned ofcourse)... and her drawings and notebooks and sketchbooks.
I also loved her handwriting so much that I kind of stole it or adapted it to my own handwriting. Hers is still better.
So happy birthday, here is a whole new year for you to continue pursuing your book writing dreams... and make them a reality. She already has articles written for magazines and such. I will squeeze info out of her and get links posted so all the world can read her work. THAT and a website are MY goals to accomplish for her in this next coming year.

The Island of Has Been Stars...

Daytime and late night TV.
The home of Rerun television and cheezy commercials.
How I love the cheezy commercial.
How I love to spell cheezy just the way I did.

The new “Sally Struthers” has made her mark. Maureen McCormick implores us to save the children, with a very strained and hardened face.

Wow.
Marcia.
Again, wow.

And then for some commercial for a cash lending company there's Mr. Gary Coleman who actually NOW is throwing in the towel and using his catch phrase. He says it though with absolutely no emotion. Poor old zombie Arnold. Mrs. Garrett looks away hoping to not turn into a pillar of salt. He might as well be wearing a shirt that says, “sold out.” But for him that is a good thing. It's good that he scrapes the bottom of the barrel for the ONE thing left he has to spray in our faces like pop culture mace. (sp)

But seeing him do it... it's sad. Perhaps the overall conscensus was that the fact that he WASN'T saying it anymore meant that he had some kind of pride or something or other going on.

Hmmm... Gary Coleman... pride.
Ponder that one for a minute.

Back to Marcia.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.
She looks mad.
She's just so damn mad that she is resorting to this level of showbusiness.
You can ONLY get to this level by having gone up the ladder. But most times these folks aren't looking down when they descend the ladder and then they realize the ladder leads them back down to such television spots.

Oh well.
Good for them. They're working...
But I must say it gives me a start to see them.
They seriously burst onto the tv.
When Mr. Coleman did, I actually yelped.
And when I saw Marcia, I said, “Oh My Nose!”

Sam's trick...

I don't know how he does it, but when I need to wake up at a certain time, all I have to do is ASK my cat Sam to wake me up at a specific time and believe it or not, he does it. For example, I have to take Jason to the airport this morning and needed to get up 5:15 am. Last night before going to bed, I leaned down to Sam cuddling next to me, petted his head and said, “Sam, I need you to wake me up at 5:15 tomorrow.”
Sure enough, about 5:10, he is crawling up onto my chest and meowing in my face.
And truly, he usually will not do this until about 7am.

AMAZING!!!!
I will try it again and let you know what happens.