The Fabulous Tom Judson Blog

February 1st!

2012-01-25T10:47:00.001-05:00

Click HERE for tickets.

Das Book

2012-01-14T07:46:00.000-05:00

"Laid Bare" Autographed Copy

$20.00 ($16.00 plus $4.00 S/H)

The Greater Hollywood Literary Society

2012-01-14T06:43:00.000-05:00

"Laid Bare" Autographed Copy

$20.00 ($16.00 plus $4.00 S/H)

'Bye, Mickey.

2012-01-11T13:50:00.001-05:00

I buried Mickey yesterday. I wrapped her up in a bright yellow towel along with one of her favorite toys and gently laid her in a hole I dug just off the front porch. Then I placed a nice flat stone over her body (so she’d be safe from other critters) and covered her over with dirt. Johnathan’s coming up for the weekend and we’re going to make a marker for her grave. I think he was as fond of her as I was.

I had Mickey for about eight years. I adopted her from my friend Cass (who adopted her in turn from her daughter.) So we think Mickey was about about 14 years old, but we’re not entirely sure.

I originally got Mickey because I had a pretty bad mouse problem here at the cabin. Cass said, “Have I got the cat for you!” and sure enough, within a couple of weeks the mice had fled in terror. Mickey could be feisty. “How’d you get that scratch?” was a question I was frequently asked. I’d raise my eyebrows in Mickey’s direction and she’d be wearing her “You pays your money and you takes your chances” expression, implying I had no one but myself to blame for my wound. After all, hadn’t she growled at me before the strike? Couldn’t I take a hint?

She was the most fiercely independent cat I’ve known, but also the most fiercely affectionate. Traveling as much as I do, I felt no compunction leaving her alone for three or four days at a time. When I’d walk in the door after being away she’d give me a look which said, “Oh, have you been gone? Well, don't just stand there, let’s get those opposable thumbs to work and open a can!” But sometimes I’d be watching TV on the couch and she’d climb up, lay her paws on me and, gripping my shoulder like a vise, start purring so loudly I’d have to turn up the volume. And just before turning off the light for the night I'd say, "Let's do crook-of-the-arm!" and she'd curl up tight inside my elbow and fall instantly asleep.

I like to take my afternoon nap in the loft bed at the cabin and as I’d take a step up the ladder I’d call, “Mickey, you wanna take a nap?” Wherever she was in the house, she’d tear into the piano room and race me up to the loft and be waiting on the bed for me to pull the blanket over us. (Curiously, it’s the only time of day she’d allow herself to be covered.)

One reason I wasn’t sure of her age is because up until this past Christmas Eve she was as spry and kittenish as I’d ever known her to be. But that morning I woke up and saw she was a little unsteady on her feet and when she tried coming down from the loft I could tell she couldn’t judge how far the next step was. She had gone blind overnight. The vet diagnosed detached retinas due to hypertension due to either a thyroid condition or kidney failure. He put her on blood pressure medicine and did blood work. After walking around depressed and unsure for a couple of days (both of us, I hasten to add) she started to adapt to her loss of sight amazingly quickly and adeptly. Her thyroid medicine seemed to be working and I was hopeful that, while things would never be quite the same (no more racing down the hall and throwing herself on the bed with all her weight to wake me up in the morning) we would still have a happy life together.

But two days ago she got up from her bed and I could tell something was amiss. She was weak and uncertain on her feet. Within the space of half an hour I watched her condition deteriorate to the point where--as the nurse at the vet’s office said--I just knew the time had come.

She lay in a blanket-lined box in the passenger seat next to me as we took what was one of the saddest drives of my life. I could tell she was weak and uncomfortable and I assured her it would be better really, really soon. The staff at the vet’s office was amazingly kind and respectful of both me and Mickey. As the doctor shaved a bit of fur off her leg to prepare for the injection Mickey gave one last frail little growl. I liked that. I told her she had been a good friend to me and then it was over.

And now she lies at the foot of my front step, wrapped in a bright yellow towel, under a clump of lily-of-the-valley that I brought from Cass’s garden years ago. I'll be able to tell her, "Hey," every time I leave the house. I left her heart-shaped name tag on because, you never know, somebody might ask who she is.

She’ll probably just roll her eyes and say, “It's me... Mickey. Duh!”

Music For Lovers

2011-12-30T20:52:00.000-05:00

One of the very first LPs I ever bought was the soundtrack album to “Murder On the Orient Express” in 1973. Turns out I had good taste; Richard Rodney Bennett’s music was nominated for an Oscar that year. I’ve been listening to movie music ever since, becoming something of a connoisseur as well as a devotee. I’ve even had occasion to compose a few film scores myself, an activity I find most enjoyable.

Obviously the names I became familiar with at first were those composers working at the time; the Jerry Goldsmiths, the Elmer Bernsteins. John Williams. Nino Rota (but only his American movies at that point.) In my later teens, when I began venturing into Manhattan on day trips I found my way to the Sam Goody record store a block up from Radio City and became acquainted with new (old) names such as Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Alfred Newman and the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold via new recordings of their classic scores of the 30s and 40s. Soon foreign movies appeared on my radar and, along with them, the titans Ennio Moriconne and Georges Delerue entered my musical vocabulary.

By my early 20s I became adept at naming the composer of a film (new or old) before his (always his) credit flashed onscreen at the top of the movie.

Not surprisingly most of the composers I learned about initially remained my favorites. There are a few oddball one-offs along the way (Dave Grusin’s “My Bodyguard”), as well as a few composers who split their time between Hollywood and Broadway (David Shire, Marvin Hamlisch), but the above-mentioned names, along with John Barry and Maurice Jarre, remain the standard bearers.

Of the new crop of film composers, I’d guess Thomas Newman, Danny Elfman, Mark Isham and (occasionally) James Horner will last. Lately, Alexandre Desplat has intrigued me.

But this essay is about none of the above. This piece concerns one Philippe Sarde, a Frenchman with more than two hundred titles under his name on imdb.com, yet--by my count--fewer than ten that had any kind of wide release in America. M. Sarde first came to my attention through his score to Roman Polanski’s “Tess.” I bought the album (the import--remember when we bought imports and thought ourselves very cool?) at the Doubleday on 53rd and 5th Avenue. I brought it home, put it on my turntable and within fifteen seconds of the opening bars of the main theme, became a Philippe Sarde fan. His music for that movie is almost unendurably rapturous.

I know nothing about him or why he did so few American films, but of those few, they’re all superb. Many, many of his French films are also wonderful, but of course in 200 there are bound to be a few duds. Plus, they’re devilishly hard to hunt down.

But from out of this list of 200 scores there is one that is so beautiful that I call it my favorite movie score. More than “Kings Row.” More than “Gone With the Wind.” More than “Vertigo”, “E.T.”, “Days of Heaven.”

Even more than “Chinatown.” (We pause to genuflect.) This is my appreciation.

In 1983 a small movie called “Lovesick” opened. It starred Dudley Moore and Elizabeth McGovern. It was written and directed by Marshall Brickman who co-wrote “Annie Hall” with Woody Allen and who--ahem--borrowed a plot contrivance from another Woody Allen movie for this picture: Moore plays a Freudian psychoanalyst visited by the ghost of Herr Freud himself who proceeds to offer sardonic advice on life and love. Honestly, from what I can recall the movie was totally charming and featured lovely performances from all concerned.

But oh, that score! Mister Sarde separated the music into two styles: taking a cue from Freud’s Austrian roots, one part of the score is a Viennese waltz arranged in a classic kaffeehaus configuration: piano, accordion, 2 violins, cello and clarinet. Brittle and charming all at once:

The bulk of the score, though, is interpreted in a full symphonic treatment:

The two styles converge only once, and the aural cross-fade is genius. (Sarde’s orchestrator on this project was Peter Knight, one of the great old guard English arrangers):

The main romantic theme is a sweeping melody that simply soars. It floats. It effervesces! The tune progresses at a leisurely tempo, yet there’s constant movement in the accompaniment. I’d wager it’s in 12/8 time. Its initial statement is in B-flat major--such a humble, warm key--and the opening bars offer a furtive, shy introductory motive before the flute enters clear and bright with the tune.

The cue I offer below is the End Title from the movie. The accompanying visuals are nothing more than Dudley Moore and Elizabeth McGovern strolling away from the camera from just this vantage point near The Plaza...

...as the camera ever so slowly rises on a crane high above the tree tops as the credits roll.

Being the end title sequence, this cue contains most of the orchestral themes Sarde used throughout picture. It opens with the flute initiating a straightforward restatement of the main tune. It flutters and flits happily around the melody before it's taken over by the full complement of strings which then move it (at 1:55) into a joyous arms-wide-open rendition of the theme. Then (at 2:46) a snippet of a more somber, questioning theme is introduced. But (at 3:27) it sticks a tentative musical toe back into the main melody, testing the emotional waters only to decide (at 4:06) that no, this overt happiness is too dangerous! and starts to retreat from the main theme. From us! Into G-minor (the relative minor of B-flat. Insult to injury!) But this section has no discernible beat, no forward tempo. It is a retreat without conviction, until (at 4:47) the principal melody looks back over its shoulder and (at 4:56) with a sigh of happy resignation gives up any pretense of resistance, turns around and comes back to us. Shyly at first but urged on by a breathless countermelody that can barely keep from floating completely off the staff. Back to a soft, contented embrace before the final fade out. Back to us.

Back to love.

And If You Order Now...

2011-12-19T08:49:00.000-05:00

"Laid Bare" Autographed Copy

$20.00 ($16.00 plus $4.00 S/H)

Out, Beelzebub!

2011-12-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

Perhaps the highest recommendation I can give for Johnathan Wilber’s novel “Out, Beelzebub!” is this: he completed it just about the time we started dating. Things were going just so-so between us and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. He gave me the book and after I read it there was no longer a question in my mind; the guy who wrote this book was a guy I wanted to get to know better.

And so I did.

The book is a freewheeling madcap adventure concerning a pair of writers (Damien-Vic and Janet Wolber) locked in a fierce rivalry. Except the rivalry is one-sided. Janet is a huge success while Damien-Vic toils away in frustrated, geeky obscurity. (Think Jonathan Schwartzman at his most neurotic.)

As I read the book I was constantly reminded of “A Confederacy of Dunces” both in its style and in its farcical characters and situations. “Dunces” happens to be my favorite novel and Johnathan’s book is not left wanting by comparison. In the scope of narrative and in the length and breadth of insane experiences the characters find themselves propelled along by, “Beelzebub” is epic. Time doesn’t really proceed logically (a lengthy prison term somehow doesn’t get in the way of Damien-Vic’s unrelenting scheming against Janet) and outrageous plot developments are treated as normal events (the runaway success of a clothing line... for Chihuahuas?)

I frequently found myself laughing out loud as I read, happy to be launched into the craziness along with the various characters in the novel.

Oh, and did I mention it’s also really sexy?

Trust me: this is the best $3.99 you’ll spend in a long, long time. But if you still need a reason to buy the book, there’s always this:

Click on the image below to purchase the eBook through Amazon.com.

Nepotism has its rewards.

2011-12-12T08:25:00.004-05:00

I've had a couple of different columns in The Advocate over the years so it was a lovely surprise to find they had included Laid Bare in their 2011 holiday gift-giving guide.

"Laid Bare" Autographed Copy

$20.00 ($16.00 plus $4.00 S/H)

Best Wishes, Tom

2011-11-29T16:44:00.001-05:00

I’ve had several people ask how they might get an autographed copy of the print edition of “Laid Bare.” For themselves or as gift for family and friends. (And that big old gift-giving time of the year is upon us.) Just picture the expression of glee on your Loved One’s face as they unwrap their very own copy of “Laid Bare” on whatever cockamamie holiday morning they receive it!

Rather than go through the trouble and time and expense of ordering the book online, then sending it to me and then having me send it back, I realized that with the help of PayPal we can take care of it all in one fell swoop.

And so here is a handy dandy PayPal button to do just that! The price of the book remains $16.00 (just as it is at Amazon.com) and I’ve added $4.00 to cover the cost of Priority shipping and handling. There’s even a field where you can specify something, um, specific you might want me to write in the book. After you click on the "Buy Now" button you will be asked for billing/shipping info, etc.

This is so obvious I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier!

"Laid Bare" Autographed Copy
$20.00 ($16.00 plus $4.00 S/H)

Specify inscription (optional)

The Spoken Word II (Or, Can't You Get That Guy To Shut Up?)

2011-11-20T17:56:00.001-05:00

The wonderful folks at Gay Sunday Brunch had me on their podcast to discuss, well, lots of things. Including, of course, "Laid Bare." Click on the microphone to be taken directly to the website.

And click on the iTunes logo to subscribe to their entire series. It's free and they've got some really great guests. It makes for terrific drive-time listening!

And, as always, please keep in touch.

The Spoken Word

2011-11-18T08:42:00.000-05:00

You can read a brief excerpt from “Laid Bare” on amazon.com, but since the essays are (mostly) written in the first-person voice, I thought I’d let you hear one of the essays read in that actual voice. So hear I am reading “My Huckleberry Friends.” I got it in one take, by the way. Which was a good thing, because it was a very chilly morning and I was shooting in the screened-in room outside. Brrrrr....

For your convenience here are the links to purchase the book.

eBook

print edition

Between My Covers

2011-11-14T22:54:00.001-05:00

Here’s a treat for all you analog types: the 3-dimensional, I-just-love-the-feel-of-a-book-in-my-hands print edition of “Laid Bare.” Just in time for... well, just in time for... today. One hundred and seventy-one pages of deliciousness simply salivating to be savored, pored over, highlighted, margin noted and then filed away into one’s lie-barry, only to be taken out and thumbed through again and again. There’s even an extra little picture of me on the back cover! Woo-hoo!

Please click on said cover below to be whisked away to the site where the book can be purchased. For $16.00.

And if you're one of those for whom Mr. Guttenberg is just a B-list (albeit sexy, in a doofus sort of way) actor from the 1980s, click on the computer screen below for the eBook edition. It’ll set you back $2.99.

I feel I must reiterate that you don’t need a Kindle to read this eBook. Download the free Kindle Reader app onto your iPad, smartphone, iPhone, iPod Touch or even your trusty PC and you can read away to your heart’s content.

Many thanks, and please keep in touch!

"I Didn't Know Your Auntie Mame Was Literate!"

2011-11-11T20:11:00.010-05:00

Just when it seemed the world couldn't get any stranger than it already is, I decide to publish a book. "Laid Bare: Essays and Observations". What next? you ask. What next, indeed. Even though I'm smack in the middle of Stephen King's new book and feel like I could easily time travel, it'd be backwards and so I won't make any predictions regarding the future.

But I digress...

This is the cover of the book. Click on it or here to go directly to Amazon.com, where you can also read an excerpt. For the cover I used one of the photos in my collection by the great John Skalicky (who doesn't know it, but he's been my official photographer for a number of years now.) Inside you will find a collection of thirty essay that have been culled from various sources: the magazine column and articles I've written, selected essays from "Gus's Soapbox", the page on the now-defunct gusmattox.com that started this whole writing thing in the first place, and even a few blog entries that hold special meaning to me or received more-than-usual response from readers. (There's even a recipe in there that my sister Ellen liked.)

At the moment, "Laid Bare" is available as an eBook, but the print edition proof is on its way to me as I write and I'll post a link to that in a matter of days.

By the bye, a common misconception is that one must have Kindle to read an eBook. Not so! They can be read on any smartphone, on an iPad and on any computer simply by downloading the free Kindle Reader app. So fret not if you don't own a Kindle--you can still read "Laid Bare".

And did I mention it's only $2.99? That's cheaper than a Venti Pumpkin Spice Soy Latte (hold the whip.) The print edition will be priced at $16.00, but it has a back cover as well, so I guess it all evens out.

In the two weeks the eBook has been available I'm happy to report it's selling nicely and the feedback I've been getting from readers has been beyond gratifying.

Please download a copy (or order the print edition when it's available in a few days) and find out what exactly makes me tick.

In the meantime, see ya in church!

Tricks O' the Trade

2011-03-15T17:36:00.012-04:00

I posted a new profile picture on Facebook a few weeks ago and the resulting comments were nothing short of astounding. In a good way. But I must confess to being a bit embarrassed by the emphatic nature of the compliments. Don’t get me wrong—I’m just as happy to receive flattering remarks as the next guy. But in this case it seemed like the people leaving comments under the photograph were seeing something I wasn’t. And it occurred to me that that is, in fact, the nature of photography: it’s as much an illusion as it is a record of reality.

Let me elaborate:

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to be photographed on many occasions, in many different circumstances and for many different purposes. I’ve also had the good fortune to work with some terrific photographers, and from these experiences I’ve learned lots.

My first photo shoot after going into porn was for a Chi Chi LaRue movie. The photographer and I were working on the first floor while Chi Chi was in the office upstairs. Being a novice I took the photographer’s directions and, even though it felt off, gave him the grimaces and sneers he asked for to make me look rough. Somehow Chi Chi was seeing the results in progress because at one point she came running into the room and demanded I stop trying to look tough. Basically, her argument was that, because I was, um, old those expressions would not suit my face. Also, because I do generally tend to be on the lean side, I needed a softer look to keep myself from appearing too craggy.

Ever after that first shoot, I would simply refuse (courteously) if a photographer asked for “stern.” “Gus Mattox does not do stern,” I’d respond.

Another result of that first shoot was that I went home, set up the camera tripod, positioned a mirror and practiced different poses. That way I knew ahead of time which angles were flattering and which weren’t. (Plenty aren’t, I assure you,)

What I learned is that my legs look best when I plant my feet either parallel or in third position and rotate my hips outward. It flexes and splays the muscles in a way that no other pose does.

Since I am cursed with a bit of a spare tire around my waist you’ll almost never see a photo of me shot head-on with my body flat to front. I usually twist my torso at the waist, if even just a bit.

The best way to give the illusion of having better abs is to expel every bit of air in one’s lungs. You don’t even have to flex your stomach muscles if you do this—it happens automatically. Those models in those photos that you just love? They’re on the verge of collapse from lack of oxygen.

Chi Chi was right about my face: it is old. I can look pretty craggy if the lighting is off. But here’s my foolproof trick: In every photograph of me—smiling or not—my smile muscles are ever-so-slightly engaged. The difference is quite amazing. Also, it presents a friendlier countenance.

If one doesn’t have a great butt (and I don’t; it’s fifty years old and just so-so) I find shifting one’s weight to one hip towards the camera helps gives it shape and firmness.

These are just some of the things I do while being photographed. I imagine all models have their own established techniques. But here is the numero uno trick that makes shirtless models look so trim: the waistband of the underwear or trousers is positioned way, way below what would be the case in real life. Take a look at an underwear spread. The waistband rests just above the model’s pubes (in some cases, when they’re trimmed way down, even lower.) This is the easiest way to give someone a longer torso and a narrower waist.

It goes without saying that the photographer’s eye is the most important element in a successful photo shoot. I’m convinced that on any shoot a second photographer could walk onto the set, use the same lighting, model and pose and come up with a very different result. The two pictures below were shot less than a week apart (by Mick Hicks and Hudson Wright, respectively.) Same model, same time frame and even the same facial hair, but they present very different looks.

And now let’s get back to that Facebook photo.

John Skalicky shot it in Los Angeles in January of this year. (At top is the unretouched version for comparison.) It’s going to be the poster image for the new show I’m doing in Provincetown this summer. John shot the Canned Ham poster and I’m convinced that’s why most of the audience showed up. John is my hands-down favorite. There are plenty of images from that day in which I just don’t look good. You’ll have to trust me (because you’ll never see them.) But once we got in the groove the hard part was choosing just one shot from so many good ones.

Let’s analyze the below (“after”) picture through my eyes. Even though I’m wearing pants I’m still doing the hip-rotation thing. My weight is cocked onto my right hip, thereby flattening a little my spare tire on my right. (Take a look at my left side; it’s more pronounced.)

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My Holiday Newsletter

2010-12-30T13:01:00.011-05:00

For a life that has had more than its share of ups and downs, 2010 was especially interesting.

The final months of last year saw me flush from successful performances of my then-new show, Canned Ham, yet without any future dates scheduled. I was also still saddled with my final flip-house project: Nearly two years before I had taken a dumpy little ranch and re-fashioned it into a sublime mid-century modern dream house. That it had gone on the market the week after Lehman Brothers collapsed proved to be bad timing par excellence. Fourteen months later my financial situation (always precariously balanced at best) had tipped irrevocably into the red.

Around Christmas I took pen to paper and calculated that even if I sold every single thing I owned I would not be able to pay off my debts. In desperation I sold my piano (for about a quarter of its worth.) I applied for food stamps. And after years of vowing “never again”, I took a waitering job.

All this in the year I would turn 50. Not a propitious start, thought I.

The piano paid off my overdue utility bills, the food stamps helped stock the pantry, and the waiter job, in addition to providing much-needed funds, made me feel less like the hopeless slug I was seeing myself as.

[A sidebar: in my twenties, when I had worked at pretty much every dive in the East Village, I was the waiter from hell. I was efficient, yes, but make one wrong move—like, ask for ketchup as I was reaching for the bottle—and you were dead meat. I was, simply, a nightmare. Because I wasn’t really a waiter. I was a composer/lyricist/actor/whatever. Dammit. When I started the job last January I couldn’t believe how nice I was. I wasn’t even trying; it simply came out that way. Mostly, I think, it was a result of perspective. Thirty years later I had done so many varied things and been through so much that this latest gig was just another of the endless experiences in my insane life. I had nothing to prove to anyone. Including myself. My current customers have no idea how fortunate they are.]

But those big debts (growing like The Blob, exponentially and unchecked, on my credit cards), the mortgage and renovation expenses on the flip house followed me around like storm clouds waiting to burst.

I did, of course, have Johnathan. After several fits and starts our relationship had settled down and seemed to be heading into something solid and enduring. He was the one bright spot in a muddied mass of uncertainty.

Shortly into the New Year I managed to score a three-week engagement of Canned Ham in Los Angeles. Not a heck of a lot of money, but it was a chance to perform and work on the show and, if nothing else, would give me a change of scenery. That would be followed by a two-week booking in San Francisco in August.

Maybe things were looking up?

In late-spring my director, Kevin Malony, called with a proposition: he had just had lunch with Varla Jean Merman, who had mentioned that she needed a piano player for her annual run in Provincetown that summer. Might I be interested?

I didn’t even have to consider it before answering yes. I had known Varla for years but we had never worked together. It had also been years since I had played the piano with any regularity. This would be a chance to combine working with someone whose artistry I respect with getting my piano chops back into shape with a summer in Provincetown (a place I had—amazingly--never been.) It did mean putting Canned Ham on the back burner for the time being (including the San Francisco run) and it would also mean being away from Johnathan for much longer than I would like. But, in balance, it really seemed like the right thing to do.

And then—oh, Fortuna!—the cards shuffled and it turned out that I could perform Canned Ham on alternate nights on the same stage as Varla’s show. Now there was no question that my summer would be spent on the Cape.

But none of this was answering the big financial question. I was so far in the hole that only a lottery win would have allowed me to climb out. The time had come to face the inevitable: I had to file for bankruptcy. This option had been lurking in the background for some time now, but like everyone who faces such a situation, I had tried to think of every conceivable solution before resorting to that. But no amount of juggling and reshuffling and restructuring could fend off the inevitable: I was screwed.

So I began that process just before heading off to Los Angeles.

The run of the show in L.A. was terrific. We did OK business, but more than anything I really had a chance to work on the show. I never did the same script two nights in a row the entire three weeks I was there. Every night changes both large and small went into the show. It was exhausting. I had expected to "The Socializer" during the trip but ended up spending most of my time in the apartment (generously loaned to me by Chi Chi LaRue) working on changes and conserving my energy. When I wasn’t at home I was usually at the theater going over new stuff on the stage, or rehearsing the music I had to learn for Varla’s show. Of which there was lots.

I had just under two weeks between returning from L.A. and leaving for Provincetown. During that time I not only had to get the house ready to be gone for the summer and decide what to bring for three months away, I had to write a revision of the script for the show, based on what I had learned during the L.A. run and incorporating the new material and visual elements that Kevin and were hoping to put in. There was also a final polish to be put on Varla’s music. Of which there was lots. I wanted to show up at the first rehearsal with a solid handle on the material. It had been a long time since I had served as accompanist and I wanted to make sure I would not be the weak link in the show. On top of that, upon arriving in Provincetown, I would be rehearsing Varla’s show and the new version of Canned Ham simultaneously; in fact, the two opening nights were within three days of one another.

The experience of Provincetown warrants an entire entry unto itself, so to summarize: professionally, it was a great success. Canned Ham was received very well and I had a wonderful time doing it. Again, the script underwent pretty major changes from the beginning of the summer straight through to the end. And I like to think my performance became more focused and relaxed. During the course of the summer I started to envision a major reworking of the show, mostly based on comments from audience members who would stop me on the street. The biggest change would be a lot more music. I started making notes for Canned Ham 2.0.

And Varla’s show? Well, after undergoing more changes than Spiderman will ever see, The Loose Chanteuse was a smash. And the chemistry between us was palpable. People commented on it. Varla, being truly one of the most generous performers I have ever worked with, began bringing me more and more into the show so I was not simply “the guy at the piano” but to a great extent, a character in the show. There was not a night during the summer that I did not look forward to doing the show. Indeed, of every show I have ever worked on (including my own) performing with Varla in The Loose Chanteuse was the most unadulterated fun I have ever had on stage.

My personal experience over the summer was mixed: I really didn’t know what to expect from the town. I was working seven days a week for most of the summer and so I might as well have been in Cincinnati for all the socializing I did. I think I went out to dinner exactly twice over the three months I was there. Most of the summer was hot as the Dickens and Johnathan was only able to come visit for a long weekend in August. So, it was challenging. I read a lot. I left the Cape just twice during the summer, and one of those times was a round-trip to Albany (ten hours, thank you) to make the court date for my bankruptcy hearing.

I returned home from Provincetown exhausted, very tan and with a teeny bit of savings. Oh, and with a reborn reputation as a musician. I guess expectations are pretty low when a former porn star sits down at the piano. “But when I started to play…!”

Then I got straight to work on the new version of Canned Ham which would have its premiere at Dixon Place in NYC on, of all days, my 50^th birthday. Hence it would also be a party. I had a matter of weeks to prepare a completely new script, tons of musical additions to the show (including a grand total of 12 instruments I’d be playing on stage.)

I also returned to my waitering job. Happily, amazingly enough.

Two weeks before the one-nighter of Canned Ham I flew to New Orleans for three days to shoot a role in Varla’s feature film. She wrote the part for me. Honest! Three days turned into a week when one of the actors was seriously injured on his way to the set and things had to be rescheduled. I used the extra time away to really learn the new Canned Ham script.

The show on my birthday was tremendous. I was amazingly relaxed and focused (we had rehearsed right up until the time the doors opened so I had no time to get nervous) and the new version of the show proved to be a big step in the right direction. (We’re still not quite there, though. Hence even more rewrites.)

After that I put together a very silly Christmas cabaret with Trixie Starr, a local drag queen and entrepreneur. We played it up and down the Hudson Valley and—God knows why—the audiences seemed to enjoy it. We had fun.

That brings us pretty much to the present. It’s December 30^th, Johnathan’s napping in the loft with the cat (I told him—Johnathan, not the cat--I needed the day to myself to get some stuff done) and I’m wrapping up this way-too-lengthy blog entry.

And how do things compare with a year ago?

Well, I have an upright piano where the Steinway grand once rested, I have a fridge full of food purchased without the help of food stamps and, thanks to the nice man at the bankruptcy court, I have no debts and no beautiful-yet-unsold houses dragging me down to the bottom of the financial ocean. (I also have no money to speak of, but when have I ever? That’s nothing new in my world.)

What I do have, though, is a calendar with a lot of dates saved: I leave on January 5 for three weeks in California to do The Loose Chanteuse in L.A. and San Diego. Then I’ll be in Key West the first two weeks of February (pity me!) with Canned Ham. Then back to NYC for the second half of the month with The Loose Chanteuse. Then it’s a run of the newest version of Canned Ham in New York back at Dixon Place for the month of March (punctuated by a weekend in New Orleans with The Loose Chanteuse).

And on top of all that I’m working on a new show for next summer in Provincetown. Not exactly sure at this point what it will be, but producer Mark Cortale made me an offer I couldn’t refuse so it’s back to the Cape for July and August. Ms. Merman and I will probably also rendezvous there for a rematch at some point.

Tomorrow night--New Year's Eve--I work my final shift at the restaurant and thus concludes another run-of-the-mill year in the life of Tom Judson.

And a year from now? Who knows? As they say…

This Simple Phrase

2010-12-22T10:57:00.012-05:00

So, I get on the E Train at 23^rd Street to go meet my friend Valerie for lunch at the Oyster Bar. (The Oyster Bar has already been covered, so I’ll skip that part of the story.) As cold as it was I decided to take the train to the 5^th Avenue stop, get out at 53^rd Street and walk back down to Grand Central.

As much as anyone, the excesses of the Christmas season make my skin crawl: hordes of Walmartians stampeding into stores before dawn on Black Friday; Christmas decorations going up in November; the annual—and totally fabricated—debate about saying “holiday” vs. “Christmas.” Being the dyed-in-the-wool atheist that I am the very underpinnings of the holiday ring false with me. Which is kind of ironic in that I see very, very little Christ in most of the Christmas activities that assault the general population from year to year.

When the train reached the 42^nd Street stop a self-appointed Apostle of the Lord boarded the train and began quoting scripture. Loudly. Very loudly. My eardrums were literally ringing with the barrage of sing-songy Bible verses this fellow was haranguing we heathens with. Apparently we were all going to Hell, which, compared with this, would have been a vacation. My fellow passengers rolled their eyes and covered their ears but no one said anything. After all, there’s a fine line between devout and demented. But if I had summoned the nerve to address the guy I would have asked him if he could put what he was saying into his own words. A lot of this scripture-spouting has always struck me as merely showing off what one has memorized without really absorbing its meaning.

I escaped the sermon at the 5^th Avenue stop and ascended to the street. Indeed, baby, it was cold outside. I joined the hordes on the street. As I walked past the Abercrombie and Fitch store I saw the long line of people waiting to go in.

Let’s pause to consider that: Waiting. To go in. To a clothing store.

As I passed, the doors opened and inside stood a mostly-naked, muscular young man who seemed to be… well, I’m not sure just what he was doing. Putting people in the Christmas mood? He seemed to be putting people in some kind of mood.

I popped in to St. Patrick’s cathedral out of habit. I’ve been going in there for years whenever I pass. The smell of candle wax calms me. The guard instructed men to remove their hats while inside. If I had been in a synagogue I would have been instructed to don a hat. How can the Middle East be expected to reach a peace accord when the world can’t even agree on whether or not to wear headgear in a house of worship?

Next stop: Sak’s windows. Sak’s Christmas windows vary wildly in originality and quality from year to year. (The best ever? The recreation of Christmas numbers form Broadway musicals.) This year they’re dull to the point of being almost impossible to describe. I truly don’t know what was supposed to be going on in them. They feature standard mannequins in expensive gowns and jewels and there are some kind of little girl characters stuck in here and there. I was at a loss. No wonder there were no lines to view that.

The Rockefeller Center skating rink? Packed and expensive. Kids crying. Parents crouched down and angry. The tree? The same as always. (Although the star does have a corporate sponsor this year.)

Nope. Nothing was challenging my innate Scrooginess on this trip down the center of Manhattan.

I got to glorious Grand Central Terminal and had a wonderful lunch with the aforementioned Valerie. I don’t think either of us mentioned Christmas once. I said goodbye to her and headed for the subway. Down. Down and down. As I walked the block-long passageway to reach the 8^th Avenue line I passed a pair of buskers tucked into an unobtrusive corner of a stairwell. I generally disdain street musicians. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but I usually walk past with a lowered gaze, always a little embarrassed.

These guys were different, though. They really seemed to be playing just for themselves. Acoustic guitar and fiddle. No amplification. The guitarist simply strummed the beat--chunk-chunk-chunk on the chords—while the violinist played a somewhat loping version of the tune. The tune. “The Christmas Song.” Mel Tormé. Chestnuts. Nat King Cole.

The rendition was so modest, the scene so incongruous that I was able to really hear the song. I know the song pretty well because I like it and because I often find myself at the piano during Christmas season and it’s a song people usually want to hear. It’s a tough one. It sounds so simple and yet the melody and chord changes are alarmingly complex. Every year I find myself learning the song anew (I play these things by ear) as the changes are just too weird to keep in one’s head.

As I passed the subway duo they were rounding the tune into “yuletide carols being sung by a choir/and folks dressed up like Eskimos.” That musical line sounds like it’s riding on a cloud, pillowing from one note to the next effortlessly and dreamily. Hah! If only! Folks, I’ll have you know that passage goes through about four different keys in as many bars and can drive a by-ear musician nuts.

But there in the subway, in a urine-soaked stairwell, played by two guys who didn’t seem to give a hoot whether the indifferent crowds were even listening, the melody rode on a cloud and pillowed from one note to the next, effortlessly and dreamily.

And that was a Christmas miracle.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

2010-08-20T13:29:00.003-04:00

All the big movie studios kept stock architectural elements on hand to reconfigure into new structures for different films. Perhaps the best-known example is from Gone With the Wind: the burning of Atlanta is, in fact, the burning of Skull Island from King Kong.

Well, I just spotted another instance of a dream factory being more factory than dream: I’m watching A Place In the Sun (I guess this is also a follow-up post to “An American Tragedy”) and during the lead up to the big, fat close-up of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift as they’re dancing, they walk past a curving staircase.

Hold on a minute, thought I. That staircase rings a bell. Let’s see. A Place In the Sun… Paramount… 1951. What else was made around that time by that studio? What other movie might have featured a grand, curving staircase?

Altogether now: Sunset Boulevard, naturally.

And in a mere two Google clicks I found the evidence I needed and which I present here. I like to think of Norma Desmond lurking at the top of the stairs and wondering who are all these little people desecrating her mansion.

“Max!”

The Longest Mile

2010-08-17T08:52:00.010-04:00

I’ve already written about the Rear Window view from my porch through the alleyway entrance and onto the street. Of the endless parade of tourists and daytrippers, pedicabs and shirtless muscle men (and not-so-muscle men.) But the activity back here in the parking lot itself is not to be dismissed. From the (way too) early morning sorting of the recyclables bins to the periodic gentle thuds as the restaurant workers drop empty cardboard boxes from the second-storey kitchen landing. (The “bombs away!” is implied.)

But the image that has really tickled me over the summer is brought on by the surface of the lot itself; a medium-size gravel. It’s not my beloved Item 4, which eventually compacts into a solid mass. It’s a loose, gray stone roughly the size of Kraft Caramels. It shifts here and there based on the 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-point turns that vehicles must make to facilitate driving forward through the narrow alley rather than having to back precariously into the very busy street.

Sometimes, if I’m not really paying attention, I’m fooled into thinking there’s a light rain falling outside when the gravel is trod upon.

But beginning in the late-afternoon—every day—when I can often be found reading on my porch, I get to witness a lovely and unique procession: The Art House Drag Queens. Many of the acts booked here at The Art House are, in fact, drag acts. For that matter, a good percentage of the shows all over town feature male performers in fabulous female garb. Clearly, it’s one of the things visitors expect when they come to this last town on the Cape.

Since all of us performers have to promote our shows by handing out fliers on the street (“barking” is what we call it) the drag acts have to spend countless extra hours in makeup and costume. God bless ‘em, I say.

So ‘round about 5 o’clock, depending on the lineup that evening, the Ladies start to trickle out from the dressing rooms, which are behind my apartment near the stage door. And this is the part of which I’m so enamored: most of these gals sport precariously high heels for optimum dramatic effect. But high heels + gravel doth not a happy marriage make! So I drop my book to my lap and peer over my (2.00 strength) dollar store reading glasses and watch unseen as the queens traipse across the expanse of gravel to the brick paved sidewalk at the street end of the alley. It’s about 50 feet from the dressing room area to the bricks and depending on the heels (and the confidence of the Ladies) the voyage can be tricky or, well, trickier. I hear them as they march confidently up the concrete ramp from behind the theater and step onto the loose stones.

And at that point the pace slows to a crawl. They focus their gaze on the ground ahead. Weight is shifted from the heels to the balls of their feet. Ankles wobble. Hands are deployed to the side--highwire-like--to achieve balance. Some delicately arc one foot in front of the other like great plumed birds. Others glide their feet mere centimeters above the ground. But no matter their individual techniques, they are all Elizas on the ice crossing the river of gravel to the distant brick-paved shore.

And here is the glorious part: the instant those size 12 slippers hit solid ground, these wary creatures (that up to this moment very distinctly resembled nothing but men wearing dresses) swan out into the street as poised, regal, confident, fabulous Drag Queens.

And all’s right with the world.

Double Your Pleasure

2010-08-13T17:08:00.005-04:00

I love a double boiler. The obvious uses for it (melting chocolate, uh... melting chocolate,) are, well, obvious. But it also makes the best oatmeal possible. The oats and water never actually boil and bubble when it cooks. It simply becomes oatmeal. The smoothest, creamiest, most non-scorched oatmeal you've ever had. And, as I've written recently, it cooks and incorporates fruit into the porridge to create a breakfast that very much resembles dessert.

But for my money, the thing a double boiler does best is re-heat. Things with a high liquid content (leftover spaghetti with sauce, say) heat up without drying out. Cooked vegetables stay crisp. Even something like a grilled chicken breast gets hot and actually gets juicier from the process.

Unlike a microwave or a toaster oven, the food reheats evenly and thoroughly. Granted it takes longer than those other methods, but it's definitely worth it if you've got the time.

Today, I had the time. And right now that leftover rigatoni with turkey meatballs and broccoli is looking mighty good.

10 Things Guaranteed to Make Me Happy.

2010-08-12T11:02:00.008-04:00

1. The Lady Eve.

2. A visit with the in-laws.

3. “South American Getaway.” (click on album cover to listen.)

4. Re-reading “Comfort & Joy” every December.

5. Frank Lloyd Wright.

6. Audrey Hepburn singing “Moon River.” (click on picture to listen.)

7. Letting “A Confederacy of Dunces” fall open at random and reading whatever chapter it happens to be.

8. Sitting on my deck in the evening with a glass (or two) of ice-cold, bone-dry Chablis.

9. An early morning row.

10.

"Places, please!"

2010-08-11T22:21:00.004-04:00

It’s 8:52 PM and I’m about to go on in “The Loose Chanteuse”, the show I’m doing here in Provincetown with Varla Jean Merman. This is one of my favorite times of the day; we’ve finished setting up the stage (our little crew has turned into a well oiled machine), I’ve gotten into my costume and I’m listening for the preshow music which is my cue to wait outside the stage door for my entrance. My apartment is literally six feet away from the wall of the theater and I can hear the music from my front porch. For that matter, I can hear it from here inside, where I am now typing this entry. At this point in the season it’s already dark at curtain time, so if I want to read on the porch I have to turn on the porch light. Sometimes I’ll work on the concertina during these last minutes before the show, but most often I prefer to just sit out on the porch--illuminated only by the Christmas lights I brought from home—and enjoy the cool night air before going on. There are no wings at the theater so the stage door opens directly onto the stage. There’s a single chair parked outside in the alley and that’s where I sit just before going on. Varla shows some (very witty) commercials before the show and there’s a line in one of them that I use as my cue to go through the stage door and onto the stage, pressed up against the wall so I’m hidden from the audience, and wait for my introduction. At the beginning of the season it felt like the audience was clapping for "the piano player," but over the past few weeks, as my own show has become more successful, I’ve started to feel like they’re actually applauding, well, me.

Oops, there's that preshow music. See you onstage!

The Singles

2010-08-08T11:22:00.012-04:00

I’m tearing through a terrific new biography of Karen Carpenter, thanks to James Gavin's review in the Times. I was a hu-u-u-u-uge Carpenters fan when I was a kid. Still am. There’s lots of fascinating behind the scenes stuff in it, including recounting individual recording sessions. (They recorded three different versions of "Close To You"? Who knew?) Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve learned is that the name of the group wasn’t “The Carpenters,” it was simply “Carpenters.” Only took me 40 years to find that out. Of course, knowing the outcome of the story, it’s a poignant read from page 1, but I’m happy to learn that Karen really was as wholesome and unaffected as her public persona.

But that’s not what this post is about.

Each of their albums is gone over in some depth and when I read the chapter about their first compilation album (“The Singles”, released in 1973) I had a flashback to January of '74. Debbie Johnson, who lived on my school bus route, had gotten the album for Christmas. One morning we sat together on the bus and pored over the liner notes. I realized I didn’t need to get “The Singles” because I had all of the songs on their original source albums.

And then it occurred to me: we used to bring record albums to school. We used to bring record albums to school!

To what end? It’s not like we played them in class ever. (Well, except for that stoner guy who somehow got Mr. Berger to let him play “Physical Graffiti” every fucking day during 4th period art.) There was no students’ lounge with a record player. We could only play library records (in their heavy, thick clear vinyl covers) in the library. But I distinctly remember carrying records along with my schoolbooks under my arm throughout the day. Why?

I guess they were like any other prized possession we wanted to show off. And, of course, our music choices defined our personalities, so I guess we were making a passive statement while displaying our record collections, one disc at a time.

That's just a guess. I dunno why we did it. But we did.

Gosh, looking back on how it was in years gone by—and the good times that we had? It makes today seem rather sad. So much has changed.

A Heart of Stone

2010-08-06T17:52:00.006-04:00

My friend Jessica once told me her secret of putting the bananas in the oatmeal before cooking it. That way the bananas cook down and incorporate into the oatmeal and the flavor intensifies. I’ve been doing it that way ever since (in the double boiler, natch) but have taken to adding additional goodies beforehand such as strawberries, raisins, walnuts and minced candied ginger. And cinnamon. The strawberries don’t really incorporate like the bananas do, but their flavor does become richer. You don’t even need to add brown sugar or maple syrup. I suppose pretty much any fruit would do and I’ll try just about anything. But not peaches. Peaches are my favorite fruit and when one is lucky enough to find a good juicy one, it must be enjoyed in its raw state. That doesn’t stop me from slicing it up on top of the oatmeal, though. When Johnathan was here I made oatmeal with all of the above-mentioned ingredients, and threw diced raw peaches on top.

It was like dessert for breakfast.

[My view kind of reminds me of "Cannery Row".]

The Sincerest Form of Flattery? Let's Hope That's It.

2010-08-05T17:00:00.014-04:00

Should I be looking over my shoulder for “Mad Men” creator Matt Weiner? I mean, he did cast his real-life son in the creepy role of Glen so you do have to wonder about his motives. And while I love having my life and current theatrical endeavor constantly referenced in the show, Sunday’s episode started to make me feel like Bridget Fonda in Single White Female being aped (literally) to death by crazy Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Exhibit 1a: Last season featured an episode where Joan threw a dinner party and was goaded by her husband into whipping out her red accordion to perform “C’est Magnifique.”

Exhibit 1b: My red accordion.

Exhibit 2a: Season 4’s opener saw Don Draper receiving a canned ham from a client.

Exhibit 2b: Do I even have to say it?

Exhibit 3a/b: The “Mad Men Yourself” app on AMC’s website created the image below (L) from their myriad wardrobe/accessory options. For your consideration, here (below, R) is a snapshot taken of me taken about 25 years ago (when I was 3.) Please note, even the angle is the same.

Exhibit 4a: Creepy Glen himself working at the Christmas tree stand where he first hatches the scheme to stalk Sally Draper. Oh, look! What’s that in the background? Could it possibly be a camper? Of the style affectionately nicknamed “canned ham”?

Exhibit 4b: My “canned ham.” Oh, and what a coincidence! I’m standing in front of it playing a red accordion.

Could all this be mere happenstance? I suppose so. Lots of people eat ham and have flat top haircuts and play red accordions in front of campers. I’ll let you judge the preceding. But one moment in Sunday night’s episode really gave me the heebie-jeebies. And that brings us to…

Exhibit 5a: At SCDP’s cringe-inducing Christmas party Joey, the new (and very adorable) art director peeks his head in the doorway while wearing his groovy black-and-rust plaid dinner jacket.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Exhibit 5b: My groovy black-and-rust plaid dinner jacket hanging in the doorway of my “canned ham” camper with my accordion in view! I’ve owned that jacket for more than 20 years and have worn it onstage many times where anyone (oh, I dunno, maybe Matt Weiner?) could have seen me.

Color me “paranoid” but after seeing that jacket on the show I had to look in my closet just to make sure mine was still there.

OK,, Matt Weiner, I give up: you’re the pretty one. Now please just leave me alone!

Honestly, Girlfriend!

2010-08-05T14:56:00.003-04:00

Maureen Dowd yesterday provided me with a follow-up blog entry to my post about her previous column which I called plain old filler. In that column she mentions the recent book about the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's. In her latest column she talks about how the author of said book contacted her after her column and they had an e-mail correspondence re. the sorry state of romantic comedies. most of the column is the book's author's e-mails (the italics are mine.)

Thanks, Maureen, for confirming my suspicion (and thereby giving me a follow-up column as well!)

Will this reflexive/post-modern/meta/mirror-in-a-mirror crap never end?!

Concertgoers

2010-08-02T15:12:00.005-04:00

These are some of my new friends here in Provincetown who have listened patiently—and without comment—as I squawk away on the concertina this summer. The wide shot is of the hill where I’ve been sitting, shaded above by the spreading boughs, cushioned below by a bed of pine needles and wheezing contentedly—if clumsily—away on sea shanties that my reclining neighbors might have whistled along to had I but arrived two centuries earlier.

[N.B. I shall be away from the computer for the next two days--therefore there will be no blog entries.]

Soul Sisters

2010-08-01T08:21:00.002-04:00

What do Maureen Dowd and I have in common? We’re both filling today’s entries with sorry, half-hearted excuses for a subject just to fill space. In today’s Times, Ms. Dowd pens 1,000 words comparing Holly Golightly to Betty Draper. She throws in generous chunks of quotations from the original Capote novella and recycles quotes from a Vanity Fair interview with the author of a new (and very fun) book about the making of the movie version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. At one point she even resorts to describing retail window displays in her own neighborhood. It makes one wonder if she trolled the streets of Georgetown early Saturday morning desperate for ideas.

As much as I enjoy reading Maureen Dowd and appreciate her insights and opinions, today’s column is pure filler. Every once in a while her column will reek of that “synergy” thing they trumpeted a decade ago when media conglomerates were swallowing up other entertainment behemoths and cross-pollination ran rampant. Our Maureen sometimes plugs books or movies by people whom one suspects are good buddies. But this column today? I dunno. One can picture her typing away with one eye on the word counter, her breath coming in shallow gasps as it approaches the one-thousand mark.

Shameless! Shocking! How anyone could write a column about nothing just to have something to post is beyond me.

"Tell Mama. Tell Mama All."

2010-07-30T12:26:00.007-04:00

I’m halfway through Theodore Dreiser’s 800-page “An American Tragedy.” (Thank you, Kindle!) I’d never read it before and it’s been years since I saw A Place In the Sun which is based on it. It’s a great read, although I think the same story could have been told in 500 pages. That Dreiser does go on and on saying the same thing over and over again.

The story takes place in the Adirondacks about an hour north of where I live now. Two of the main characters work in a factory that produces detachable collars, a ubiquitous product in that part of the state at that time. (Troy, NY’s nickname is still “The Collar City.”)

That alone is enough to hold my attention, but what I’m finding most interesting is the social/historical detail woven into the text. Since the story hinges on class differences in early 20th century America it was necessary for Dreiser to be specific about his character’s daily activities.

So, mundane (to Dreiser) things such as the proper way to address a new lady friend, or the fact that every little town had a movie theater, or how one would buy a ticket for each dance at a fun fair the same way one would buy a ticket for a carousel ride are presented matter-of-factly, while I’m finding them exotic and fascinating. Or the notion of being able to travel from town to town on convenient “interurban trolleys” (E.L. Doctorow explored this a bit in “Ragtime”, too) or the fact that one could not speak freely and confidentially on the telephone because there were very likely other people listening in on the conversation. Meanwhile, the description of upper-class summer life on the Adirondack lakes is making my mouth water.

I already know how the story ends so there’s no real suspense for me, but it’s a fun trip Mr. Dreiser is taking me on.

I’ll rent the movie when I finish the book, but I’ve already decided Shelley Winters was miscast. I think the character is more of a Janet Gaynor type—truly sweet and sincere and doe-like. I mean, who wouldn’t want to push Shelley Winters out of a canoe after spending too much time with her? The book provides good character background, too, as the movie version starts a couple of hundred pages into the novel. We’re first introduced to the Montgomery Clift character as a 12-year-old and meet his evangelical parents who are only referred to in passing in the movie.

While researching the story online I found there was an adaptation of the book on Broadway in the 1930s by The Group Theater and directed by Lee Strasberg. The unbelievable cast (and a HUAC wet dream) included: Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Bobby Lewis, Sanford Meisner, Ruth Nelson and Paula Miller (who would later terrorize Hollywood directors under her married name, Paula Strasberg, as Marilyn Monroe’s acting coach.)

Provincetown Peeps

2010-07-30T07:05:00.003-04:00

Before Varla’s show tonight (did I mention I’m having more fun doing The Loose Chanteuse with Varla than maybe I’ve ever had doing a show before?) I stopped by the book release party for Bobby Miller’s “Provincetown Peeps, Vol. II” Bobby is a rather fantastic photographer and also an acquaintance from the East Village back in the day. I hadn’t seen him in years and years and years before running into him here in Provincetown earlier this summer. He’s done many photo essays over the years and this new one has got to be the most glamorous of all. Over the past year he shot many of the locals in his inimitable style and has just published them in book form. (The photos--not the locals themselves.) They’re dreamy and creamy and ethereal and just all around divine. I’m happy to say I’ve gotten to know quite a few of the Peeps since I arrived here in May and it was great fun to see them in their Milleresque glory hanging on the walls of a Cape Cod mansion.

Here’s the illustrious Mr. Norman Vane as seen through the lens of Bobby Miller.

(P.S. I really did write this entry yesterday, thereby keeping to my goal of one entry per day, but they seem to turn off the wireless signal around 11:30 and I missed getting in under the wire. It shan’t happen again.)

At The End Of The Trail...

2010-07-28T11:28:00.004-04:00

My new Provincetown friend Chase Wyatt took me on a tour of the bike trails through the dunes last week. Another friend described them as “an amusement park for bikes” because there are a couple of big hills but the path is paved, so one doesn’t have to work too hard to get up them and the coast back down is plain old fun. The trail goes through open areas with gorgeous views of the ocean as well as some wooded stretches of pine and oak. All the trees seem to be small-scale, though. I assume it has something to do with them being rooted in sand and the quality of the salt air in which they’re growing. At the end of the ride is the parking lot for the beach at Herring Cove. It’s the perfect opportunity to take the sun and jump in the water for a bit before heading back in the opposite direction. All in all it’s a pretty good cardio workout. Well, if you push it, anyway.

Along the way there’s an historic rescue station where guards would scan the sea for signs of shipwrecks or sailors in distress. The building wasn’t open when we were there but Chase took the opportunity to snap some pictures. They’re all great but here is one I particularly like.

Really? Just One Year Ago?

2010-07-27T18:31:00.004-04:00

It was just over a year ago that Canned Ham was first presented to an audience. It was not a performance, per se, it was a reading for my new friends on Saba, the island where I had spent the summer and where I had written the play. It was quite an exciting event for me. I was nearing the end of my stay in the Caribbean. The two months there had been perfection—I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the experience. The people I met and had come to know and love were quirky and colorful and simply wonderful. I was eager to share what I had written in their midst.

Of course, I didn’t really know what that was, having shown it to only a couple of close friends and never having heard it read aloud. The structure of the play is “eccentric” (as Charles Busch called it) and I wasn’t sure how it would play or if the jumping back and forth in time would be difficult to follow. Also, I would be reading it to people who were unaware of my existence two months prior, who were probably unfamiliar with many if not most of the cultural references in the script and for whom English was a second language.

Well, with script in hand and reading glasses on my nose it went over like gangbusters there in the dining pavilion at El Momo Cottages and gave me the first hint that—personal as the story is—there’s enough in the show that’s universal to appeal to a wider audience.

And so here I am a year later performing what is essentially the third version of the show. It’s this version Kevin Malony and I will be working from to go forward with the project. I won’t simply be restoring the cuts I made to bring the show down to an hour; performing the truncated version here in Provincetown has taught me much about what in the play can be expanded upon and what can remain gone. And we’ve got a few ideas for completely new things kicking around that we’re going to try out.

As the season goes along here on the Cape the audiences are growing in size and the terrific response to the show is really spurring me on to knuckle down and really beat the script in to shape.

Never, ever did I imagine Canned Ham would be a project I would spend so much time on. And derive so much satisfaction from.

Product Placement

2010-07-26T19:45:00.005-04:00

When I watched The Sopranos I consumed the entire series in a two-month binge on DVD. I started to feel like I was one of the characters on the show. Well, with Mad Men I feel the same way but it’s because they’re telling me I’m part of the show. In an episode from season three, Joan’s dweeb of a husband prods her into taking out her accordion and entertaining their dinner guests. That’s an obvious reference to me and my love of the accordion. But in the new edition of “Mad Men Yourself” on AMC.com one of the accessory options is a red accordion. And one of the wardrobe choices is a plaid jacket. Well, check out my Mad Men avatar and compare it to the photo of me taken in about 1985. ‘Nuff said? But the piece of resistance, the cherry on the sundae, the beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt evidence that Matt Weiner is plugging my show Canned Ham came in lasts night’s season four premiere: Don Draper, dashing, lead character Don Draper is presented with a canned ham as a thank-you from a client. Not a box of candy, not a Palm Beach weekend. No. A canned ham.

Thank you, Matthew Weiner.

Talk About Your Childhood Wishes!

2010-07-25T08:49:00.005-04:00

Since I’m a kid Goetze’s Caramel Creams have been one of my favorite candies. I remember our babysitter used to bring them to us in a sealed 10-pack on a little white card that had the long edges turned up slightly to hold the candies in place. Who knows? Maybe they can still be purchased that way.

But I always preferred them individually wrapped out of a large bag. The wrapped candies provided a unique pleasure in the act of removing them from the crinkly cellophane: after untwisting the ends, one could pop the candy out of the wrapping with one hand. Also, the product on the card were always slightly flattened (most likely from going through the wrapping machine) and their centers (made from God knows what. Hydrogenated something-or-other) were more unified with the caramel surrounding them. (Likewise with Cow Tales, essentially a mini, unsliced roll of Caramel Creams. In theory, a great idea, but it just ain’t the same.)

When I was a kid (the old man croaked) the centers had a completely different, dryer texture. So much so that one could occasionally actually remove the centers with one’s tongue and enjoy the two flavors individually.

Sublime.

Doing research from this entry, it turns out the fine people at Goetze’s make several other products, including a Strawberry Cream I've never come across.

Intriguing.

They also have a recipe page (with one recipe) suggesting Caramel Creams be melted and incorporated into brownie batter.

Brilliant.

Until then I shall enjoy the original versions by the fistful and recall the halcyon days of youth when Mrs. Baltera would proffer a 10-pack card of Caramel Creams to a bright-eyed, sweet-toothed little boy.

This Time I Mean It!

2010-07-24T18:57:00.003-04:00

After going to the trouble (and fun) of creating the fantastic header graphic for this blog I really fell off the wagon in terms of regular posting. Unless one considers every seven months “regular.” And since I’m making a concerted effort to spend less time on Facebook (one of the most convincing signs that Satan exists in the world) I have reason to get back to this blog just to let folks know I’m still alive.

So this is my pledge: I am going to post something here every day. Even if it’s (literally) a single line or just a photo.

Hey, if Samuel Pepys can do it by candlelight with just a quill, I should be able to do it on my MacBook Pro.

So, here goes with entry #1:

I’m teaching myself the concertina this summer. My friend John Glover gave me one when I was doing Canned Ham in L.A. last May. It’s an instrument I’ve always wanted to learn (I had one years and years ago that—I think—came from my grandparents’ attic, but it was old and brittle and the bellows eventually lost their air-tightness, so that came to naught.)

Being kind of handy on the accordion you’d think I’d have a leg up with this concertina thing, right? Unfortunately, no. In point of fact the concertina is a closer cousin to the harmonica. In two respects: it’s a diatonic instrument (just the white keys on the piano) and the same button plays a different note depending on whether you’re pressing or drawing on the bellows. It’s a real pat-your-head/rub-your-stomach kind of challenge.

Also, it’s mostly a single-line instrument (for the beginner, at least.)

I’ve been working on it now for about a month and can pretty well play simple melodies from the beginner songbook I ordered. Mickey hates it (and so, too, I imagine, do my neighbors here at the Art House apartments in Provincetown) so when I first started practicing it, I’d take it to the ancient cemetery a short walk away. No one goes there so it was just me and the long-deceased. Many of the songs in the book are old sea shanties from the 18th century and since many of the folks lying prone around (under?) me were seafarers from the 18th century, there was a nice poetic symmetry as I’d stumble through my concertina concert.

I discovered a virtuoso on YouTube who provides inspiration (and a few chuckles) to keep up with the practicing and I would like to think that when, oh, 10 or 20 years has elapsed, I’ll be as good as he. Until then, I’ll continue to stumble through “Oh, Nanny, Wilt Thou Gang With Me?” as Mickey runs under the bed.

The Year According to Me

2009-12-23T19:59:00.015-05:00

Well, I certainly can’t deny that 2009 was interesting. Perhaps the most interesting year of my life. And when you think about my life, that’s really saying something.

I began the year watching my finances collapse around me. Yes, the rest of the world was in the same boat, but that didn’t make it any easier. Within the space of a few months my debts substantially outweighed my assets. All because the last flip house I worked on never sold. (And I mean never. I still own it. It’s tied to a very long rope that’s steadily dragging me down to the bottom of the river.) My timing was impeccable: it officially went on the market two weeks after Lehman Brothers imploded. Oops.

Very quickly I realized there would be no fiduciary white knight riding to my rescue, so I swallowed hard and looked for a job I could earn a living wage at. In upstate New York. I know, I know… hysterical, right? There may be work around here but my ex-pat friends and I are stumped as to what that might be. And let’s face it; I wasn’t looking for a career job, I wanted something to pay the bills until the flip house sold. ‘Twasn’t to be.

My spirits drooped like an over-ripe, unpicked tomato in late summer

Craiglist came a cropper as far as hourly wages went. Well, heck! I figured if I was going to have to work for gas money it might as well be at a job that might mean something to me.

Enter the Albany Damien Center.

The little community HIV center wanted something called a “peer advocate” for $10/hour. It was a 35-minute commute, but what were my options? I submitted an application, had an interview and got the job. Twenty hours per week. Oy. Wouldn’t exactly pay the bills. Didn’t exactly boost my spirits. I was feeling mighty low.

And there was light. And it was good.

On one of my first days on the job I was talking with a newly sober young woman with a one-year-old baby who casually mentioned that when she was pregnant her water broke when she was stoned on heroin. In jail.

“Oh, poor me. My second house won’t sell!” OK, dammit, you win, Heroin Mom: I guess my story ain’t so Sad Sack as all that. So within hours of starting my new job I found it impossible to feel sorry for myself about my financial situation. That’s not to say it wasn’t getting worse by the minute, but I gained a perspective from that job that would make a de Chirico painting seem positively flat. Of all the line items on my curriculum vitae my time at the Damien Center is in many ways the most fulfilling position I’ve ever held.

Now, as fate would have it, when I checked my e-mail the very morning I was heading out to my first day at the Damien Center I found an invitation to spend the summer on a little island in the Caribbean called Saba helping with minor construction projects friends of mine had in mind for the hotel they ran.

Um, let me give that some thought for about 1/10^th of a second. Yeah, sounds good.

Meanwhile, back at the cabin, my plumbing was acting up. I won’t bore you with the whys and wherefores but it was not terribly pleasant living here. Did I mention I had another house sitting empty? Furnished? So I moved. It’s a nice, comfortable house but I wasn’t emotionally invested in it because I had already decided to high-tail it outahere (meaning: this part of the country) ASAP. But where? How?

Enter the Canned Ham.

Barnyard down the road… abandoned camper… $100… we’ve been over this already. The harebrained scheme was successfully hatched and evolved to the point where when I was on Saba I would write some patter to fill in the gaps between songs on the accordion. Surely the house would have sold by then? By this point it was clear that I was for all intents and purposes bankrupt, in actuality if not formally. I decided to wait until my return from the Caribbean to file the papers.

I bid a sad farewell to the folks at the Damien Center and headed to the azure waters of the Dutch Antilles.

We’ve been over this bit already, too, but you can always click on the previous entries links to your right. As brief as my visit was, it will be one of the major landmarks when I look back on my life. Suffice to say that my two months on the island was nothing short of perfection. In every way. Including not spending three months there, as originally planned.

And that is partly due to the fact that the “patter” I had written for my “bar show” I was going to travel the country with turned out to be a real play with more substance than I had imagined. And that meant more rehearsal, revision, staging, etc. I spent the remainder of the summer working on all that.

Since I had rented out my flip house (the one I had moved into) I had no choice but to return to the cabin. Wonder of wonders, five months sitting idle had—apparently—solved the plumbing situation. While I worked on the structure of the show I also got back to work on my personal structure: I needed some publicity photos for the show and since we all know why the folks would be coming to see me on stage, the pictures were going to be, uh, revealing.

Things were falling into place: the script was shaping up, I was shaping up, a buzz was starting around the show. I got a gig with the Advocate magazine writing a column about the show. Everything looked bright except my dang financial situation. I wasn’t too worried about that because I would soon be hitting the road with the show and making some money. And the magazine column would bring in a little. Enough to fill the propane tanks on the camper, anyway.

The show was received very well when I did it in New York. But it was immediately clear that it needed to play in theaters. And that meant the bookings would be coming in next year rather than in the next few weeks. Which meant I’d be sticking around for a while. With bills to pay. And no job.

Oh, did I mention the flip house never sold? Did I mention The Advocate is undergoing some sort of restructuring and I’ve never gotten paid for those columns? Did I mention I have been unable to find a job, even bartending or waitering? Did I mention I went on food stamps last week? And HEAP heating assistance? Did I mention that I’m now officially a poor person? (And did I mention that if I had a pitchfork I’d be down there with it at Morgan Stanley while those execs inside are threatening to quit if they don’t get their bonuses this year?)

BUT… (there’s always a “but,” isn’t there?)

The show will be going out on the road at some point. And I will get some kind of job somewhere. As they say, it always works out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end. And here’s the real thing: I was diagnosed HIV-positive on February 26, 1993 (Google the date: interesting coincidence…) and did not expect to live to see 40. Well, I just turned 49. So those problems and headaches I’m dealing with? I’m alive to have them, so bring ‘em the fuck on.

And there we have Tom Judson’s 2009. As I said, it’s been amazingly interesting. Things I never anticipated in a million years threw themselves in my path. Several times in my adult life I’ve sat with a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve without a clue where I’d be or what I’d be doing six months hence. I’ve never before had two of those in a row, but this December 31 the future is as blurry as ever.

I live for moments like that.

(Time for a quick poll: do you think Johnathan is more confused or more pissed-off right now that I haven’t mentioned him yet?)

But, of course! Of all the unexpected and remarkable things that happened to me this year, the most unexpected, the most remarkable of all is that I fell in love. I had pretty much written off the chances of that ever happening again. Without regret, I hasten to add. But there he was at the gym, reading his goddam Kindle between sets and looking just as cute as cute can be. That was three months ago. And yes, I’m almost twice his age. (For now, anyway; that proportion changes in my favor every day.) All my previous boyfriends were born within five years of my birthdate. Dating someone born after E.T. came out does present unique challenges; there aren’t a whole lot of pop culture references being dropped these days. But it’s fun and I’m happy and it’s keeping me young. (Although—and don’t tell Johnathan I said this—of the two of us, he’s much more the Crotchety Old Fart type.) I’d go on about how great he is but it would just make him impossible to live with. And you know how those old farts can get.

So, there’s my last twelve months in a nutshell. I can’t deny that at this point I’m feeling like, let’s just get this one over with and get 2010 underway.

I wonder what’ll happen?

The Little Pixie

2009-11-21T13:39:00.004-05:00

Maybe it’s the unusually mild weather today or all The Beatles tunes that came up on my iPod this morning at the gym. Of course, it could also be the arrow that Cupid successfully lodged in my sternum. Heck, maybe it’s just the two brownies I found squirreled away at the back of the freezer. But whatever the reason I really am feeling pretty good about things these days. Optimistic… enthusiastic… hopeful.

Yes, it’s true that the only thing standing between me and calling a refrigerator box “home” is about $300 (and you know that my refrigerator box will be the absolute envy of the underpass…) but I also get to see my amazingly wonderful second family on Thursday (and next weekend I get to—gulp—meet the Fokkers), there’s a pot of fish chowder simmering away on the stove waiting to be e’t, a couple of books sizzling away on my Kindle waiting to be read and, later this afternoon, a really good nap waiting to be taken.

Pollyana-ish? Perhaps. But it all puts me in mind of this song from that great—yet forgotten—off-off-Broadway musical from the early 'nineties, White Cotton Sheets, written by… me (and performed here by the amazing Bobby Reed and Stephen Pell.)

And I really do wish that you could be a pixie, too.

Ooops.

2009-11-20T20:53:00.004-05:00

You can imagine it might be a little awkward if your boyfriend is searching the internet and stumbles upon naked pictures of you standing by a truck out in the desert. Unless, of course, you used to do that for a living and it’s in that context that the aforementioned boyfriend first became aware of your existence at all.

And there folks, you have yet another example of the usefulness of porn.

Yes, Johnathan, my new (and totally adorable) boyfriend just showed me a set of photos he found online that were taken on the set of Big Rig, my swansong in the adult film biz, and one of the two movies I made for Colt Studios. (And definitely the most fun I had on a shoot.) That was the movie where I had to drive a semi down a deserted road all of about 100’. Terrifying.

I hadn’t seen these pictures before. I must admit that on reflection they’re pretty good. The funny thing is, though, that I was so neurotic about the Hudson Wright shoot I did this past summer for Canned Ham that I’m in better shape now than when I was in the business.

Oh, irony! Well, J. gets to appreciate it, anyway.

Did I mention it’s sure fun having a boyfriend? Especially a new and totally adorable one. Living two hours apart is a challenge, of course, but not much to be done about that at present. It has caused me to spend more time in the city, though, which I’ve enjoyed. And I may have to be in town on a more regular basis if I get some kind of part-time job down there.

Did I mention I’m broke?! There’s really no work up here in the sticks to speak of so I may look for some bartending or waitering gig in the city to hold me over until the Canned Ham bookings start coming in more regularly. I always swore I’d never do that kind of work again. Never! Funny thing is now that I’m, uh, older, I haven’t any qualms at all about looking for a job like that. I think it’s because back when I used to sling hash or pull brewskies I was always an aspiring something. Well, I’m not aspiring anymore. I think it’s pretty clear by now that my Times obit will not read “Tom Judson, noted _______, is Dead.” I suppose they could insert “gadfly” in there, but I can’t imagine being pinned down to any one profession at this point. So, I no longer aspire. I just do. And it looks like in the short term I may “do” bartending. If I can get hired, that is. I’ve done it before (and here’s the dirty little secret about bartending—it’s so easy. Almost as easy as playing the saxophone) but now they expect you to have resumés and references and blah blah blah. Last time I was a bartender I came home every night with my clothes and hair stinking of smoke. That’s how long it’s been.

Why am I going on about this? Just to meet my blogging commitment, I guess (Amy…) Oh, no! Being broke, that’s it! So many friends of mine are in a similar situation these days. For years we’ve all been getting by (or better) but now the collapse of the economy has really trickled down. I have married friends—two different couples—who have discussed getting a divorce just to qualify for Medicaid. In my book that qualifies as grotesque. Especially when the idiots who are decimating health care reform which might make insurance affordable and keep my friends from contemplating splitting up are the very same ones who would deny me the right to marry another man… to protect marriage.

[So, I'm talking to my right-wing brother-in-law yesterday and the subject of the Death Panels comes up. "You just wait," he says. "They're just around the corner. It's already started: now they're saying 'No mammograms after 50.' If you're older than 50, you're not worth it, I guess." "Uh," I said, "I think what they said was no mammograms under 50." "Oh, so if you're under 50 you're not worth it. See what I mean?! Death Panels are next." Someone please tell me how you argue with that kind of "logic."]

Oy. Here I go again.

Meanwhile I’m sitting in my little cabin catching up on my reading and movie watching and cat petting and cooking (but trying not to bake too much.) I’m trying to get a writing project off the ground to occupy my time and even though I have no photo shoots lined up I’m going to the gym every day. Almost.

In short, life, for a late-middle-aged, destitute, newly-in-love gadfly is pretty good.

Anyway, here’s one of the less risqué pictures from that Big Rig shoot. I don’t know whether Jeff or Mick took this shot so I’ll mention them both.

Déjà vu All Over Again

2009-11-09T22:25:00.003-05:00

Leave it to a bunch of queens to bring scented candles to a rally.

There was a modest but sincere gathering on the steps of the state capitol earlier this evening in anticipation of tomorrow’s vote on the Marriage Equality bill in the ever-dysfunctional New York State Senate. After last week’s vote in Maine I am resigned to another defeat here in my home state, but that didn’t stop me from showing up to raise a flame of hope into the night sky, nor will it keep me from the senate gallery tomorrow to witness the vote. My ever-vigilant friend Beth showed up, too, and as she sniffed at her strawberry scented votive said, “Well, here we are again.” And I guess we’ll be here again and again until they pass this thing or until the hateful bigots just, well, die off and leave the world to the people who think there are a whole lot more important things to worry about.

At the rally I ran into another friend who is in the final stages of gender-reassignment therapy (M-to-F.) She told me passage of the bill was especially important to her now because she’s engaged to a “really nice girl” and they hope to get married. But, after saying that “it doesn’t really matter in her case,” she went on to explain that in spite of the fact that she will legally be re-classified as female after the surgery, since the Catholic church doesn’t recognize gender reassignment, she can still get married (under her boy name) in a church ceremony. So does that mean the state will have to recognize her marriage? Even though the state will consider her a girl? Who will then be married to another girl?

And if that doesn’t illustrate as clearly as anything possibly could how completely ridiculous this whole marriage brouhaha is, I don’t know what does.

Down With Down East

2009-11-06T17:58:00.005-05:00

My blog update record has been pretty pathetic since returning from Saba. I’ve been reluctant to post anything that’s not “event-related” i.e. a balloon flight, a wedding of two dear friends, a tentative foray into Loveland. But as my life has been somewhat uneventful of late (other than that last example) this blog has been lying pretty fallow. And after I went to all the trouble of designing that fabulous new header!

So, I’m going to try to get back to my roots as a novice blogger, way back when I first started gusmattox.com and would write about whatever trivial inanity crosses my mind. I seem to recall that strategy did result in the occasional interesting entry. (That blog was also laced with an x-rated photo now and then. That, uh, won’t be happening here.) My goal is to post three entries per week. They may be very short but at least they’ll exist. I make no promises and you certainly shouldn’t check out this page for any thrice-weekly pearls of wisdom. But at least you’ll know I’m alive.

So, what’s on my mind?

This Maine thing. Tsk tsk tsk. I’ve been saying it for years: we homos are the last minority it’s acceptable to hate, and the vote to repeal our civil right to marriage (please note how terrifying is that phrase: to repeal our civil right) confirmed it. Once inside the voting booth people are free to unleash their bigotry with impunity. And here’s the thing: of course they are. This is still a free country, right? I don’t care if you hate me and what I am. Chances are I hate you right back. But as long as you stay on your side of the fence I will not get in your hateful way. But you don’t stay on your side. You come barging through the garden gate with your morals and your God and your 50% divorce rate and try to tell me I’m going to Hell. I find it so difficult to argue this point once religion enters into it because I think people who believe in God and are members of organized religion are deluded idiots who shouldn’t have the right to vote in the first place if they’re going to bring all that malarkey into the voting booth with them.

Y’know, I’m really pretty tired of this whole argument. Its so painfully obvious to me that it’s rooted in the hatred of homosexuals. And often by some supposedly enlightened individuals. And just as often by the homosexuals themselves. I’m not going to get started about how I believe that the closeted gays are to blame for the lack of and/or slow progress in LGBT rights over the past 10 years. I’ve already been on that soapbox. But I would like to mention that a lot of our straight allies (including our families) could be doing more, but don’t because we homos are the last minority it’s acceptable to hate. If someone utters a homophobic (or any kind of bigoted) remark and it is not rebutted, it is implicitly endorsed. If you let your kid be in the cub scouts in spite of their official anti-gay policy, well, I guess you think that policy is sound. There’s a pretty terrific restaurant in my area run by some religious community. I used to be a regular patron until I found out they, too, are officially anti-gay. I suppose I wasn’t surprised to learn that information, but once I did you’d better believe I stopped going there. But dang it if most of my friends don’t continue to eat there. Even some of my gay friends. They’re actually giving money to people who think their friend (me) is, by his very existence, an affront to nature. Thanks, friends.

I wish I had answers but I don’t. I do wish people would do the substitution thing, though, and see how they come down on different issues. Let’s try: “The official Boy Scout policy is that people who are black runs counter to the values promoted by the Boy Scouts. Therefore we don’t allow black boys to join the scouts or black men to be scoutmasters.” Sign me up! Or: “We believe the Jewish 'lifestyle' is incompatible with a moral and just life.” What’s on the menu?! I think people would be surprised at their own buried prejudices if they tried that tack.

Blah blah blah. This is what you get with a rambling blog entry, I’m afraid. Lots of carping and no suggestions for improvement.

Oh, and did I mention I’m completely disillusioned with Barack Obama?

It Might As Well Be Spring

2009-10-23T08:41:00.007-04:00

Back on February 11th, when I posted the first entry here on what was then my first blog in several years, my friend Wicki said she thought it signified that I was ready to get back into life, to put myself back into the world in a way that left myself open to new adventures and experiences that I had been avoiding hermited away here in the cabin. Based on the months subsequent to that initial post, I’d have to say (as my late husband Bruce would have Mallapropped,) Wicki hit the nail on the nose.

I have had some amazing adventures this year: the Damien Center in Albany… two months on a Caribbean Island… writing a play in three days and seeing it up on stage—in a full production—mere months later… and now getting ready for whatever happens next with the show. (And that last truly is up in the air at this point. We’re all trying to figure out exactly what is next on the agenda for Canned Ham. Stay tuned.) Not to mention a feeling of restlessness here in the woods of upstate New York; I’ve spent more time in the city since returning from Saba than I have in the past few years put togther.

Of course, my financial position is a mess. A mess. I mean, you people have no idea! I guess there’s just something congenitally wrong with me, though, because I can’t seem to get myself worked up about it. I suppose I’m a true believer in the maxim “you can’t take it with you.” Of course, in my case it would be “you can’t take nothing with you,” but it would simply kill me to go to my grave with a grammatically incorrect epitaph.

But where am I going with this rambling? This long, long-overdue entry on The Fabulous Tom Judson Blog?

I’m going here: of all the the goings-on in my life this year that have proved Wicki right, the most surprising to me is that I seem to be dipping a tentative toe back into the River of Romance. The Pond of Passion. The Lagoon of Lurve. I haven’t dated anyone in seven years (almost to the day) and that time it didn’t end pretty. In fact, it left me completely gun-shy about The Boyfriend Thing at all.

So imagine my surprise when IT unexpectedly reared its ugly head once again. Ye olde heart sputtered and coughed and, rather jerkily, showed signs of life. (And I mean “jerkily.” I seem to be a little rusty at this stuff—I’ve already found a couple of opportunities to display my slightly-insane side. Oh, joy.)

It’s too soon for details (although the Facebook sleuths out there may be able to sniff out some clues) and who knows where it will lead? The whole thing may even crash and burn—I can be a real pain in the ass. (Don't worry--I don't think he reads anything I write, so I'm safe here.)

But for now it's terrific to look out the window at the leaves coming off the trees, floating gracefully down to Earth, and to feel that, well, I’m falling too.

All We Owe Iowa

2009-08-28T22:08:00.021-04:00

Well, the way Randy tells it, he had just picked up his mail and there among the bills was an envelope addressed to him from his grandfather. Seems Grandpa would give the grandkids a check for $250 when they got married. All the other cousins had gotten their loot by this point but Randy was still unmarried. Who can say what got into the old man, but he decided to send Randy his check in spite of him still being a bachelor.

“How do you like that?” Randy said to Allen as they drove down the street in Allen’s red convertible. The thing is, Randy didn’t exactly consider himself “unmarried.” He and Allen had been together just a short time, but it felt like The Real Thing. So they went right to the bank where Randy cashed the check and handed $125 to Allen.

“And I took it,” said Allen. “And I spent it. And I haven’t stopped spending since.”

That check from Randy’s grandfather arrived in 1973 and, according to Randy, that’s when they were married.

As far as the state of Iowa is concerned, however, Randy Van Syoc and Allen Coit Ransome are newlyweds who were legally married on August 26, 2009.

Randy and Allen have been my friends for just a few short years but we’re as close as family. Our mutual friend Jeanine and I were the witnesses who signed the marriage license. But when their friend Ken, who officiated at the ceremony, asked who would stand for these two people, the entire crowd yelled, “We do!” and leapt to their feet.

The ceremony took place on a boat that launched onto the Mississippi from Dubuque and in the middle of the ceremony, in addition to heckling the minister, Allen instructed the captain to veer a little away from the Illinois side and further into Iowa waters just to make sure the marriage was legal.

All the trapping were there: the open bar; the cheese platters, the bacon-wrapped shrimp; the relatives meeting out-of-town friends for the first time. You know, the usual. The atmosphere , though, was anything but; it felt historic and long, long overdue. Allen told me earlier in the day that he had been lying awake a few nights before the ceremony trying to come up with some appropriate vows.

“And I started to get really mad. ‘Vows?’ What was left for me to promise? I realized after all these years that I had been cheated out of the chance to make vows as a young man when romance and love are fresh and making promises like that really means something.”

Both of The Boys (as everyone calls them) injected a little politics into their vows (which made me very proud) but overall their words were touching and heartfelt. All the guests were in tears. And in a moment that was so over the top it wouldn’t make it into the gooiest Lifetime movie, just as The Happy Couple exchanged rings a bald eagle swooped majestically down from the sky and made a U-turn past the bow of the boat before soaring back up above the water.

After the ceremony and the hugs and the kisses and the laughter and the tears we all took the stairs to the upper deck. I stood in back of the boat looking out at the endless Mississip’ and couldn’t help thinking that, while it may have taken Allen and Randy thirty-six years to prove it, the world, and Old Man River are not, I say they are not, just rollin’ along.

My new Canned Ham column on Advocate.com

Canned Ham September 23/24 at Dixon Place in NYC.

Tickets available here.

Canned Ham t-shirts available here.

What Are the Chances?

2009-08-23T00:30:00.015-04:00

I never cease to marvel at how innocuous little events can have major consequences. They don’t have to be as Earth-shattering as having to run back in to grab your passport from the hall table and thereby missing the plane that crashes into the ocean. They can be subtle, yet still momentous. Or they can have a cumulative effect that is only visible over time. (That last is a major theme in the Canned Ham script.)

Recently I ran across three friends (two of whom I had not seen in years) simply due to tiny, random occurrences.

The first friend was Donna. We know each other from when we both worked at the Pizza Hut in my hometown the summer before I moved to New York City to attend NYU. (It would be more accurate to say I attended NYU to move to New York City.) Donna was the coolest thing that had ever crossed my path. She was older (she had to have been at least 22 at the time,) drove a very cool Opel GT with headlights you had to flip open with a hand crank, and most of all, she actually subscribed to the Village Voice.

We became great friends and even lived together most of my first year in the city. (12^th Street between Avenues A/B. $150/month.) She dragged me to Max’s Kansas City and the Mud Club and I dragged her to Broadway shows. It’s probably meaningless to her that she got to see Ballroom, but see it she did.

Then we got separate apartments and, as friends do, lost touch. She got married… I got married… I’ve been trying to find her for years but couldn’t remember her husband's last name to save my life. A couple of weeks ago I was putting stuff back on the shelves after returning from Saba and found, among a box of letters, a birthday card from Donna signed with her married name. I headed straight to Facebook and there she was. We have a lunch date coming up in the next few weeks and I can’t wait to see her.

Next: I was joining a friend at a birthday party in the city a couple of weeks ago and, not sure that there would be food, thought it wise to catch a late-afternoon bite. I decided to head three blocks over to Hudson Street to a café but because it was so hot I thought, no, I’ll just jump in to the good old Manatus Diner which was right in front of me on Bleecker Street. I was sitting at a table memorizing my script when I looked up to spot Charles Busch striding past the window. I raced outside and got him to abandon his power walk and join me for a diet Coke.

Now, I see Charles fairly regularly, but it’s always a pleasure. We got to talking about this and that and, as we invariably do, got on the topic of old movies. “Do you know who I’m becoming obsessed with?” Charles asked. “Dame May Whitty.” He then proceeded to recount the entire plot of Lassie Come Home and at the final scene, when Lassie, weary and broken, drags herself down the high street to meet little Roddy McDowall after school, we were both in tears. In the Manatus Diner. On Bleecker Street.

But the most surprising and random encounter happened earlier that day. It was a scorcher and I was parched. I was aiming for the Starbuck’s in Sheridan Square when I passed a phone booth (there are still phone booths!) with an advertisement for Dunkin’ Donuts coconut iced coffee. That sounds good, thought I, and continued toward the Starbucks. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw that familiar orange and purple right there on Christopher Street, and there, where I do not recall there being one before, was a Dunkin’ Donuts. What the hell, I’ll get a coconut iced coffee. I opened the door to the shop and there at the last table in the back was none other than Whit Stillman, the director of Metropolitan, for which I composed the music score.

Whit and I have a unique relationship in that we get along great personally, but never could really manage to work together very well. It’s usually the other way ‘round, yeah? We struggled through Metropolitan, made an abortive attempt to collaborate on Barcelona and then looked at each other, wrinkled our noses and shook our heads when The Last Days of Disco came around. The last time I had seen Whit was on University Place in September, 2000. I remember the date because I had just returned from the Cabaret tour. After that I completely lost track of him.

“Whit Goddam Stillman! You have no idea how hard I have tried to locate you.”

“I’m in the phone book.”

Dry as ever, that Whit. Of course, I had never tried looking in the phone book. It's so last millennium. Also, he's lived out of the country for most of this time, so I had good reason not to think of the obvious. He was working on something... I was running late... so we exchanged contact info and said goodbye. This tune was written for, but cut from, Metropolitan.

Those three “meaningless” things--opening a box of letters, the day being too hot to walk an extra block and an ad on a phone booth—all led to unexpected encounters with good friends. I’m sure there’s a moral there somewhere. Be sure to send it in if you can think of one.

My new Canned Ham column on Advocate.com

Canned Ham September 23/24 at Dixon Place in NYC.

Tickets available here.

Canned Ham t-shirts available here.

(Re)Launch

2009-07-20T22:14:00.013-04:00

Those of you ancient enough to remember the demise of Life Magazine in 1973 may also remember when it was resuscitated as a monthly. The October 1978 premiere issue hit the newsstands that September, which also happens to be the same month I moved to New York City to go to college (don’t ask.) The new Life featured an article about the soon-to-be-released movie version of “The Wiz” which was, at the time, the most expensive musical ever produced at a staggering… uh, thirty-five million dollars.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the cover of the magazine’s re-launch issue pictured hot air balloons and that is the very subject of the re-launch of tomjudson.blogspot.com.

I was invited to go on a balloon flight yesterday evening by Michael, a Greene County neighbor who is also a balloon pilot. I had never been aloft by balloon before so I jumped at the chance. 36 hours after bidding adieu to the sparkling blue waters of the Caribbean I was viewing—from above—the lush green canopy of upstate New York. Which was more beautiful? Neither. They are both, in their own way, magnificent.

As I approached the meeting point I scanned the horizon for the balloon (or “envelope,” as I now know it’s called) and saw… nothing. I pulled into the parking lot and there was Michael and his trailer. Oh, I get it; this is going to be a real hands-on balloon experience. Yup, I assisted in unloading and setting up the balloon and basket before we took off.

The stored envelope is the size of an overstuffed club chair and is unrolled to its full length and laid on the ground. Then the supports are attached to the basket (which is real wicker, by the way. I was expecting some new-fangled fiberglass gondola, but Phineas Fogg himself would be comfortable in this rig) and the envelope cables are connected to the supports.

After that, it’s pretty much what you’d expect: a fan blows air into the envelope and the thing inflates. When the burners are fired, the interior of the balloon heats up and it slowly rises to the vertical. Michael climbed in first, then his friend Chris, and after she was secure, I fell over the side into the basket. Michael gave the burner a few more blasts and we rose into the sky like… well, like a balloon.

(The theory behind flying a balloon is remarkably similar to scuba diving. Buoyancy is dictated by the pressure/temperature inside the BCD (and lungs)/envelope in relation to the water/air outside. You increase the buoyancy of the BCD/envelope with short bursts of air/fire. To maneuver, one must anticipate these adjustments. Again and again Michael would explain what he was doing and it all made sense to me from my recent underwater education.)

The evening was crystal clear and we could see for miles. All the way north to Albany and all the way west to the The Berkshires. We were amazed how much unspoiled forest there is in our area. We floated gently and slowly east and gained altitude as we went. I took a turn at the burners and the next thing I knew we had ascended to almost 3,000 feet. It was magnificent. When the burners are not actually firing it’s completely silent; we could hear conversations in backyards as we passed overhead, our shadow leading the way.

I phoned my friends the Boulers to alert them we were heading straight for their house, but the wind changed direction just before we reached the reservoir and the balloon turned south. There’s a Buddhist monastery in Greene County and we flew directly over the pagoda at their forest retreat instead.

Since it was a quiet Sunday evening cars stopped right on the road to watch as we glided by. People would yell up to us and wave their arms. A private jet appeared to veer off course to get a slightly closer look at its aviational ancestor.

We saw no birds to speak of. Maybe we were too high?

When Michael decided we should start looking for a place to land (2 1/2 hours into the flight!) we happened to be just a few miles from my house. We came in lower and lower and found a hay field that looked good. Cars were lining the road as Michael navigated the air currents and headed for a clear spot so we would land just before sunset. When the balloon was mere yards from the ground two kids came running through the woods and into the open field, screaming gleefully at the beautiful rainbow balloon descending from the early-evening sky. Michael’s landing was flawless; if I had been holding a cocktail (and why wasn’t I holding a cocktail?) the ice would not have tinkled in the glass.

The folks came out of their farmhouse, the neighbors traipsed across the lawn and with their help we had the entire operation packed up in jig time. The evening was magical.

Now, can we please once and for all stop pitying “poor Tom” for returning from Saba sooner than expected? Tha-a-a-a-ank you!

Your own special dreams bloom on the hillside.

2009-07-18T21:44:00.008-04:00

By the time the plane reached St. Maarten ten minutes later, Saba was little more than a silhouette in the mist; a shadow of an illusion; there, across that short stretch of the Caribbean. My summer, however, is etched on my brain with a permanence and vividness few other experiences of my life can claim. I will synthesize my time there in the days and weeks and months ahead into something concrete and descriptive.

But right now my feelings about my two months can’t be conveyed in prose. What I need now is a tune, a wordless melody that climbs and soars as high as the highest peak on the island and which, like the elusive view at the summit of Mt. Scenery--at that highest point on Saba--simply… fades away.

[A note to readers: Rattling the Saba, as a title has indeed come to a close. But the actual URL is so delicious, so perfectly me that I see no reason to abandon it. The Canned Ham blog will resume as the journal of my ongoing project, but tomjudson.blogspot.com will remain and be transformed into something a little more general, if not actually esoteric. Stay tuned.]

Joint Custody II

2009-07-16T22:11:00.007-04:00

[This is the second entry to be posted simultaneously on both blogs.]

I killed ‘em on Booby Hill.

Since I wrote the first two drafts of “Canned Ham” here at El Momo, and since it was Patrick and Sophie’s invitation to come down here for the summer that inspired the writing of it in the first place, there was a nice poetic symmetry in giving the first public reading of the script this past Tuesday evening, here at El Momo.

We invited about a dozen of the friends I’ve made since my arrival on the island two months ago to a reading to be held in the dining pavilion. Once people caught their breaths after climbing the stairs (6 storeys up from the road, remember?) I plied them with alcohol. As all performers know, a slightly tipsy audience is a friendly audience. No fool, I. Patrick had casually mentioned a couple of days earlier that he’d “make some tapas” for the event. Frankly, he lost control; he put out a spread that a) was beyond belief in its variety and tastiness (bacon-wrapped shrimp, sautéed celery, fish tempura cheese, crackers, pumpkin soup… I can’t even remember everything on the table) and b) made for a hard act to follow. Suddenly I was appearing at the El Momo Dinner Theater.

When everyone was pleasantly stuffed with food and drink I said a few words to introduce the piece and then got underway. Let’s just say I was pleased with the response. I learned a lot about the text from both an actor’s perspective and from the point of view of the author. Some things need to go, others can be fleshed out. Some jokes didn’t work, some worked even better than I’d hoped. Still other lines will remain but will be refashioned. Frankly, it was an invaluable exercise, particularly in light of the fact that the references in the play are particularly American, and (thank God) I found that the script seems to work regardless of one's pop-culture frame of reference.

Flipping back through earlier blog entries I see that on April 3^rd of this year the idea of writing a show here on Saba and returning to the states to tour it around the country in the camper really solidified into the plan that is now in place. Just three and half months later and a huge chunk of that plan—the script—is a reality. There are some other details (fun stuff) that I’ll talk more about when I get back home and get things cookin’ on that end. But for now, I can count my summer holiday on Saba a complete, total and utterly fabulous success.

And that's not even counting my world-class tan line.

Gingerbread

2009-07-15T21:00:00.006-04:00

Almost all the buildings on Saba are white with red roofs and, if there is an alternate color trim, it’s green. There are a few anomalies to this color scheme, so I gather the red/white thing is not regulation (although no one I’ve asked seems to know for sure.) It’s one of the things that adds charm to the island, this uniformity, especially when seen at a distance. Across a gulley will lie a cluster of what looks like a variation on Monopoly board houses. The fact that nearly all the island’s structures are quite modest only adds to this effect.

The gingerbread trim on most of the houses is almost whimsical; some examples are elaborately filigreed borders while others appear to be simply the quickest and easiest thing the owner could slap on the front of the house. I find the latter to be among the most appealing.

Here are a few examples.

Mountain Greenery

2009-07-13T21:12:00.006-04:00

Here are some photos from today’s hike on Sandy Cruz trail. It’s a good trail because it’s not particularly taxing (although a light rain made it very slick) and because it takes you along the north side of the island, which is basically uninhabited and therefore little seen. But mostly it’s a good trail because it’s beautiful. These pictures don’t begin to do it justice. Mainly due to the lack of real depth in the images (the jungle is as deep as the eye can see) and because it’s impossible to convey a sense of scale. Everything you see in these photos is much larger than you imagine it to be. The red blossoms in the first shot are about three times the size of my hand.

Pullin' a Palin

2009-07-11T09:43:00.009-04:00

Yes, I’m leaving Saba before my expected departure date.

But no tears, no recriminations please. “Just” two months in Paradise is not to be sneezed at. You may recall the initial impetus for this adventure was the invitation by Patrick and Sophie to come help them out at El Momo on a few small projects they had around the place. That would justify letting me spend the summer here as a freeloader, er, non-paying guest. It was after that offer came that I dreamed up the whole scheme of writing a play while I was on the island which I would then take on the road when I returned home to the states.

Well, Patrick and Sophie are indeed terrific hosts and innkeepers. So much so that they were headhunted away to another cottage complex here on Saba. Five minutes away. But one of the things they were not going to negotiate for in their new position was their friend, you know that guy who’s been hanging around town since May, the one who sings occasionally at Saboake on Fridays? Yeah, that one. Well, he’s coming along with us to stay in one of the cabins for free.

Uh, no. I don’t think so.

And since I didn’t particularly want to see if I could stay on here at El Momo when the owner—whom I’ve never met--returns form Holland, I thought, “cue exit music and… curtain.”

Which is a nice transition to a second, and more compelling reason for my premature am-scray: my “Canned Ham” script is at the point where I don’t want to do any more work on it until I settle on a director and involve them in additional revisions. And I’m very anxious to do that. (The italics are mine.) In my head, since completing the second draft, my late-August departure date has been slowly creeping forward the more I have been thinking about the show. What can I say? I’m happy about what I’ve gotten down on paper and I’m excited about getting the thing on its feet.

(Speaking of which, I’ll be getting it on its knees next week when I give an informal reading of the script to a tiny group of my Saba friends. Should be interesting.)

So, I’ll be on the 9:30 A.M. flight from Saba Airport next Friday, the 17^thand back home later that evening. Since my stay here has been perfect… flawless… the nes plus ultra of étés, I could almost be considered prudent by quitting while I’m ahead.

Knowing all this was in the works, I sang a couple of extra songs last night at Sabaoke. “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” went over well but it turns out “Twilight Time” starts on a stratospheric note that I did not quite hit. No Platter, I. Wanting to end big, I asked Wolfgang, who owns the place and runs Saboake, if I could join him in a duet on one of his signature tunes. We rocked the house with “Mack the Knife.”

“Look out old Mackie is back!”

Overboard

2009-07-10T08:34:00.000-04:00

Again, the widescreen version is here:

The Sponges Are Spawning

2009-07-09T07:46:00.008-04:00

It’s pretty difficult to translate the experience of being/breathing underwater into words. That fleeting nanosecond of panic when your face drops below the surface and you take your first breath through the regulator before normalcy resumes; the illusion, when looking from below, that the surface slowly bends towards you and appears concave; the moment when “here” and “there” swap meaning as you drop from sea-level and approach the ocean floor. How to describe swimming along the side of a sheer wall that drops beyond sight? A wall covered with coral so intensely colorful and developed that it almost seems as if it had been art-directed? As if it were someone’s fantasy of coral and not something that could really exist in nature? Can language convey the sensation of seeing a huge school of fish—just like in your aquarium when you were a kid, but ten times the size—swim directly towards you and then around you as if you were meaningless in their world? Or a stingray the dimensions of a good-sized area rug passing just below as you maneuver through a cleft in the rock? How can I describe the childlike joy I feel when I allow myself to hover completely upside-down, feet pointing towards the surface, just because it’s fun?

I can’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that these things need to be experienced first-hand.

What I can do is post some photos I took underwater. Even these give only an approximation of what I saw with my eye. Color underwater is problematical. So is getting a fish to stand still for a shot. For that matter, getting oneself to stand still is not much easier: by the time you’ve decided, “this is my shot!” you’ve already floated past the perfect framing.

On one trip with Ellie, my dream instructor, I noticed some tubular sponges surrounded by cloudy water. I pointed at them and shrugged, “what is that?” Ellie took out her slate and wrote, “The sponges are spawning their eggs and their sperm.” I took the pencil from her (a plain old no. 2 pencil, amazingly enough) and added: POETRY!

Poetry, indeed.

The Food of the Gods

2009-07-05T09:14:00.018-04:00

It all started when someone mentioned marshmallows and I said, “Like in Ambrosia salad.”

Marshmallows in salad? What on earth could that be about? I explained to my Dutch friends that we in America have this weird thing called “Ambrosia salad” that is served at a barbecue along with other side dishes in spite of the fact that every single ingredient in the thing is really a dessert item: coconut, fruit, marshmallows, (sometimes) Cool Whip. Well, they thought that was weird as hell. I went on to explain that the other thing about Ambrosia is that when you bring it out to the table everyone moans and groans and makes “yuck” sounds, but that it’s always the first bowl to be emptied.

“I’ll make it for you while I’m here.”

“When?”

I figured an Independence Day picnic was as good a time as any, and it would give me an excuse to have an American-type event on a day when I might feel myself missing out on the fun back home.

Sophie promptly invited everyone to the big July 7^th party, which was quickly clarified as being the big July 4^th party and our plans got underway.

Since I am the only one of the three of us who would know what to put on a July 4^th menu, I took care of the whole thing. Nothing unusual: hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, 3-bean salad, Jell-o with fruit cocktail, macaroni-tuna salad, baked ziti, grilled chicken, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob and, for starters, deviled eggs, sour cream-onion dip and cream cheese slathered in Heinz 57. Patrick volunteered his fabulous coleslaw and I thought I’d also make a tray of Rice Krispie treats to bring out after. And, the main attraction of the day, Ambrosia. Y’know; things served in one variation or another at virtually every 4^th of July picnic across the country,

Amazingly, the only ingredient I was unable to find at any of the three supermarkets (“super”… hah!) here on the island was wax beans, so I substituted chick peas. And everyone says the ground beef is pretty dreadful so we figured, just skip the burgers altogether.

The rest was pretty simple: make the stuff. Done.

Patrick and Sophie would wander through the kitchen and look at the menu in progress like I was cooking up yak or monkey brains. Corn-on-the-cob they knew from, but everything else was completely… foreign to them.

There have been a couple of culinary differences we’ve noted during my visit here on Saba. Pat and Sop (and all their friends) think the combination of peanut butter and jelly borders on the grotesque. Yet, one of their great afternoon treats (also, like PB & J, a carryover from childhood) is—hold on to your hat, Mildred—a piece of white bread spread nice and thick with butter and then covered with chocolate sprinkles. I kid you not. (They have another name for the sprinkles--hackenslack or kockenlocker or radzkiwadzki or something--and when you say it in public Dutch eyes light up brighter than a party boat plying an Amsterdam canal. But sprinkles they is and sprinkles I call’s 'em.)

I put out the cream cheese/Heinz 57 and sour cream-and-onion dip along with some crackers when the guests started to arrive. It really seemed like people were actually afraid to try them. After some coaxing I had a few takers. The reviews were mixed: some folks dug the dip while others loved the cream cheese. And some really hated one or the other. The deviled eggs, though, were a sensation. Deviled eggs! Go figure.

The grill was fired up and the chicken and dogs were tossed on the grate. During a trip from the kitchen with a plate of chicken thighs, one of the four--count 'em four--iguanas hanging out by the steps made a move and followed me almost to the grill. I don't care if they are vegetarian, that's weird.

The bowls and trays and plates of food were brought out and a crowd formed. The other two Americans at the party squealed in recognition and appreciation of food from home. “Ain’t the Fourth of July without Ambrosia!” was one remark. Hungry people are hungry people regardless of nationality; plastic plates (to be burned at the dump later in the week, no doubt) were quickly filled and folks got down to business.

The reviews were uniformly terrific. Some things surprised me: the macaroni salad was barely touched while the baked beans disappeared. The 3-bean salad sat unloved and mostly untried while the pasta was declared a revelation. Even by the Italian couple staying in Turtle Cottage.

But I knew I was dealing with a bunch of fur’ners when someone held out a hot dog in a bun and asked, “What are you supposed to put on it?” Wow.

Oh, and the Ambrosia? True to my prediction it was greeted with grimaces and cat-calls but it quickly vanished from the bowl and the recipe was requested by several people.

There were no fireworks, no John Philip Sousa, no stars-and-stripes and no gossip and conjecture about Sarah Palin’s resignation. None of the elements that would have made the day really feel like I was home. But what there was, was Ambrosia.

God bless the U.S. of A.

10 Things You Probably Don't Know About Saba

2009-07-01T09:36:00.007-04:00

There are no wells or public water supply on Saba. All the freshwater used on the island is collected from the rainfall. Virtually every roof on every structure is lined with gutters and the water is channeled into cisterns.
Before “The Road” was completed in 1958, major sections of the island were accessible only by foot path.
There were no indigenous inhabitants of Saba before Europeans arrived, so it’s got a pretty good kharmic history.
In the mid-twentieth century, Mary’s End, a settlement on the remote north side of Saba was relocated to The Promised Land, near The Bottom, because its lack of accessibility had led to, um, inbreeding among the residents.
The Justice of the Peace on Saba has twelve toes (see above.)
The scuba diving on Saba is considered to be the best in the Caribbean due to the Marine Park, which was established more than thirty years ago and which preserved the coral reefs and undersea life from human destruction.
In spite of the beauty and ecological wonders of Saba, the island has no recycling program and, in fact, all the garbage generated on the island is dumped in a spot near the harbor and burned in an open pit.
Although technically Dutch, English is the main language on Saba and U.S. dollars are the main currency.
Saba’s airport has the shortest runway of any commercial airport in the world. There has never been an accident during takeoff or landing.
Saba's motto is “The Unspoiled Queen.” So is mine.

Reflections on Thirty Days

2009-06-29T08:59:00.009-04:00

I have been on Saba a little more than a month.

In the past four weeks I have become a certified open-water scuba diver, hiked a few of the numerous trails on the island, gotten to know (by face and reputation) many of the local characters, helped backstage at the school play, volunteered at the local HIV community center, and acted as an additional hand here at El Momo. I know when I hear the conch shell being blown down in "The City" that it's 6 A.M. I’ve even gotten so I can tell the difference between the wild goats’ bleating and the caged parrot down the road imitating the wild goats’ bleating. And I've developed a deep and luscious SPF 30 tan.

What a time I’ve had! It’s inevitable that a long-term visitor would become quickly known in such a small sphere, and having the added advantage of Patrick and Sophie around to introduce me (those two are due for a blog entry devoted just to them) I have met and befriended many people on the island. There’s a joke on Saba that the most difficult thing about driving here is waving to everyone you pass. It’s how it’s done—every driver acknowledges pedestrians even if with just a lifted finger. But walking into town, chances are when someone waves to me from a passing car I actually know who they are. Add to that the fact that many island residents work at multiple jobs—the bank guard might show up as your waiter on Saturday night—and one begins to feel “of the community” very fast.

As you might expect, things are very casual here and social and business transactions have a pleasant “whatever” quality to them. More than a couple of times I’ve finished a meal in a restaurant or bagged up my groceries only to discover I had no cash on me. “Just come back,” is the response. I finally had to strong-arm Lynne, at the dive shop, into letting me to pay for my lessons. And when I applied for a library card the librarian took down my name: “Tom…” “T-O-M,” she wrote. “Jud…” “Oh, just ‘Tom’ is fine.”

The greatest example of that lack of urgency is right here in my own back yard. One of the stipulations to my spending the summer at El Momo was that I would design and build an additional cottage. (That project will also have a blog entry of its own.) Back home this would have been—at most—a week-long project but it’s just now being completed. That’s due, in part, to the fact that work has to be done so as not to inconvenience the other guests, but also because Pat and Sop insist that nobody works too hard. One o’clock will come around and it’s decreed that sufficient work has been done for the day and lunch is in order. Followed by a swim. Followed by a nap.

But last week this philosophy reached new heights: as much as I have been scribbling away on this blog, I had not written a word of the “Canned Ham” script, which is—in my mind—the principal reason for this trip. That was partly due to wanting to finish the cottage and several other smaller projects. Hemingway purportedly said he was unable to start a new book until he had cleaned every closet in the house. I know that feeling.

So last Monday Sophie told me that I had to, simply had to, take the next week off, move up to Cottage In the Sky (which would be vacant until the 1^st) and “start work on your play!”

So here I am, up from the main office area the equivalent of about four storeys, ensconced in what feels like a treehouse with the view of all time, and with a finished first draft of my play and a good chunk completed of a second draft. And what’s more, I like what I’ve written.

I’m here on Saba for a while still. There are more trails to be hiked, the advanced diving certificate to be earned and a few songs left to be sung at Friday night Sabaoke. But if I were to get on a plane bound for New York tomorrow morning (which I have no intention of doing,) I would call my summer in the Caribbean a complete success.

To be continued…

The Saba Treadmill

2009-06-23T13:42:00.004-04:00

Beats me why I can’t post this in all its widescreen splendor. You can see it in full HD here:

Worth 17,000 Words

2009-06-19T19:59:00.007-04:00

The Level

2009-06-17T09:56:00.011-04:00

...which, obviously, it is not.

The two main settlements on Saba (The Bottom and Windwardside) have outlying neighborhoods of their own. El Momo sits above and to the right of Windwardside in the area called Booby Hill (no, silly, the bird.) But if you continue straight up from The City you will come to an area called The Level. The topography feels more like a bowl, in fact, and that lends a very cozy, secure feeling to the place.

On a sunny half-acre or so lies The Garden (if it has a more formal name I’m unaware of it) which was started several years ago as a community agricultural project for the local teenagers. But it has evolved into something very special: a completely organic garden that produces vegetables and herbs that are available for purchase by the island restaurants and locals. Patrick usually supplements his El Momo menu with something from The Garden. I went along today when he went to pick up a few items.

I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of the place. It’s under the care and direction of a man named Manuel, a Cuban national who is a specialist in Organopónicos, a system of urban gardens begun in Cuba after the Soviet Union dried up and blew away.

A primary feature of Organopónicos is raised beds, but specifically, raised beds with low cement walls. Here on Saba where lava rocks are plentiful, the walls incorporate that material which lends an even more elegant look to the garden.

I wandered among the rows of eggplants and peppers and new lettuce and young beets. The herbs grew in huge bunches and were particularly odoriferous and, in many cases, alive with the sound of buzzing bees. Some rows are planted at the ends with marigolds, although I can’t imagine it’s to keep the deer away, which is what my father does back home.

Patrick chose some peppers, coriander and lemon grass. Manuel brought out a small machete to cut the lemongrass, releasing its fresh scent into the air. The beets aren’t ready yet, but Patrick said he doesn’t care for them anyway. Clearly he’s never had my beet/gorgonzola/toasted walnut salad with orange vinaigrette.

But he will soon. And he will love it.

Queen Kelly

2009-06-15T21:32:00.016-04:00

I was hoping to post my first Saba-mentary (Docu-Saba? Docious-alli-expi?) from my Flip Video camera with this post, but I’m afraid it will have to wait. I haven’t quite developed the hand-held self-portrait technique that I’m after. The framing was all out of whack. I assembled a little video of our trip to the beach yesterday but it wasn’t up to my exacting standards so I’m gonna bag it.

(The title of this entry? You know how I love my obscure movie references: “Queen Kelly” was an Erich von Stroheim silent epic for Gloria Swanson that went way over-budget and was finally killed by financier Joe Kennedy. It’s the movie Swanson and Bill Holden watch together in “Sunset Boulevard”. “Rattling the Saba” is educational as well as entertaining. But I digress…)

I’ve mentioned earlier that there is no beach on Saba because the island is just a big rock that juts out of the ocean. The locals know if the first question asked by a visitor is, “where’s the beach?” that visitor will not be very happy on Saba.

But I wasn’t being completely accurate. Once in a while there is a beach. Mostly it’s just the ocean crashing against a vertiginous and threatening wall of boulders, gravel and dirt that is scarred by the weather and wind. A wall that occasionally tosses an errant slab of rock to the depths below. The beach itself is small and the sand is gray and sometimes just a few yards deep and the road there is like the last stretch of Spiderman the Ride but a beach there is. Sometimes. When the tide cooperates. Right now it’s cooperating so Patrick, Sophie and I decided to go.

We stopped in "The City" for a bite at the Saba Snack Bar and then proceeded down The Road to The Bottom …and Beyond! The Road continues past The Bottom to the beach (beach area, I guess. When there’s no beach it just goes nowhere.) It’s really hard to describe how steep and switch-back-y this road is. I shot some footage of the trip back up but… y’know…framing and all.

The road simply ends at the beach. You park your car and climb over some boulders to get to the sandy part. We arrived at 1:30 on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the place was packed. There must have been, oh, I don’t know… one, maybe two other people? It was difficult to get an accurate count. Yup, Sunday afternoon and a beach (that isn’t even always there) was empty. I guess you just don’t think “beach” when you think “Saba.”

We dropped our stuff and headed into the water for a quick snorkel. Right offshore is an underwater cluster of boulders and in those boulders is a nice variety of fish and, sometimes, more exotic things. Last year we saw a sea turtle in this spot but he was AWOL this time around. Yesterday was just an average snorkeling day, which meant, of course, we saw a beautiful array of fishes large and small, brightly colored and with more subdued markings, in schools and swimming solo, timid and nonchalant. Imagine you are that little plastic diver in the tank at the Chinese restaurant and that’s what the experience is like.

Back on the sand we all SPF’d-up and lay back for a bit of sun. Hot sun. Bright sun. I plugged in my iPod and was very quickly asleep.

I awoke to discover friends of Pat and Sophie had shown up with some chilled watermelon (which tasted extra good in the hot sun) as well as some other folks who had decided to take advantage of the Amazing Disappearing Beach. So the head count had increased to about ten. Sophie said, “You missed a boulder falling out of the cliff.” Fortunately it had also missed me.

Among the newcomers was one guy who I remembered from my last visit and who, unlike the turtle, showed his face again this time. He’s a wiry fellow in a black Speedo who does some kind of exercise/gymnastics/yoga routine on the beach for his own—and others’—enjoyment. He also parks his truck (he delivers truckloads of water here on Saba. More about that in the future…) at the end of the road and blasts his music.

[Speaking of truck drivers on Saba: the garbage pickup guys, who drive a standard-but-itty bitty garbage truck went on strike a while ago when the authorities decided that no, it was not OK that they drink all day whilst picking up the trash. After 48 hours of the job action a compromise was reached: the pair would take turns driving so the other one would be free to down his Caribe beers. Hey, it’s a system and it works.]

After the sun, the watermelon, the fishes and the physical culture demonstration we were all ready to head home. We shook the sand from our towels and Patrick drove us up the ridiculous hill, never leaving first gear the entire trip back up to The Bottom. “Up to the bottom.” Crazy.

Of course we didn’t quite make it home because when we got back to Windwardside another friend invited us for beers on his front porch. Finally, I hitched a ride back up the hill to El Momo and, after a shower, fixed myself a bowl of corn flakes and sat down to edit my cinematic epic. Oops.

“Queen Kelly,”… “The Day the Clown Cried”… and now, “Saba Beach.” Lost masterpieces all.

At least I can offer some stills from the movie.

A Little Traveling Music, Please

2009-06-09T16:05:00.008-04:00

I was up on the roof of Canned Ham II with Patrick installing the corrugated sheets when Sophie came out of the office with “very bad news”: someone had just booked Turtle Cottage and was on their way up so I’d have to clear out ASAP. Since I’m on the “poor relation” vacation package and not getting paid anything while I’m here at El Momo I’ve been jumping around from cottage to cottage until the one we’re building is complete. (And, in fact, El Momo is fully booked this Saturday, so I’ll be sleeping in Canned Ham II whether it's finished or not.) I don’t mind moving around because a) I travel with very little luggage and b) I do want to sleep in every cottage before I leave. Tonight will make it three down with three to go. I’m saving Cottage In The Sky for last as it’s the dreamiest of them all.

In other Saba news, I took my first-ever scuba dive on Sunday and it was amazing. I seemed to take to it naturally and found breathing underwater through the regulator less unnatural than I had expected. I won’t go on at length about the experience now, but I will tell you that the four of us (one instructor, three newbies) descended the rope line foot-by-foot (you’d be amazed at how much a foot or so of depth changes the pressure in your ears!) until we got to the ocean floor (at this spot, about 35 feet) and the first thing I saw as I let go of the rope and swam away on my own was a shark. Yes, a shark. A four-foot long nurse shark that was asleep with its head under a rock. But a shark it was!

I’ve been to a couple of staff meetings at AIDS Support Group Saba (ASGS), where I’ll be volunteering, and I’ll be taking part in my first event tomorrow when we have an open house for the community. I’ll be behind a table handing out literature and trying to round up some other folks interested in volunteering. The issues and programs ASGS deals with are, in many cases, the same kinds of things we had to handle back at the Albany Damien Center. In fact, the literature rack even has many of the same pamphlets, which made me feel oddly right at home. There are many differences, of course, beginning with staff lunches at which Long Island Iced Teas are consumed. Trying to operate on an island and maintain confidentiality is a definite challenge; getting the telephone helpline off the ground has been difficult because on an island of 1,500 people chances are pretty good that the caller and answerer will recognize one another. You don’t really think about that kind of thing in a country of 250,000,000 people.

I’m making dinner for us all tonight. Patrick and Sophie have an inexplicable antipathy towards pasta. I took that as a challenge: so tonight I’m cooking pasta with the promise that they’ll enjoy it. I also said I’d fix a good old-fashioned Independence Day barbecue for them and that they should invite whomever they wish. Fortunately there’s enough time for Sophie to call everyone back and tell them she meant July 4^th, not the 7^th.

Interesting computer news: getting online here in the Dutch Antilles is done through a local IP address (obviously) and therefore I can’t watch lots of downloadable things like TV shows and Netflix "watch it now” movies. Tragedy. However, because we’re on a wireless network here at El Momo I can listen to my fellow guests’ iTunes libraries. That kind of amazed me when I discovered that. The guy in Sunshine Cottage? He’s got a lot of Sarah Vaughan, a lot of classical and a lot of Beatles. Oh, and Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow.” i.e. most of the same stuff I have in mine. I think he’s gay.

I drove (I mean I drove) down to the airport with Patrick yesterday on The Road.

Oh. My. God.

"Did You Have A View?"

2009-06-05T09:47:00.011-04:00

To the far right of the view from my comfortable terrace here at Turtle Cottage lies a mountain peak… [totally random aside—that opening line sounded just like Barbara Stanwyck’s bogus country life column in “Christmas in Connecticut.” You may never know if I’m even really here.) Anyway, about this mountain peak; it’s there and it’s almost always shrouded in mist. No, not shrouded so much as used as a piece of exercise equipment by the constant fog. The clouds vault over the mountain the same way car commercials used to tout the aerodynamic properties of 1970s gas-guzzlers by shooting a jet of smoke over the contours of a sedan.

This is Mt. Scenery. At 2855 feet it is jokingly (and accurately) referred to as “the highest point in The Netherlands” and hiking to its summit is de rigueur for visitors to Saba. I was a slug last October when I visited the island so I didn’t even consider a climb. But now, with all summer to kill, I had no excuse. Yesterday I decided to make my assault.

The trail up the mountain is an oddity: most of it is either paved with asphalt or has steps cut into the stone, but it’s also a non-stop ascent and, because it’s a rainforest, the way can be very slick. The humidity encourages lush, oversized vegetation; the trees and rocks wear thick green moss like a gramma with her sweater pulled tight in the air-conditioning.

I had no intention of climbing to the summit in one fell swoop. Along the way there are brief detours to scenic overlooks and—the real point of my hike—a restaurant where I planned to have lunch.

The Ecolodge is just what the name implies: an environmentally-friendly guest house. They use solar power as much as possible, provide no phones or televisions and grow as much of their own produce as they can. They do have hot showers—if it’s been sunny enough to heat the water. You can get to the Ecolodge from an access road but the dramatic approach is through the forest. Following the pointer from the main trail you start to notice the flowers along the path gradually becoming more manicured and domesticated. Then you round a bend and the Ecolodge restaurant sits in front of you like a pavilion straight out of—sorry, here it is again—“Red Dust.” Wide verandas and long bands of windows with hurricane shutters propped open for shade. Inside it’s cool and dark. And nearly silent. Because there’s no music piped in the diners tend to murmur to one another rather than speak at a normal volume. Silverware clinks on china. It’s almost eerily quiet.

I felt like an adventurer in the wild striding in for some drink and conversation; slapping my crop on the bar, my pet monkey climbing down from my shoulders to grab a banana from the bunch hanging by the door; I pull the kerchief from around my neck to wipe my sweaty forehead as I order a rum. From Thomas Mitchell.

In real life I had neither a crop, a monkey nor a kerchief. Or a rum. And the bartender was played by a young blond named Dana who spoke with the same voice and cadence as Shelley Duvall. Dana is married to the son of the founder of Ecolodge and she can really put together a beautiful plate of food. For me, a grilled tuna salad. Talk about your childhood wishes—you can even eat the flowers. After killing some time with my book and an after-meal toothpick, Pogo climbed back on my shoulder as I saluted Dana with my crop and left the restaurant to resume my ascent.

The higher I got, the more lush the vegetation. Snatches of Debussy played in my head that—as I climbed further into the clouds—morphed into Max Steiner jungle drums. Although I wouldn't have been surprised to spot a poorly animated pteradactyl I wasn't expecting the speckled hen that darted across my path with a Bantam rooster in close pursuit. Huh?

The heat, humidity and the cardio workout necessitated frequent rests the further along the trail I got. A pair of hikers came out of the mist on their way down. “Did you have a view” I asked? Nope—just clouds. That’s the thing about Mt. Scenery: the clouds that make it so scenic from below tend to make a mockery of its name once you’re at the peak.

As the trail finally leveled off I came within yards of the radio tower that sits on top of the mountain. I don’t even want to think about what went into carting the materials up here to build this behemoth. And from the looks of things, it’s not even in operation. The weird orange moss growing everywhere reminded me of the photos of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. Corroded cable hung from the structure and huge satellite dishes lay foundering on the rocks at its base. The top of the tower was enveloped in roiling clouds and the constant wind made everything mysterious and spooky. Yes, it was altogether ooky.

I continued past the tower to the summit. There, a huge slab of rock affords a perfect spot to rest and take in the view. When there is one. Yesterday there was nothing but clouds. I stared into the abyss. It was impossible to tell what was past the end of the outcropping: it might have been more rocks or it could have been just a sheer drop to the sea. I kept my distance from the edge.

Since I had no schedule, and to rest up for the equally taxing climb down, I wedged myself into a cleft in the boulder and took out my book, the mist and the wind making it almost chilly. I got through a couple of chapters when I found myself squinting and felt my face turn warm. The sun! I bolted upright and looked out onto an amazing panorama of most of Saba. There, far below me, was El Momo. To the right, the road to The Bottom. To the left Windwardside and the way down to the airport. Just as I reached into my pack for my camera, the clouds came back and obscured the view. Brigadoon-like, the vista had disappeared into the mists.

But for a brief moment, I had a view.