10 Things I Learned From Watching Me And Orson Welles

1. Orson Welles deserved every horrible thing that ever happened to him. God, what a lousy human being.

I'm looking at you, Wellesy.

2. Lousy human beings make the best actors. God, what a great actor.

And the guy playing him is no slouch either.

3. Clare Danes has the best agent ever. I mean really; I don't get it. She mugs. She mugs ALL THE TIME. And she always gets work. Plus she always gets work as the woman into whose pants everybody tries to get. Like everybody in this movie. And Steve Martin in Shopgirl, which was just creepy. What is it about this woman that people think is irresistible? Hmmm. Maybe I should call Billy Crudup.

You think you're so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o attractive.

4. There were no gay actors in the Mercury Theatre. None. Nada. Zip. Every one of them was a skirt-hound. How do I know this? Because in the entire course of the movie, not one guy makes a pass at Zac Efron. I mean, really -- the guy is gorgeous -- if he walked through a cemetery, he'd get come-hither looks from dead people. The only way a male who looks like this can spend a week with a bunch of New York actors and get nothing? Every single guy in the company would have to be straighter than a yardstick.

Uh-oh. We all know what a handshake means in a movie about actors. It means:

5. All actors are manipulators, cowards and liars.

Guess what the BS stands for.

6. The unattainable woman always screws the coming-of-age guy.

I'm going to screw you; you know that, right?

7. The unattainable woman always screws the coming-of-age guy.

You're going to get screwed; you know that, right?

8. Broken hearted and disillusioned is better than rich and famous. Sour grapes, anyone? Just once I'd like to see a Hollywood movie about acting that has somebody say what everyone in Hollywood believes: rich and famous is everything -- and if you can't make the grade, you're worthless. But no. All we'll ever get is the comforting lie that normal people live lives that are so rich and fulfilled that everyone in Hollywood envies them. Two words: My. Ass.

Let's share a fameless disillusioned life together.

9. The Mercury Theatre production of Julius Caesar did not have a curtain call.

This scene does not occur in the movie.

10. Coming-of-age stories only work when you care about the kid who's coming of age. So on that level, this movie didn't work for me. It's a lot like Jude Law's Hamlet -- as long as Christian McKay's Orson Welles is around, it's riveting. But when he's not there, you wind up doing what the actors in Julius Caesar do. You wind up waiting for Orson.

11. The New Yorker only publishes stories in which nothing happens. Oh wait -- I knew that already.

Hawk and Dove at the Living Room, 11/23/09

Gunpowder Heart:




Song for Leonard Cohen:

Awesome. Which should probably be spelled "Awesoume."

From Harry Knowles' Twitter feed, via Chud: faux Jack Kirby comic book covers for the 1970's adaptation of Inglourious Basterds:

"The best bones of all . . . "

. . . and if you're of a certain age, you know exactly how that phrase ends. All together now: " . . . go to Symphony Hall." Followed by insane laughter. It's probably the only thing thing you remember from the source cartoon, except maybe the image of a dinosaur skeleton. Which are the only two things I remembered, until I watched a recently-released 3-DVD set of random Sherlock Holmes movies and discovered that the source cartoon was part of the package. Turns out it's a 1944 Columbia Sherlock Holmes parody entitled "The Case of the Screaming Bishop." What occurs in this seven minutes is about two miles beyond Tex Avery Crazy when it comes to making any sense whatsoever, so it's no wonder I don't remember the whole thing -- my 6-year-old brain probably short-circuited while trying to make sense of it.

THE REAL WORLD: Well THAT answers a lot of questions.
ME: You're just jealous.

For those of you with long memories, and for the rest of you who might want to get a taste of the surreal crap that warped the minds of my generation on Saturday mornings, here it is in all its WTF weirdness:

Guide to Guys: Suckers Suckers Everywhere (and none of them want to drink)

As Twilight fever once again infects the Vaginal Hive Mind with the unreal idea that the perfect boyfriend is an undead bloodsucker who believes in bibisanguinary abstinence, I have to ask: what is it with women and vampires?

ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Isn’t it obvious? It’s about comfort. It’s about danger.
ME: Danger?!? They’re not even real vampires!
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: That’s the comfort part.
ME: AAAUUGH!! Vampires are not comforting! Vampires are soulless devourers of innocence who exist to feed on the living or turn the living into one of them. These perfect-boyfriend life-challenged brooding emo unsuckers you love so much are like walking chastity testimonials -- they never try to bite you, they feed on blood substitutes, and even though they've been around for over a hundred years, they still only manage to have the IQ of a middle-school slacker.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Hey -- we like 'em dead and stupid.
ME: Well obviously. These guys are vampires the way tofu cooked to taste like chicken is real chicken. Or computer game football players are real football players. They’re Playstation vampires!
WISEASS MATTHEW: So does that mean the women who love them are all X-Boxes?
ME: Get back in your hole.

If they were real vampires? She'd be dinner -- not a dinner date.

ME: So let me get this straight. Brooding emo unsuckers are terminally pretty, terminally 19, and terminally tortured about sex sucking blood.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: And that’s why we love them.
ME: Really?
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Look. Are you agelessly pretty?
ME: I used to be.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: But you got old. Who wants old? Strike one. Are you always going to be 19?
ME: In my own head? Sure.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: But not in real life. Strike two. And what are you tortured about?
ME: Working a day job when I should be writing more.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: How romantic. Let us put it this way. Do you ever think twice when you’re sexually attracted to someone?
ME: Are you kidding? I’m a guy -- I don’t even think once.
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Strike three, pal.
ME: So, what –- looks, youth and unsex? Is that what women really want from a guy?
ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Quiet; we’re watching the movie.

ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE: Oooo! New unblood!

Go ahead; you watch. Meanwhile I'll start making a list of what's really going on with y'all by employing false logic, invalid comparisons, and gross generalities. First up:

Not just bloodless, but lifeless. It's not just women and vampires; it's lively women and lifeless men, and it's been going on since Charlotte Bronte hit puberty. And you have to ask: do these spiritual zombies display recognizable signs of life while they’re single and on the prowl the way peacocks display their plumage during mating season? Or is it the old opposites-attract you-complete-me light-shines-best-when-it’s-next-to-total-darkness dynamic that, back when it was Manichean theology, got you a one-way trip to the stake courtesy of the Spanish Inquisition? Nowadays you’re lucky to get a free steak dinner from these brooding black holes. Because that’s what they are, and that’s what they always have been, ever since the perfect example of this species of male made his first appearance in a famous Gothic romance, a sullen, moody male who embodied the two primal female responses to his character in the words of his name –- anyone who loves him will either get lost on the Heath or jump over a Cliff.

Separated at unbirth.

In this view of the Perfect Man, Dracula's not evil; he's the guy who wrote suicidal poetry in high school -- the guy who composed suicidal love songs in college -- the guy who can wilt lettuce, bruise peaches, and suck the air conditioning out of a supermarket produce section just by walking past it on his way to the coffee aisle. And meanwhile every female within twenty feet of him suddenly gets the urge to take home a can of Maxwell House. Why? Because to the female mind, you can only be depressed because you’re grappling with deep emotional and spiritual issues -- you can only brood when you’re contemplating the meaning of existence -- you can only be dark and uncommunicative because what you feel is too big to put into words. To the female mind, if a guy is moody and depressing, then he's grappling with something deep and eternal, like whether or not to slake his thirst for blood by biting your neck. To the male mind? Moody and depressing is just how you are until you slake your thirst for caffeine by drinking that second cup of coffee. Which brings us to:

The shallowness of unsuspected depth. There is something about guys with unsuspected depth which causes even the smartest, least susceptible female heart to flutter like Scarlett O’Hara’s hand fan. Just like men fall head over heels for women they meet in laundromats, women fall like a ton of bricks through greased air for guys who read deep. Mind you, guys with actual depth? Forget it. Imaginary depth beats actual depth every time, because imaginary depth is all about potential, and potential is sexy. Actuality is not sexy. Actuality is like a spreadsheet. Which is why men with actual depth usually wind up with women who can’t fill out the job line on their income tax return without asking if lap dancer is one word or two.

GUY WITH ACTUAL DEPTH: How about sticking a hyphen between them?
GIRLFRIEND: Hey --nobody does anything to my hyphen until I see an extra hundred bucks.

It never fails. Put a man with a company credit card in a line-up with three tattooed ex-cons who can’t hold a job for more than five minutes, and the average female will sit there asking herself, “Tough choice. Do I want Sing Sing or Alcatraz?” Because it’s not just about deep or shallow or imaginary or real. It’s about heart. Heart with an extra T.

It’s about threat. All women are secret lion tamers. There is no stopping the female urge to stick her head into the jaws of a man-eating beast, and when bystanders cry out “No! Don’t do it! He’ll kill you!” smile and say, “Oh no. He does that to everyone else, but not to me. Because he cares.” This is why cheerleaders hang on the words of bikers, prison psychologists run off with mass murderers, and Wendy Hillers wind up on the arms of Bugsy Siegels. (True story.) Personally, I don’t see the thrill of falling in love with someone who, if he treated you like everyone else in his life, would probably beat the crap out of you with the butt of a Smith and Wesson, or drain the blood out of your body like someone who’s just been given a slurpy after spending three weeks in the desert.

And he'll also try to rape you. But you'll forgive him.

Because he has a SO-O-O-O-O-O-OUL!!!

Mind you, I totally get the underlying truth of the words “He’s different with me.” What I don’t get is that “different” means “real and true,” as opposed to “not normal.” Just the use of the word different implies that it’s the exception, not the rule. And to try to make it the rule? Well, we all know what that’s about, don’t we?

"I can be the one to change him." Three words: No. You. Can’t. You can’t change “different” into “normal.” You can’t domesticate wild animals without neutering them or draining away the wildness that attracted you to them in the first place. Or making them so crazy they’ll bite your head off. And you can’t turn a wading pool into an ocean, no matter how much water you pour into it. None of which advice will ever stop a woman from looking at a sullen loner smoking a Camel and thinking to herself, “I wonder what he’ll look like pushing a baby stroller.”

Bottom line: all changes in male behavior are possible, which is why they are all doomed to failure. Only the impossible never fails. Only the impossible gives a woman the satisfaction of knowing that success is just one right word away, one right move away, one perfect night away. Only the impossible -- like bringing the dead back to life -- like making a lifeless heart beat for you and you alone. Which is why all women are suckers for vampires. Because it’s impossible to change them, even if they want to change, without either killing them or making them mortal. They’re always out of reach. They’re always not quite there. They’ll always give you almost what you want. And there is nothing more seductive than that.

Except maybe chocolate.

That's Je$u$, okay?

GUINNESS: So where the hell have you been for the last three weeks?
MATTHEW: Doing God’s work at my day job.
BRANDI: Your day job is religious?
GUINNESS: Your day job is Goldman Sachs?
MATTHEW: Not Goldman, the other one.
BRANDI: Silverman?
GUINNESS: Jesus, honey, don’t you know anything about the real world?
MATTHEW: The financial industry is the real world?
GUINNESS: Good point.
BRANDI: I despise the financial industry. It’s all about money.
GUINNESS: Well yeah, isn’t that the definition of a financial industry?
BRANDI: And it promotes inequality.
GUINNESS: The real world doesn’t promote inequality?
MATTHEW: “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”
BRANDI: Who said that?
MATTHEW: Some old rich British git who says that Jesus Christ was a capitalist.
BRANDI: Does he work for Goldman Sachs?
GUINNESS: Rhetorical question alert.
BRANDI: You have to tolerate inequality? Jesus would spit on him.
GUINNESS: Jesus would vomit on him.
MATTHEW: Sadly? No. Jesus would forgive him.
BRANDI: Not the Christ who comes with a sword.
GUINNESS: How about the Christ who comes with a stock market quote?
MATTHEW: The Goldman Sachs Christ: “Suffer, ye little children.”
GUINNESS: The Bank of America Christ: “If God didn’t want you to have a credit card, he’d have given you a higher-paying job.”
BRANDI: The Citicorp Christ: “I’m sorry, I’ve run out of money; can I have another 50 billion? I’m too divine to fail.”
GUINNESS: I think it’s immoral to make a profit when there are starving people in the world.
BRANDI: How is it immoral to make a profit?
GUINNESS: How is it moral to ignore suffering and poverty?
BRANDI: And there are always starving people in the world. The poor are always with us. Jesus said that.
GUINNESS: And it was an observation, not an edict.
BRANDI: I just can’t see Jesus in a three-piece suit working the phone to get investors to buy into the latest Vatican Industries IPO.
GUINNESS: Oh I can. He’d have to shave the beard, though.
BRANDI: But it’s against everything Jesus stands for!
GUINNESS: Not the way the financial Christians think.
MATTHEW: I’m reminded of a poem.
BRANDI: Is it an obscure poem?
GUINNESS: Rhetorical question alert.
MATTHEW: It’s by Ambrose Bierce; it's called Arma Virumque.
BRANDI: Arma what now?
MATTHEW: Arma Virumque. The first two words of the Aeneid. It means “arms and the man.”
BRANDI: Oh! The Shaw play!
MATTHEW: Yuh. The Shaw play. The poem goes like this:

"Ours is a Christian army;” so he said
A regiment of bangomen who led.
"And ours a Christian navy," added he
Who sailed a thunder-junk upon the sea.
Better they know than men unwarlike do
What is an army, and a navy too.
Pray God there may be sent them by-and-by
The knowledge what a Christian is, and why.
For somewhat lamely the conception runs
Of a brass-buttoned Jesus firing guns.

MATTHEW: And even more lamely runs the conception of Jesus Christ, Head of Global Equity.
GUINNESS: Actually he’d probably be in Compliance.
MATTHEW: Heh.
BRANDI: So what did this old rich British git say exactly?
MATTHEW: You mean besides the inequality quote? “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest.”
BRANDI: That’s not technically saying Jesus was a capitalist.
MATTHEW: No, it’s technically saying that Jesus was out for himself.
BRANDI: I’d say that’s true of some of his current earthly representatives, but not the man himself.
GUINNESS: Organized religion. It’s the worst thing that ever happened to faith.
BRANDI: So in other words, what the British git was saying is, God favors those who love themselves before others.
GUINNESS: The real golden rule.
BRANDI: I thought the real golden rule was, “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
MATTHEW: That’s the old version. The new one saysm “Whoever has a connection to Goldman Sachs makes the rules.”
BRANDI: So how does this guy explain Jesus throwing the money-lenders out of the Temple?
MATTHEW: It’s a perfect example of the robust nature of competitive advantage.
GUINNESS: Buzz word alert.
MATTHEW: He was exemplifying the virtues of market capitalism.
GUINNESS: Jesus, it’s like a Monty Python skit.
BRANDI: It is, isn’t it?

THE MONTY PYTHON SKIT

INTERVIEWER: And now, Lord Specious Petty, who says that Jesus was a capitalist.
LORD PETTY: Jesus was the quintessential capitalist.
INTERVIEWER: So what about the moneylenders?
LORD PETTY: People say, what about the moneylenders? If he was such a capitalist, why did he throw the moneylenders out of the Temple? As if it’s a crime to lend money at exorbitant rates of interest. At no point in the Bible does Jesus say that it’s a crime to lend money at exorbitant rates of interest.
INTERVIEWER: But he still threw the moneylenders out.
LORD PETTY: Well of course. But he didn’t say, “All right, you lot. Don’t lend money at exorbitant rates of interest.” He just said, “Don’t do it here.”
INTERVIEWER: Is that actually in the Bible?
LORD PETTY: It’s a valid interpretation of the received text.
INTERVIEWER: But is it in the actual Bible.
LORD PETTY: [Brief pause; a deliberate lie:] Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Where?
LORD PETTY: [An even bigger lie:] It’s in the Wall Street edition.
INTERVIEWER: The Wall Street edition.
LORD PETTY: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Is that the one where Jesus blasts the fig tree because it doesn’t give good shareholder value?
LORD PETTY: And what’s wrong with shareholder value?
INTERVIEWER: The one that says, “Thou shalt not commit insider trading unless thou canst do it without getting caught?”
LORD PETTY: Perfectly sound advice from a compliance point of view.
INTERVIEWER: The one that says, “Thou shalt not have any investment banks before me?”
LORD PETTY: Brand loyalty. The heart of competition.
INTERVIEWER: How can you actually sit here and say that Jesus was spouting financial advice instead of delivering moral instruction by word and example?
LORD PETTY: Of course he was talking about money! Look at who his audience was! They were all Jews!

[INTERVIEWER SHOOTS LORD PETTY.]

[CUT TO A CONFESSIONAL.]

INTERVIEWER: Bless me father for I have sinned. I killed a man today.
PRIEST: [A paroxysm of outrage] The mortal sin of murder! The mark of Cain is on you! Your hands are steeped in blood and gore for killing a fellow human being! Your soul is doomed to persition's flames for taking God's gift of life and stamping on it with your filthy workboots! Homicide is unforgivable! Unforgivable, I say!
INTERVIEWER: He was a heathen.
PRIEST: [Mildly:] Two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.

MATTHEW: Ah, Money Python. I miss Monty Python.
BRANDI: You really are more a mimic than a maker, aren’t you.
MATTHEW: Are you saying I don’t have a voice of my own?
BRANDI: Have any two of your plays been written in the same voice?
GUINNESS: Rhetorical question alert.
MATTHEW: Just because I echo, that doesn’t mean I don’t have something new to say. Look at Jesus.
GUINNESS: Oh great –- another writer with a Christ complex.
MATTHEW: Jesus echoed the Old Testament. All the time. But with a spin that was all his own.
BRANDI: Jesus spun the Old Testament?
MATTHEW: Sure. He said it was about love when it was really all about revenge.
BRANDI: Is that your definition of Christianity? Love?
MATTHEW: My definition of Christianity is the same as Christ’s.
GUINNESS: Yeah; right.
BRANDI: And who doesn’t say that, huh?
GUINNESS: Everybody has a direct pipeline to God.
BRANDI: Jesus talks to them personally.
GUINNESS: “This is what Jesus meant.”
BRANDI: “This is what Jesus wants.”
GUINNESS: Cripes, I don’t even have family members who talk to me personally.
BRANDI: So what do you think Jesus’ definition of Christianity is?
MATTHEW: All are welcome at the same table. The poor, the pure, the rich, the corrupt, the believer, the non-believer. All are welcome. Because it’s all of us or none. That is the essence of Christianity. Inclusion and forgiveness.
GUINNESS: Which is not what a lot of Christians say.
MATTHEW: But it’s what Jesus said.
BRANDI: Really? Where?
MATTHEW: [Rhetorical question alert:] In the Book of Matthew.

It's His cross to bear.

Significant Objects

Last week, I entered this contest on Slate. The contest was to write a 500-word-or-less description of a random object, imparting some kind of significance to it, after which the object, with description appended, would be posted for bidding on E-Bay. Which is all part of a fascinating project/website called Significant Objects . . . and how they got that way.

This was the object:


This was my entry as submitted:

From The Naughty Pine: A History By Tabletops:

Booth 106 was the regular table of Evelyn Nesbit -- it's where she was introduced to Charles Dana Gibson, who used her as the model for his famous Gibson Girl drawings; it's where she met the young John Barrymore, who became her lover and got her pregnant twice (once in the booth itself and once in his apartment); it's where she was introduced to architect Stanford White by fellow Floradora Girl Edna Goodrich; and it's where she met her future husband Harry Thaw, who murdered White at Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906.

Originally surrounded by red velvet drapes, the booth is now open and unlit. On the wall is a photo of Nesbit from her Gibson Girl days and beneath it, on a small shelf, is a little jar labeled “BAR-B-Q Sauce.” The jar was originally purchased by Nesbit as a gift for White -- whenever White would meet her for dinner, he would order ribs, and she paid the waiters to always keep the small jar full of sauce at the table for White’s special use. Very special, according to suppressed trial testimony after his murder -- allegedly, the ribs weren’t the only thing White covered in barbecue sauce behind those drapes.

After White’s death, Booth 106 was roped off as a sign of mourning, a RESERVED sign was placed on the table, and per Evelyn Nesbit’s wishes, once a week the bartender would refill the BAR-B-Q jar, as if in preparation for White’s eventual return. The table went empty for almost two years (not even Nesbit sat at it), until the afternoon of January 5, 1908, when Harry Thaw sailed into the Naughty Pine, plunked himself down at Booth 106, ripped up the RESERVED sign, tore down the red velvet curtains, draped them around his body like a winding sheet, and demanded a shave. When told that he was in a bar and not a barber shop, Thaw cried, “Then I’ll do it myself,” whereupon he pulled out a straight razor, stropped it on his leather belt, and taking the BAR-B-Q jar, proceeded to slop sauce all over his face as if it were shaving cream. Then, pretending to stare into a mirror, he gave himself a blood-soaked shave while humming “I Could Love A Million Girls,” the song that had been playing when he shot White in the face.

“You must be a lunatic,” said one of the waiters. Thaw just smiled at him. His first trial for the murder of Stanford White had ended in a deadlocked jury; but the next day, when his second trial began, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.


And this was the e-mail I received yesterday at 2:48 PM:

Matthew,

Congratulations! A panel of judges at Slate.com and Significant Objects has awarded you FIRST PRIZE in our SO/Slate fiction contest. You beat out over 600 other entrants for this honor. Soon, thousands of Slate and Significant Objects readers will be thrilled and chilled by your vision of Harry Thaw's blood-soaked shaving spree, not to mention Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit slathered in BBQ sauce.

The plan is to announce the winner (i.e., you) tomorrow (Tuesday) on both websites. The story will appear on both sites simultaneously, and the auction will go live at that time, too. Please keep news of your win under wraps until then. However, once we've posted the story and started the auction, please do spread the word via Twitter, Facebook, email, etc. -- all proceeds from the auction go to you.

Thanks so much for entering the contest!

Josh Glenn (director, with Rob Walker, of the Significant Objects project

As you can imagine, I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to think of synonyms for, "I am thrilled to death."

Thie afternoon, the contest results were posted on the Slate website and the Significant Objects website, where the jar above is up for auction. Given that I've already received several e-mails inquiring about the precise location of The Naughty Pine, I must confess that, sadly (outside of my own imagination), it only exists here, here, here, and here.

Funeral Blues 3: Memorable Quotes

“I can’t believe he didn’t get here on time.” This is my father bitching about my brother David during the wake, like it’s David’s fault he’s in Las Vegas for a business meeting (cough) golf (cough) and has to fly back on Thursday morning to make the 4 PM start time. Which was never going to happen because his flight is due to get in at 4, which means he’ll be here around 5 at the earliest. This is like a mortal sin to Dad, to whom appearances are everything at times like this. You have to be seen by the right people doing the right things in the proper way at the correct time, so that everyone will know you are right, proper, and correct. Women have to wear closed-toed shoes and dark nylons. No laughter or loud conversation. Little boys should be quiet and not run around. I can just imagine my Dad looking at Joshua and Connor as they climb all over my nephew Dennis (are they seven and eight or six and seven?) and yelling “Roll over and face the wall!!!!” I have a lot of theories about why my father is like this, but I’ve stopped being surprised or angry about it. Whatever the reason, it’s how he’s wired to light up when somebody flicks the light switch of Ritual. And if that ritual hits too close to home, or threatens his defenses, he not only puts on the armor of propriety, he judges everybody around him by whether or not they’re safely hiding behind the same spotless shell (cough) whitened sepulcher (cough). If any man meets Life’s vicissitudes by obeying James Branch Cabell’s 11th Commandment (“Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy neighbors.”) it’s my father. And I mean really. Consider the mental gyrations you have to go through to not only blame a passenger on a plane from Las Vegas for the fact that the plane is late, but to accuse him of doing it deliberately. If it wasn’t so absurd, it would be admirable. Makes you wonder what my father did for a living (cough) professor of medieval theology (cough).

“Still whistling?” So there’s this woman sitting next to my Aunt Charlotte, and after a while my brother David goes up to her and gives her a hug, and then says, “Matthew – get over here. Guess who this is.” The woman stands up; I stand in front of her with absolutely no idea of who she is, and because I have a lot of my father in me, I grin and give her a hug and say, “Oh my God! How are you?!?” She looks at me and says, “You have no idea who I am, do you?” “I don’t have a clue,” I say. “I’m Lorraine Grace,” she says, and the expression on my face is probably priceless because David is laughing and even Charlotte is smiling. I figure my face is a cross between NFW and HFS, because Lorraine was THE hot neighborhood looker. Gore juss. Insert favorite synonym for “knockout” here. “The most beautiful girl you’ll ever see,” as Sheila Tagrin used to say, “until she opens her mouth.” At which awkward point you had to somehow reconcile the unlikely marriage of Hollywood looks with a trailer trash vocabulary.

All this goes through my head with the speed of a neutrino. Along with the fact that Lorraine is a year younger than me and I cannot for the life of me see even a trace of her youthful beauty in her current face, not a molecule calls out to me, it’s like looking at two different fingerprint whorls and being told they’re from the same person's thumb. And in less time than it takes to tell, I think five things and say one thing out loud: (1) This woman has not aged gracefully (pun intended); (2) I am an evil person for even putting that thought into words; (3) I have to be polite here, which means I have to lie; (4) “You look great!” I tell her; (5) You are so totally your father’s son, you little hypocrite; and (6) Is this what everyone else is thinking when they say I look great? By the gleam in her eye, Lorraine is thinking of something from long ago. And her reply proves it. “Still whistling?” she says, and everyone within earshot crack s up. Because if you know me at all, you know that’s what I do, and have always done, ever since I was a little kid. I whistle. All the time. As Lorraine says, “You always knew when Matthew was around.” Hell, Lorraine: you still do. Ask anybody I know.

Sidebar: when I say Lorraine was THE neighborhood looker? If you’re younger than 40, you have no idea what I’m talking about, because you grew up in an age where hot women were everywhere: on magazine covers, on billboards, on television, on the internet. Not me. I grew up in an age where the standard of physical beauty had not yet been devalued, like the gold standard, into something debased and common. I grew up in an age where you always judged beauty based on the looks of people you knew in person. And because it was personal, the beauty standard was at one and the same time, more devastating and more accessible. Neighborhood girls competed with each other, not with America’s Top Airbrushed Models. And it wasn’t just a Looks Alone Pageant -- personality was always part of the equation, because (of course) you knew all the contestants personally. Hell, you played Spin The Bottle with them when you were 11. So the queen at the top of the pyramid was not some unreachable ideal, she was the kid in the maroon house with the tree fort behind it. And since everyone else in competition with her was always somebody you knew as well, (a) every level of the pyramid was within your grasp and (b) every girl was a branch of royalty, there wasn’t a one who wasn’t a princess in her own right, or who didn’t create a standard of her own. I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up with a standard of beauty based on magazine covers, or the internet. There’s no way real women can compete with that; and boys being boys, there’s no way they’ll appreciate what they have within their grasp when the standard they’ve been fed is something so facially and physically perfect as to be unnatural. My generation? It sees the girl on the magazine cover for the unnatural thing it is, because we were lucky enough to idolize the girl next door.


“Are all wakes this noisy?” My cousin Joseph's wife Holly turned to me about halfway through the wake and asked me this question. It took me a second to hear what she was saying, because everyone in the room was either talking or laughing. "Our wakes are," I replied. I don't know whether it's the Irish in us or the Italian; or for that matter the Wells or the Coughlan. But when we get together, no matter why, we all have a great time. As Lisa Foley said to me at the graveside service, "The Wellses and the Coughlans. Always thick as thieves."

“Why am I singing 'I Could Have Danced All Night'?” My sister said this when we got home from the wake and repeated it the day of the funeral. I had no answer for her at the time; but now, on reflection, the answer's obvious, at least to me. She was channeling one of the earliest memories I have of Uncle Jack, a memory of his house in Quincy, where he and his family used to live before they moved across the street from us in Randolph. There was a record player in the living room, and a pile of albums next to it, and on top of the pile was the Original Broadway Cast recording of My Fair Lady, with the classic Hirschfeld drawing on the cover:



What was I -- 4? 5? Five tops. I had no idea who George Bernard Shaw was, or what Pygmalion was. All I saw was a wide-eyed girl being used as a puppet by a well-dressed man, and then up in the clouds there was another guy with a beard who was pulling his strings. I didn't have to ask my uncle who that was. It was obvious. The guy in the clouds was God. Who else pulls everyone's strings?

So, thanks to my uncle’s taste in cast recordings, that was my first image of the creator and ruler of the universe. To this day, when I think of God, I picture an old Irish guy with puppet strings hanging down from a cloud. It’s also the second thing I think of when I remember Uncle Jack.

"Go play in traffic." This is the first thing I remember when I think of Uncle Jack. He said it to all of us. And he’s saying it to my mother Lenore right now, over Manhattans.

Funeral Blues 2: The Dream of No Talent

10/23/09. Last night’s dream: I’m watching three female friends rehearse their monologues. One of them is wearing a pale flowered sun dress and looks a little like Rebeca from Maxie’s, who just did a show where she delivered a monologue. This time, with her two friends watching, A Little Like Rebeca recites WH Auden’s "Refugee Blues":

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

As she delivers the stanzas, I repeat the closing lines: "Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us." "We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now." "Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that." Every time I do, A Little Like Rebeca glares at me like I’m deliberately doing something to ruin her performance. Which of course I am, but I am totally oblivious, because this is what I do when I act: I listen to other people deliver a line, and only then can I hear the correct way to deliver it in my head. I need somebody else to create something out of nothing, and then what I do is create something of my own based on that. But it’s never original; it’s always a response to what somebody else is doing.

Finally, poem done, A Little Like Rebeca looks at me with a WTF Dude expression on her face and says “That is the rudest thing I have ever seen.” “Oh no, oh no,” I say, totally embarrassed, “it’s how I act, it what I do as an actor,” and when I start to explain, she holds up a hand and says, “No wonder you’re so lousy at it.”

Notes and interpretations:

(1) I’m still smarting about my acting performance at the birthday reading of Countrie Matters.

(2) Years ago I wrote a story about a serial killer who’s an actor. He’s one of the best understudies of his generation, but he’s lousy when he gets to create a role. His best performances are always when he steps in after another actor dies or drops out of a play. This was my creative response to one of the unwritten laws of theatre: you always get more out of a bad performance than a good one. A bad acting performance makes you replay the show you’re watching with line readings that work, line readings you would never have imagined if you weren’t forced to say to yourself, “Oh God, not that way, don’t say it that way --say it this way.” It’s always easier to edit than create. Which is why I named my actor/murderer Ed. Anyway -- in the course of the story, you find out that the only reason Ed is so good is because he deliberately casts bad actors in the roles he wants to play, and after watching them in rehearsal and seeing how not to do the role, he murders them and steps in on opening night and becomes a sensation. So this dream is me playing Ed.

(3) Acting is a metaphor for living. I don’t live my own life; I see how other people are living theirs and either try to copy them or do better. Either way, I can only live by bouncing my life off theirs, like a game of handball. And, to quote A Little Like Rebeca, “No wonder you’re so lousy at it.”

Funeral Blues 1: The Doggerel In The Yard

The Doggerel In The Yard

A poem based on an opening stanza by William Ernest Henley

Madam Life’s a piece in bloom,
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She’s the tenant of the room,
He’s the ruffian on the stair.

Me, I’m just the guy in black
Training up to Boston, Mass.
Ruffian took my Uncle Jack:
Time to kick his thieving ass.

Cousin Brian kicks him first.
When his Dad’s in coma slipping,
He says: “No more getting nursed.
To my place this guy we’re shipping.

“When the second word is Home
And the first is The or Nursing,
Life is like a catacomb:
Death is what each life’s rehearsing.

“If I let my Dad stay there?
Call me ingrate, bastard, louse.
I’m his son. Because I care,
I want him back at my house.”

So he takes my fading uncle
In a special ambulance.
It’s amazing what pure spunk’ll
Do to make stiff nurses dance.

On the drive, my cousin Bri
Props Jack up while car’s in motion --
Lets him see the cloud-flecked sky,
Trees and houses, breach and ocean.

Sets him up in house to lie
Where his sons and children (grand)
Can his passing dignify
With a touch of lip or hand.

Daddy says “Your grandpa’s dying.”
Grandson Connor, face adoring,
Stands and stares – no tears, no sighing –
Shrugs and mutters, “Kinda boring.”

Charlotte sits and (swear to God)
Says, “Okay, our marriage sucked.
But the three boys that we raised?
Gotta tell you – out we lucked.”

Brian’s wife says thanks for Brian.
Joseph’s girls lean down and kiss.
Kelley? Kendall? Can’t stop cryin’.
So it goes at times like this:

Straight-laced aunts of morals strict
Curse like losers at roulette;
Uncles old who cancer licked
Ask you for a cigarette;

Strong hearts crack and spill like eggs;
Weak hearts rise up straight and tall;
Slow and frail will find their legs;
Marathoners fade or fall.

Those who never let you in?
Suddenly it’s Open House.
Those so sweet it’s saccharine?
Everything’s complain and grouse.

No one can predict or know
What the grief of death will do:
Suck you down like undertow
Or write out an IOU.

Either way its day will come --
May take seconds, may take years --
Steady, shattered, weepy, numb:
All will end in healthy tears.

Never think you’re hard and cold
If you see it’s calm you’re keeping,
Or believe you’re uncontrolled
When it’s buckets that you’re weeping.

Each of us greets death alone
And alone we feel its weight,
Heavy like a crown or throne
That we cannot abdicate.

Rule we must so rule we do:
So it goes while we’re alive --
Death will always try a coup;
We’ll defeat it and survive

Till we don’t. So goes the story.
It’s the same in field or town:
Funeral home or crematory --
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Do we rise up, having fallen?
Does God say to Death, “Touchè?”
Do our souls sprout up like pollen
En jardin d’éternité?

Madam Life may know the answer
But her flirting drives you nuts:
Woos you like a taxi dancer;
Leaves you walking home with Buts.

Ruffian Death says “She’s a teaser.
I’m the only end you get.”
But he’s just a Little Caesar
Who gets off on pain and threat.

So we stand, constrained between
One and the other on the stair,
While behind them, barely seen,
Shadows flicker everywhere.

Are they pardoned or convicted?
Do they beckon? Do they sneer?
Won’t know till we get evicted
And perceive the building clear.