krizzlekroo

Sweeney Todd - Design for Murder

2010-09-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

SWEENEY TODD
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Skylight Opera - Milwaukee, WI
Drawings, photos and scenic design copyright © 1997, 2007 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

One of my favorite design jobs ever was designing the set for a production od Stephen Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD for Skylight Opera in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the spring of 1997. The show was directed by Jonathan Pape.

One of the first Broadway shows I ever saw was the original production of SWEENEY TODD starring Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou back in 1979. I loved it! But as much as I loved the original I felt a strong desire to be different in mine and to stay away from the "spinning-cube" unit-set of the original. So without too much chat here's what I did.

Below you will see several scenes from the show. Each starting with my watercolor sketch (the first thing I showed the Director) then photos of the 1/4 scale model I built, then my production photos of the design in performance. Enjoy!

My set was a collage of old London building elements that could move up and down, appear or disappear. It was a two level set - with stairs on either side leading to the upper-level and another staircase - used mainly to get to the Barber Shop, just off center. There was a tunnel at center where a tongue-like platform could emerge dressed with props and furniture to provide the various interiors.

The picture above shows the opening moments of the show when Sweeney and Anthony first arrive in London. The center panel (with the window panes) flys up to reveal Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop. The pantomimed flash-back then occurs behind the window on the second level (as seen in the production photo below).

SWEENEY TODD - Sketch "Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop"

SWEENEY TODD - 1/4" Scale Model "Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop"

SWEENEY TODD - Production photo - "Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop"

As an experiment, I tried a couple sketches in purple. For a while I worried that the gray was a little too real and thought a brooding passionate color might be good to heighten the melodrama a little - but neither the director or I liked it. Below is a purple sketch for Johanna's first scene, "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" with Anthony emerging from a foggy London tunnel. The production photo below is a little dark - but the set basically matches the sketch.

SWEENEY TODD - Sketch "Green Finch and Linnet Bird"

SWEENEY TODD - Production photo "Green Finch and Linnet Bird"

At the end of Anthony's "Johanna" number, in the dark night time set pictured above, we finally saw all of the upper city-collage fly out revealing a soot-filled London cityscape. The city crowd pours in and young Toby marches across the upper level, he stops at center and begins to sing "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir." At the end of his long intro he he simply kicks the Pirelli advertising banner off the upper level and it unfurls over the tunnel opening from which Pirelli will make his imposing entrance a few minutes later.

SWEENEY TODD - Sketch "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir"

SWEENEY TODD - Production photo "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir"

For the first part of ACT II I opened everything up. Sweeney is up top slitting throats, Mrs. Lovett is down below selling meat pies. The very large sooty-London cityscape drop in the photo above) was painted by me. As I remember it was 24 feet by 36 feet. It was begun by two local painters but they were not up to the task and when I arrived in Milwaukee, the drop was, well, a painting disaster. So I had to repaint it myself vertivcally (as opposed to flat on the floor) . Correcting a bad painting in the air is a lot harder than doing it right the first time flat on the floor. I made it look okay but it was a real chore to salvage that drop!

SWEENEY TODD - Sketch Act II

SWEENEY TODD 1/4" Scale Model - Act II

I have not covered every scene here, but this is a good sampling of one of my favorite design jobs. If you have questions by all means ask away!

Oh, I will add one thing. I was terrified the actors were going to ask me, as designer, to be the first person to be dumped from the barber-chair down the dark chute to the meat-room. Luckily, the Technical Director went first and I dodged the bullet.

I never did take the ride. Phew!

"Attend the tale of the scared designer..."

Drawings, photos and scenic design copyright © 1997, 2007 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Ready? Ok! Trailer

2008-04-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

"Ready? OK!" Trailer 1 720P on Vimeo

Hi Guys,

Up above is the first trailer for the movie I designed last summer. Take a look at it! I'm very pleased with it. The film also won three awards at FILMOUT San Diego - our first festival appearance! The film won Best U.S. Narrative Feature Film, Outstanding Emerging Talent for our Writer/Director James Vasquez, and Best Actress for Carrie Preston.

The film is also now scheduled in the following festivals around the country:

NEWFEST FILM FESTIVAL
PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Q CINEMA FORT WORTH
GAY PRIDE SPOTLIGHT MOVIE - SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

Ready? Ok! Go watch the trailer!

--David

www.readyokmovie.com

Choking your Chicken

2008-04-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

Back in the earliest days of the 20th century, when my grandmother was a little girl, she witnessed the events that led to this blog, the events that led to a favorite family story of the infamous day when my great grandmother tried to choke her chicken.

I had best explain. My great grandparents, Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick (Daddad) and Mary Campbell Kirkpatrick (Mamie) lived with their daughter (my grandmother, Edna) in Bridgeport, Texas. They owned a large house on fourteen acres of land. They had pecans, various fruit trees, and they kept chickens. If the dinner-time meal was to be chicken, Mamie would ask Daddad to please go get her a chicken, and he'd go out to the hen house and select a tasty looking bird. He would hold it by the head and with a quick spin of his wrist, the chicken's head would come off, and he'd take the chicken to my great grandmother for cleaning and cooking.

But one day, she forgot to ask Daddad to get her a chicken. She had witnessed the deed on many, many occasions. And she thus thought, "Oh foot! I can kill a chicken! I've seen Louis do it a hundred times!" So she went out into the yard, snuck up on the feathered dinner-on-legs, and grabbed it by the head. It squawked and flapped its wings, and she took a deep breath and started to spin the chicken around. And she continued to spin the chicken.

The chicken was not amused. It still squawked and flapped its wings. But Mamie kept on spinning the chicken. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, around the chicken went! All the other chickens looked on in wonder! Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, around the chicken went!

Eventually, my great grandmother let the chicken go. With a sigh, she went into the house to find something else to make for dinner.

According to family legend that chicken eventually died of old age - with its head permanently wrenched, turned backwards looking over its shoulder. When my great grandmother would see the chicken out in the yard she would look at it with remorse and sigh ... "Oh, Louis, oh ... oh..."

—David

Much Ado About Easy-Bake Ovens

2008-04-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

EXTRA! EXTRA! Stupid Children get fingers caught in Easy-Bake Ovens! "Roasted Child-Digits" only 185 calories each!

So read the papers and blared the radio a couple months ago ... Dumb kids, dumb parents, dumb recall, dumb world... However, this silliness did bring up multiple memories and tales-to-tell of my own adventures with MY Easy-Bake Oven. And being a good little queer boy I didn't burn MY fingers. I made tasty things to eat!

If I recall correctly I got my Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas when I was about six or seven. I really liked it - mainly because it worked! You could actually "bake" cakes and stuff in it. The oven used two light bulbs, one in the top and one in the bottom, surrounded by a highly-reflective aluminum shell. You mixed the cake mixes in little bowls, greased up the little pan, and slid it into the oven where it baked for a time. When it was ready you pushed the cooked cake out the other side of the oven, and a baker you were!

The packaging shown above looks much as I remember MY oven - the late 1960s "Flower Power" decals included. I also recall thinking that the little girl featured on the box wasn't too bright. Look at her little cakes. You are SUPPOSED to bake TWO layers of cake and frost them together with a layer of icing in the middle! It's boring to simply frost a single layer!

My two big memories about my Easy-Bake Oven involved my Dad. He was all for it - indeed he was the baker in the family. When I made my first cake I was distressed that when I pushed it out the far side of the oven a sharp blade (inside the oven) hacked off the top of the cake and made a very flat shaved-off cake layer. This didn't seem right and wasted some very edible cake. My Dad agreed, so out came the tools, he opened up the oven and removed the "cake-shaver." Voila! Unshaved cakes.

The Easy-Bake Oven also gave my Dad an opportunity to give me a lecture on the evils of Capitalism. The oven was a really good toy, well-made, and fairly priced. But the company really gouged you on the cake mixes and frosting packets. And I was baking a LOT of little cakes!

So Dad explained all this stuff about monopolies, and evil-marketing strategies designed to take advantage of little boys, and he took me to the grocery store where we purchased inexpensive JIFFY cake mixes, frosting mix, corn-bread mix, and such. We found a little clear plastic container and carefully measured a "real" Easy-Bake mix, and using tape and a marker, made an Easy-Bake measuring cup so I could easily use the "real" cake mixes in my oven. These real mixes were even better than the expensive "Easy-Bake" ones. There were more flavors! I could make things like corn-bread! And this made the oven seem more "legit."

We chose the JIFFY mixes because they were the only mixes that already had the eggs and stuff in them. Thus they were ADD WATER ONLY just like the Easy-Bake mixes.

Toys wear out and I have no idea what became of my Easy-Bake Oven. But when I was nine, we traveled to Bridgeport, Texas because my grandfather was very ill. My Dad took care of me and my sister in the motel room while Mom was at the hospital all day. One afternoon, while walking the main street of Bridgeport, we wandered into a "five-and-dime" store and I spotted a treasure I had to have!

A SUZY HOMEMAKER OVEN!!!

Suzy's oven also worked via light-bulb, but it was bigger and looked and functioned more like a "real" oven. You placed your food in the oven through the hinged oven-door on the front of the oven.

Well, Dad sensibly saw this as a way to keep me occupied and amused during those long days in the motel room and he got it for me. This oven came with an assortment of "cake mixes," too, but it was suggested somewhere that one could also make pie! So when we went to the grocery store for the old reliable JIFFY mixes we got some JIFFY pie-crust and a jar of jam and I became the "Boy Baker of Bridgeport" for a time.

So here I sit thirty-five years later, I love to cook and I bake pies from scratch.

But the world has changed. Think of the fun to be recalled in 2043 when some forty-something brat will be writing mini-essays on how when he/she was ten, he/she stuck their fingers in their toy-oven, burnt them to shreds, sued Easy-Bake for Billions, and they are forever doomed to a life of store-bought baked goods.

Bon appetit, David

Almost Movie Time - READY? OK!

2008-04-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Lurie Poston and Michael Emerson (Ben on LOST) on location shooting "Ready? OK!"
Photo Credit: Adriana Breisch.

As you may recall, last summer I served as Production Designer of an Indy feature film. Well it is called READY? OK! and it is premiering at FILM OUT SAN DIEGO, Thursday april 17th. I can't wait to see it! A few early reviews have come in, too.

Beth Accomando, at KPBS radio, reviews FILMOUT SAN DIEGO and offers a great review of the movie toward the end of this several minute long sound file.

http://www.kpbs.org/media/assets/AUDIO/blogs/movies/2008/04/080410_BA_FilmOut.mp3

There is also an early print review from the North County Times. You can also read it online here - with a few pictures, too.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/04/10/entertainment/movies/d92eabc22863de9a8825742500659563.txt

READY? OK!
Premiere
Thursday April 17th, 7:15 pm
Ken Cinemas

4061 Adams Ave

San Diego 92116

Gimme Some Skin

2008-04-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on AIDA for San Diego Opera - no, I was not cast as Radames (or Amneris) but am instead serving as body-makeup artist. What does this job entail, you ask?

Well, I must arrive at the opera two hours before curtain time and venture into the lower depths of the theatre where I (and several other makeup folk) get to spend three hours applying body makeup to various supers, dancers, and some of the chorus.

The vast majority are men ranging in looks from stunningly beautiful to elderly teamster. For about two and a half hours these assorted men wander over to the body makeup area in their opera-supplied skin-pink underwear and I ask them if they are Egyptian or Ethiopian. Depending on their answer they are made up with either Light Egyptian or Dark Egyptian body makeup.

They are escorted over to an empty spot on the plastic-covered floor and I spray them down with a water bottle. This makes the makeup flow better, quicker, and more evenly. Using small round sponges and pancake make-up of the chosen shade, I proceed to daub, wipe, pat and otherwise apply the makeup to pretty much every exposed inch of them save their heads, hands, and feet -- which are their own responsibility.

We are basically just trying to apply an even, smooth color. There is not much time for subtlety. I have worked up a few tricks and quick-and-easy frills to this crank-em-out process. I try to make sure the body makeup fades realistically into their necks and faces which are sometimes too light or too dark. I also usually apply a quick dappled sponge effect to darken the tops of their shoulders, like natural sun exposure creates. And a last little trick of mine, when doing their backs, is to start with a very dark spongeful of makeup down their back bones. This makes a little valley of makeup which can then be feathered out with the sponge. It not only avoids streaks but also adds a subtle hint of muscle definition to their backs.

Other elements of the job include hiding tattoos, doing a body makeup quick-change on eight dancing girls in about eight minutes, and then a lot of clean up afterwards: washing sponges, refilling water bottles, preparing for the next performance, etc.

It's kinda funny having a job where a man in his mid 20s comes up to you in his underwear and apologizes for not shaving his armpits better.

This Light Egyptian makeup has an interesting backstory. It was developed by Max Factor for Lena Horne who desperately wanted to play Julie in the 1951 remake of SHOWBOAT. The studio apparently worried that Horne was "too light" and Max designed Light Egyptian to darken Lena Horne's skin to an appropriate shade for the studio. Then as Ms. Horne has told it, "They went and hired my good friend Ava Gardner to play Julie and covered HER in MY Light Egyptian!"

So in a few hours I must head to the theatre for my opera chores. SOMEBODY has to do it!

Aida, Aida, I just met a girl named Aida . . . that's a different show, isn't it?

--David

Slashing Sweeney Todd

2008-01-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

Well, the web seems inundated with reviews of Tim Burton's film version of Sweeney Todd, some smart, many stupid. A friend in NYC said a bunch of goth kids came into the bookstore where he works and they'd just seen Sweeney. When they heard that the original Mrs. Lovett was created by Angela Lansbury the darling goth tykes responded, "Eeeww! That dumpy old woman! Was she the best they could get?"

Kinda makes a fella wanna move to France. . .

The original Stephen Sondheim Sweeney Todd opened in 1979 and it was my very first Broadway show. I got my chance to see it on a family trip to NYC when I was sixteen. It was only a couple months after Sweeney had opened and it still had the original cast of Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, and Victor Garber. It really was extraordinary.

I have seen most of the important Sweeneys since: the New York City Opera version circa 1987 with Timothy Nolen and Joyce Castle, the 1989 Circle in the Square Broadway revival with Bob Gunton and Beth Fowler, the 2005 Broadway revival with Michael Cerveris and Patti Lupone. And the video version of the Lupone/Hearn SWEENEY concert, and of course the Lansbury/Hearn video. Heck, I've even seen the old black and white non-musical British film The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), starring the amusingly named Tod Slaughter. I also designed a large-scale production of Sweeney for Skylight Opera in Milwaukee in 1997. Click Here for Pics and Blog.

Ok, now that my throat-slitting creds are established ...

I saw Burton's Sweeney on opening day and found it very enjoyable for the most part. I think it is probably Burton's best film since Ed Wood. I really wanted to like it and at the time I managed to convince myself that I did. I thought it looked really good. The smog-choked London of the 1840s was made quite real. Johnny Depp is certainly the right age and has the intensity to play Sweeney well, as does Helena Boham Carter to play Mrs. Lovett.

Burton has heavily cut the score for some unfathomable reason. At first I thought it was due to length, but on checking running times I found Burton's film runs about fifteen minutes LONGER than the full-length stage version does. Perhaps Burton truly wasn't up to directing a musical. I understand the reason for cutting the "Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd" chorus parts. They are a theatrical conceit, and a stronger opening could be created for the film without it. But omitting the Act I quartet is bizarre. It's crucial to the development of the score. And paring down "A Little Priest" makes it seem like Burton simply didn't know what to do with the song. Or perhaps Depp and Bonham Carter simply weren't putting it over.

Spoiler Warning!

In the film Depp's and Bonham Carter's voices seemed fine. But as I've listened to the soundtrack since, they both sound very tentative and like they are at an early read-thru of the score. There is just not enough character in their singing, especially Bonham Carter's. In her opening number, "The Worst Pies in London," she should be chewing the hell out of the song - yet it has so little energy, it is so flat. Somehow Burton has stripped all of the comedy from the song. It needs to be lived and felt and made spontaneous. Mrs. Lovett is a very poor woman trying to get by selling meat-pies. She is supposed to be delighted that Todd--"A customer!!"--has just walked in the door. Instead, Bonham Carter gives us a Mrs. Lovett that is so underplayed it becomes confusing. On the one hand she should be trying to make a schilling by selling Todd a pie and on the other she wants empathy as she admits her pies are disgusting and gross. This slightly schizophrenic point-of-view is essential to Mrs. Lovett's character. It is what enables her to rationalize her way into serving cadavers as entrées. This multi-dimensional quality is largely missing from Bonham Carter's performance. And to top it off, the lyrics are simply hard to hear and understand.

Alan Rickman makes a wonderful Judge Turpin. Indeed, he would have made a great Sweeney. Sascha Baron Cohen (and his manhood) ably play Adolpho Pirelli. Though again a comedic moment goes for naught when Cohen switches from his over-the-top Italian accent to his Irish accent. Why is nothing funny in this movie? Jamie Campbell Bower sings beautifully as Anthony the young sailor, but he looks so pretty and girlish that it's hard to believe he serves any purpose on a ship other than butt-boy to all the "real" sailors, and it seems more likely Johanna should be rescuing him.

Burton made an interesting choice in the casting Ed Sanders as Tobias Ragg. Toby is most often played as a rather dim-witted young man/teenager. Burton cast a little kid who comes across as about eight years old. He has a lovely voice and makes "Nothing's gonna harm you" sound really wonderful. This is no reflection on Sanders abilities, but a kid that age simply can't act well enough to carry his weight in the drama. An genuinely little child has no real chance of "protecting" Mrs. Lovett from harm; and in the final scene when Toby is exposed to the horrors of the bake-house and meat grinder we need to hear a cry of terror and pain that makes our blood grow cold. Young Mr. Sanders just yells, "Mrs. Lovett, let me out," like maybe he has to go to the bathroom really bad.

You may have guessed that I am not a big Tim Burton fan. I think he has a wonderful imagination and a strong personal style, but I have always felt he needed to be more tightly reigned in, that his ideas were too often brilliant first drafts that were never refined enough or thought through, that often his ideas were simply there because they were "cool" and if they made hash of the story-telling or characterizations, it seems Burton thinks, "Who cares, it's cool"! Here are a few of the most disturbing "Burtonisms" in the film:

The Opening Credits

It seems hard to believe that Burton will blow his wad in the opening credits by showing the audience the barber chair, the chute, and the meat grinder full of body parts. A good story teller would make the audience wait and build up the suspense. Why enact the plot in mediocre CGI animation before the film has even started?

The Tower Bridge

Moments into the film Sweeney goes sailing down the Thames under the Tower Bridge. The film appears to be set circa 1840, but the Tower Bridge wasn't built until 1894, some fifty plus years after the film takes place. Whether this was Burton's idea, or Production Designer Dante Ferretti's, it was a stupid mistake and makes both men look unprofessional. I have seen several other blogs online talking about this goof and a number of people seem to argue back: "But it's a musical! Since when does a musical have to be accurate? People don't sing in the streets either!!"

Well, that's not the point. It's bad because I wanted to be paying attention to the story and music and not be jarred out of my seat by architectural anachronisms. I don't want to see the Eiffel Tower on a backdrop for Les Miz either! Science Fiction films don't HAVE to be historically accurate, but if Peter Jackson had put the World Trade Center in his 1933 period-correct KING KONG because he thought it looked cool - well, it would have been stupid!

Passing Sentence and Key-hole peeking

To show the quality of Judge Turpin's character there is a scene where the Judge passes a sentence to "Hang by the neck until you are dead" on some poor prisoner in the dock who has committed a petty crime. In the show it's a young man and the severity of the sentence to the crime is considered sufficient to show the Judge's character. Burton ends the scene by pulling back to show the condemned prisoner is a little kid, possibly six years old, weeping hysterically. Ahh, subtlety.... In another scene the Judge watches Johanna through a secret peek-hole. It's in the original show, it's creepy, and helps define character. Yet for some odd reason Burton explicitly has Judge Turpin watch Johanna sitting in her window, engaging with the sailor and throwing a key to him. Yet later on when Judge Turpin hears Johanna has made these plans he seems to have no idea he watched it all himself earlier that day. The scene could have been solved by having the Judge simply quit peeking before Johanna throws the key. Go figure.

Little Bald Boys

Casting little kid Ed Sanders as Toby seems like a good idea when he's singing. But his big solo number is about his job selling a hair growing tonic and how he went from being completely bald to having a full head of hair. Hmmm .... I don't know many bald little boys, do you? It makes no sense.

The Meat Grinder

Mrs. Lovett's meat grinder is so over the top it seems ridiculous. It stands about seven feet high with an opening many feet across. Why? Where did she get a several ton cast-iron meat grinder? Huh? Also, Burton as usual must throw subtlety to the winds. In the show Toby finds some hair and then a fingernail in a meat pie, he puts two and two together, and figures out what's going on in the horrific bakehouse. In Burton's scene Toby finds a whole finger. It's just crass and doesn't allow the audience to make the journey and see the horror grow as Toby figures it out.

End Credit Music

The film ends with a bloody tableaux of Sweeney holding Lucy, both dead and bloody. Then the credits roll and we get an unimaginative jumble of music from the film. This would have been such a perfect place to hear "Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd." At the end of the credits Depp and Bonham Carter could even have risen from the dead, like they do in the show, for a post credit "Gotcha!"

It isn't a bad film. I will certainly buy the DVD. But it could have been so much better. Burton doesn't seem to understand that the comedic moments are there to let the audience catch their breath, to relax the audience, so he can scare them all over again. Sweeney needed to be a roller coaster ride of giggly gruesome humor and stark terror. Burton's Sweeney is very one-note. Burton has put his imagination into everything from the little bald boy to the six-ton meat grinder. It's in the CGI smog-filled London and the cockroaches in the pie shop. It's in the squirting blood and in the whole finger that Toby finds in his pie.

But here, perhaps, is the rub ... Burton's vision is so "imaginative" that nothing is left to the audience's imagination, and it's a shame Burton doesn't understand that that's where true horror lies.

Copyright © 2008 D. H. Maxine

Click! Click! Click!

2007-12-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

I watched a lot of television when I was a kid. In addition to the usual suspects like The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, and Bewitched, I was especially drawn to That Girl starring Marlo Thomas.

This may have been partly due to the story-line echoing my Mom's life before she married my Dad and I was born. That Girl ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It was the story of Ann Marie, a young woman who has moved to New York City to be an actress. In the mid-1940s my Mom had moved to New York for the same reason. So Mom could tell me stories about living in New York, eating at the Automat, the subway, Central Park, Summer stock, dating, roommates, having pre-marital sex, all the things one does when one runs away to New York City to be in the theatre. Indeed, I did much the same stuff when I went to New York to do theatre in the late 1980s.

That Girl also shot a lot of location footage in NYC, so each episode was story-fodder for Mom. In the last couple years That Girl has finally been coming out on DVD. And since I had pretty much not seen it since the mid 1970s, I have been buying and rewatching it. It holds up quite well, the writing isn't bad, the cinematography is especially good, and the production and costume design is great! It truly is a little time capsule of fashion and fun circa late 1960s.

On rewatching the series I encountered a two part episode called "It's a Mod Mod World!" in which Ann gets a job as a fashion model after being discovered eating that old actor's treat, ketchup-and-hot-water soup, at the Automat. I had not particularly remembered this episode until I resaw it. But it immediately brought back a torrent of nostalgic glee. Because back in the summer of 1970 it set my little mind to working and got me all fired up to join the world of fashion. Mod Squad, move over! I got out my Instamatic camera, corralled my three-year-old sister, and decided that I simply MUST do a fashion shoot!

Now, of course I had much empathy with Marlo Thomas and her character Anne Marie. And perhaps deep down I wanted to be an actress, model, fashion-plate. Perhaps I still do! Yet this being 1970, me being seven years old, and my not being able to both click the camera and do drag at the same time—I enlisted my little sister.

I set up my photo-shoot in front of the sliding glass doors that led from the living room to the dining room (they looked sort of like store windows to me). I asked my sister to go put on her best dress, or as my grandmother called it, her "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes. And we were ready. I demonstrated the classy poses Marlo Thomas had used. A look of coy surprise! Click! Hands up and out so as not to cover the dress! Click! A big smile! Click! Sell it, sister, sell it! Click!

And then one has to take the film to the Skaggs Drugstore to be developed and wait and wait and wait. But eventually they were developed and I was the Fashionista of the Second Grade. No digital, no Polaroid, just a Kodak Instamatic, a box of blue flash-cubes, my three-year-old sister, and me.

Food for Thought

2007-12-28T14:13:00.000-08:00

These days I do not make a habit of giving thanks to imaginary deities.

When I was four my grandmother came to live with us and she always said "Grace" before eating. This was something my parents did not do. My grandmother explained it as thanking God for the food we had been given.
I pondered this for a time.

When we moved to Albuquerque when I was three-and-a-half we had very little money. Mom was starting on her Masters degree at the University of New Mexico. Dad didn't have a job yet since the move, and we were dirt poor. The state did not give out Food Stamps to the hungry back in the mid-'60s. They gave people food. We went down to the "food place" and they stocked us up.

This was not a "food-bank" as one might know them today. It was all food packaged by the State or Feds. So no name-brand foods, and no processed "junk food" either.

On that Fall day in 1966 the state of New Mexico gave us something like the following:

10 pounds of flour
5 pounds of sugar
10 pounds of Pinto Beans
5 pounds of lard
4 cans of some meat-product called "Bulgar"
A large container of Peanut Butter

This was supposed to last us a month. Next month we'd get another batch of the same. One should remember that this was Albuquerque and the vast majority of the poor were Hispanic. Also, most people still cooked at home. Pinto beans were a nutritious staple. The flour and lard were meant for making tortillas.

But what was our family going to do with all this flour, sugar, lard, etc that we had? My dad learned to bake!

All of a sudden the house was filled with the smell of yeast and baking bread. We now ate fresh homemade bread every day. We had Cinnamon Rolls. Dad even came up with a use for all the lard. He made doughnuts! There is nothing on earth quite so wonderful as homemade, lard-fried doughnuts!

Dad eventually got a job with the Microbiology Lab at the County Medical Center. But he baked bread and rolls and cookies for the rest of his life. Later that year we moved into a bigger house and my grandmother came to live with us. This helped with the rent, and my parents decideded to adopt a little sister for me.

So, as I mentioned above, my grandmother had explained "Grace" as thanking God for the food we had been given. Ever a smart little boy, I finally asked, "If we thank god for the food we have, do we blame him when there isn't any food?"

My dear grandmother had no answer for that.

Today I am thankful to loving parents (now gone), a wonderful boyfriend, a slightly-deaf Boston Terrier, and the 1960s government of the State of New Mexico who gave us so much flour and sugar and shortening that my dad had to learn to bake bread. Now I do the baking of bread.

My Father, who art in the kitchen ...

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.
Copyright 2007 D. H. Maxine.

If I Were a Gay Man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum!

2007-12-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

The following blog is VAGUELY EXPLICIT!
If you are uncomfortable reading about a summer romp between two men - well, skip this blog.
Another one will be along in a little while.

SUMMER 1986

At this point in time I had been out for a little over a year - and been a non-virgin for about nine months. Happy little gay boy, la la la la la. A good friend was stage managing a summer stock season in the midwest somewhere. The last show of the season was FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and she asked if I could come down and serve as an additional ASM (Assistant Stage Manager.) It was a big show, and the actual theater was a thrust-type stage with audience on three sides. My friend begged. She said she REALLY needed two ASMs backstage. Ever the genial fellow, I obliged.

When I got down there, all was good and the other ASM was nice. He was in his mid-20s, kind of cute, Jewish, had a moustache, and he was engaged to be married two weeks after FIDDLER closed. Oh, yes, ASM (as I'll call him from here on) was the only Jew involved in the production, on stage or off! It was basically the "Viking production" - starring Leif Erickson as Tevye! Oy!

Tech period went fine - except that I was nearly killed by a dry-ice fog machine. But the show duly opened to thundering applause. The opening night party was held at a beautiful home on a lake. We were tired, happy the show was open. We could now relax, do five shows on the next couple weekends, and otherwise have fun.

Well, after a few drinks the other ASM and I were sitting on a staircase drinking gin-and-tonics and he starts asking me about my coming out, what it was like, hadn't I ever been attracted to girls (No!), and other typical questions.

Then he says, "Would you?"

"Would I what?"

"You know! Would YOU . . . ?"

"Would I what?" I repeat.

He seems VERY uncomfortable! "You're really gonna make me ask this, arent you?"

"What are you talking about!" I ask, utterly baffled.

"Will you . . . have sex with me?"

Now, this is a spit-take moment if ever there was one! I recover myself and say, "Aren't you supposed to get married in two weeks?"

He explains that he is getting married, he loves his fiancee very much, but he's always thought he'd like to try sex with a guy just once. And this seems like his only chance before he gets married.

What we have here is an ethical dilemma . . .

Is it wrong to have sex with a straight boy who is engaged to be married in two weeks?
Am I doing him (and his future wife) a favor by helping get this out of his system?
If I say "No," am I denying him the chance to discover he REALLY is gay, and that he should call off the wedding before he messes up his and his future wife's lives?

Big inhalation of air . . . "So, you really want to do this? You're really serious?" I ask.

He stands up, takes me by the hand, and says, "Let's go!"

He takes me out to his car. We get in and he asks, "Where should we go?"

"Look, ASM, this was YOUR idea! Where do YOU want to go? Why don't we just go back to the Techie House?"

He explains that we can't do that, someone might get suspicious or figure out what was going on, or something.

I think, "Silly boy! Who cares! We're theater people!" We're still sitting in the car pondering locales and I put my hand on his upper leg and . . .

"Oh my God!" he says. "You're actually doing it!"

Now I'm TOTALLY confused. I ask, "If you don't want me to touch your leg through your pants, how are we gonna have, ummm . . . sex? Any time you want to stop, just say so. This was YOUR idea."

"I know where to go!" he beams and starts the car. I leave my hand on his leg and his breath corresponds to my hand as it moves higher up, onto his lap, and into the warm space between his jean-covered thighs.

He parks the car across the street from the theater.

"The theater!" I say. "You want to do it at the theater?"

"I have the only set of keys!" He smiles.

We go inside. He's REALLY nervous and sits down on the vinyl-covered couch in the Green Room. "Do you really want to do this?" I ask again.

"Yes! Stop asking that!"

I kiss him on the lips. He closes his eyes and kisses back, really well, too. We break apart for air. "Whoa! I've never kissed a guy before," he says. "It's different. It's rougher."

"Well, I've never kissed a moustache before; and THAT's what's rougher!" I make a face, and we go back to kissing.

"I don't like it here," he says. "This couch doesn't feel right. I want a bed. Come with me!"

He takes me by the hand and I wonder where he's taking me this time! I see, and smile; and know I've got a fabulous story for the future. In the corner backstage, under the blue running-lights, is Tevye and Golde's bed from the "Dream" sequence in Act One. We jump into the wacky-looking bed, strip off our clothes, and go at it: kissing, touching, rubbing, getting sticky.

Before we finish, I have a vision that as we orgasm a bunch of gay ghosts are gonna appear at the head and foot of the bed, crawl out from underneath, and after a lovely harp glissando they will all break into a chorus of A blessing on your house! Mazel tov! mazel tov! And I pray that the spirit of the fiancee won't appear to curse me for coming all over her future husband.

The next day we had two shows and ASM barely mentioned our one night of love. Sunday we had the afternoon off and the production staff went to the nearby lake and I learned to water ski.

After the Sunday night performance ASM volunteered to lock-up. He asked me to stay behind and help. When everyone else was gone he asked me to come out on the stage with him. He'd turned on all the work lights so the stage was very bright.

"What?" I asked, following him out to the middle of the stage.

"Stay right there," he said positioning me dead center front on the thrust stage. He jumped off the front of the stage, crossed the shallow orchestra pit, and climbed out into the auditorium. He sat down fifth row center, smiled, and said, "Strip!"

Well, as I said at the beginning of this blog, I am a genial fellow, and I obliged. It was one of the hottest, sexiest things I've ever done, too. After I was properly unclothed we switched positions. I went out into the audience and he hopped onstage and stripped.

Let me entertain you, indeed!

Over the next ten days we did just about everything you can imagine. He didn't feel up to being topped - he thought I was too big. Silly boy! But pretty much everything else was tried at least once!

When the show closed he departed for home to prepare for his impending marriage. I never heard from him again and have no idea if he married the girl or not. That was twenty years ago! OH MY GOD! How time flies!

It was just about the best sex I've ever had. It was the first time I didn't feel like the newbie, the novice. I was now the expert. It was so uninhibited, so free, so very hot.

And to him, wherever he went, and whatever he chose -

L'chai-im!

David

Christmas Memories

2007-12-19T22:44:00.000-08:00

Photo from Christmas 1964 - Arlington, Texas - Two years old

I've been thinking a lot about my childhood Christmas memories. Fearing they will one day fade I started writing down details I remember or have knowledge of, from my first when I was six days old, on up to last year's Holiday. I have some memories of Christmas 1965 when I had just turned three. And quite good memories of Christmas 1966 when I was four. The earlier Christmases are reconstructed from notes in my baby book, our home movies, and family anecdotes. Happy Holidays!

1962 - Six days old

This was probably an odd Christmas. Of course I don't remember any of it. I'm not even sure whether I was at home or in the hospital on this first Christmas. My mom had had a C-Section but I suspect we were home by Christmas. I'm sure she would have wanted out of the hospital as quickly as possible. At this time my parents lived with my grandmother in Arlington, Texas. My grandmother had a heart attack the day I was born. No doubt it was a combination of stress, subconscious jealousy, and needing attention from my mom. Sigh...

1963 - One year old

The next year I had just turned one. We were still living in Arlington with my grandmother and great grandmother. For Christmas that year I got a red wagon, a marvelous pull-toy called the Happy Hippo, a set of blocks, and a corduroy suit. I remember all these toys well. I had them for several years afterward.

1964 - Two years old

Now we are two. Same living situation as before. This year I got a Santa's Work Bench, a toy train, a toy mail box, and a little table and chairs. It is this Christmas morning featured in the photo at the top of this blog-post. We also have some great color home movies of this Christmas but alas they aren't digitized yet.

1965 - Three years old

Three years old and all is much the same. But it would be our last year in this house. My mom was about to graduate with her BA from University of Texas at Arlington and she was looking for Grad schools.

This year I got a bright red toy car that I could ride in. It had a push stick. So my Dad would push me down the sidewalk or street with something that looked like a pool cue. This little red car was made by Marx Toy Company. My parents noted with glee that I had a little RED car made by MARX. Perhaps to balance my early introduction to leftist politics I was also given a toy gas pump, and a cash register. My parents also surprised me with a Christmas puppy. When asked what I wanted to call the puppy I said, "Nuffin ..." So Nuffin became the puppy's name.

1966 - Four years old

This is the first Christmas I remember in vivid detail. In the Summer of 1966 we had moved from Arlington, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico so my mom could get her Masters degree at the University of New Mexico.

A couple months before we moved Nuffin disappeared. My mom accused my Dad of "getting rid of Nuffin" to make it easier to move. Years later he admitted he had. I knew nothing of this at the time of course. Just before the move my great-grandmother passed away at the age of 92. My grandmother stayed in Texas, taking an apartment in Fort Worth. And we traveled back to Texas to spend the holidays with my grandmother.

We drove back to Texas in our white Corvair van: Mom, Dad, me, and our new pet basset hound, Zeb. I remember we drove straight through - which is a long drive. We put my mattress from home in the back of the van for me to play on and for me to sleep on once we got to Texas. In the middle of the night driving Zeb the Basset had a very smelly accident in the back of the van. We stopped, my dad cussed, and the van got cleaned out. We stayed at my grandmother's new apartment. I think she slept on the couch in the front room and my parents took her bed, and I slept on my little mattress we had brought with us.

I remember being very happy we were going to see my grandmother; and remember, too, that it seemed strange to see her in a new apartment. The apartment was a fairly big one-bedroom. My Grandmother was a pianist and she still taught at this time so she needed room for two pianos. She had downsized to one baby grand and one console.

There was also a neighbor lady who had a boston-terrier named Inky which I absolutely adored! I was also fascinated with my grandmother's red finger nail polish. I was thrilled when she painted mine red, too! Such a nice and obliging grandmother!

I don't remember much about the tree that year, but I'm sure we had one. I do remember my presents!

Model Tramway Car

This was a toy tramway car that I suspect my parents fot at the Sandia Mountain Tramway just out side of Albuquerque. We had gone to the Crest of the Mountain right after we moved and I had wanted to ride the Tram but it was too expensive. So I think this is why I got the toy one. I wanted to play with it and my Dad cleverly rigged it to run between two of the legs on the grand piano.

Creepy Crawlers

This was a very popular toy, probably considered too dangerous for today's kids. It came with a little heating plate and metal molds of various insects. You filled the moulds with liquid rubber which you then "baked"on the little hotplate. When the rubber became cooked and opaque you plunged the metal into cold water and peeled out the rubber insects. I really did like Creepy Crawlers a lot!

Cheerful Tearful

I had also asked for a baby doll. Well, my grandmother gave me one named Cheerful Tearful. I don't remember getting any flack from neighbor kids either. I've wondered what my grandmother thought of giving me a baby doll and of painting my little fingernails red. Maybe grandmothers always "know what's up" on some level. But this WAS 1966 and she was a straight-laced methodist lady, so who knows, but she was very supportive of my off-beat interests!

I also got $9 in pennies from my grandfather (who stored up pennies all year long in a big glass jar). I got a Remco Mouse House; and perhaps the most lasting of all the presents, my Dad built me a playhouse in the backyard of our house in Albuquerque. I was there when it was being built so I know it wasn't a surprise. But I don't remember if it was built before Christmas or right after we got home. David's Playhouse needs a blog post of it's own!

More Christmas to come ...

When you talk about this blog later, and you will, be kind.
Copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine.

My Little French Emo-Boy

2007-12-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

People go to France for many reasons. I went to France most recently in October because Eric the Boyfriend had been invited to Quai des bulles, la festival BD de St Malo (The Saint Malo Comics Festival.) Yes, the BF draws a comic book series called AGE OF BRONZE which is doing very well in France.

Our adventure began when we arrived in Paris. We went to the hotel and took a short nap and made plans to have dinner with our friends Virgine and Laurent. Virginie cooked us a wonderful dinner. The next day we made our usual trip to the Louvre for culture, a trip to FNAC for off-beat and obscure opera CDs, and then to the ALBUM comic store at Bercy so Eric could do a signing event.

The next day the mini-tour began. We left Paris in the early AM to travel by train to Rouen where we met the comic store owner and were taken to our hotel. We met soon after for lunch and Eric was interviewed by two French journalists. Rouen, like most of the towns we visited this trip, was badly damaged by bombings in WWII. During the interview the subject of WWII came up and I mentioned that my Dad had been in this area of France during the War. One of the journalists thanked me for what my Dad gave to France. That has NEVER happened to me here in the US.

The next morning we arose and traveled by train to Caen where we were met at the station by Jean-Marie and his wife Sophie who own a wonderful comic story called Le Cour des Miracles. We again dropped off our stuff at the hotel and then headed off for an incredibly tasty lunch. Then Eric went to do his signing at the store and I went to explore the remains of William the Conqueror's castle a few blocks away. Jean-Marie helped me track down the spiffy new French comic book version of SIEGFRIED I wanted and later presented me with a large 3-D plastic poster for SIEGFRIED. A review of RING graphic novels will be coming along soon.

The next morning we had breakfast with Jean-Marie and Sophie at their home and we were introduced to the music of Serge Gainsbourgh, ate croissants, talked about SHORTBUS, ate more croissants, and finally headed to the train so we could travel to Rennes and do essentially the same thing yet again.

Rennes was ok - but neither the store or the town had the charm of Rouen or Caen.
On to Saint Malo!

The walled town Saint Malo.

Saint Malo was charming beyond belief. It is an old walled city that was the home of the Corsairs (something like pirates hired to defend the Bretagne coastline). After acquiring our convention badges and stuff we checked into the hotel (inside the walled city!) and were given a couple hours to go find lunch and walk around the town. Our Parisian friends Virginie and Laurent had mentioned that the French writer Chateaubriand was buried on a little island, the Grand Bé, off the coast of Saint Malo - and that one could walk there at low tide.

So Eric and I bought a baguette, a Camembert, and a bottle of red wine; and when we saw the tide was out we walked to the Grand Bé to picnic at the grave of Chateaubriand having only the vaguest notion of who he really was. Was he related to the expensive beef dish? We had also heard that the previous year at Saint Malo, another cartoonist friend of ours got stuck on Grand Bé becuase he wasn't paying enough attention to the tides. Thus I wasn't absolutely sure we were in fact headed toward Grand Bé because it seemed hard to believe the ocean would come in to sequester this island. So off we trekked to the rocky little island. We walked to the top and there was the grave of Chateaubriand.

The grave of Chateaubriand on Grand Bé.

We found a nice rock to sit on, ate our bread and cheese, drank our bottle of wine, and felt worldly and sophisticated. But when one has purchased a bottle of wine one has little choice but to finish it. Thus by the time we had finished lunch and began the walk back to Saint Malo, well ... nous étions tres pompette! My French gets better when I'm a little pompette, too! Quand j'ai été pompette j'ai pensé ma Français était meilleur. Hien? . . . donc, comme je disais ... Well, Saint Malo was a wonderful experience. We stayed for three days and three nights. I walked around the city walls one afternoon and watched the tide race in and, indeed, it not only cut off Grand Bé from the mainland it completely smothered a number of other little islets and rocky outcroppings until the ocean was lapping at the walls of Saint Malo itself. Eric and I also had our best meal in France this trip when we discovered we liked mussels - a specialty of the region.

We left Saint Malo and headed back to Paris. But Eric had one more thing on his schedule. He was to be interviewed on a popular "live" radio program (sort of the equivalent of "Fresh Air" on NPR) called Minuit/Dix which starts each night at ten past midnight. We arrived at the Radio France studios around 11:30, met the host, and the show began. It was very interesting. And I was allowed to sit in the studio during the broadcast.You can hear the interview by clicking the link below and clicking on the little red "Ecoutez" button. There is a little SLIDESHOW of PICS of the interview on this page, too.

CLICK to listen to Eric Shanower on MINUIT/DIX

The next morning Eric went to the airport to fly home to San Diego. Actually he missed his flight and he had to spend the night at Charles de Gaulle/Roissey Airoport. But I didn't find this out till later, as I was off to Belgium to visit my mySpace friend Katerine and her family. One of the best things I did was visit Breendonk, the Nazi Concentration Camp/POW camp in Belgium. I also visited the Mechalen Deportation Center which processed all of the Belgian Jews on their way to the Concentration Camps in the east. This will all get a blog of its own but it was quite over-powering. We also went to see SIEGFRIED, the Vlaamse Opera's latest installment in their new RING cycle. The next day I returned to Paris and flew home the following morning.

Now, I know what you're wondering ... where's that French Emo-Boy David promised! Surely there is some brooding and intense, floppy-haired, dark-eyed, tight jean-clad boy for you somewhere in this blog! Where is the Emo-boy?

Well, you have already met him. The Emo-boy par excellence, François-René de Chateaubriand. After I got home I decided that if I had gotten all tipsy at his grave, the least I could do was track down one of his books and read a little about him. It turns out Chateaubriand was the founder of French Romanticism. He was a lonely little boy, born in Saint Malo where he wandered the beach with his little mates. He was born in 1768 and he lost a number of family members in the French revolution and Reign of Terror. He came to America to find material for his writings and later produced his two best-known works from this material: Atala and René.

So I tracked down a paperback copy of Atala and René which kind of go together, and they each contain some of the same characters. Atala involves a love relationship between two Native Americans in 1669. The story is told by Chactas to a young Frenchman, René, as a memory about 75 years after the events have unfolded. But the true charm of the book is Chateaubriand's vivid descriptions on what is now the southeastern United States. The European descriptions of the surging rivers, mountains, wild life, and Native American culture are truly fascinating. Occasionally Chateaubriand goes a little over the top, but always with the most vivid results: "Down avenues of trees, bears may be seen drunk with grapes, and reeling on the branches of the elm trees." Contemporary reviews made fun of Chateaubriand's "drunken bears" too. But so much rings true - especially the details of how Chactas was captured and tortured by the Muskogee. It reminds me much of several books I've read on the early Iroquois. The book is also about the difference between a modern civilization gone awry (France in the revolution) and the Noble Savages of the Americas. It was most enjoyable.

The sequel, René, is a different sort of beast. In it, the brooding René finally tells his pitiful troubles to his American friends. René has become almost paralyzed with grief, woe, and misery and after unloading his troubles at last, Father Souël gives René some advice:

"Nothing in your story deserves the pity you are now being shown. I see a young man infatuated with illusions, satisfied with nothing... Know now that solitude is bad for the man who does not live with God. It increases the soul's power while robbing it at the same time of every opportunity to find expression. Whoever has been endowed with talent must devote it to serving his fellow men, for if he does not make use of it, he is first punished by an inner misery, and sooner or later Heaven visits on him a fearful retribution."

Wow, is that David's prescription for happiness or what! Hmmm...

Interestingly, René had an odd effect on French society by inventing the French Emo-Boy of the early 1800s. In typical romantic tradition Chateaubriand came to regret the monster he created. He later wrote:

"If René did not exist I would no longer write it; if I could destroy it, I would. A family of René poets and René prose writers has been swarming about. We can hear nothing now but pitiful and disconnected phrases; they talk of nothing but winds and storms, and mysterious words whispered to the clouds at night. There is not a scribbler just out of school who hasn't dreamed of being the unhappiest man of earth, not an upstart of sixteen who hasn't exhausted life and felt himself tormented by his genius, who in the abyss of his thoughts, hasn't given himself up to his vague passion, struck his pale and disheveled brow, and astounded men with sorrow which neither he nor they could describe."

Sigh ... thousands of little René-wannabe emo-boys wandering the French countryside, flopping their hair, oozing attitude, and looking for love. J'aime ça!

A+ David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will, be kind.
Copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine
Quotes from ATALA and RENÉ translated by Irving Putter, University of California Press, Copyright © 1952.

Let them eat Gingerbread

2007-12-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

Is that the Eiffel Tower
or are you just glad to see me?

Well, my dear readers, on Saturday, December 1st, the BF and I had our annual Holiday Party. We began these festive romps six years ago. We have our friends over for tasty food, assorted beverages, and my infamous "Wonder Nog" which contains nothing but sugar, cholesterol and alcohol! Eighteen egg yolks! It's very good stuff!
For this year's edibles I made a ham with pineapple and cherries; Swedish meatballs; green potato salad with red pepper bits; a tropical fruit salad; Gruyère quiche for the vegetarian crowd; two kinds of cookies; and hot mulled cider on the stove.

This year we had thirty-one guests and the party went till a little after three AM! Guests often bring presents of wine or something but a couple years ago one of our guests gave us a gift of a little gingerbread house kit. It was fairly rudimentary and in the end we never put it together. But we did eat the gingerbread and other stuff from the kit.

But this little present got me to thinking "Hmmm . . . why, I think I could make a better gingerbread house than the one in that kit!" I puzzled over the idea of a gingerbread Victorian House? a Gingerbread Castle? ... hmmm ... but after I got back from France last month I finally made up my mind and started baking.

The Gingerbread Eiffel Tower

Thus Le Tour-Eiffel du Gingerbread was born. It is a bit over three feet tall and has an electric light at the top. Now ... what on earth am I gonna do next year?

Cheers, David

David's Wonder Nog Recipe
12 large egg yolks
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of dark rum
1 cup of whiskey
8 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 cups of cream
1 Tablesppons of vanilla extract
1 whole nutmeg (grated)
2 to 4 cups additional rum or whiskey
(2 cups of milk to thin out nog is desired)

Beat yolks and sugar until thick and sugar is dissolved. Add 1 cup each of the rum and whiskey. Refrigerate over night.

A couple hours before serving beat the egg whites and salt until until mixed but still very soft. stir into nog mixture. Add cream and vanilla and stir well. Add in ground nutmeg. Add additional liquor and or milk to taste.

This recipe is my version of an Egg Nog Punch recipe in Sheila Ferguson's SOUL FOOD; Classic Cuisine from the Deep South. Her recipe calls for beating the egg whites to soft peak stage and for whipping the cream. But whenever I've tried it her way the egg whites and whip cream keep rising to the top of the punch bowl and it needs to be stirred before serving each time which is a big bother. So I suggest only slightly beating the egg whites, mixing them well into the nog, and then adding the cream straight from the carton.

It is very good, but be careful; it is very smooth and very easy to drink but is also very potent!

La Planète des Singes

2007-12-14T23:33:00.000-08:00

Monkey See, Monkey Do

As you may have gathered from some of my other postings I have been studying French for the last year or so.

The BF and I had a private tutor for the first year. But since then we've been working on our own. We have two weekly self-taught classes. We quiz each other, try to do homework, etc. And we've gone to France twice this year.

Still, one thing we don't get enough of is listening to fluently spoken French. So I've started watching movies and TV shows we have on DVD with the French soundtrack on. One of my favorites is of all things the 1970s Planet of the Apes TV series.

Why on earth, you might ask, does Planet of the Apes adapt so well to French study? Hmm, why indeed...

Reason No. One: the scripts aren't that good. But the simple, flat writing means that the characters speak in a simple, flat and straightforward manner. And luckily apes use little colloquial slang.

Reason No. Two: Since half the cast is wearing ape makeup the dubbing isn't very evident. General Urko moves his muzzle and whether what comes out is French, English, or Swahili you really can't tell. It's also a good dubbing job. The voices fit the characters very well!

Reason No. Three: The TV series and the five films are after all based on a 1963 French novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. So, with a little twisted logic, these apes are SUPPOSED to be speaking French, no? I have also recently obtained a copy of the French edition of the novel and plan to work my way through it. I'm sure the French is a little beyond my current comprehension. We'll see.

A+ David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.
Blog copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine

Seventeen or So

2007-12-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

Eric and David around seven or eight years old.

On this fine June 1st 2007 Eric and I celebrate seventeen years of living together. Oddly, it took us a long time to settle on a date for our anniversary. The big problem was what to use as a starting point.

Eric and I met on July 15, 1983. It was at an Oz convention being held at the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Eric was nineteen and I was twenty. We hung out together some, and with hindsight I must admit I was sorta smitten, but we really didn't become friends. Thus the day we met isn't a good day for our anniversary.

We didn't see each other again for two years. Our paths next crossed at another Oz convention in 1985 - this one in Zion, Illinois. Now, by this time I had just discovered I was gay, but I was still a virgin. Eric was flirting with his bisexuality (oy!) and we hit it off much better. I was very tan and I had a bright yellow shirt that caught Eric's eye.

David and Eric Meet again in June, 1986 in Zion, Illionois

Eric and I (and our friend Alice) stayed up all Saturday night after a party at this 1985 Oz Con; and we watched the sun come up and then went into the hotel and had pancakes. Eric invited me to come visit him in Dover, New Jersey. Yes!

Well I went to visit him six months later at New Years 1985-1986. And sometime around midnight on January 1st we ended up in bed together. But we were basically just frinds at this point - and it's unclear whether we consummated the friendship on January 1st or January 2nd since we started in a bit before midnight and finished sometime after midnight. So these "dates" aren't so hot for an anniversary either!

Well, after about a year and a half of "friendship-plus" Eric and I decided to try having a "relationship." This was sometime in March of 1988. No exact date is recalled; and by this time I had moved east and was going to NYU and Eric had moved from New Jersey to San Diego. Thus with 3000 miles between us we labeled ourselves "in a relationship" and introduced each other to our respective families. But this all happened kind of gradually over a couple months and there is no specific date to choose for an anniversary.

When I was about to graduate from NYU it was time to move in together. The phone bill was getting enormous! So since I wanted to get my Masters degree and had been accepted at Yale University, I convinced Eric to move from sunny San Diego to the arm-pit of America - New Haven, Connecticut. And thus we arrived in New Haven, and found a wonderful apartment, and we moved in together, spending our first night together in our own place, on June 1st, 1990!

Summer 1990 - At Another "Oz" Convention in Asilomar, California

In front of our house on Humphrey Street in New Haven, Connecticut 1991

The "Happy Husbands"

How high the moon

2007-12-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

On the evening of July 20, 1969 my family was out in the backyard of our house in Albuquerque. We were gazing back and forth between our black-and-white television (which my dad had brought outside!) and the moon up in the sky. Neil Armstrong was walking around up there. It seemed so incredible! I was six.

A month before the moon landing Judy Garland had died. My mom had come into my room to tell me. I only knew of Judy Garland as "Dorothy" from THE WIZARD OF OZ at that point, and I wondered if we could still watch the movie on television if she was dead. I was assured we still could. A couple days later the Stonewall Riots took place an event that had a certain effect on my life since it was the birth of the Gay rights movement.

The world was so full of promise! Everyone wanted and expected equality! Blacks, Women, Native Americans, Gay people! My parents were sure equality for all (and socialized medicine!) were right around the corner. Hah!

I was sure that one day I would go to the moon, too. I didn't much imagine I would go as an Astronaut because my parents were anti-military and most of the astronauts came out of the Air Force back then. But I DID think I could probably go to some space hotel or visit the moon colony as a tourist by the time I was grown up.

It seemed SO certain! This was the era of LOST IN SPACE and STAR TREK! There was such a steady build up of moving humanity into space! One month it's men on the moon! Then it's a dune-buggy on the moon! Then Skylab! I drank Tang. I ate Space Sticks! I made toy space ship models. I wanted to build a full-size lunar lander in the backyard!

Then it happened. Or rather, "nothing" happened! The space race fizzled into nothing but a boring, old, problem-laden, Space Shuttle that looked like a normal airplane on steroids. The space race was over, they quit making Space Sticks, and little David will never get to the moon.

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Dancing Naked with PUFNSTUF

2007-12-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

In 1971, when I was eight years old, I was taken to see the then new PUFNSTUF movie. I already loved the psychedelic television show of the same name. But the movie appealed to me for many reasons. I wanted to escape, I thought Jack Wild was cute, it was a movie musical that resonated of many things I loved including a similarity to the plot of THE WIZARD OF OZ. I adored Jack Wild's peculiar British accent, and now as an adult, I can see other reasons that the film spoke to me.

For those of you too young, too old, or too foreign to know the film, the story goes thusly:

A boy named Jimmy is picked on by his classmates and teachers. Jimmy plays the flute and one day his flute comes to life and starts to talk. A nasty old witch named Witchiepoo wants Jimmy's talking flute for herself and she tricks Jimmy into boarding a beautiful boat which traps him and brings him to Living Island. Jimmy escapes the witch's clutches and befriends a yellow dragon named Pufnstuf who wore little white cowboy boots and a Stetson. Jimmy wants to get back home, protect his flute from Witchiepoo, and in the end finds peace and love with his friends on Living Island.

There's an interesting Freudian interpretation of the film that I've heard about. Our boy hero Jimmy is about to enter puberty and his "flute" which had been inanimate suddenly comes to life. Witchiepoo (the mother figure) wants to take away Jimmy's "magic flute." For protection, Jimmy seeks out an even bigger phallic symbol, Pufnstuf himself. I wonder what PUFNSTUF creators Sid and Marty Krofft think of this interpretation. Pufnstuf himself does look pretty phallic. Look at his "head" in the photo at the top of this blog.

Okay, back to being eight years old... Well, I loved the movie and I loved my copy of the soundtrack album. I played it to pieces, played it for my friends, and being a little gay boy I had as big a fascination with Witchiepoo as I did with Jimmy.

Soundtrack album cover for PUFNSTUF (1970)

In the movie Witchiepoo hosts the Annual Witch's Convention in her castle. Witches are quite "political" it seems; and there is a power struggle to obtain the title of "Boss Witch." The current Boss Witch was played by Martha Raye; and other contenders for the title included Witchiepoo, and another witch named Witch Hazel who was played by Mama Cass Elliot. Witch Hazel sang a song called "Different."

"When I was smaller and people were taller
I realized that I was different.

It's kind of an ode to being gay (from a little gay kid's point of view anyway). It's not unlike Cass Elliot's big hit "Make your own kind of music." On the soundtrack album, this song is followed by a spectacular production number called "Zap the World!" which is what the witches want to do. I lapped it all up!

My best friend at the time lived next door. One summer afternoon while we were playing my PUFNSTUF album we decided to make "magic wands." In the movie the magic wands look kind of like striped pencils. And indeed that's what we made. We took some unsharpened pencils and carefully wound them with colored tape making spirals about the pencils. We also made them "magic" by putting spells on them and saying magic words and stuff. At some point my best friend said, "You know if we want to make them really magic, we're supposed to be naked."

"What are we supposed to do then?" I asked in my best naïvely coy eight-year-old manner.

My friend said, "We have to dance with them."

It sounded like a good idea to me! So we locked my bedroom door. We put on the PUFNSTUF album, and played "Different" as an invocation while we got undressed. When we were both naked we stood on my twin bed and waited for "Zap the World!" to begin. At which point the eight-year-old, wand-waving, naked, wannabe-witches began dancing excitedly, jumping up and down on the bed!

So what do you do when the music stops?

Well, you put on your clothes, you put the magic away, and you grow-up. You try to make friends with other people, hoping for a friendship like Jimmy's and Pufntuf's. And you long to find a Living Island where you attempt to avoid the witches, where you can play your magic-flute, and when the planet gets too obnoxious, you can …
Zap! Zap the World!

David

Blog copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine.

Below, you can enjoy "Zap the World!" from PUFNSTUF the movie!

Waffles & Walkyries

2007-12-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

Eric waiting at Gare du Nord to catch the Thalys to Brussels

So we were off at last to visit our myspace friends Katerine and Mark in Ghent, Belgium. We took the Metro to Gare du Nord and boarded the Thalys (TGV) to Brussels where we changed to a different train to take us the last bit of the way to Ghent. We arrived about 20 minutes late and there was no immediate sign of Katerine. But I soon spotted her - looking exactly like her photos. It really seemed like meeting an old friend instead of an "internet friend." I think we were both what we each expected. Except that Katerine was surprised I didn't have a thick American accent. I'm not quite sure whether she was expecting me to sound like Clint Eastwood, a surfer boy, or a Valley Girl.

Eric had gone to search the other end of the station but he soon joined us and we were all happy and ready to depart to Chez Dynaction, or as some folks call it, The International House of Waffles. Katerine and Mark live only blocks from the Train Station and we were at their place in no time. We met Mark, whom I had forgotten was British. He welcomed us, too. Though I secretly feared that Mark thought, "Uh-oh, what's that crazy wife of mine done now!"

The Waffles have a beautiful four-story row-house style home. Their daughter Eva had kindly given up her room for us; and we took our luggage up to her room on the fourth floor. On returning to the kitchen Katerine made us a snack and brought out a bottle of red wine. Katerine now mentioned that she and Mark had been so busy that they forgotten to go to the opera a few days before. They'd had tickets to see Wagner's DIE WALKURE at the Vlaamse Opera which they had purchased after reading of my Richard Wagner enthusiasm. Katerine pulled out the opera schedule to see if they were going to be able to reschedule and there was going to be a performance the next night - while Eric and I were still in Ghent. So we decided to all go to DIE WALKURE together!

Katerine next offered up a small bottle of very spiffy champagne. And once we were properly sauced, Katerine told us her plan. We were going to go out on a tour of the old section of Ghent on bicycles! Now I have not been on a bicycle since 1995. It sounded like a good idea though, and once I made clear I was likely to fall off or end up in the river, we were all set to go.

Mark, Katerine, and David tour Ghent on Bicycle

I was astonished at how beautiful Ghent was. I often would find myself looking at a building or some-such and nearly run off the road. Biking on cobblestones was a new experince. I suspect women enjoy it more then men do. Our first stop was the Cathedral of St. Bavon where we saw the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyck.

Ghent Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyck

The moment Katerine mentioned it I remembered it from Art History Class. It was quite impressive. The Cathedral was nice, too. Off we went down the cobblestone streets, across beautiful bridges, we saw houses Katerine had lived in, where the kids were born, and much else. Soon it was time to stop for beer. We each had two. So now after downing the bottle of red wine, the champagne, and two dark beers, we came out of the pub to find it snowing lightly. To be tipsy in the snow in Ghent is a wonderful experience. To be tipsy in the snow in Ghent on a bicycle is another thing all together! It was getting cold and I loaned Katerine my hat.

We returned safely to Chez Waffle and Katerine prepared some hot soup to warm us up. The three kids (Calvin, Lucas, and Eva) had now come home, too. I asked Katerine what kind of soup it was. I was told Courgette Soup! Ah, I wondered, what on earth is a courgette? Or is it a place? An herb? I worried, "Uh oh, Cour means heart in French. I hope it's not Heart Soup." So began the process of Katerine and the Waffle kids trying to explain what a courgette was. Finally, Lucas very sensibly went to the refrigerator and produced a courgette for me. "Oh," I cried, "a zucchini!"

We had more red wine, the kids played music for us, we looked at stuff. Mark built up the fire, and Katerine began preparing dinner. It was a dinner I might have made at home myself: salad, green beans, and salmon. After dinner we sat around and talked, drank more wine, and Katerine and Mark showed us a couple episodes of a British sit-com called BOTTOM.

A little before midnight Mark went up to bed and Katerine wanted to dance. I do not dance if I can help it. I am too self-conscious. But that did not stop Eric and Katerine. And do you know what one dances to in Ghent at midnight? The Bee Gees! We eventually finished out the evening with a sweet white wine that Katerine especially liked.

The next morning after a little breakfast Eric and I went back to the old part of Ghent to do some sight-seeing. We went to "the Castle of the Counts." Katerine had told us to make sure and see the dungeon and torture implements! Hmmmmm...

Eric in front of The Castle of the Counts

Eric and I had a nice lunch at a Belgian pub and then went to look at a Belgian comicbook store. We ate a waffle on the street, Eric bought some chocolates for his mom, I bought a few more things at FNAC, and we headed back to K&M to prepare for our Night at the Opera!

DIE WALKURE at Vlaamse Opera in Ghent

DIE WALKURE was wonderful. I will blog a review of it soon. And Katerine and Mark seemed to be very pleased with Wag's music. Even Eric enjoyed it. After Wotan put Brunhilde to sleep and the opera was over we went down the street and had a couple beers. Then we went to a beautiful artsy, leftist, bar with a most handsome crowd and had two more beers. We got back to the Waffle Iron about 3:00 AM

When we got up there was about 5 inches of snow on the ground and Ghent had been transformed into a sugary ice-frosted fairyland. We drank coffee, packed our bags, and all four of us went out to a delicous lunch. We were taken to the train station and said farewell to the Waffles.

Eric and I arrived back in Paris about 4:30 PM and rechecked into our hotel. Eric went out to buy a few more French comics, and we headed to the Paris Opera at Palais-Garnier to see two one-acts: Janacek's JOURNAL D'UN DISPARU and Bartok's LE CHATEAU DE BARBE-BLEU. We had most unusual (if inexpenive) seats up on the Fifth Loge in little alcoves above the boxes where we could peek out at the opera. I'm glad I saw these two operas but was not blown away by either. But it was nice to see Willard White as Blue-Beard.

The next morning we arose, got some breakfast, packed and left for the airport to fly home.

David and Katerine in Ghent

A Bientot, mes amies...
David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will, be kind.
Copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine

The last time I saw Paris

2007-12-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

Alors, mes amies, I had the divine pleasure of visiting France twice this year. This is the report on voyage number one.

As some of you know, the purpose of this trip was for my boyfriend, Eric, to go on a signing tour to promote the newest volume of his AGE OF BRONZE comic series in France.

The adventure began with a drive of 525 miles from San Diego to San Francisco so we could leave the dog-child with his grandparents. Then Eric's dad kindly drove us to the airport and sent us on our way. Twenty-four clock hours later we arrived at Roissey-Charles de Gaulle airport just outside Paris.

Eric's French publisher met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens in the Latin Quarter. We checked in and promptly fell asleep until mid-evening when we arose to go find dinner. We ate at a small but wonderful restaurant that a friend had recommended called Le Petit Pontoise, at 9 rue de Pontoise. I began with an artichoke tart followed by a small rack of lamb. Eric began with a succulent sort of ravioli followed by a main course of caille which Eric discovered was French for quail. It seemed a grand success. We had a bottle of wine, both ordered dessert, and I had coffee. We walked slowly back to the hotel, stuffed full of French food and drink.

I spent the first few hours the next morning looking for a new coat. I had decided my bright yellow Nautica parka looked stupid and was too hot. I finally found a great looking coat. I was looking at it in the mirror and thought, "Now this is a fine coat!" Then all of a sudden Eric says: "David, did you see the back of that coat?" I take the coat off and for some unfathomable reason there is a picture of a geisha girl showing her bare butt, silk-screened onto the back of the coat. So off it came and I never did find another coat I liked and I suffered through the trip in my puffy yellow marshmallow suit. Eric and I went to lunch at La Tourelle, a very small and very old restaurant not far from our hotel. I had the most extraordinary tomato soup imaginable followed by a turkey curry.

You may have noticed that this report describes much eating and drinking. But there was also much wandering around, simply absorbing the sights.

Me by a fountain near our hotel.

I truly love walking down the Seine. In addition to the usual architectural, cultural, and atmospheric sights, there were also innumerable beautiful French boys everywhere we went. Once, my eyes followed a pretty French boy and my body continued in another direction and I tripped over the sidewalk! Paris can be dangerous!

We then walked over to Album on Rue Dante. Album is a chain of comic-book stores in France. Eric signed books and drew sketches for several hours. Then we went out to dinner with another American cartoonist; this time to a small Indian place.

Eric Signing books at Album Rue Dante in Paris

The next morning Eric and I walked over to the Centre George Pompidou in the hopes of seeing the Hergé exhibit. Hergé is the Belgian cartoonist who wrote and drew the Tintin books. Alas, the Pompidou was celebrating its thirtieth birthday and was closed to the public! Hmmm.… So we walked over and spent a few hours at the Louvre. Then Eric and I headed over for signing number two at Album Bercy. After which we went out to dinner with the French publishers and Ted Naifeh, a fellow American cartoonist.

The next morning we caught a train to Chartres for another signing - this time at a store called BD Flash. BD is the French slang for comics. It is short for Bande Dessinee (comic strip). The comic store sent someone to meet us and we were taken to lunch (pizza and beer) and then a short walking tour of Chartres and the cathedral. Then Eric went to his signing and drew pictures in people's book for a couple hours. I went out and bought opera CDs at the local FNAC and found a chocolate shop where a nice woman made me a stupendous cup of hot chocolate. This fine concoction was just melted chocolate, a bit of steam, and then more chocolate dropped in. It was incredible! After the singing we went out to a Japanese restaurant in Chartres and then returned to the store owner's home to spend the night. It was really nice to get to stay in someone's home instead of a hotel. It was a nice closer look at how people live, etc. Especially cool was their having to close some immense shutters for the night. We had hot chocolate and croissants for breakfast and were driven to the train to travel to Tours for another signing.

After arriving in Tours a couple hours later we were again met at the station and taken to lunch. Again, we had pizza! Really good pizza, mind you, but this was starting to seem like a trend. On entering the restaurant we were met by a long table of about twenty or so French cartoonists who were out for their monthly luncheon. After lunch we headed to the signing, this time at a lovely store called BéDéLire.

At BéDéLire in Tours, France

Eric did his thing and I walked around Tours, looked at BD and books, and then we all went out to dinner and drink, and eventually back to our hotel. Eric and I both really liked Tours and I think it is on the short-list of possible future homes one day.

Next morning it was back on the train to return to Paris and the last signing event of the trip at FNAC - St. Lazarre. This one was kind of overwhelming. It went on and on and eventually the store seemed to be closed and Eric and Ted were still signing books and drawing pictures and the FNAC staff seemed to be getting a little testy. Seems to me FNAC should have controlled the crowds a little better if they wanted to get home on time. After the last picture was drawn, we were shown unceremoniously out the back way. Eric and Ted and I took the Metro back to the hotel and then went out to dinner. We found a great little restaurant called Au Phil… Du Vin at 23 Frederic Sauton. We began with the Cocktail Maison, which I think was a mix of grapefruit juice and Chartreuse. I had soupe à l'oignon, I ate a couple of Eric's escargot, followed by my magret du canard, and ending with dessert, coffee, and cognac.

At last the signings were over and we had Paris to ourselves. Next morning we got up and walked down the Seine and then over to the Bastille to meet our friends Virginie and Laurent for lunch. Eric and I sampled fresh French oysters for the first time and we all walked back to Virginie and Laurent's apartment for a while.

Laurent, Virginie, and Eric

Towards late afternoon they walked us over to Gare de Lyon to help us buy our TGV tickets to Belgium. We said good-bye and headed back to the hotel for a short rest. That evening we went to visit another friend (also named Laurent) and his wife Sylvie. He and his wife made us a wonderful dinner of cabbage with sausages and ham and pork. We were joined by another French cartoonist named Dominique. Laurent and Sylvie had a wonderful roof-top view of Paris, too.

The next morning we got up and went down to Opera Bastille to buy opera tickets. And then took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower to take some artsy black-and-white photos. We walked back down the Seine, took more photos around the Hotel de Ville and Notre Dame, and finally got into the Hergé TinTin exhibit at the Pompidou. We got back to the hotel about 6:30 PM and fell asleep. We woke up about 10:00 PM we were still exhausted, and not at all hungry, so we never had lunch or dinner that day.

The next morning we packed up and headed for the train station to get the Thalys (TGV) to Gent, Belgium.
And THAT deserves a blog of its own!

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will, be kind.

TURANDOT

2007-12-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

Final Design Painting TURANDOT - Act II, Scene 2

A number of you have asked me about my days as a Set Designer and so I thought I'd post a few things.

For my thesis at Yale, where I was getting my MFA, I chose to design Giacomo Puccini's opera TURANDOT. Some of my fellow students thought I was a bit fool-hardy to choose an opera set in China when the head of the design department was the highly respected Chinese/American Set Designer, Ming Cho Lee. Luckily he was pleased with my design and I got my MFA. Oh, I did get into trouble on ONE little thing. The Emperor's hat (in the costume sketch) is from the wrong period based on most of my architecture. I told Ming I'd change the hat.

Below are presented various steps in the design process. The "thesis" design had to include paintings, a 1/4" scale model, full architectural drafting, lighting sketches, and costume designs. We also had to design the set as if for a "real" opera house - so I chose the MET. I also used this project for my "union exam."

Below you will see the initial watercolor sketch for each set followed by a photograph of the 1/4" scale model. For reference a person is only one and a half inches tall.

I began months before by absorbing every note of TURANDOT via CD. I also read everything about the opera that I could. I wanted simple and elegant - not over-the-top Zefferelli. I chose a red-lacquer motif for almost everything. I started out doing quick paintings of the big moment in each act.

First watercolor sketch TURANDOT - Act I

1/4" scale model of TURANDOT - Act I

Act II - scene 1 "Ping, Pang, Pong" trio
For the opening of Act II I wanted the "Ping, Pang, Pong," scene to be intimate and small. It's a lovely little lyrical scene and it contrasts wonderfully with the huge spectacle of the "In Questa Regia," and "Riddle" scenes of Act II - Scene 2. I set the little scene in a small red-lacquered room - just the size for the three-person scene.

First watercolor sketch TURANDOT - Act II, Scene 1

Act II - scene 2 "In Questa Reggia," and "Riddle" scene.
As the first scene ended the little red room appeared to slowly shrink into blackness and just as it completely disappeared it reopened with the the big fanfare of scene 2 revealing the great staircase, emperor, et al.

1/4" scale model of TURANDOT - Act II, Scene 2

Act III - scene 1 "Nessun Dorma" and "Death of Liu" scenes.
A fairly barren scene with the unknown Prince out in the Gardens while he is cajoled, bribed, and threatened into revealing his name. I also like his appearing small and lonely and a little vulnerable among the giant statuary. Often the chorus would enter from upstage as if the garden was at the top of a terrace.

First watercolor sketch TURANDOT - Act III, Scene 1

1/4" scale model of TURANDOT - Act III, Scene 1

Act III- scene 2 "Turandot Guesses Correctly" scene.
We revert to the Act II - Scene 2 set. As imaginary director I also opted to use the full-length Franco Alfano ending. It's wonderful AND it gives me another forty seconds of set change music.

Down below are my costume sketches of the main characters. As a set designer I was not required to go beyond the "sketch" stage for this project.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into David's designing days. Iif the MET calls, I'm their boy! Actually, if ANYBODY calls I'm their boy! If you have any questions about the project, please feel free to ask in the comments section and I'll try to oblige. Thanks for looking.

David

All images, photos, and designs copyright © 2007 by David Maxine. All rights reserved.

When I think of Tom

2007-12-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

I discovered a couple months ago that my first love, Tom Ladd, died on January 22, 2006. I found an obituary on-line and it said only that he had died of unknown causes. He was 44.

I fell madly in-love with Tom in January 1985, when we were both working at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. I was 22; Tom was 23. Tom gave me my first real kiss, too. I hadn't seen or communicated with Tom for about twenty years. But I thought about him often and really wanted him to know how my life turned out. Tom was cute; but his magic power was that he just radiated sexual energy. One simply HAD to look at him, his face, his movements, he flirted with everyone, slept with many, and he just oozed sexiness. Here is our story.

"Anything Goes!"

In January 1985, I was working as a stagehand at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. On this particular day we were beginning two weeks of "tech" rehearsals for a large-scale production of Cole Porter's ANYTHING GOES! It starred legendary belter Karen Morrow as Reno Sweeney and featured Broadway veteran Justine Johnston as Mrs. Harcourt. Johnston may be best remembered today as "Old Heidi" in the original production of FOLLIES in which she sang "One More Kiss."

I was one of about five permanent stagehands - but this production was bigger than anything the Guthrie had ever done - and they had hired an additional ten people to fill out our ranks. On this first day, we had an orientation meeting up in the balcony of the theatre; the stage was a-buzz with saws and screw-guns where the Carpentry Shop was building a three-story ocean liner! I was paying only slight attention when . . . my eyes scanning over the new stagehands when . . . "Who's that boy!"

And thus, Cole Porter struck me gay! Well, maybe I was always gay, but I certainly didn't know it until then. And I didn't know it as an irrefutable aspect of my being for another few weeks.

I was twenty-two, I'd never been on a date, I'd never had a girlfriend, and I was waiting for the "magic" to happen when I'd meet the right girl and feel like a grown-up. But really, "Who's that boy!"

This was Tom. He was almost exactly a year older than I was. He was about 5' - 8" and 140 pounds. He had sandy brown hair, blue eyes, a stunning smile, and he simply glowed with sexual energy. I know now that I was in love. But at this point, I was probably falling back on a repressed gay-boy's safety-emotion - "I want to BE him" instead of "I want to have sex with him."

Over the coming days I discovered that Tom was gay. OH MY GOD! And that did the trick. I had to become gay, too, so I could have him. I didn't say anything about my new feelings; I didn't know how. But I quickly discovered that not only Tom but another couple stagehands were gay, too. As was the entire gang of chorus boys. And this was a Cole Porter show! My soul was suddenly being informed by Porter's double-entendre lyrics, scads of young men in sailor suits dancing their asses off from eight till eleven then changing into t-shirts and jeans so they could go dance at some gay bar called The Saloon in downtown Minneapolis for several hours more.

"Blow, Gabriel, Blow!"

During a break in the Green Room one-day, Tom was just beginning to eat a banana when one of the other gay stagehands said, "Is that for practice?" Tom, without batting an eyelash, said, "I dont NEED to practice." And Tom expertly deep-throated the entire banana and slowly pulled it back out. I was speechless, awestruck, and insanely in love.

I became a love-sick puppy and followed the poor boy around. Luckily many of our assignments kept us together during the run of the show. One of my favorite moments was during Act II when Tom and I would have to wait in one of the Guthrie's downstage tunnels during the song, "All Through the Night." It's a beautiful song, and all this blue light would spill down the tunnel shaftway, and Tom and I would sit and wait for our cue - sometimes whispering to each other. I was nearing a point when I felt I could say, "Tom, I'm gay, too. I don't know what to do."

"Break a Leg!"

On Valentine's Day 1985, after the show had been open for about two weeks, we were presetting the stage about 6:00 PM and someone said that we needed to find a replacement for Tom. My heart stopped. Why isn't Tom gonna be here? In a few moments I heard the dreadful news. Tom had been hit by a car on the way to work that night. He was fine - save a broken leg. But he would not be back to the show. My ticket to homosexual joy was snuffed out by a speeding motorist on Hennepin Avenue.

I was appointed by the cast and crew to assemble Tom's "get well" package. Yay!! I knew his favorite candy, drinks, and also added in the SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE cast album. I visited him in the hospital a couple times. Then he went away to recuperate.

Tom did make it back to work the last few weeks of the show as ANYTHING GOES! proved so popular the run was extended. On Memorial Day 1985, I went home with him to talk and have a drink. I desperately wanted to sleep with him. Tom felt it was a bad idea - since I was so clearly in love with him - and for him it would just be sex. But he walked me part way home and gave me my first boy-kiss. I always thought it was a cliché about floating on air. It isn't! I wouldn't brush my teeth that night, either. I didn't want to lose even a molecule of Tom from my mouth.

"But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!"

About a year after we initially met, Tom and I finally had sex for the first and only time. It was okay. It simply meant too much to me - and not enough to him. I was so scared that it be wonderful that I made it mediocre. But he was glorious naked. He had arguably the most beautiful penis I have ever seen! Tom wanted to screw me but we didn't have any condoms and I wouldn't let him. God he was hard to turn down that night! I wanted him SO much. But I was a very good boy.

"It's Delightful, it's Delicious, it's Delovely!"

So I've now known I was gay for twenty-one years - slightly less than half my life. You know, I had an incredibly painless coming out. My family was cool with it. Within a year I would meet Eric, my lover, whom I've been with for a little over seventeen years. Eric's family is fine with everything, too.

I wish I had tracked down Tom so I could tell him how I turned out. I miss him. I remember signing in on the Guthrie Theatre's call-board and suddenly Tom appeared, put his hands around my waist and said, "Hi, sailor, can I buy you a drink after the show?" Instant hard-on time, instant adrenaline rush, instant puppy love.

Tom and I both loved musicals, too. He was jealous I'd just seen SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. We both jokingly talked about how we could have "saved" MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. Tom introduced me to Carly Simon's TORCH album which had a stunning version of "Not a Day Goes By" on it. He introduced me to the the cast albums of BABY and LITTLE SHOP.

I remember Tom's 24th birthday party and how he wore this incredible football jersey he had gotten from a previous boyfriend whose last name was Savage and whose number was 69. The very real football jersey said "Savage 69" on it. It was the hottest "get laid" clothing I ever saw! After ANYTHING GOES! Tom got a job as manager of the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis. The Uptown was an independent movie/art house/revival house sort of theatre. Eventually he moved back to Chicago and we lost touch.

Tom and I wouldn't have worked out. I was freshly out, a virgin when we met. Tom had been fuckin' like a bunny since he was sixteen when he'd been picked up by an old man of thirty-five at the supermarket. But I joked to him that someday, in twenty or thirty years, he'd be tired of screwing boys and he'd come to me like Frederick to Desiree in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. He laughed and said it sounded great! It was a fun fantasy.

I always look for personal angles into songs and music I love. In "Hello, Young Lovers," from THE KING AND I, in which Anna is singing of her past, she begins the song with the line, "When I think of Tom . . ." and continues to tell of her memories and past love as she watches and sings "hello" to the newer, younger lovers. It's a melancholy song, full of ennui, full of love, full of gratitude and regret.

"When I think of Tom . . ."

Tom Ladd in front of the UPTOWN THEATRE, 1986
Thomas Ladd 1961 - 2006

Le Porc-épic et Le Papillon

2007-12-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

It has been most difficult to get back into blogging since my nasty cold went away. So while I try to get back in the groove, here is a small story I wrote for my French homework. —David

Le Porc-épic et Le Papillon

Un jour, dans le forêt à côté de Paris, Pierre le Porc-épic s'est perdu.

La mere de Pierre l'a cherché.
Pas de Pierre!

Elle l'a cherché chez eux.
Pas de Pierre!

Elle l'a cherché sous les arbres de pamplemousse.
Pas de Pierre!

Mais finalement, elle à trouvé Pierre.
Il était dans le jardin.

"Salut, Maman," dit Pierre.

"Pierre," dit Maman, "Je me suis inquiété pour toi!"

"Oh, Maman—je suis ici! Je bâtis quelque chose!"

Pierre a bâti un sac. Le sac est brun et le sac est construit de papier kraft et colle. Il y a beaucoup des petites gateaus dans le sac aussi.

"Quest ce que tu fais, Pierre?" dit Maman.

"Oh, Maman, je bâti un cocon!"

La Mere n'a pas compris. "Un cocon," dit elle, "Pourquoi?"

"Maman, mon amie, Charlotte la Chenille, a bâti un cocon aussi. Et elle s'est endormais dedans le cocon. Quand elle s'est leveé elle etait un papillon! Je voudrais être un papillon aussi. Et j'ai bâti un cocon pour moi! Maman, je voudrais m'envoler!"

"Oh, mon pauvre petit Pierre, tu n'es pas une chenille. Nous sommes des porc-épics," dit Maman. "Et les porc-épics ne s'envolent pas. Nous préférons jetter nos épines et mangeons les pamplemousses. Vive la difference, Pierre, vive la difference"

"Oh, Maman, je t'adore! Je sais que je suis un porc-épic! Mais si j'étais serais un papillon je volerais à travers la forêt!"

FIN

When you talk about this blog later, and you will, be kind.

Copyright © 2007 D. H. Maxine

GRAMMY AWARDS and Me

2007-12-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

Over the river, and through the woods ...
... to the GRAMMY AWARDS we go!

When I was a kid, I often fantasized about being famous and winning awards. I do not mean the spelling bee, either! I was certain one-day I'd have an Oscar, a Tony Award, or an Emmy Award. As I got a little older, PERHAPS I even fantasized about winning a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize! Yet I never even remotely imagined I would be nominated for a GRAMMY AWARD. Well, fate showed me.

But wait, there's a little back-story to fill in …

As some of you know, I have loved L. Frank Baum's Oz books since I was in the Second Grade. I've worked in and love musical theatre, and I have a passion for old recordings, really old recordings from the early 1900s. All of these various interests coalesced in the late 1990s when I started doing research on the long-forgotten 1903 Broadway musical version of The Wizard of Oz.

The Wizard of Oz is one of the best-loved fairy tales and one of the best-loved films of all time. Yet few people know that the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman attained fame in a hit Broadway musical in 1903. The show was legendary for its success and its impact on American culture. It made Oz, Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman household names.

The show opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theater in New York on January 21, 1903. The show toured, came back to New York, toured, and returned to New York again many times until finally disbanding around 1911. Stock and amateur companies continued to present it into the 1930s when it was overshadowed by the classic MGM film of The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland which featured a new score.

To cut a long story short, I began a project to collect all of the old recordings I could find from the show: 78s, wax cylinders, piano rolls, music-box discs, as well as photos, newspaper clippings, etc. In 2003 (a hundred years after the show originally opened!) I produced a 2 CD set of said recordings with two picture-filled booklets.

Me and my 1906 Edison Home Phonograph.

I was very proud of my work on the project. A theater friend of mine in New York said, "You must make sure this CD is submitted to the GRAMMY Awards." I thought, "Yah, right…" But then another friend in New York said the same thing. And then my boyfriend started in on me! So I finally broke down and made sure the CD was submitted for consideration.

A month or so goes by, the GRAMMY nominations come out, and lo and behold:

Nominated for "Best Historical Album"
Vintage Recordings from the 1903 Broadway Musical
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Producer: David Maxine

I don't remember literally "pinching myself" but it was definitely one of those moments. So what happens when you're nominated for a GRAMMY Award? Well, you start getting mail from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, friends start congratulating you. And eventually you get to go to the GRAMMY Awards!

So I bought a tux. My BF rented a tux. And off we went. The night before the Awards were handed out there was a "Nominees" reception where we were given delightful things to eat and drink. They also presented the nominees with their GRAMMY Medallions! All of the nominees get them! It is a brass medal on a blue silk ribbon. It's very spiffy. They also take our "Official" GRAMMY portrait.

My CD and my GRAMMY Medallion!

The bulk of the awards are given out in a "pre-telecast" ceremony. There are about 125 GRAMMYs given each year; and only about a dozen are presented on the air. My boyfriend's parents came down for the awards, too. Mom-in-Law was kind of excited to see several members of Chanticleer a few seats away.

Well, my category finally came up and alas my GRAMMY went to "Martin Scorsese's THE BLUES" which I suspected it would. After my loss at the pre-show we headed over to the Staples Center in Los Angeles to attend the telecast part of the GRAMMYs. After the telecast we went to the big GRAMMY part at the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel, ate lots, drank lots, picked up our "goody-bags" and it was over.

Me in my Tux at the GRAMMY telecast.

I really do wish I'd won. I REALLY want one of those little phonograph-shaped awards! Maybe next time. And in closing I offer a shameless bit of self-promotion. Should you be interested in purchasing the CD set, it is available from Amazon.com or directly from the Hungry Tiger Press website.

Click here to take a look at the CD
and listen to sound clips!

Thanks for reading,
David

Ever wonder who actually votes on these award shows? Well, one of them is now me! As a nominee, I was offered membership in the Academy. Now I get to vote for the GRAMMYs each winter!

When you talk about this blog late, and you will, be kind.

Copyright 2006, 2007 by D. H. Maxine.

RING around the Russians

2007-12-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

DIE WALKURE - Act III

STUPENDOUS BUT STUPID

Well, I'm back from the end of the world, and my fifth live RING cycle was a mixed bag. No production of Richard Wagner's fifteen-hour-long epic DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN is ever perfect. But alas, the highs and lows of the inane and confusing production-concept somewhat marred the often spectacular music.

Conductor Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra produced a RING of unusual beauty. The orchestra was perhaps the clearest and most transparent version of the RING I have ever heard. Gergiev had the ability to make Wagner's massive orchestra often sound like chamber music. This is meant as a compliment. One could hear each orchestral voice blending into a Wagnerian tapestry with each individual thread of orchestral color, intermingling to make a lovely sound-picture.

I did find Gergiev's conducting of RHEINGOLD to be a little lifeless and the horns had a rough time. A friend at the opera suspected it was the dry California air taking its toll on the Russian horn players. But the horns solved their problems sometime during DIE WALKURE and Gergiev came to life for the final three operas.

SIEGFRIED - Act III
Siegfried meets the Wanderer

The singing in RHEINGOLD was solid. There were no weak links; but most of the cast didn't bowl me over, although the Alberic of Edem Umerov and the Mime of Nikolai Gassiev deserve special mention. The Erda had a thick Russian accent. I do not speak German, but even I could hear it. Her RHEINGOLD aria began as something like, "Vikeeee, Votann, Vikeeee!" In WALKURE, Placido Domingo joined the all-Russian cast to sing Siegmund. He was astounding with beautiful tone, a strong ringing voice. Hard to believe he is sixty-five. The WALKURE's Fricka (Larissa Diadkova) was lovely and empathetic and made one almost side with her against Wotan sung by Mikhail Kit. Oddly though, Fricka left the stage before singing her final lines to Brunnhilde in Act II. The super-title came up, but Fricka was long gone. As might be expected the Kirov choral work was spectacular. The Valkyries sang with a clarity I have never heard before, as did the Gibichung Vassals in GOTTERDAMMERUNG.

But the star of the Kirov RING was the Brunnhilde of Olga Sergeyeva. She has a lovely voice (with a trill no less!) and she had no trouble cutting through the Wagnerian orchestra. Her "Battle Cry" was perhaps her weakest moment, but from there on she took command and sang a spectacular WALKURE Act III, a luscious and orgasmic final duet in SIEGFRIED, and the best GOTTERDAMMERUNG Brunnhilde I've ever heard, capped by an "Immolation Scene" that burnt the house down. If her voice weren't enough, La Sergeyeva is a Wagnerian triple-threat. In addition to her voice, she is lovely, appears to be young, and has a stunning figure. And she can act! Thus Sergeyeva's triple-threat status makes her the finest Brunnhilde singing today, IMHO.

We got two different Siegfrieds; one each for SIEGFRIED and GOTTERDAMMERUNG. The SIEGFRIED Siegfried was Leonid Zakhozhaev. He was spectacular. He was thin, youthful, sexy, and could easily pass for twenty onstage. So he certainly looked like Siegfried. So what is our surprise when he opens his mouth and even sounds like Siegfried! He has a bright ringing voice that sounds more like a strong lyric than the more normal helden tenor. But after examining the program to see who our boy was, it turns out he also sings Faust in FAUST and Hoffman in TALES OF HOFFMAN. He has a very beautiful instrument. I hope he takes care of it. That said, it was simply glorious to see SIEGFRIED with a Siegfried and Brunnhilde that looked the parts and sang the bejeezus out of it!

For GOTTERDAMMERUNG we got a new Siegfried named Viktor Lutsyuk. His voice is a bit bigger than Zakhohaev's; but he hasn't quite as lovely a tone. Gunther (Andrey Spehov) had a strong, powerful voice, but oddly, Hagen (Mikhail Petrenko) was vocally disappointing. One would think that the Kirov would have little trouble coming up with a black-toned, big-voiced Russian bass. But Petrenko's Hagen was often swamped by the orchestra and just didn't seem to have enough power. However, this was the most fascinating and creepiest Hagen I've ever seen. Petrenko played Hagen as a weak, lurking, manipulative eunuch. He was as a spider waiting for its prey. And his appearance was something like Clive Barker's "Pinhead" wearing a strapless brown evening gown! Creepy as hell! I wish he'd had the volume to pull off his "Hi Ho! Hi Ho!" number.

GOTTERDAMMERUNG - Act II
Creepy bare-chested Hagen is on the upper level.

BRING IN DA FUNK

But alas, for all of Gergiev's understanding of the music, I found it shocking how un-theatrical and idiotic much of his staging was and how arbitrarily the set and lighting were used. I should add that while I love the naturalistic RING cycles at the MET and Seattle, I have no problem with unusual takes and production concepts. But they have to make sense! I don't particularly like Chereau's RING a lot, but it is intelligent and carefully thought out. The Gergiev/Tsypin RING is just sloppy.

The "Production Concept" is credited to Gergiev and Set Designer George Tsypin. The sculptural set consisted of four immense figures (about twenty-four feet high) and a couple dozen little fetish figures (about three feet high) that looked kind of like Jawas or Ewoks from STAR WARS. The big ones seemed to be part mummy, part horse, part fossil, part primordial performance art. All of the figures had different-colored lights within them. And the little Ewok fetishes had light-up faces. All of this was rearranged, act by act, to change the stage picture. Sometimes the figures floated horizontally. Sometimes they stood with flames on their back. Sometimes they seemed to be dead on the ground. In Act II of GOTTERDAMMERUNG they played Chess! In the final moments of the RING as the world is burning down, and the Rhine is overflowing its banks, the biggies collapsed and the little Ewoks were sitting on their backs. Is this the death of the gods? The death of the past? It was just about the only use of the set that seemed to make sense.

Much of the lighting was incredibly beautiful. The colors were the most intense I have ever seen on stage. But it often felt like we were at a lighting rehrearsal. Lights flashed on and off, cues were anticipated i.e. in WALKURE, the fire lights and fire projection started before Wotan called for Loge. Lights would shift to a new cue for a moment and then jump back for seemingly no reason. Very odd.

There seemed to be no intent in the least to advance the story, clarify the complex plot, or do much other than make beautiful stage pictures. And they did make some beautiful imagery! But it had nothing to do with the RING, the story, or anything else. Who are the mummified giants supposed to be? Are they the gods? Why are there four of them? Why do they have horse heads some of the time? Why do they have NO heads some of the time? Sometimes their heads light up for no apparent reason at all. Why are they sometimes lying dead on the floor? Why do they double as Fafner the dragon? Why do they play a jumbo-sized game of Chess in Act II of GOTTERDAMMERUNG? It was simply jarring to be watching the opera and the giant-heads light up for a couple seconds and then go off, then they light up again and go off. It did not seem to be related to the libretto, to the leit motifs, or to anything other than Gergiev/Tsypin trying to upstage Wagner, or else an intoxicated light-board operator was having WAY too much fun.

The scenery, costumes, and lighting seemed to be at odds much of the time and created a visual dissonance that often left the audience slack-jawed. The Gibichungs wore primitive Russian tribal-wear. Fine! It worked on the set quite well, though seeing Hagen in an ancient Russian get-up that resembled a strapless evening gown was a little jarring.

Alas, the looks of the gods and magical-elements were all over the place. The Rhine Daughters wore silver evening gowns. Fricka and Freia wore modern-looking dresses well-suited for wearing to the Academy Awards. Loge, Donner and Froh wore decorated caftans ala the MET's current RING; Fasolt and Fafner looked like giant boulder-beings about fifteen feet tall; and all of the Nibelung dwarves looked like refugees from Arthur Rackham. Poor Erda wore some arcane headdress that was literally ten feet wide; and the Norns wore more primordial crap. Siegfried had a rather sexy pair of red trousers with a revealing tunic which showed off his FABULOUS biceps! Brunnhilde wore a black-leather-like evening gown, split up the front, revealing her trouser-covered legs and knee-high boots - a rather sexy dominatrix look.

But into this muddle of fashion, Gergiev/Tsypin introduced a dancing chorus that appeared in each act of each opera. They played the "fire," wearing black spandex jumpsuits with light-up flame hair (we took to calling them the matchstick girls), but they also played Hunding's hunting dogs. Or were they his kinsmen? It was hard to tell.

SIEGFRIED - Act I
Siegfried is being spun around the stage by the mystery chorus after forging Nothung

The mystery chorus all ran on stage and struck a pose in the final bars of the SIEGFRIED love duet (my guess is they were playing Siegfried's cum). And the weirdest bit of all was when two of the little farts appeared at the beginning of the GOTTERDAMMERUNG "Vengeance Trio" dressed in bright red with white chickens tied to their belts!!!

As opera comedienne Anna Russell often said about the RING, "I'm not making this up, you know!"

So we are sitting there in the audience, drinking in the "Vengeance Trio," when these two little chicken-chokers show up. Well, they stand around for a while and then Brunnhilde goes up to them and procures something from each which she places in a bowl. Chicken blood? Gizzards? Gergiev's brain? Brunnhilde takes the bowl of chicken parts downstage and spills it onto a little table and her bowl starts to smoke. By this time I assume she's enacting an ancient Russian fortune-telling rite using giblets. The beautifully sung "Vengeance Trio" continues, though now our two little chicken-chokers have climbed up onto the upper platform and are doing Martha Graham, while down below Gunther, Hagen, and Brunnhilde plot Siegfried's death. It is unfathomable to me how Gergiev can not understand that he is upstaging one of the great moments of one of the greatest operas in the world with utter nonsense.

More choice bits of foolishness:

In WALKURE Act III we got fourteen Valkyries instead of the usual nine. The extras were just there to move the set but it made hash of Wagner's symbolism and the story.

In GOTTERDAMMERUNG Act III the Rhine Daughters come in carrying a fifteen foot long yellow neon "lance." They spin it and tease Siegfried with it. Then he takes it and sits by it at the edge of the stage. My best guess was that it was a ray of sunshine.

In RHEINGOLD the Tarnhelm was a wire-thing that looked like a Chinese "coolie" hat made out of a Slinky. In SIEGFRIED it seemed to be invisible, and in GOTTERDAMMERUNG it looked like a birdcage with tassels! Why make the story more complicated than it already is?

The actual "gold" in RHEINGOLD was a big fillagree ball about ten feet in diameter. Kind of pretty, but it seemed idiotic at the end of the opera when there was no gold to pile up, and they put Freia inside it.

The Wood Bird was sung by a singer on stage instead of off in the wings or in the pit. Now this is not a terrible choice in itself, but Gergiev dressed her in a heavy white gown with clanky beads and ruffles and frou-frou falling from her sleeves and overlong skirts. She looked much more like Miss Havisham than a Wood Bird! Gergiev also wanted her to sing her lines from the top of one of the giants (in this act it was lying prone on the stage). So Miss Havisham flutters out from the wings, hoists up her heavy skirts to climb the stairs to the top of the giant, sings her lines waving her arms up and down, and goes back down, exiting into the wings. This is clunky enough to do once, but Gergiev had her enter and leave for EACH of her little bird-songs!

SIEGFRIED - Act II
Siegfried and Miss Havisham (the Wood Bird)

Okay, enough bitching about the production. It was a marvelous RING musically and it was often visually beautiful. I heard and saw the most luscious Brunnhilde and Siegfried of my RING career. I met new friends and visited with old ones. The Rhine Daughters have their gold back, and I can wait expectantly for RING number six. I wonder if that's why they call it the RING cycle …

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 D. H. Maxine.

Daddy Dearest

2007-12-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

I do not know how it happens that we learn to protect our selves from pain, and loss, and doubt. We freeze at a certain age and never really grow beyond it. We freeze at the moment of pain, unable to move, for fear of dislodging the knife in our soul, the thorn in our spirit.

I have mixed feelings about my dad. I remember him as a great dad, who worshipped me as a little boy. He was incredibly smart. He could explain anything to me. He could make the most wonderful things. He painted, sculpted, wrote, built his own stereo system. He built a black-and-white television! He knitted me booties! But he didn't know how to be a father to an adolescent boy.

Why do we feel such an intense desire to grow up when we are children and such an intense desire to return to childhood when we are grown? My life froze in the spring of 1976 when I was thirteen and my father was fifty-seven.

In 1975 and 1976 my dad was trying to get a veteran's disability pension. He had been in a M.A.S.H. unit in World War II and was involved in most of the big battles of Europe. He had been drafted and was over there for almost four years. He was traumatized by those years. He also had some nerve damage in one hand from a bad cut he got during the war. So now, thirty years later, he went out to the Veteran's Hospital and was supposed to check in to the Neurology Ward for tests. Yet for some reason never explained to me he was admitted to the Psych Ward. He proceeded to have a mid-life crisis and a nervous breakdown.

Dad was hospitalized in the Psych Ward for many weeks in the spring of 1976. He talked to his therapists, took tests, made little things out of clay. My mom, sister, and I went out to visit him daily. But he seemed to be able to take very little of us. He came home in early May for about a week. But on one Sunday, Mother's Day as it turned out, he ate a piece of my mom's Mother's Day candy, grabbed his side and passed out. He was taken back to the VA where we were told he had to have his gall bladder removed.

About two weeks after the surgery he was still in the hospital. We went out to visit him He seemed like a stranger. It was like he saw me, little David, as a thing to be conquered. Was my dawning adolescence a reminder to him of his getting older? Had his time in the Psych Ward aroused memories of his own abuse as a child? As we were getting in the car to go home I said or did something, I don't recall what. But Dad got a look in his eye and yelled, "You God-damn little ass-hole! You're not gonna do that to me! You're a little boy and you're not gonna forget it." He then jumped into the car and started slapping me across the face, his knees in my chest. I screamed and fought back, mostly just trying to push him out of the car. Mom was yelling, "Watch out for Dad's stitches!" fearing Dad would spill his guts in more ways than one. Mom got the now hyperventilating Dad off of me, out of the car, and into the hospital. I was in panicked hysteria in the back seat wanting an explanation for why I'd been hit for the first time in my then thirteen years of life.

When Dad came home about a week later nothing was the same and nothing ever would be again. It seemed like everything I did resulted in another beating. He said I was incorrigible. He said I was not going to make myself the man of the family. He acted like he was jealous of my relationship with my Mom. And as she would try to protect me from his violence, it seemed to irritate him even more.

A typical scenario would run thus: David doesn't finish his dinner. Dad says, "Eat your damn food!" David replies, "I don't have to eat it!" Dad, bellows: "Why you ungrateful little bastard, quit trying to one-up-me! You are NOT going to drive me out of this house! I'll put you in a boy's home before I let you ruin my marriage!" By this point I'd try to get up and run away; he'd chase me around the house, and he'd eventually tackle me. He'd straddle my chest, pinning my arms at my sides and he'd slap my face back and forth asking if I was ready to behave. Finally I'd give in. But as soon as I was loose I was filled with such anger that I'd yell something horrid like, "I wish you were dead you crazy old man!" And the chase would begin again.

I only wanted to grow up and run away. Or did I only want to be six years old again.

Once he broke my wrist. I was told to lie at the Emergency Room and say I'd stumbled on the driveway. Being a good son, I did. As I remember it the chasings, beatings, and captures occurred almost daily for about a year.

There is so much more to this story! How Dad fell in love with his therapist from the VA (who was also a practicing sex therapist on the side.) How I was threatened with being "committed" when I was the only sane person in the crazy family. How Dad introduced his therapist-darling to the family. My sister and I could tell she was the "other woman" Mom didn't catch-on. The therapist-darling wormed her way into the family, bringing her two little girls over to swim in our pool, play in our yard. Dad loved those little girls. He beat me up. My dad finally decided he wanted a divorce; which Mom reluctantly gave him. Before my parents divorced they tried a few months of couple's therapy. Their "marriage-counselor" was none other than the "other woman" herself, therapist-darling!

All right, dear readers, you can close your mouths now.

The divorce occurred fourteen months after I was first "punished." After we moved out Dad never struck me again. The year of terror passed, the beatings ceased, and the scars grew deep. Dad came over for dinner many nights a week; and we talked every day. Dad introduced us to his new friends as his "Ex-Family" an unusual appellation to say the least. But Dad was pretty-much back.

There is always balance, a love and a hate. I remember as a boy climbing into my father's lap, smelling his T-shirt, rubbing my face into the man-smelling cotton. His hands rough, his whiskers a torture of pinpricks. His breath smelling of cherry Kool-Aid and cigarettes. I knew I was loved. But the same smells and textures and memories are also tied to my Dad sitting on me, straddling my chest, my arms pinned to my sides. He slaps may face, my head is banged against the hard linoleum of the family room floor.

If we turn off our lives to dull the pain of tragedy, we sacrifice the present, the now, the living. And it is only with time that we begin to heal, to learn to feel again, to accept, and to love the past with all its delights, with all its blemishes, and all its horrors.

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2007 D. H. Maxine.

A Component of Love Called Melancholy

2007-12-08T16:59:00.000-08:00

September 29th, would have been my Dad's 88th birthday if he were still alive. I take this opportunity to share a few short pieces he wrote about his life. These several memories were written in the early 1980s.

A Component of Love Called Melancholy
by Bill Maxine
September 29, 1919 - February 21, 1993

When one examines one's life to see if it has a special meaning it makes one wonder and reflect and not be too sure of where to look. Like a skein of tangled yarn one pulls on certain threads and finds the skein tightening up, and another strand releases, and so on and on.

How I was made and formed causes me to think symbolically of my time: the first summer after World War I - September 29, 1919. I believe I was a promise that was hard to keep. Maintaining my integrity was struggle enough. I never felt threatened from within; and the schools never succeeded in turning me inside out.

My first trauma I do not remember. But I was told I went into very severe convulsions at the attempt to circumcise me. It was my first protest, and I succeeded. But in stopping the knife, it left me with a stammer I carried until I felt sexual love. I mention this so you will have a person in mind as I try to remember experiences just about everyone had.

My father's father was French and in Paris he carried coal up six flight of stairs. This must have been a miserable back-breaking job carrying the black stuff from under to six floors up where it provided light and heat. And in some way he sought a promise and came to America where he found other French in Greenbay, Wisconsin. He found himself surplus and moved to Jamestown, North Dakota where he must have disappeared into the puree of this great melting pot. I marvel at how little I know of my past. My father I remember as a great story teller. Like so many it was all within the American tradition of anecdotes, to tell stories to give themselves a sense of place, jokes on those less fortunate or stupid, and a secret envy of the rich and successful.

Mrs. Johnson - The First Grade

It is hard to transpose feelings back to an earlier time without adding wisdom or reflection to a moment vividly recalled. I was six. Though I don't remember feeling six. Our school was a block away from home - Roosevelt Elementary. I don't think in all my life I ever though about it beyond the typical. It was named after a President, some prehistory institutionalized into a building. I wonder if it was for his cure of TB in western North Dakota or his exploits in Cuba that my school was bestowed with his name. Roosevelt died the year I was born.

In my First Grade room the desks were aligned in rows like tombstones or soldiers. Cast iron sides with oak seats and a liftable writing surface. No soft maple or open seating. That came after me.

We were all directed toward the front facing the teacher whose desk was all wood. I wish I would have been aware of it then but school seems to be only a lesson in pointing at letters and learning to count. Mrs. Johnson seems to have taken a findness for me or my vulnerability by bringing me to the front of the class, and setting me on her lap, and having me count the buttons on her bodice.

How I Remember Those Smells

It was in the Fourth Grade when I noticed Jean Hendrickson. Before this time girls were just other inhabitants of the school yard. She seemed so pretty, just like a princess to me. One time I got close to her and I smelled something akin to musk; which was such a contrast to my grubby hands that had the smell of fingers that scratched and wiped my behind or relieved me in the school urinal, this with left-over lunch smells and school ink from leaky pens.

One day, with great courage and my new ink-o-graph pen that wrote with gren ink, I wrote a love note to her confessing my feelings. I delivered iyt in a terrible way, but the only way that was safe to my fearful heart. I folded it carefully and ran up to her in great speed and said, "Here, half-wit!" and ran off to another part of the school yard where boys played and girls were scarce. Now I stood exposed to her and what she might do.

My God, with her Fourth Grade maturity she could laugh at me or tease me or ignore me. However the next day the verdict came. She walked up to me and gave me a note in green ink. She wrote saying she liked me and would be my friend. Now my anxiety was more than I could handle. So I broke off the relationship of 48 hours and I kept the note and treasured it very much. I don't think I ever spoke to her again. I just went back to be with other boys with smelly hands and the familiar things i could cope with. Sadly I think what might have been and reflect, when it comes to feelings of mine, I haven't made much progress.

Eddie's Drawer

When one gets older and wisdom sets in, it fills one with an inner security and another emotion, a component of love called melancholy.

My big brother Eddie's drawer in the dining room buffet, was something of envy to me, a point of passage, a place to keep secret things. Eddie's drawer was full of multi-purpose jack-knives, agate marbles, press clippings of his local heroics as a boy scout, cigarette lighters, and an extra pair of real horse-hide shoelaces, his Boy Scout manual and extra Merit Badges yet to be sewn on.

I thought perhaps that someday I too would have my own drawer. That never happened. My private drawer had to be in my bedroom, hardly a place of public or family envy. For my sister and me, our family consisted of two big brothers and a mother and father - we were sort od "add-ons" that kept the family poor. At any rate my sister Mugs, and I, needed a great deal of love and attention. So according to that great natural law, we received less.

Sod Buster

Solitary sinnuous struggle
Penetrating virgin prairie
From downside up
From the dark place
Stirring solitary sinuous
Seed root forever perennial
Thrust up into entangled crust
Shoving stirring solitary
Filaments, capilaries, tuberale
The entangled way of sod
A history of nourishment
Spearing shoviong stirring
Through the crust
Spring saffron
A Crocus
A toast
Bottoms Up
A Crocus is

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Stories and Poem written by Willis Henry Maxine. Copyright 2007 D. H. Maxine.

That Seventies School

2007-12-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

I hated sixth grade. And I hated my teacher, Mr. Reinecke, at Aztec Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He was a crappy teacher but sixth grade was expecially bad becasue I was tormented to two bullies in my class. No one but me seemed to object. The dreaded twosome of Shane and Mike did all of the usual things bullies do: they punched me in the arm, gave me noogies, gave me "Indian burns." They called me the usual epithets like pussy, and freak, and fag; the latter altered into a nickname riffing on my last name: "Fagzine." Now this was all in the first half of the year; it got much worse.

The terror twins eventually started bringing pen-knives to school. These knives were little more than toys. But it hurt if you got jabbed and they were kind of threatening to twelve-year-old me. The last couple months of school were abysmal. Shane and Mike thought up a new game. Lots of kids were wearing "waffle-stomper" boots, which had thick rubber souls. Well, Shane and Mike (their initials are S & M; I never thought of that before!) started sticking broken razor blades in the tips of their boots and kicking me, which tore up both my jeans and my legs.

The teachers and principal were no help at all. They suggested boxing lessons! Or maybe a "playdate" so we'd all become friends (otherwise know as drown David in the pool day!) I was getting a little psychologically messed up. I was scared to go to school. I started getting a little obsessive/compulsive, too. I suspect I was trying to gain control of a world I felt was totally out of control.

Oh, you may have wondered where my parents were through all of the above. My Dad was a pacifist who felt victimized all his life and I think he just kind of withdrew from it all. Mom would yell at the teacher and Principal; the teachers would go look for the knives or blades; S&M would look innocent and show their empty pockets. Major dysfunction.

What to do! If Elementary School was this bad; I could just imagine Junior High! Well, Mom started looking for a new school. My Mom at this time had recently completed her doctorate and had accepted a political appointment as the "Executive Director of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women" for the state of New Mexico. But she remembered that while she had been a TA one of her students was helping to start an "Alternative Education" school. Mom looked them up.

That next fall I was enrolled for seventh grade at The Twelve Gates Free School. What was this private academy for alternative youth like, you ask? Have you even seen AUNTIE MAME? It truly was the spitting image of the school that Mame enrolled little Patrick Dennis in. It was GREAT!

Twelve Gates was modeled on A. S. Neill's Summerhill School in England, and Orson Bean's Fifteenth Street School in New York City. The guiding principle of the school was "freedom and equality" between teachers and students. The school was run democratically by both students and faculty (two Lesbians and a straight woman.) You could take classes or not. You could sign out and go on a self-field trip. It may sound like anarchy; but to me it was heaven! I was even on the school's Board of Directors! After a year of stifling abuse in sixth grade - I was at last in heaven!

I took a year of Japanese. We had extra-curricular tea ceremonies, and cooked Japanese dinners at a teacher's home. Instead of a boring "civics" course we older students got together and assembled a petition to stop this thing called "Senate Bill One" and another to try and stop production of the B-1 Bomber. We then went out to Malls and the University campus and collected signatures and mailed in the petitions. I learned to use a camera and darkroom. We took a field trip to meet singer Alberta Hunter.

We sat around and read what we liked. There were tens of thousands of books at the school. One of our teachers read us certain parts of RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE aloud. Now THAT'S an education.

I learned to play the guitar (sort of). One kid who was about my age was a bit of a capitalist and he decided to start a school store. He bought food at the supermarket and sold it to hungry students with a big mark-up in price. I felt ripped off. So I formed the Twelve Gates Student Food Co-op. And brought back my own supply of groceries which students could buy at approximate cost after paying a nominal "membership" fee. This twelve-year-old's trade war only lasted for a few weeks --but what a way to learn economics, improve one's math skills, and deal with internal school politics!

In the spring we went on a school trip to Mexico. We drove several hundred miles into Mexico to a place called Bahia de Kino (Kino Bay). The bay was gorgeous. Out in the water a Bali-Hai-like island called Tiburon, rose from the blue horizon. But lack of organization on a school trip can be a big and dangerous mess (see my previously posted story Stingray.)

Sadly, the school and my life would soon implode. The adults in the school began to squabble; and so did my parents. That Mother's Day my Dad had a nervous breakdown--and this would lead to my parents divorce later that year.

Why do we feel such an intense desire to grow up when we are children and such an intense desire to return to childhood when we are grown? Life froze in the late spring of 1976 when I was thirteen and my father was fifty-seven. Just as I was reaching out to become a man my father decided he wanted to be a boy. And THAT will be another chapter entirely.

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 D. H. Maxine.

Dr. Zaius in Oz or; Leggo my MEGO!

2007-12-08T16:56:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about play - or more specifically, how I played as a kid. I am trying to remember how it worked, how I did it, what it felt like.

All of my favorite toys were puppets, stuffed animals, and the like. I also loved movies and had a strong passion for PLANET OF THE APES. I devoured the movies, watched the prime-time TV series, and the animated Saturday morning cartoon. I even tracked down the Pierre Boulle novel - which I also loved. I found it especially sexy somehow that Boulle's astronaut was completely naked as Zira took him for walks around the city.

I also loved L. Frank Baum's Oz books. My Second Grade teacher, Mrs. Strong, at Monte Vista Elementary School, in Albuquerque, read them to us a chapter to two a day after lunch. I also discovered the MGM movie, which I came to love as well. So one can hardly overestimate my childhood joy at discovering MEGO (a toy company) was producing 8-inch action-figures of PLANET OF THE APES characters, followed a bit later by WIZARD OF OZ characters, among many others including another childhood obsession, STAR TREK.

But back to play. I would ask my sister something like, "Do you wanna play Oz? or Apes?" And she pretty much always did. We would then go to my room and prepare the universe. We had a couple dark furniture throws and these would be tossed over carefully arranged pillows, cushions, piles of clothes to create mountain ranges and valleys as wide as the bedroom - a terrain for the play to occur within. We would then set up the Emerald City or Ape City in our room-scape and the play would begin.

But I dont remember how we did it! We devised such elaborate plots and story lines! They often continued from day to day, too. But there was no discussion that I recall about how to do it, no set rules for who "operated" which characters. It was a seamless flow of interaction between the two of us: handing off characters, improvising dialogue, manipulating plot, creating back-story with no effort whatsoever. But I don't remember how we did it! We were just so in synch - everything worked. And we both fell into a hypnotic state where the room would fall away, our hands hopping the characters across the bedspread would vanish, and we did little more than channel Zira, Cornelius, and Dorothy Gale! Yes we mixed the worlds up quite often.

It worked REALLY well, too! Sometime apes would go to Oz; and sometimes Oz characters would go to the Planet of the Apes. If you think Dr. Zaius (the ornery orangutan) freaked out when he saw a talking human you should have seen how apoplectic he got over talking lions, Tin Men, and little girls with dogs!

Sometimes Zaius went to Oz! At least once the Wicked Witch captured him and thought he was her runaway flying monkey. She could NOT understand what happened to his wings. "Curses! It's that Dorothy Gale's doing!" But then again sometimes Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock would beam in at just the right moment and then all hell would break loose! The Wicked Witch would over hear Kirk talk about dancing Orion slave girls (who are green!) and the Witch would decide she could trap Kirk and Spock by stripping and dancing for them! You may recall that the Wicked Witch is green, too.

I do not know if other MEGO-loving kids did this cross-pollination thing. Sometimes I would buy duplicate characters to make them into additional characters. I "aged" a Cornelius with white paint and miniature glasses to make someone I names Dr. Barlow. We turned an extra Glinda the Good into Laverne DeFazio to play with my sisters Fonzie figure. A few characters I just made from scratch - a Patchwork Girl and a Sawhorse come to mind. Some ideas we never quite pulled off probably due to lack of money. Grandma and Grampa Walton would have made a wonderful Aunt Em and Uncle Henry but I guess i just didn't feel like spending $15 to get two sort of boring characters.

But is was so magical, so addicting! This hypnotic-state of play occurred whenever my sister and I played with our anthropomorphic toys: puppets, stuffed animals, etc. Once on a car trip I told her that there was a miniature universe in my pants-pocket. I pulled out bits of lint and stuff from my pocket and introduced them as animals, live stock, etc. I made a tiny little woman out of a scrap of Kleenex, too. But I swear we could see "pocket-world!"

And that's what I miss! I miss my imagination being that powerful. I think I still have a strong ability for fantasy and imagination and daydreaming - but I can't quite make the real world disappear anymore - at least not with pocket lint!

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 D. H. Maxine.

Mom had sex with Colonel Klink

2007-12-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

All right, my mom never had sex with Colonel Klink -- but she did have a summer-stock affair with actor Werner Klemperer back in the late 1940s. Klemperer went on to play Colonel Klink on HOGAN'S HEROES - the 1960's television show set in a Nazi-run POW camp. My mom did not watch the show - she was offended by the whole idea of making light of Nazism. However, I loved telling neighborhood kids that my mom "dated" Colonel Klink; and also telling them that she "dated" Jack Klugman, Oscar on THE ODD COUPLE. She also "dated" Jerry Orbach - but I didn't know who he was at the time I was bragging to my pre-pubescent pals about my Mom's sexual conquests back in the day.

This little tidbit of arcane family lore is offered up primarily to show that I did not come from an average family. My parents were a good deal older that most of my friend's parents. When I was born my Mom was 38 and my Dad was 44.

My Mom grew up in a Methodist Democrat family in Texas during the depression; and when she turned nineteen she moved to New York to become an actress. This was 1943. She spent the next fourteen years in the theatre (mostly stage managing and sometimes directing) and working in film and photography. She also spent seven years in psychoanalysis. She met my Dad in 1946 or 47 while they were both working on the Henry Wallace Caravans. They were in a relationship for about a year. They broke-up because my Mom wasn't ready to get married, and my Dad was. They didn't see each other for ten years. In 1958 my Mom felt she was ready to get married, she called up my Dad and asked if he was still interested, and they were married. I was born four years later.

My parents were very unusual. They were deeply political, deeply spiritual (though not terribly religious) and both were very well-read. My Dad only graduated from high school; he hated structured education. He was quite brilliant in many ways. Mom went back to college after I was born and went on to get her doctorate. My parents were very involved in the civil rights movement, feminism, they were "radicals" who thought "liberal" was an insult. They both cared about our country more than almost anyone I've ever met.

This just seemed like the normal American family to me. But it seems many kids didn't grow up in this wacky, progressive, politically-infused, sexually frank, over-educated, semi-socialist stew pot. By the time I was thirteen I had met George McGovern, and Ted Kennedy. Mom had been tear-gassed. I'd met German philosopher Herbert Marcuse (his favorite American TV show was MANNIX, in case any scholars need to know!) And we have home-movies of Joan Baez. Our house was always filled with peace-niks, hippies, and lesbians.

Does anyone wonder how I wound up like this?

In 1984, just before I came-out (to both myself and the world) I was working as a Production Assistant at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. One show I was assigned to was Director Peter Sellers' HANG ON TO ME - a mish-mash of Maxim Gorky's SUMMERFOLK with two dozen Gershwin songs added in. It was fabulous! It was five hours long, but it was FABULOUS! Werner Klemperer was in the cast. So now I knew him, too - but not as well as my Mom did! The Guthrie Theater had a bar for the staff and a couple times my Mom came in and had drinks with Werner. It was really interesting seeing the two of them relate, seeing a part of her youth bubble to the top as she and Werner drank and told stories.

That is now over twenty years ago. Werner Klemperer, and both of my parents, are gone. It's over fifty years since my mom and Herr Klemperer made hay in a summer-stock barn in Arden, Delaware. And I'm still using her affair with Werner Klemperer as a social introduction to make friends and break the ice.

Be careful what you tell your children!

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 D. H. Maxine.
All rights reserved.

Stingray

2007-12-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

I've been digging through my life lately, and I found this story (or fragment) that I wrote when I was twenty-two. It is based on an incident that happened on a school trip to Mexico when I was twelve. It was an unusual school, with unusual teachers, in an unusual time, the mid 70s.

Stingray

"What is it? It's too late for this. . ."

"No, get up! Chris passed out; we can't wake him up!

Ellen pulled on a pair of shorts and a shirt, and zipped herself out of her tent. Ellen is my seventh-grade teacher and we're in Mexico. We all call her Ellen. She's a lesbian.

It has not been a fun school trip so far. There's sand in all the food, and the water is undrinkable! Lots of us are kind of sick from it. We've been purifying it, (the teachers put Clorox in it, yuck!) but it tastes terrible! This is our fifth day here and we have three more days to go. There are nineteen of us: five adults, and fourteen kids, ranging in age from a strange little girl named Monkey who's six, to Adam who's fifteen. Chris is eleven; and I'm twelve.

Back to the trip being so bad--the adults really aren't taking very good care of us. Whoever cooked dinner tonight tried to avoid the wind and sand, and they took the campstove INSIDE the tent! I GUESS they spilled gasoline on Chris's sleeping bag. 'Cause right after we went to bed (we were talking and playing with our flashlights) Chris was sitting there giggling in his underwear and he said "I feel weird," and then he was just lying there against the side of the tent, kind of caving it in. After we decided he wasn't fucking around, we dragged him outside, and I went to get Ellen.

"We pulled him out, but he won't wake up," I said sitting down in the sand next to him.

"Adam get a flashlight," said Ellen rubbing the back of Chris's neck and peeking into his eyes.

"What? What? No I'm not . . ." (Chris was coming around) "Why 'm I out here?"

"Somebody spilled gas on your sleeping bag," I volunteered, "and you, uhm, fainted."

Chris was crying now.

"You're not supposed to be cooking in the tent! I could be dead! Did you-- use my-- sleeping ba ...bag ... to ... heh ... heh ...

Ellen told Chris to stop talking and to breathe slow and deep. She said he was hyperventilating. Chris began to breath normally after a couple minutes. Ellen got up, walked over to the tent, stuck her head inside, and said: "You guys can't sleep in there tonight, it 'll have to air out. Monk, you and Jennifer go over to my tent. David, Chris and Adam can sleep outside.

"What does Chris sleep in," I asked. "His bag is ruined!"

"You and Adam open up your sleeping bags and make a pallet. Chris can sleep between you. Sit up with him for a while. He can use the night air. I'm going to go get the girls set up." Ellen glanced around, decided she was finished, and went to bed leaving me and Adam (big deal) to care for Chris.

I tossed the two sleeping bags out of the tent and Adam started to make up our beach bed.

"Chris," I said "I've got a Seven-Up I've been hiding if you're thirsty?"

"Sure, Thanks," he said, wiping the last of the tears out of his eyes. I padded through the sand to the ice chest, and Chris went and sat in the middle of the sleeping bag bed.

"Here." I handed him the opened can and sat down next to him. He took a sip and he started to breathe funny again; he swallowed quickly and stopped himself with the Seven-Up.

I'm starting to feel a little guilty. Right after Chris passed out, my first thought wasn't saving him, but feeling him up before he was revived. In all the confusion I think I could have gotten away with it --and that almost makes me feel worse.

"You can take my pillow," I said "yours is kinda' gassy." We both giggled.
Chris sprawled out on the beach-bed.

* * *

I'm lying on my back listening to the ocean. I really like this sound but also sort of hate it, too. I can't think of a single nice image to go with it anymore. Everytime I close my eyes, I see dead stingrays washing up on the beach. There are shark-heads washing up on the beach, too.

The men in the village fish for sharks. I guess they throw the heads back in the water. The sharks are only about three feet long, but I'm still too scared to go into the water more than a couple feet. Besides the waves are too high to swim.

"We could share the pillow if you like," said Chris opening his eyes.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I think I was."

"You really think you're Ok," I asked putting my head on my half of our pillow?

"Uh Huh--but in the morning I'm gonna kill whoever cooked dinner last night!"

I can smell Chris's breath. I keep looking at his mouth and his teeth.

"Are you having fun on the trip?"

"I was until somebody tried to kill me!"

"You're Ok. We saved you!"

"Thanks! Night."

"'Night."

* * *

Yesterday I was sitting outside the tent and I started to feel so awful I started to cry. I didn't want anyone to see me, so I walked down to the water and splashed myself so no one could tell I was crying and would just think it was the ocean on my face. And I just cried. I don't even know why! Monkey was down at tide level making a sandcastle of some kind, and Ellen was sketching the island, the dolphins were playing a couple hundred yards off shore, and Adam and Chris had gone into the village. And I wasn't doing anything! Just sitting in the tide and crying!

Everybody else was having fun, and I was sitting in a big pile of sand and crying. And I DON'T KNOW WHY! Nobody even knew I was crying. The dolphins were just diving in and out of the water, Monkey was into her stupid sandy world, and Adam and Chris had left me at camp while they went into the dumb old village. I don't know why I should care, there isn't anything to do in the village but order "Naranja Soda". (That's the only thing we've figured out how to buy.)

After a while Ellen put down her sketch pad and I helped her straighten up the tents. Chris and Adam finally came back, Adam with a huge stingray by the tail. No doubt he planned to throw it at me later on, when no one, (or EVERYONE!) was looking. The dolphins left, and Monkey's castle washed out to sea.

* * *

Chris is asleep. His hair looks like it's glowing he's been out in the sun so much! I'm trying to decide whether to put my arm around him. People are so stupid --I don't know --I just don't understand why he helped Adam throw dead stingrays at me, when he's nice to me when we're alone--it's like he's two people. I know I want to do it and everything, but if I put my arm around him, I'm afraid I'd still feel all alone--and it's dumb-- 'cause we should be friends.

Who's the Little Gay Boy?

2007-12-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

Who's the little Gay Boy!

I recently answered a mySpace-group questionnaire that asked if I had ever dressed up in Drag. Initially I thought the answer was "no," but thinking back further in time, I realized the answer was "yes." That is, if it counts as Drag when you're eight or ten.

As a child I was a big Lucille Ball fan. I watched I LOVE LUCY, and LUCY SHOW reruns, and watched HERE'S LUCY, which was still running in prime-time. My mom helped me send her a fan letter and I was out-of-my-mind-crazy when I got a signed photo of Lucy in the mail a couple weeks later. It was in black and white - and signed rather generically "Love, Lucy."

A few weeks later I got my third-grade school pictures back. I raced home, cut one free from the sheet of small photos, and boldly signed it, "Love, David," and sent it to Lucy. A couple weeks later I got a full-color photo of Lucy back in the mail! Show-and-Tell here I come!

I eventually wanted to be Lucy and asked my Mom and Grandmother if I could get a red wig. They bought me a fright-wig ala Ronald McDonald!

"No, no, no," I say. "Not like that, like real hair, like Lucy!"

For some reason my Mom and Grandmother didn't bat an eyelash. And when my Grandmother was at the beauty salon next she let me pick out an inexpensive red-head wig. I think it cost $2.00, which was several times my allowance. It was a start. Next I wanted false eyelashes! And at the local Skaggs Drugstore I'd spotted a pair of Deep Blue lashes that were to be my next purchase.

I don't know how many times I dressed-up as Lucy. It was more than once, though! My grandmother had a pretty silk blouse, that on me, worked splendidly as a mid-thigh length dress. And I loved my grandmother's heels! My grandmother was a nice, southern, Methodist lady. But my Mom was a feminist, women's rights activist (who didn't really wear dresses!) and my Mom had a number of lesbian friends. I remember one coming over to our house and lecturing me on female stereotypes; and saying that I didn't have to do my hair and wear false-eyelashes to pretend I was a woman. "Oh, please," I thought. "I'm not dressing up as a woman, I'm Lucy!"

The last time I remember donning "drag" was when I was ten, when I wrote a play for me and my best friend, Gail, a black girl who lived down the street. It was called Millicent Martin takes Manhattan and featured me as Millicent Martin. She was a penthouse-living, New York Socialite, based loosely on Eva Gabor in GREEN ACRES and, of course, Lucy. My friend Gail played Leroy, an African-American homeless bum. In the play we fell in love and I introduced Leroy to New York society! I invited my family and assorted kids from the neighborhood to attend the play. A couple of my male friends seemed fascinated by my costume, too.

I didn't figure out I was Gay until I was 22 - kinda' hard to believe!

--David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 by D. Maxine.
All rights reserved.

Stupid Boys

2007-12-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

Is that a Pink Lambert or are you just glad to see me?

For those of you who aren't into really old recordings - the Lambert Company was a record producer in the very early 1900s (approximately 1902-1903.) Their records were cylinder-shaped - not the more familiar flat discs. And many of their records were a vivid fuscia color--a color that I have previously described to friends as dog-dick pink. They are VERY phallic, and VERY rare, usually fetching several hundred dollars each. I thought of this blog title a long time ago - and it would make a great T-shirt slogan; but NO ONE would get it! And that's one of my problems these days.

What do you do when almost all of your interests are so off-beat from the world around you that you barely fit in? I collect old books; old records; love opera; and old movies. In previous decades this would have screamed fag! Fag! FAG! I'm not sure what it screams now because most of my gay friends are into rock, sports, and their Playstation or X-Box. Granted, everyone still loves sucking-dick, but really, weren't we supposed to be the smart and artsy types?

Almost everyone I know is apolitical (which means you don't care much about politics.) I thought perhaps I'd better define it - though I hope that wasn't necessary. I grew up in a fairly leftist household and am used to talking extensively about the world we live in and what's wrong with it. Nobody much wants to do that anymore. Sure we all complain about Bush, but where is the passion to save the world? It was there in the '60s and '70s when I was growing up; but it seems to have vanished. Talk about the Big Chill.

I'm generally very forgiving of other's belief-systems. I know a couple Log-Cabin Republicans; I know some Radical Faeries; I know lots of atheists (including myself); as well as agnostics, Jews, Buddhists, and Church of England members. If you are a right-wing fundamentalist chances are you don't hang out with me. But otherwise I feel I'm extremely flexible (I can even suck my own dick - with effort) Sorry, I had to work that in.

But back on point. What's happening to the Gay community? Are we just gonna become HETS that suck each others dicks? Do we just want the right to get married so we can be normal = average = dull?

I do believe that homosexuality is genetic. But if that is so, since we do not (generally) reproduce, there has to be another way we are contributing to society/civilization which keeps the "little-faggot" DNA in the gene pool. I've always believed our contribution was that we were the spiritual, creative, intellectual, artistic, soul of humanity. Of course "breeders" sometimes fill this function - but it used to be filled by the shamans, priests, poets, gurus, actors, artists, authors, and architects that liked to suck dick. What's gonna happen when the queer contribution to civilization amounts to gym equipment, popularizing PA piercings, and playing video-games?

What a world, what a world! Who would have thought some hot little boys like you could destroy our beautiful wickedness!

David
(Listening to Lucrezia Borgia)

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.

Copyright 2006 D. H. Maxine.
All rights reserved.