Billy Joel: Fifty Years, You ARE kidding me?

At his Hollywood Bowl concert last night Billy Joel said he'd been in the music business for fifty years.



I would have fallen off my bench, except I was cemented in by those surrounding me all of us shoulder to shoulder.

It's not that I can't believe it has been fifty years. I mean, Billy is jowly and sleepy eyed, and that curly hair of yore has long gone down the proverbial drain. And after all, almost every song he sang was a cut from albums I was spinning in the 1970s at WFUV back in da Bronx from whence I never fail to mention I sprung. That's nearly 40 years all by itself.


It's just that I sat there thinking, "How did it happen? And so fast?"  The entry before this talked about the breath that is life. Last night was another sealer of the reality of the deal. I have my own incipient (or not so incipient) jowls. You should see me when I try to exercise my jaw and neck in a futile effort to stretch and firm. So, Billy, there was no critique on you because of yours and that white beard thing that makes you look vaguely like a Sopranos' cast member. And you don't jump around like you used to (just read today that he had double hip replacement). But who among us does? But those hands, they still swirl on the keyboard and the voice was as solid as on any of my favorites, "Piano Man", "Uptown Girl", "Allentown", you name it. Billy said he is more baritone than tenor these days, but it didn't matter. Terrific he was as a tenor. Terrific he remains as a baritone. And backed up by some amazing musicians, and an eye catching backdrop of electronic photos and light, I felt transported back to my twenties, full of the idea that I'd somehow be in the entertainment business (even if I go ahead with law school) or something equally amazing--and lucrative would be nice too. When he sang "We Didn't Start the Fire" I realized just how much my days have gone through intense rapid fire history. It's amazing any of us are still here standing, it's been of such enormity. And yet, here many of us were, as one tee shirt wearer trumpeted in print, "First Generation Piano Man Fan".

You want to see a little of the concert--just check your Facebook page. I am guessing that one of the people on your Friends list was there. Everybody was recording snippets or more than snippets. I did.

I teared up a little, truth be told, aware of the spinning away of time, in general, and mine in particular.

It wasn't sadness really. A little annoyance maybe that I haven't been paying enough attention to the rhythms and spacing of my own life. And then I see someone like Billy at a concert that brings back very specific memories of times long gone by and I swear to myself that I am not going to waste another moment. Of course, then I waste the next one. "I wasted time and now doth time waste me," said Shakespeare in Richard II.

"Stop it!" I cry. At least I surely can say that it was no waste to spend a couple of hours listening to Billy Joel. And maybe tonight I might as well. Last night, and today, I find myself in a "New York State of Mind" and subject perhaps of another entry down the road (we shall see where the mood takes me), I was happy last night in Hollywood to "Say Goodbye to Hollywood".  With the passage of time comes a change of perspective about where you came from. . . .and where you should be now.

So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last
Some will just be now and then
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye my baby

Billy Joel hasn't written a song in two decades. He lives an "ordinary" life in Sag Harbor. Thank you for coming to see us at the Bowl. I hope this isn't the last time we'll cross paths and reminisce, me with you, and you with a crowd, and not all Baby Boomers. There is a generation after mine that is following you. Another fifty years? 

Joyful, and Wistful, Reminders that Life is Just A Breath

Twenty-two years ago Bill Tilden showed me a first studio portrait of his daughter, Caitriona.

Ten years ago Bill died when she was only twelve, and her brother, Charlie, only ten. Their mother, Janey, moved them forward through a bog of unanticipated loss and grief.  They struggled but they prospered on a new road.

On May 18, Cait, a confident, long-legged beautiful co-ed in what looked like four inch heels, graduated from a University on the cliffs of the Atlantic, in Rhode Island. She goes on to complete her Master's in Applied Behavioral Analysis, a new amalgamation of cognitive behavioral psychology that didn't exist twenty years ago when I was studying to be a therapist (I didn't finish the dissertation and orals). I got to be there, proud and mystified by the passage of time--her life just beginning, mine, oh, with a goodly number of years to go, but definitely on a very different slope.

A lot of personal history rumbled through my mind--the eccentric miracle of how I even came to know this family--a story for my yet to be radically revised memoir. She is off to Greece shortly, her mother's graduation gift.  I am in awe of her adventurous soul, a like soul that heretofore, I have not possessed. She is fearless already. She makes me hopeful not only for her future, but oddly, for my own. She radiates possibility and a never give up drive.

Her brother is only two years away from his own college graduation--he a little more serious, taking a different trajectory into business and finance. He would discuss matters of the market better than a cable show, and then make me laugh with a final point, "But what do I know, I'm only a twenty year old." Brother and sister are blessed with a gift of attracting others to them-and both have significant others that see their depths--at least for now; hopefully for their lifetimes.

They were just children a moment ago. We were all children a moment ago.

I've wasted a lot of time. Watching them reminded me there is little we can afford to waste.

Life is just a breath. Godspeed to Cait and Charlie as they whirl down their roads. I am fortunate to have spent some part of my walk with them.

My Saint--Maybe

I am in the Church office as I write. There are two levels of intensity in this role in which I volunteer, on Wednesdays only--relentlessly quiet or relentlessly busy.  Perhaps it is that it is just a few days after Easter and Christians are still on some spring break. It has been the quiet so far today as the early afternoon becomes middling. The birds are chirping outside the window on a day that was supposed to be cloudy, but is sun and breeze. The Pacific Hills kids are playing leisurely basketball on the other side of the trees, and I have tired of reading bits of the Early Church Fathers, and other on line treatises.

I am mulling some of what I have read about various individuals, a few already pronounced saints, those about to be saints, like John XXIII and John Paul II, and those not quite as far along the line, though they have been dead far longer, like Servants of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Father Patrick Peyton and Elizabeth Leseur,



and Blessed John Henry Newman.

There is no rule that says I have to pick one intercessor. And more than one could guide me in my spiritual journey. Yet instead of integrating them all, so far, I jump from one to the other.

Part of the reason for my jumping should be a reason for my loyalty--the reality of each person's, for a saint was just as much born in original sin and engaged in personal sin, particular frailty which sometimes, and likely unfairly, turns me "off". An example. From and after his funeral in 2005 I was wildly emotional about John Paul II and delighted about his upcoming canonization. 

As the wind turned the pages on the Roman Missal on his wooden casket, I felt something of his connection to the Transcendent. Then I heard from someone who was present at a large audience at which he became testy at the crowd and shouted, "The Pope is Speaking!". I have been around priests who suffer from a rather demeaning clericalism in which no lay person ,male or female, regardless of education and vocation is more than an errant child.. This is a failure to me of the consecration to service. Then I have read more about his iron clad resistances to any challenge on his operational and daily authority (not the Dogma of Infallibility). I understand PR. We cannot help but cover over the chinks in the armor of family, friends and the famous after they have left the earth. But in the designation of saints one wonders whether the stories of martyrdom and heroic virtue are more fiction than fact.  I have become suspicious.  He is John Paul the Great for all time, but is that perhaps unfair both to him and to us? He probably was John Paul the Sometimes Great. Maybe that sometimes is more than enough. He still compels me, as do all those saints who were complex in the expressions of their sanctity.

I cannot get out of my head, for another example, what my late pastor told me about his ever so brief encounter with Archbishop Sheen. My former pastor was a young priest when he happened to be in a location where the Archbishop was giving one of his lectures or homilies to a gathered group of Catholics. Although Sheen was renowned for his exegesis, as the once young priest recounted, it wasn't all that spectacular, and then he added that asked to bring something to the famous cleric in his hotel room, the reception was as cold as it was short. So, what am I expecting? Sheen was by this time fairly old, and probably wildly tired.   



And Newman.  

I have read many of his homilies given both before and after his reception into the Catholic Church. Anglicans and Catholics alike criticized him for his sincerity. What I read seems a torturous sincere search for truth. (Read, for example, "Passion for Truth" by Fr. Juan Velez). At Littlemore, alone in his chapel, I felt certain he was my intercessor for life. But then he is co-opted by progressive thinkers on his appeal to "conscience" mistaken to be private conscience when his context was underlying objective and Divine Truth, not human relativism or uncontrolled feeling as foundation. But what did he do to make his case so easily twisted? And what do I not know about the real Newman, the day to day Newman. I began to read a book that was critical of him, but I became afraid of finding another hero or heroine with clay feet.

Stop. Stop, Djinn. What are you doing? Are you looking for a saint, which we are all called to be, with all the warts and incompetency of spirit? They sought to follow Christ; they weren't Christ, without sin. I keep forgetting. I want the pure. And the pure exists only in Paradise. These people, just people, point to the pure. They remind me to persevere--to avoid the temptation of something else I have been reading about, acedia, an "I don't care" form of despair, a detached "contemptus mundi".

The men and women who are considered for public sainthood (there are many who will never be knownas the saints they were). They are just models of people who loved God who were doing their imperfect best to be with Him after performing their mission--which Newman famously said none of us may ever know when we live. And telling us to do the same now that they have left us and are in a position to give us an ear and have God's ear and cheer us on.

So maybe they are all my saints. Each has something to teach me as I stumble along the road.

Sister Goldenhair and the Memories She Evokes

I was taking the short drive home from my Wednesday "job" as volunteer secretary at my parish. As I approached my block the soft rock station sequed into a favorite 1970s oldie of mine, "Sister Goldenhair" by America. Ahh, anything by America probably would have evoked the same wonderful sudden feeling I haven't had that much over the last years--a feeling of endless possibility. I felt as the 20 something I had been when I first spun an LP (gosh that seems positively antediluvian) at WFUV back in the Bronx from which I have long been an émigré.

 California Djinn

 

I never tended toward being particularly happy or optimistic as a child or late teen life--but that particular part of my life, the year or so of my college life, I felt for the first time free-ish of soul.
It had been a hard early part of the decade losing a mother with whom I had a rather difficult relationship--until she became ill and all the self-protecting walls finally came down. She was gone. I missed her but there had been a resolution by implication in how much she softened before she died.
It was as if she gave me permission finally to enjoy myself, something that had seemed unpermitted in earlier days.

It was at college and in college radio that I became so much less shy that people who know me today think it was never possible I ever had been quiet and afraid to show myself. I seriously considered diving into the low pay arena of trying to be an on air performer--even if it meant going to some low watt station in the middle of nowhere. I loved the experience of being in that low lit little room surrounded by equipment and turntables and cassettes. There were people who heard me in whatever show I was privileged to do who called me, and wrote to me, and sent me the odd book or album in appreciation of what they thought was my verbal and tonal skill. And then I got to meet so many of the people who became a cadre of friends till this day. And I began to talk of moving to this sun kissed state.

The possibility of coming here to California probably got me through the entirety of law school, which I did not enjoy, but which gave me an intellectual foundation which has stood me in good stead for over 30 years. And then the adventure began when for the very first time in my life I did not overanalyze the bad things that could happen if I did not succeed in my move--the California Bar and job seeking. 

I was 27 then, and more than half that time has passed since the adventure began.

I know, intellectually, that possibilities have narrowed, simply by virtue of those statistical realities of aging. BUT, in the moment, with the music playing from days long gone by, there was nothing that couldn't be achieved. And it was the best fleeting moment.

 The Wednesday parish secretary at rest on the church steps

Under the Gaze of Our Lord Courtesy of Franco Zefferelli

As those of you who read this blog know, I attend Mass at St. Victor Church in West Hollywood.  I have been a long time parishioner, literally just over half my life.  I hadn't thought about it being half my life until just now

Some fifteen or twenty years ago, our late pastor, George J. Parnassus, of whom I have also written in these pages obtained a catalog of rather beautiful accoutrements (props in Hollywood lingo) from a variety of Zefferelli films. That is the Italian Director, who famously made, for example, the 1970 ish version of "Romeo and Juliet".  There was to be an auction.  Among the items was a reproduction of the Damiano Cross from which St. Francis of Assisi heard the exhortation "Francis, rebuild my Church!"

St. Francis, still on his road to conversion, or re-version--for he was raised a Catholic among the wealthy tradesmen of Assisi--misunderstood a little. He thought Our Lord from the Cross was asking him to restore the ruins in which the rood remained a fixture.

It was the beginning of a saint. 

The reproduction had been used in Zeffrelli's Italian film version of the story of Saint Francis (not the Bradford Dillman and Delores Hart American one). The Monsignor was taken with it, and with the idea that it would be a beautiful, profound piece above the tabernacle containing the Lord's Real Presence. And so, correspondence began with Italy and the representatives of the director. 


One day the large and heavy crucifix appeared in our lower sacristy, successfully acquired. It was covered in cloth, very similar perhaps to a shroud. It had apparently become in need of some repair and restoration, and because it was so large and weighty, it needed a special installation against the back wall.

And then one day, it was there, the eyes of Our Lord looking down from this wood of torture with eyes of kindness and promise. I have loved to be in the presence of the Cross in the Presence of Our Lord ever since. His Eyes seem even to follow us as we walk from one end of the sanctuary to the other, protecting and guiding.

After Monsignor died, among his things was the original catalog, with several photographs which must indeed have sold Monsignor on the gift that having the Crucifix become part of the tapestry of our parish. I was fortunate. I was able to make copies of two of the most wonderful photos.

When I look at the one in the black and white photograph, I realize that I have something in common with the actors below it, kneeling at the fictional altar.  Every Sunday, I too kneel below it, for the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice.   And I can imagine that He joins us as we kneel in prayer.

                                                         

Being Sixty: A Preface

 

Now

 

 

                                                                             Then

Some two years ago I posted my reveries about being at the edge of thirty years old, as now I do about teetering on sixty, precisely thirty years hence. I have lived a second half of existence since committing those thoughts to paper.

I was always very cognizant of the breath that life is, and it is no surprise that I reflected a bit on it, and the inevitability of its end just before I turned thirty.  I had been doing that since I was a teenager reading "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant.

But there is a difference now. I do not say it to be morbid and I do not feel the morbidity I felt, as it happens, as a teenager. No matter what adults said, no matter what I knew intellectually then, and now, the speed of the days going by is an emotional whirl that produces a tad of fright about how much time I have wasted, and an anxiety about the fact I probably will waste a significant bit of what is left, despite my best efforts. On the other hand, I am not sure sitting on my couch in my comfortable little rooms, surrounded by my pets is an entire waste of time. It could be considered meditative, and meditation, secularly or in religious circles is a sought after "activity" of inactivity.

I have, I admit, found myself looking at the statistics of what time I have left. My mother died at 48; my father at 90. Women, as a general matter, have a life span of 78, although I know of a lot of women in their mid-to-late eighties and at least one 90.  If I am gifted with the maximum (in which case I might well be writing the third of these entries, "Being 90:  a Preface"--now there's a thought). More, or less, of a future, my comment about becoming thirty--the need to resolve things--is more urgent than it was. And I was right then that the things to resolve are not the same now as they were then.

Certain ships have sailed in an earthly sense of achievement--children did not happen and the reasons wherefore were a combination of nature, nurture, and self-fulfilling prophecy. Fortunately, though, I have had others' children in my life and that has been an enormous compensation. Where I had a career before me in my 1984-ish writing--I had been licensed and my name appeared on a door-- that career, as an attorney was had and I have set it aside with a bit of an unceremonious push by political demi-gods. Sometimes I wonder whether they see that they face the same existential realities as the rest of us. What was it that Rose (Cher) said to Cosmo Castorini (Danny Aiello) in "Moonstruck"?  "I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're going to die, just like everybody else."

It was time, though, for me to leave the arena of law when I did, and I have been happier. Has "retirement" been a panacea?  No. Naturally, and I knew it would be so, there are other challenges. One is never free to do exactly what one wants. From a Christian point of view, and that is the point of view I practice (emphasis on the "practice" part) one is supposed to let go of the I in favor of the other, and the Other, He who relentlessly invites us to follow the path of His act of love. I keep digressing. Well, maybe it isn't a digression. It is the point.

I am thinking, yes, yes, I am, seems silly to say it, but it is true, eschatologically. In terms of final, ultimate things. What is the person I have become, and if given the chance, will become?  And whoever I become it will be without the same supports I had during the previous thirty years. My dad has been gone nearly six years. Several good friends have passed on, some at a good age, and others much too young, not given the years I already have been.

I know this. Although the core of who I am seems to have remained with me, some of the concerns surrounding the core have changed radically. The things that obsessed me when I was younger, things that pained me in ways I thought were irrevocable, no longer do. I wonder now why I gave them so much importance. Some large piece of me got left behind.  I shed unnecessary or burdensome, outer layers.

On the other hand, some old bête noirs still follow me around--I have come to understand that I have to befriend them. Or at least tolerate them without whining.  Or tolerate them, with just a little whining! 

My faith. My faith. I am no holy roller, but I do believe, in my deepest self, that there indeed is the pearl of great price, just like it says in the Good Book. I won't stand on the pulpit right now. Too much.  But when I sit before the Blessed Sacrament, I have flashes of certainty about Him, really, truly, present as if He were sitting next to me saying, "Don't be afraid".

I have come to believe that if I am given and accept the Spirit and I lose the fear, that not only will I find what I am supposed to be doing in the last (I hope) third of my life, but I will also be at peace for the rest of my days.

                                                                           

Tim's Vermeer, and the Original Vermeer, Tantalize-- and Inspire

 

The Music Lesson, a copy of the original, I think. Not Tim's, I think?!

The Variety Review of "Tim's Vermeer" in which a tech genius tries to prove, by painting Johannes Vermeer's "The Music Lesson", that the great artist used optics that can be replicated by well, anyone, considers the documentary "incendiary" and as I read it, rather arrogant. 

Tim Jenison really isn't anyone in that he has the money to experiment with lenses and a whole set from which to copy the context of the painting, the piano, the windows, the chairs, the girl, the man watching her play, the tapestry, and of course, the precise lighting. I sure don't.

But I found myself riveted. First, by the fact that the Jenison spent six years on demonstrating a theory that has somewhat floated around for some time, it appears. And by the process of reconstruction and painting. It didn't make me think for one minute that Vermeer was less than brilliant. It somehow made him more brilliant, IF indeed the theory that Jenison proposes is true, and even, or especially if it's not.

And then there is the ineffable. I disagree with Variety in that I don't think Jenison was trying to prove he could do as good a job as Vermeer, assuming that the optics was the foundation of Vermeer's difference from other artists of his day, the particulars of the color and light. The movie did not attempt to compare the original with this copy. And when David Hockney, an artist of great modern repute looked at the copy, he did not say, "By Jove," Hockney is English, "Jenison this is as great as the work of the master himself!"  He simply acknowledged that the nature of the detail, for example, in the tapestry, was such using the optics that it could very well be this was the way Vermeer LOOKED at what he painted, through mirror image. Looking fleetingly at the original prints via the movie and separately at the Jenison version, I had the feeling that Jenison's leaned toward the mechanical of Vermeer's process, not the artistic.

The inspiring part?  It made me feel I should not give up on my little efforts at painting, either in some form of impressionism (which in my case means I am being lazy so I don't do too much detail) or something more real life expression. 

I felt as I watched a little of what I feel when I paint. There is this blank canvas. You begin to put color to it. And something is literally created out of nothing and becomes present.

I walked back home from the Sundance West Hollywood Theatre, past several restaurants running the Oscars over early meals, and came back home to join that audience. Maybe this week I will finish a painting of old Elwood that has been sitting on my music stand for nearly a year.