The 27th Annual Itchy and Scratchy Show 9/26/2009

the 27th ANNUAL.

POISON OAK SHOW.

September 26th, 2009

A Presentation of the St. Charles Saloon

Schedule.

Entries

Accepted from 9am to Noon.

Voting & Judging

Between Noon and 4pm

Tropies Awarded

at 5pm

Aren't you just itchin' to participate?

11 categories:

Class 1: Best arrangement of poison oak.
Class 2: Best arrangement of poison oak and another plant.
Class 3: Best arrangement of poison oak and inanimate object.
Class 4: Most potent looking GREEN leaves.
Class 5: Most potent looking RED leaves.
Class 6: Biggest single Leaf.
Class 7: Best poison oak accessory or jewelry.
Class 8: Most original poison oak dish (recipe included).
Class 9: Biggest poison oak branch or trunk.
Class 10: Best Photo of poison oak.
Class 11: Best photo of poison oak rash (or in person?).
This event is like a traditional flower show, except, all entries must include poison oak!

Featured.

Musical entertainment from 1pm to 4pm.

For another fun site: Poison Oak I.D.

QUESTIONS?

Please contact the organizers below.

Contacts for more information:
John or Jeanne Hand
e-Mail: stcharlessaloon@yahoo.com
phone: 209-533-4656
Send an SASE to PO Box 1596, Columbia, CA 95310 for event details.

The Poison Oak Show is an annual festival in Columbia, California. Saint Jerome and I first became aware of the Poison Oak Show in 2007 when an article appeared in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27oak.html

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/26/us/20070927_OAK_SLIDESHOW_index.html

The festival was celebrating its 25th year. Saint Jerome instantly called his twin sister in Sacramento which is about two hours away from the festival. Jill and her native Californian friends was completely unaware of the Poison Oak Show! 25 years and they never heard of it! Jill was intrigued and wanted to get to the next year's festival.

2008 came and she had to work so didn't make it to the festival. She did, however, call them up and got tee-shirts for Saint Jerome and me. I feel as if  I'm at the Filmore West, my head filled with Airplanes, Dead and Messenger Services (Jefferson, Grateful and Quicksilver, of course). Here is the tee-shirt. Very, very groovy.

Saint Jerome and I especially like the merge roll, which was the height of innovation in print-making in 1969. It's seems so in keeping with the whole thing. It sends Saint Jerome back to graduate school and me back to Campbell Elementary School.

Though I had been warned many times about poison oak and poison ivy, I've never seen any in real life and wouldn't recognize it if it reached out and bit me on the ass. I guess this is a good thing because I have sensitive skin and would probably break out in a rash before I even got within a mile of it. I have a rash now from just looking at the photos of the Poison Oak Show. It seems like a blast, though. Maybe one year if Jill doesn't have to work.

Book Poll

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Literature or Cliterature. 

Golden Thighs (cue the tights . . . )

My art teacher in high school introduced me to the wonderful tenor voice of Franco Corelli. For a girl with a penchant for baritones, Corelli was a perfect compromise — a dramatic tenor with a dark, very baritonal sound. His voice was pure, animalistic sex. Of course it didn't hurt that he looked like a god — over 6 feet tall and so good looking he could have been a movie star. He looked like Marcello Mastroianni, Rock Hudson and Gregory Peck all rolled into one. He also had famously beautiful legs, earning him the nickname "coscie d'oro", or golden thighs. He spent a good number of roles in tights.

He retired from the stage before I saw my first opera so I never got to see or hear him live. No matter, there are records, photos and, best of all, films and TV shows. He was on Italian TV a lot in the 1950 onwards.

When I started working at Rizzoli, I had heard that Corelli was in regularly to buy his newspaper. He lived down the street from the store near Carnegie Hall. If he came in, I never saw him. But one day, I just happened to be on the ground floor at the customer service desk when a handsome, older man walked past on his way to the newspaper department. As he passed me, he paused, smiled and nodded to me in greeting. FRANCO CORELLI!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, I saw my idol and he smiled at me! I was in heaven . . .

About a year or so later, I became customer service manager and was now located on the ground floor behind the customer service desk. I used to see Corelli almost daily with his little black poodle. He would always nod or say hello in greeting, except for the times he came in with his wife. Then he would look straight ahead while she looked right and left in suspicion. It was obvious that he knew that I knew who he was.

One day, I was at the front register and happened to ring him up. We greeted each other and as he was about to leave, he turned and said to me, "Tell me, do you sing?" I told him only in the shower until my neighbors tell me to stop. After that, we always chatted unless Loretta was with him. One of the nicest experiences was when I had just gotten back from vacation and was on a ladder putting books away when he came over, got my attention, asked me how I was doing, etc. It was a really nice chat.

He  always seemed a bit sad to me, not unhappy but "sad" — I really can't describe it. Then someone would recognize him and  he stand up straighter, puff out his chest and look like a god.

I would also see him on the street, usually walking his dog. He would always stop and say hello. That always gave me a huge thrill because he was such a opera legend and I was a big fan. I once saw him years later after I left Rizzoli. I was on 57th Street and he was walking the dog. He stopped and said "hello".

He died in 2003.

Corelli in the 1950s or 60s

An appearance from The Bell Telephone Hour 1962 "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca. Nice view of his legs.

Outfit of the Weekend: Sponge Bob Pajama Pants

Weekends bring out the strange wardrobe in people. Saint Jerome and I were walking down Broadway and were passing Duane Reade when three youths exited the store. They were about 16-20 years old. Two were dressed in the usual messy young adult-wear but the third was striking. Not only did he leap onto a unicycle as soon as he got out of the store, he was wearing a tee-shirt, crocs and Sponge Bob pajama bottoms. Boy, I wish I had a camera with me.

Book Grabbing and Gorging: A Cautionary Tale

We went to the Strand bookstore this weekend. We frequently go and end up with bags and bags of books and auction catalogues.  Saint Jerome goes in and starts upstairs in the art department while I hit the $1 and 48-cent books outside. Well, my usual MO for outside it to grab and look later, which is exactly what I did. I grabbed a book about a true-crime that took place in Seattle in 1911, Rudolf Bing's memoir 5,000 Nights At The Opera (which I'm surprised I haven't read or owned already), a gem-cutting and jewelry-making book from 1938 which has very cool jewelry and metalwork examples and I grabbed a biography called E. Nesbit. I checked out the dance books looking for Guerrero and then went upstairs to hit the Fashion History section and find Saint Jerome. We leave relatively unscathed (though the Neue Galerie catalogue Brücke set us back some). We go to Little Poland to have lunch as we always do when we go to Strand and I pull out E. Nesbit. It is not a biography on Floradora girl, Stanford White lover Evelyn Nesbit but a bio of an author named Edith Nesbit. We walk along 12th Street on our way back to the 1,2,3 train and when we pass the outside carts at Strand, I carefully replace the book on one of the carts. It was only a $1 and I really didn't want to drag it home, only to drag it to the church thrift store. This will teach me to grab and go without looking at the content. And, no, you can't judge a book by its cover after all!

Eli's Coming

So, I get home tonight and I tell Saint Jerome, "I saw an Eli Wallach DVD at the 99-cent store today." "Why didn't you buy it?" I wanted to get home to you, plus I'm not exactly sure which movie it was, Samurai or something." So I look it up on IMDB and the only movie I can come up with is Il bianco, il giallo, il nero, the Canadian title of which is Samurai. All this time, Saint Jerome is talking about Laura Nero and the song, "Eli's Coming", telling me to Google it. I Google it and I find Three Dog Night's version on Youtube. I start playing it when the phone rings. The name on our Caller ID is [lastname], Eli! Who in hell in ELI [LASTNAME]?!! Some wavelength. We listen to the machine to find out who is calling. It's our doctor whose name is NOT Eli [lastname] calling about Saint Jerome's colonoscopy tomorrow. Our doctor took over a retired doctor's practice. A doctor named ELI! 

Stuff on My Wife

Napping (or trying to). Saint Jerome picks up a library receipt, sticks it between my legs and says "You've been parked here too long. You got a ticket." all because I told him not to let me sleep too long.

Guess the Corpse

I'm lying on the bed on my back. My legs are spread, slightly bent. My torso is slightly twisted, my arms up, spread and bent up at the elbows. I feel like Elizabeth Short circa January 1947. Saint Jerome walks through the bedroom, pauses and says, "That's quite a pose." I reply, "I feel like —" Saint Jerome interrupts "Wait! Don't tell me! Let me guess! You're in your Black Dahlia mode."

 "How did you guess?!" He smiles. "I know how your brain works." I laugh so hard, my neighbors could probably hear me through the walls.

The Little Honda That Could update

Awwwww. My little neighborhood Honda is looking a little better — a little roughed up still, but better. Parked next to the Les-is-More Mobile, the car of our upstairs neighbor (gray Toyota Celica/Tercel)

Trying too hard or not hard enough

Late 1960s: Saint Jerome liked a girl named Jane when he was in High School, maybe junior year. He hung out with her and her girlfriends a lot. He liked her and he thinks that she knew that he liked her. He thinks that she also liked him. She ended up going to the prom with a kid from her German class — short with freckles who was about this tall (Saint Jerome points to his waist). Saint Jerome didn't go at all. Something happened, something awkward, opportunities missed and one day Jane came up to Saint Jerome and said, "You don't try too hard." and walked away. They never did go out.

And for your viewing and listening pleasure:

Walk like an Egyptian (cue the priestesses . . . )

My high school friend Christy studied and coached with Lazlo Halasz the famous opera conductor who started the New York City Opera. He was an old man when she studied with him but he still conducted for the Nassau Lyric Opera out on the Island where he lived.

One time, Nassau Lyric Opera put on a performance of Verdi's Aida and somehow Christy and I ended up as supers. We were priestesses. We had our sandals, white 1930s-style sheathes with colorful Egyptian-style collar and belt. We blackened our eyes in exotic lines, darkened our brows, reddened our lips andwere given props to carry. Since there were 11 of us and I was the tallest (we were a short bunch!) I made up the rear. There were only 10 gold painted snake props so I, being at the end, was given some elaborate figure which not only was wood, but heavy and bulky. I was not allowed to rest it against my shoulder. We didn't have a rehearsal, but were given directions on what to do, were cued and pushed out on stage.We did our procession and stood there for the rest of the scene. My arms were burning.

Later on, Christy and I were each given a huge palm leaf fan on a long pole. We were shoved out on stage and had to fan Amneris during a pivotal scene. We never did get in sync and we almost dropped our fans more than once. They weighed a ton.

Afterwards, since Christy was a friend of the Aida's son (who was also an opera singer) we went to the after-performance party at the soprano's house. It was a lot of fun. The house was a glorious, garish display of wealth and lack of taste, indoor-outdoor curtains and faux Louis furniture, crystal and 1980s conspicuous consumption.  I had never seen anything like it. They also balked at paying us our $10.

Aida is one opera I can't sit through in performance. I tried once at the Met with Placido Domingo as Ramades even, but left after Act 1. I can listen to recordings and could sit through a semi staged or concert version but a fully-staged performance. I have no idea why. My dad, who loved Aida, got to see it every time it was on my mom's and my subscription.

The Tortoise and the Hair

The last time I was in California I was about 13 years old and I was visiting my grandparents in La Jolla. My grandfather always drove Cadillacs — the bigger the better. His cars were so big, Columbus could have circumnagivated the globe in one. He was also an extremely cautious driver. In other words, he was the world's slowest. He also didn't believe in turning on the air conditioning in the car so we had all the windows open. Even with all the windows down, my hair still didn't move.

590 Seventh Ave, New York, NY — It's now or never.

I took this photo at the corner of 41st Street and Seventh Ave in 1994. The building was 30 years overdue, but ended up not being built. 5 Times Square was built on that plot and on the plot at 42nd and Seventh in 1999.

"I'm waiting for my man . . . "

I was meeting Saint Jerome one day after work. I can't remember what year or where we were going but I was meeting him near the Plaza Hotel and Saint Jerome was coming from Rizzoli. I captured these on the sly :)

 

 

Eros Ramazzotti story for Julia W

1992 and his first American album, Tutte storie, came out and I think it was also his first US tour. Rizzoli Bookstore, being the Italian-owned bookstore that it was and being one of the few places at the time to sell international pop CDs, of course scheduled a signing to coincide.

At the time I was customer service manager and was pretty much planted on the first floor. I was standing in front of the registers when Eros came in with his entourage. His arm brushed my boobs as he walked past me. There was a line of girls waiting for him that stretched from the middle of 57th Street all the way around Fifth Avenue. HUGE crowd. Lorenzo, one of the managers, was a young Milanese and he didn't like female atention when it wasn't aimed at him. He said in a fit of pique, "I don't know why they are making such a fuss over some stupid Roman." Jealous Lorenzo? Anyway, the signing was on the second floor and after Eros got settled in, the flood gates opened.

I eventually got the opportunity to go upstairs and cut the line to get my CD signed. I never got Tutte storie because I had the Italian verion, In ogni senso. I waited for a while then it was my turn. He signed it, "A cara Sara, Eros Ramazzotti." I was all aquiver.

After a few hours, the signing had to come to an end. There were still droves of girls waiting. They were eventually turned away, poor things. I was standing in the same spot on the first floor when he left. Again, he brushed my boobs with is arm. I knew then that both times were done intentionally. Made me feel good, lol. He had a thigh-high cast on his leg having broken it in a motorcycle accident. During the concert, he ran aroumd the stage even with the cast hindering his movement. It was a really fun concert even though he never even took his jacket off. He completely sweated through it too.

His visit was not without controversy, however. In an interview (I believe it was in the Italian-language American newspaper America Oggi), he stated that he wanted "real Italians" at his concerts, not "pizza fattori", or in other words, American-Italians who are mostly from the South. Rose, my friend Angela's sister, wrote a scathing letter renouncing him, sayng that it was such people who made him popular in the US, etc. She was then interviewed in Corriere della sera and other papers. I think he ended up apologizing but it didn't stop our enjoyment of his music, just disillusioned us a bit.

When I left Rizzoli in 1994, I stopped following his career and those of all of those pop musicians.

Without a Woman (cue the synthesizers . . .)

Working at Rizzoli I became very familiar with Italian pop music of that time. Rizzoli was one of the few places one could get international pop music and we would play a lot of Italian and French pop day in and day out. I grew to like a lot of it — Lucio Dalla and Eros Ramazzotti were two of my favorites, as was Zucchero. One of my favorite Zucchero albums was Zucchero Blues. He had a huge hit with the song, "Senza una donna." We played that album constantly but I enjoyed it. Anyway, Zucchero came out with an English-language album and he had quite a crossover hit with "Senza una donna," which he sang with British pop star Paul Young. Well, one day I was standing at the front register with Flor, one of the cashiers, and the song was playing in the store. I was humming and singing along then turned to Flor and said, "I've heard this song so many times, I understand all the words now." Flor looks at me and says, "He's singing in English."

Flor was a huge Eros fan and we went to see him together with another co-worker, Porfirio, at Radio City Music Hall. Flor screamed, fainted, danced, and hit Porfirio over and over again on the arm in her excitement and ecstasy throughout the entire concert. Poor Porf! His arm was entirely black and blue. I was glad that I was sitting on Porf's other side and not next to Flor. It was fun.

Rock of Ages (cue the guitars . . .)

For some reason, people think that I only like opera, that I only know about opera and opera singers. I love it. I think it's my favorite musical form but I listen to a lot of different kinds of music and I always have. I really like almost all forms of vocal music. Anyway, it was the late 1980s or early 1990s and I was working at Rizzoli when these incidents occurred.
One day in 1991, I was at the front register when a very familiar-but-older-looking man made a purchase.  I check the name on his Amex: Raymond Manzarek. Of COURSE! Ray Manzarek of the Doors! One of my first music cassette tapes was the Door's album. I loved them. We chat, he leaves. I almost faint!

"Oh my god! (we didn't have OMG back then) Do you know who just left?"
No, who.
"Ray Manzarek!!!"
(puzzled looks galore)
Who's that? An opera singer?

I look at my coworkers as if they were crazy, just like they are looking at me as if I was crazy.

"Ray Manzarek from THE DOORS! You know, the rock band with Jim Morrison? You know the new movie with Val Kilmer. Kyle Maclachlan is playing him in the movie!" The movie was all over the place at the time and I was the only one who knew who he was. Raymond Manzarek would come in occasionally.




Another time I was covering the magazine register when Dave Davies came in and bought a British tabloid. The Kinks were in town during a concert tour. I recognized him right away. I was all "Wow! Did you see Dave Davies?"

Who?
"Dave Davies of The Kinks!"
You mean Ray Davies.
"No, I mean Dave Davies the guitarist, Ray Davies's younger brother."

I got crazy looks for this one too. I LOVE The Kinks too!

(But then again, I had to point out Sid Fernandez after he left the store to Matthew, the avid Mets fanatic who didn't recognize him even as he was helping him.)

Saint Jerome

Frieda the Wunderwiener

I love Frieda. Frieda is my mother's dachshund — a little 11 year old redhead smoothie. Saint Jerome and I were just visiting mom the other day. Usually, when we approach we hear, "barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (yes, she barks in exclamation points). We approach the apartment. Silence. I turn my keys in the locks. Silence. We enter the apartment. Silence. Are they not at home? I leave Saint Jerome in the foyer and go to mom's bedroom. There they are. Frieda starts barking and jumping all over the bed, overly excited to see me. I sit on the edge of the bed. Frieda doesn't know what to do first — lick me? flop on her back for a rub? run for a ball? She tries to do everything all at once. If I wasn't wearing my glasses, Frieda would have poked my eye out with her nose leaping at me. Mom is trying to show me where all her important papers are and Frieda is climbing all over the locked box that mom is trying to open. I need Saint Jerome because I will instantly forget where all the important papers are unless he remembers for me.I call him into the bedroom. Frieda hears in and instantly stops paying attention to me. Thump, thump, thump goes her tail against the bed and she practically falls off the bed in her eagerness to get at Saint J. Ditched by the bitch. "Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" says Frieda as Saint J concentrates on mom. "Pet her for crying out loud, Jerome!" so Saint Jerome puts his hand out. Frieda instantly starts purring (yes, she purrs in addition to barking in exclamation points). Saint Jerome pets her. She is absolutely blissful!

Business taken care of, we are all in the foyer about to go out for brunch. Frieda brings us her deflated, chewed up, defuzzed tennis ball to throw. We are slaves to the catch for the next 15 minutes or so. The ball is tossed and lands with a bounceless thud. Frieda faithfully and energetically brings it back, stopping once or twice to kill it. Thud goes the ball down the hall. Frieda comes back looking for it. She looks at mom. She looks at Jerome. She looks at me. She trots back to mom and sniffs at her hand. Mom says, "The ball is right where you were! How can you miss it?" Frieda looks under the couch where mom is sitting. She looks down the other hall. We're all pointing and yelling at Frieda where the ball is. She finally goes back to where she started from, discovers the ball and brings it back. Mom makes the excuse, Well she is 77 years old and can be allowed to be a little senile. Anyway, we take the opportunity while Frieda is in the other room to get our shoes on. She knows now that we are leaving. We go out to lunch.

While we're walking to Viand on Broadway, mom says, "Frieda walks in the shade when it's cold and the sun when it's boiling. She's a perverse dog."

I love me a perverse dachshund!

Loehmann's

My mother used to go to Loehmann's in Brooklyn with her mother and older sister. Mom said that even living in Brooklyn, Loehmann's was very inconvenient to get to. (Mom's family lived in Ditmas Park near Flatbush.)

Loehmann's sold a lot of mid-range designer clothes like Suzy Perette, Claire McCardell, and Bill Blass for Maurice Rentner. There were no dressing rooms, not even a communal one. Upstairs on the second floor, one grabbed clothes from the racks, stripped down to one's undies where one stood (always a bra, slip and girdle), and tried on the outfit right there on the sales floor. At the time, mom was younger than the target consumer but she went because she served a very valuable purpose: she guarded the personal clothes while Grandma and Aunt Margot tried things on. Mom said that if you didn't guard your own clothes, there was the risk of them being picked up by someone and purchased.

Men weren't allowed upstairs because of all the women wandering around in their undergarments. Old Mrs. Loehmann, who according to mom looked just like Whistler's Mother, used to sit on the landing between the first and second floors like a sentry. No male ever got past old Mrs. Loehmann.

My mom's family moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 1954. I don't think they made the trek to Loehmann's again.

"I never sat for Mapplethorpe."

My late father collected books on ballet and dance. He has a huge collection of rare and out of print books. It's a really fabulous private collection.

One of the books is a 1986 book of photography by the Dutch choreographer Hans Van Manen. Dad saw the book mentioned in a European dance magazine--only the title and publisher. Since it was not published, nor available in the US, it took quite an effort to get it. A family friend, an older Dutch woman named Hanni, was going to visit relatives so Dad asked her to purchase a copy of Portrait. She found a copy and brought it home and gave it to my dad. It was very good thing that the book came shrink-wrapped because little prim Hanni would have had a heart attack. Though the book was called Portrait, there was only a small section of portraits of such people as Marcia Haydee of the Stuttgart Ballet and obscure Dutch artists. Most of the photos were homoerotic photos of naked male dancers, with and without erections, alone, together, ejactulating, spitting, swallowing, masterbating, etc. (And a token nude female.) None of us were expecting this at all! The weirdest thing of all was the fact that one of the naked men was someone who went to ballet school with my sister and me. All of the photos are black and white and "artistic." Anyway . . .

A few years later I am working at Rizzoli Bookstore and we are having a signing for a book of fashion photography by designer Thierry Mugler. The author photo looks extremely familiar. Is it? It IS! It is one of the rare clothed portraits in Portrait! I decide to bring in the book to get Mugler to sign his photo for my dad.

We've set up the signing and Mugler has arrived. We take him to the offices to hang up his coat, etc., and I ask him to sign the Van Manen book. I try to show him the book. He is in a hurry, glances down and disdainfully says "I never sat for Mapplethorpe." and is about to brush me aside. Wait! It's not Mapplethorpe but Hans Van Manen. That gets his attention and he stops short! Hans Van Manen?! I nod and we go into the breakroom so he can look at the book. He explained that the photo was taken at three in the morning, he had just gotten off the plane and was tired. Then he left the next day and never saw the completed book. He asks if he can look at it. I tell him sure! He sits down and slowly flips through it. He is rather shocked that my father would have such a book. I explained about the dance book collection, Hanni, our suprise and everything. He takes out his pen and scrawls,

"To Jim!

The Mysterious Book!

Thierry Mugler '89"

The book signing was great. Dianne Brill, in her previous incarnation as party girl and fashion muse, spilled her glass of champagne over the balcony of the second floor onto the store manager's head. She leaned over to shout an apology, he looked up and was in love.

Blue Dreams of Brown

I used to work for a small non-profit publisher out of the City University of New York. At one point, our offices were on the City College campus at 138th Street and Convent Ave in one of the original CCNY 1910 buildings.

Our UPS man was a fine specimen of Latin masculinity. His name was Augusto and he was big and muscular, good-looking with dark hair and eyes, white teeth, black moustache and the deepest dimples. He was also very nice and had charm for days. The office was 100% female and we used to refer to Augusto as the UPS Hunk.

I was the person in charge of shipping so I had to deal with Augusto the most. We got along famously. He used to call me "Saracita" or "Mamacita" and I used to call him "Robusto" or "Papi chulo" though occasionally I'd call him "Papi CULO" when he was being a jerk. It was the typical meaningless, make-work-easier-and-more-enjoyable flirtation. We were comfortable with each other. (He was hot after one of my co-workers, Jenn Dorr, a goddess whom I used to refer to as "The Temple of Jenn Door") Anyway . . .

One night a few weeks after we moved up to the City College location and my relationship with Augusto was quite new, I had a very strange dream about him. All I remember of it was being either in mid-town Manhattan or Herald Square in the pouring rain and Augusto was there with his UPS truck, except that it was a HUGE truck, almost 18-wheeler. For some reason I had to make sure that all of these folding chairs were arranged in rows in the back of the truck and when I went into the container, Augusto was there STARK NAKED! I just looked at his face in my dream, realized he was naked and high-tailed it out of there. I didn't even check out the package! (If anyone wants to interpret this for me, please feel free to leave it in the comments.)

Well, the next day I told Augusto that I had had a dream about him and he was naked. He turned bright red. Then I told him that I didn't look and he said, "Why not?"

"Is it raining in here?"

Jeff Fahey was in some of my ballet classes at Joffrey (then called American Ballet Center) in the late 1970s. I think he came in about 1978. I was about 12 or 13. Jeff was passing for about 20 though as it turned out, he was much older. (In fact, Mrs. D, the head of the school suggested to him that he shave off some years not knowing that he had, in fact, done that already.)

Anyway, he was gorgeous and unconsciously attracted everyone to him like a magnet with his Rudolf Nureyev sensuous good looks, piercing blue eyes (he accused  12 year old me once of spreading the rumor that he wore contact lenses, which I did not!), great body and fantastic rear end. An okay dancer but he moved well and was a very good partner in pas de deux class. When he was in men's class, the class was over-run with girls suddenly wanting to do tour en l'airs. Anyway . . .

I quit ballet due to injuries after a season of Nutcrackers with the Classic Ballet of New Jersey in 1980, where I was a flake and a flower. I wasn't too upset about the loss of my budding ballet career. I had discovered opera and found dance to be totally lacking emotional satisfaction. I didn't see Jeff again until 1982.

One day I came home from school to find Jeff sitting in our living room. Jeff was living around the corner from us on either 73rd or 74th Street and Dad ran into him on the street and dragged him home with him. He hung out for a bit chatting and catching up. He was in New York because he just got a gig on One Life To Live as Gary Corelli, who just happened to be the love interest of a character played by a friend of mine in high school.  So a few nights later, Jeff and Marguerite, his fiancée at the time, and Cusi came over for dinner.

Jeff sat on my right and for some reason I was extremely nervous. This was a strange thing because in spite of his extreme good looks and sex appeal, I never had a crush on him (and I've had crushes on a zillion guys starting at a young age and weird ones at that). Anyway, for some reason I was nervous and when I went to pour water from the heavy pitcher, I missed the glass. Later when I went to refill, I poured more water on the tablecloth instead. After the third or fourth time I spilled water on the table, Jeff put his hand out, palm facing up, looked up at the ceiling and teasingly said, "Is it raining in here?" Everyone laughed and of course I was mortified, but it was funny. Dessert was Mom's usual fresh fruit salad and Haagen Daz cassis sorbet (I'm still mad that they discontinued that flavor). Jeff reached over and took a scoop of sorbet which landed, plop, in the middle of the table! I put my palm out and looked at the ceiling and said, "Is it raining in here?"

Dinner was great. Jeff brought me the big blow-up of him with Bronwyn Thomas that was outside the theater when he was in Brigadoon on Broadway. I wish I knew what happened to it. I think my parents threw it out.

After that dinner, I used to run into him all the time on the street, but only when I was looking my absolute worst. His character on OLTL never really took off so he didn't stay long in NY, only a few years on the soap. He moved to L.A. and made a bunch of movies. I saw him once in the early 1990s when he came into Rizzoli where I was working at the time.

I always thought he looked better in person and live on stage than in photo or on the screen. Maybe that's why he didn't become the HUGE star I thought he would. He's a cult star though and now is on Lost which I have never watch.

But here is vintage "Love in the Afternoon":

The Crush Files Case# 187: Christopher Walken (cue the cowbell . . .)

According to Saint Jerome, I spent most of my childhood sitting in the dark. To a certain extent this is true because New York was filled with dance companies, musical endeavors and experimental theater. If we weren't at the ballet we were at The Public Theater seeing some god-awful, mediocre, or amazing play. One play we saw was Thomas Babe's Kid Champion. It was 1975 (and I am pretty sure it was the premiere run of the play in NY) and I don't think I had turned 10 yet. From what I recall, the play was about the rise and fall of a rock star called Kid Champion. Kid Champion was played by Christopher Walken. This was before Annie Hall and The Deer Hunter sealed his reputation as a creepy weirdo. I had never seen such a beautiful creature. He had beautiful platinum blond hair, long almond eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a gorgeous red, rosebud mouth. Delicate, androgynous, but masculine. Slender, super cool and super sexy. Even at 9-years old I felt it.

I don't remember much about the play itself. I remember being fascinated by one of the female groupies whose costume included flowers painted on her face and on her naked breasts and being fascinated by depictions of drug use and what seemed to be real pot on the stage. The one scene that I remember most vividly, however, was the rock concert scene. Kid comes out and instead of performing, he begins a long, ranting monologue about people not knowing who the real "him" inside, they are only interested in the outer rock star persona and god-knows what else like that. He begins to strip — to expose the real person beneath the glitter that is "Kid Champion." Well, Christopher Walken strips down to a teeny, tiny metallic silver bikini brief. I'm sitting there having a heart attack terrified that he will expose himself and secretly willing it at the same time. Anyway, Christopher Walken-as-Kid Champion hooks his thumbs into the waistband, starts to pull down the silver bikini briefs to bare his soul and nether regions when the character is SHOT! Well that put the kabosh on that! I don't remember much else about the play. I must have had stars flashing in my eyes for the rest of it or maybe the rest wasn't worth remembering.

I should find a copy of Kid Champion and read it to see how it jives with my memory. And just to show you how gorgeous:

 

and the best scene from an interesting movie, Christopher Walken as a pimp stripping down to boxers and not bikinis in Pennies From Heaven:

The Anderson Tapes

When I was a very small child, the British sci-fi show, Thunderbirds terrified me. I'm not sure which season it was, but the opening credits had them journeying to the center of the earth in what looked like a giant screw. I don't know why that terrified me so much, but it did. In addition to the opening credits the marionettes also terrified me with the way their eyes jerked back and forth and their eyelids closing and all, and their mouths opening and closing when they spoke (not to mention the human hands in some scenes). I don't know why I continued inflicting such terror on myself by watching it, but I think it was one of my older sister's favorite shows.

I remember a reoccurring nightmare I used to have starting at the age of 5 involving Thunderbirds. In the nightmare, we had a head — not a bust, just the head — of one of the pilots and it was brown clay but it moved and talked just like the show. It was on the bookcase in our den and it just scared the living daylights out of me. Well, midnight would strike and the head would vanish. The front doorbell would ring and I would answer it and there would be Bernadine Peterson, one of the trio of bully sisters (all of whose names ended with -ine) from down the street. She always appeared with streamers and wearing a party hat and she would sing "Happy Birthday." Then she would disappear and the Thunderbirds head would be back in the den freaking me out. I had this dream for decades, though it ceased to scare me after a few years.

Anyway, a few years later (or more like 10), there was another British sci-fi import which I absolutely loved: Space 1999! I loved Martin Landau and Barbara Baines and especially Catherine Schell as the alien Maia. I thought it was the coolest show.

Well, a year or so ago, Saint Jerome and I saw the full-length 1968 movie, Thunderbird 6. It was great with all the mod fashions and mid-century modern furniture and decor. That the was best, especially the chandelier made from liquor bottles in the "bar" room. Groovy cool. We also rented Season One of Space 1999 and it was positively AWFUL! It did have a slight kitch charm to it because it was so bad. The series (and the 1970s) didn't age well at all!

I didn't realize until recently that both shows were the brain children Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Thinking back, I can definitely see their hand in both shows.

If you've never seen Thunderbird 6 definitely rent it. It's fun!

OA AQ

So, I was at the printer on a job. I love the sound and rhythm of the big 8-color presses (kachunk, kachunk, kachunk, kachunk) and the smell of the ink. The designer Shani and I are sitting in the "hospitality suite" which is really just a small enclosed room in the middle of shop with a desk, tables and chairs, a couch, a huge flat-screen TV and light tables to check sheets. Anyway . . .

While Shani and I wait to see a sheet, we chat with Lenny, our account rep., talking about current and outdated printing terms. Lenny's been in the business for almost 40 years.

There is a common printing term, "overall aqueous coating" or more commonly, "o/a AQ". Well, Lenny has a client, a young kid who uses the archaic term "Flood AQ". Lenny doesn't know from where or who this kid learned this term. Lenny said, "'Flood aqueous?' They haven't used this term since Noah's Ark!"

Shani and I saw a sheet, made comments. Saw another sheet and made more comments and then saw a third sheet and, because the third time's the charm, signed off and left, happy in the knowledge that the job will be beautiful when completed.

Bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit

There is a superstition floating around out there that says you'll have good luck if "Bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit" is the first thing you say on the first day of a new month. Well, since the first thing I said when I woke up was, "IT'S 6:30!!!" I decided that this will be my first post of September. Maybe I'll have some luck fallout. And to illustrate:

Wittmann, Wien 1930s