"And now for something completely different." -Monty Python's Flying Circus

*deepbreath*
fuckreligionfuckparenthoodfuckgoatcheesefuckLAfucktrendoidsfuckM&Ms
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fuckearthquakesfuckfearfuckdiamondsfuckheartbreakfuckcraigslistfuckparis
fuckplatofuckadvicefuckplansfuckFMfucksuccessfucksleepfuckblogsfuckme

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

"It's easy to love your dog, because your dog doesn't have opinions about you." -Don Miguel Ruiz

Today (no, yesterday -- thank God it's not Friday anymore), I was on one wrenching business call after another, culminating in a conference call between three good people who really like and respect each other. But much had gone awry in the past weeks, and we'd found ourselves in a malfunctioning situation that was decimating the team's spirit. We collected to mop up the mess, take responsibility for each of our parts, and move to higher ground. The only viable choice.

The business of entertainment has no business being so emotionally, physically and spiritually draining; it's ENTERTAINMENT, for crying out loud, not heart surgery. Hell, it's not even plastic surgery. But for the inflated egos and rampant greed, we might just have ourselves the kind of good time people in Peoria believe we enjoy; I dunno for sure.

What I DO know for sure is that my stupidly miserable day was measurably improved by the simple presence of Lulu, the Best Dog Ever Made. As I paced the house during one emotionally charged conversation, I was followed like a bouncing ping pong ball by her sympathetic brown eyes. Each time I'd hang up the phone and let out a long breath, her tail would wag in encouragement. And at one point, when I took a fetal moment on the couch, she crossed the living room to snoodle my dangling hand with her slightly wet muzzle.

Some of you will snort derisively that she's just a dog, for God's sake; all she really wanted was my undivided attention, a quick afternoon romp, a nibble from my bowl of cashews. But I know better. This sweet, odd-looking 35 lb. Basset Hound/Akita (my ex, with whom I share her custody, insists she's a Welsh Corgi/Norweigian Elkhound; actually, she looks very much like a sea lion with ears and a tail), this precious rescued soul from Downtown LA, is my furry savior, my canine confidante, an unconditional friend who melts my heart and makes me giggle, whose pooch perspective reminds me of the pure joy to be found in a game of fetch or tug; a little being who really just wants me to abandon my angst and play for awhile.

Not a bad philosophy. Biscuits all around!

"We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions."

A quote from Rebecca Blood, whose essays on the blogging phenomenon give clear historical perspective on, and credence to, this relatively new means of e-communication. For those of you who are just becoming familiar with the form, go to http://rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html for edification. And perhaps a little inspiration.

As for me, the past several days have been filled with a wonderful whirlwind visit with Mom, being a chicadura (that's Spanish for "tough girl") in hand-to-hand combat with my chosen profession, continued development of the income business, and many enjoyable hours in long late-night phone conversations with BSW, providing us both with entertainment, stimulation, comfort, and perspective.

Genuinely open communication can only be achieved with a troika of open heart, open mind, and open soul...I'm always happy to run into another who is willing to be that fearless. And who makes it a safe journey.

One from the 1992 Collection

CHALLENGE

We can all use a kind word these days,
especially in the midst of madness.
So many afflictions from which to choose,
and the deadliest are malice and fear;
So, shall we whisper love in each other's ear?

We all need healing now and again,
with germs and bullets flying about our heads.
So much loss, so much disgrace, and no time
taken to learn this truth from our misdeeds:
One soul will flourish while another bleeds.

What in us cares more for a dog or a dolphin
than for a human?
Does the competition confine our compassion?
It's the ego that makes us behave so badly;
makes us enslave, isolate, and slaughter gladly.

Do we see in the dog or the dolphin
the innocence we lack?
Do we resent each other and deny it after the fact?
Do we really think we can get away with hate?
Do you believe we'll come to love too late?

We can all use a kind word these days,
especially in the midst of madness.
So many afflictions from which to choose,
and the deadliest have yet to appear;
So, shall we whisper love in each other's ear?

I dare you : Whisper love in each other's ear.

4.13.92
for Jack

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom." -Henry Ward Beecher

Evelyn (fine poet and longtime mother of Zan) arrives at Burbank Airport this evening for a 6-day visit. To honor her considerable influence on my love for the English language, here is one of her creations. The poem was written about her only child, then 7...a little girl who, when beseeched by her harried mother to please stop whirling around the room for just a minute, said, "But Mommy, I gotta dance!"


ALEXANDRA

Terpsichore!

You took her while still a fresh damsel fair;
Fashioned her with wild and ardent care.

Charged her to be a cyclonic storm
Amenable to you, inspired to perform

Odd creations from Russian lore,
To dance excitedly for the Emperor.

Then, like a spool unwinding silken thread,
With golden braids ribboned atop her head,

She curtsied deep, alas and in truth;
You abducted her breathless spirit of youth.

"Humor is the great thing, the saving thing." -Mark Twain

Although I'm facing a few daunting life challenges, and I'd only slept a few hours (oh, but for very good reason!), I laughed all day today -- which might not have been the case without the considerable contributions made by Brian & Margaret. There was post-meditation breakfast levity at favorite Eagle Rock bistro Camilo's with B, cheer in an afternoon tete a tete with M, then gales of raucous laughter between B, M & Z at dinner in Silver Lake, followed by a trek to Mashti Malone's in Hollywood for the most luscious ice cream in LA (so it correctly says in the August Los Angeles Magazine -- an issue which also quotes Margaret with regard to her color therapy technique).

Never mind that we had to wait almost an hour for a table at Alegria, and longer than usual for the actual (ever-fabulous) burritos and chimichangas. Or that Hollywood Boulevard traffic was everything you might expect on a Saturday night. We let it go and embraced the moment, delighting in each other's company, and making a few memories to scribble in our diaries for future enjoyment.

One of those days, and two of those friendships, that nothing could spoil.

"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life." -Bertolt Brecht

I am on a television news fast, but that's not to say I don't know what's happening beyond my cabin walls. I only listen to music and NPR while in the car, see bites from AOL or Yahoo! when I get online, and read the LA Times in hardcopy and the e-New York Times.

This morning, two Yahoo! headlines caught my eye: the deaths of Johnny Cash (not unexpected, but sad nevertheless) and John Ritter (what? how can that be?). Two on the same day, after the loss earlier in the week of Warren Zevon. There's our three, I morbidly thought. And immediately heard in my mind Cash's tremulous baritone, "...because you're mine/I walk the line." In fact, it won't leave my head. That, and snippets of his deeply affecting version of "Sunday Morning Coming Down", which I happen to know is friend Michael's favorite rendition of the Kristofferson song. VH-1 has already run -- and will likely air it a few times more in the next days -- his remarkable video, "Hurt", featuring clips from past music and film performances, visually punctuating such mournful lyrics as, "Everyone I know goes away in the end." You want to enfold in your arms this older and wiser Johnny; but with his darling June looking on, you know he's receiving plenty of comfort. I like to think her beautiful soul greeted his early this morning...

In his last Larry King interview (a clip ran on CNN earlier), King asked Johnny if he was angry at God for his various conditions. Johnny kinda smiled and humbly replied, no, "I'd really duck if I shook my fist at Him." My attraction to, and affection for, Cash nestles right there in that statement.

Then, a memory from July 16, 1998 (any close and longtime friend will tell you I have the brain pan of a pachyderm when it comes to dates and events): I was hanging at the Pasadena Ritz Carlton with a close CBS associate -- we had attended two days of CBS Summer Press Tour, a maiden outing for both of us, and were enjoying the lavish party at which personalities and producers mingle with press to promote a new season of programming (any close and longtime friend will tell you I adore alliteration).

My associate and I had partaken of the plentiful feast, had dutifully and delightedly met with various luminaries (Jerry Stiller leaps most clearly to mind; my friend and I were both so excited to chat with George Costanza's father), curled up on a couch for a long, revealing conversation, and shared a faux Cuban cigar (he waxed eloquent about its missing virtues).

We suddenly realized it had gotten late, close to midnight, and my friend walked with pre-cellular me to the public telephones so I could call my spouse. As we reached the elegant phone booths, awash in the buzz of the highly charged event, we were approached by the smiling face of John Ritter, who was on his way to the men's room, and was similarly high on the evening's energy. His cute romantic comedy, a 2-hour movie for us titled "Chance of a Lifetime", with Katey Sagal (his co-star in "8 Rules...") had aired to good numbers earlier in the year, and he'd recently shot the firefighter-sees-a-miracle drama "Holy Joe". We'd just seen the roughcut, and complimented his fine performance, talked about the contrast between that role and his appearance in 1996's dark CBS telefilm "Unforgivable", about the press, the party, and the life. He was every bit as charming as you know Jack Tripper to be...but warmer and sweeter, as you'd hope John Ritter would be. He wished us a good evening and a great season, and we parted company.

Ritter put a perfect cap on our first press tour experience; my friend and I referenced that memorable evening many times in the following years, and we always recalled the encounter with John as a highlight. In fact, the next year, John starred in my friend's second TV movie for CBS, "Lethal Vows", offering a cool, diabolic portrayal of a man slowly poisoning his wife (Marg Helgenberger)...the dailies were great fun to screen, especially when he took his character a little over the top, just for sport! On that set, he was his usual well-prepared, professional self, a good-humored and generous actor...and a kind soul.

As far as I can see, neither of these men lived inadequate lives -- their fine examples are their legacies. Their work as entertainers was a service to us, gave us opportunities to access the deepest reaches of our souls and the brightest aspects of our sensibilities. In this indifferent and volatile world, there will always be a need for Johnny and John and Warren and all those artists who have left their physical bodies, and leave a body of work for us to revisit and remember.

Thanks, gentlemen. Safe travels.

"If you don't make any mistakes, there won't be any." -George Barnes

Thank God Dad's perfectionism only applied to his (and everyone else's) music! His other favorite quote was the last line of Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot", in which Jack Lemmon, dressed as a woman, reveals his true sex to the amorous Joe E. Brown; and Joe E. cheerfully shrugs, "Nobody's perfect." Dad quoted that often, acknowledging his understanding of human nature.

Dad's classic admonition against flubs still floats among studio players in New York and Chicago (of whom there are fewer than in my father's heyday). Time is still money in their world -- you can't be late for the gig, you must be tuned up and ready to go on the downbeat, and you have to be able to read fast and have the facility to replicate whatever sound is asked of you. Now.

I've been writing on and off about life in that world for the past four years (started as a screenplay, has morphed into a book). Soon (as soon as a few other projects get off the ground) I'll focus entirely on the story, a child's eye view of growing up in the New York City music scene of the 60's and 70's.

In the meantime, Mom and I have decided to sell Dad's Guild Acousti-Lectric guitar (the guitar he designed in the early 60's and the only instrument he played until his death) via a lovely San Diego couple, Richard and Annetta Glick, who own and operate Fine Guitar Consultants and who have had custody of the guitar for a little over a year. A new push is afoot to find the right home for the Acousti-Lectric. Paul Simon wanted to buy it the year after Dad died; we weren't ready to sell. Larry Coryell, who played it in a jam with Joe Beck at NAMM earlier this year, wants to record with it. It's an incredible instrument with a rich background. Take a look at the list of rock 'n' roll records on which this guitar appears (www.fineguitarconsultants/guildgb.htm) and you'll get an idea of George Barnes' place in music history. But wait: there's so much more...

...and someday, I promise, you'll read all about it. But it has to be perfect.

Two Poems from the 1999 Collection...

On the Ninth Day

Don't ask me where this leads.
I haven't the proper rudder
for such a tenebrous ocean.
Let me be rapt in this
golden moment,
alive and awake
and deeply aware
that these encounters
are rare.
Sit close to me, that
we'll be undisturbed,
unfettered and
certainly beloved.

You admire my wisdom
('though I now exhibit none?).
You acknowledge my beauty,
each time stealing my breath.
I see your heart glow
in your eyes,
lit all at once with joy
and sadness.

When a soul connection
is clearly made,
is that not a gift?
Then, why should it taunt and torture so?
Oh, pull up the anchor -
we'll sail this deep sea
'til the shore finds us.

7.10.99


Chimera

We chase the wind and
parry with the waves
on a northern beach.
Skip a stone, steal a shell.
Laugh back at
squawking gulls
who float smugly above
our afternoon spun of
sand and seafoam.

Tell me this is no dream,
if you can.
And if you can't, then
run with me along the
hard sand shoreline
'til we find cool shelter
from the beating sun.

Of course, you can run.
Close your eyes.
You'll see.

9.24.99

"All life folds back into the sea / We contemplate eternity / Beneath the vast indifference of heaven." -Warren Zevon

After staying earth- and body-bound months beyond expectation, he's moved on. I'm happy he was given enough time to make his last music -- and perhaps his peace -- before entering what I like to think of as the Next Great Phase.

I imagine VH-1 will rebroadcast the special...please look for it and watch. It's a fine and pure testament to his life.

"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself." -Nietzsche

My cable provider (the one whose principals face prison sentences) has at last brought Internet access to those of us in the Los Angeles hinterlands of Mount Washington; and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Because of their promotional largesse, I'm now paying $7 less per month for my cable TV, with the addition of cable modem access. The caveat: the price will shoot up at the end of January, but I'm a modern Zen kind of consumer: Be Hooked Up for Cheap Now/Pay or Cancel Later.

It's delightful -- I can be online AND talk on the telephone AT THE SAME TIME, right here in my OWN HOME! Will 21st Century wonders never cease? No, they will not. The evolution of convenience in communication will continue until we are each implanted directly into others' brains, finally in constant chat mode, whether or not we have anything of the slightest import to say.

Wouldn't Freddy N. have a choice thought or two to share about the blogging phenomenon, this opportunity so many of us take to "talk much about oneself" and make our experiences and opinions accessible on a global scale, at the mere click of a mouse button? Would he beseech us to "conceal" ourselves a little less? Is this, in most cases (and I'm not excluding myself, here), just a lotta blahblahblahgging?

He'd probably compose something pithy about how we deserve the current plague of viruses. Thus Spake, um, Blaster.

"There are two great tragedies in life. One is to not get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

ZanSurvey Question:

How do you think your life would change if you got your heart's desire?

"The lights are much brighter there, you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares..." -Petula Clark

...which is exactly what new friend Brian (commercial director and student of architecture) and I did this past Saturday night. We met downtown in Little Tokyo, conveniently parking in the Office Depot lot (for free!...except Brian got hit up by a well-spoken vagrant and generously slipped him $5) across the street from one of my favorite sushi restaurants, Sushi Gen, in a mini-mall on 2nd Street between Alameda and Central. You must go, if you love fresh, well-prepared and quickly-served raw fish items. They cook things, too -- expatriate Linda M and I frequented the place on our Eat 'n' Shoot Thursday nights (tale to come) and tried 'most all their delights.

Brian and I nibbled (rare treat: Spanish mackerel!) and chatted for a good while before he whisked me off on an impromptu tour of some of the more fascinating Downtown LA architecture. I've spent plenty of time in the area, and have a pretty keen sense of design, but enjoyed seeing it afresh through the eyes of a director who is an architect at heart.

I hadn't seen the Walt Disney Concert Hall since it was completed. It is a magnificent Frank Gehry creation, an unexpectedly graceful sweep of stainless steel that looks to me like a ship mid-storm, a sea vessel bursting from its moorings, fluid and alive. And even though our up close inspection revealed sheets of metal not meeting at various corners (maybe, we mused, it's not quite finished?), and the guards wouldn't allow us to climb the steps to peek at the interior, it is quite breathtaking. I hope the acoustics are as stunning.

Just down from Disney on South Grand is the Water Court, nestled between the twin skyscrapers of California Plaza...it was after 11, so its dancing fountains had just retired for the night, but the stone pavement was still wet. I removed my Cinderella pumps so as not to slip down the granite steps and walked barefoot through the court, the sentinel eyeing me as I tiptoed into a smaller, ground-level fountain still flowing that was surely designed for such activity; if it wasn't, he didn't let on.

Behind the Omni hotel are a few little fountained parks I'd never visited, and we strolled through them, too, as Brian pointed out from the heights the various parking structures and scaffolding he fancies. I giggled at first, but the more he highlighted their particular points of visual interest (say, the perfect alignment of long flourescent lightbulbs, or the varied grids, grates, cement textures and shadings), the more I came to appreciate them as unplanned works of art. As we drove around, I heard myself exclaiming, "Hey, look at THAT parking structure!" (a phrase I assure you I'd never before uttered) and extolling its attributes. A fine-pointed reminder to make a habit of finding the beauty in the mundane...

We ended up past midnight in one of my favorite LA locations, Union Station. Two architectural styles, Spanish Revival and Art Deco, are put to grand use here, with soaring, carved woodbeam ceilings, Spanish tile inlays and stainless steel trim, still mostly lit by elegant chandeliers; it's a cathedral of the rails. The vast waiting area, with its generous leather and oak seats, had to have been a passenger's delight in the 1940's, the lamented LA heyday. We were warned by the guard stationed in the waiting area that one must have a train ticket in order to take a seat -- he wasn't inclined to let us non-travelers tarry. I sweetly asked for two minutes; he winked and gave us five, which was actually just enough time for us to be transported a bit, to a time when Union Station must have seemed like the entrance to Paradise.

LA isn't Paradise, of course...but, as long as we're here, it's good fun to pretend now and then.