jeffreychrist

RIP: Goodbye, Barbara Jean (Mother Hindsight)

Of course, this was the most numbingly painful day in my life…saying goodbye to Mom. I wrote this for her memorial service, but I could not read it aloud – it was far too excruciating – so I asked Denise if she would read it (she was the most eloquent of all my friends) and of course she said yes. Tears emanated as we cried…I remember my brother Scott just sitting there, quiescent, during the whole service, still absorbing the fact that she was gone…I recall my friends still thunderstruck that this was reality. It was odd, there were no adults mom’s age at the ceremony, just most of her children and their friends…which showed where Mom was in her life. She had no “girlfriends” in her life, except for her daughters, and that came in the later years, at execrable costs. Lord knows her husband was never a friend (or a spouse)…she only knew her immediate family for most of her life after marriage. And the questions that arise about that part of her will always remain a mystery; it died with her. At the conclusion of the reading of this soliloquy, Bedelia sang Mom’s favourite song, “Wind Beneath My Wings” so unbelievably powerful, that it rocked the very core of our aching souls…It was so hard to say goodbye, but we knew…Mom was just a song away…

This was written for her memorial service…

Goodbye, Barbara Jean

I don’t know where to really begin. I should first say thank you to all of you who were gracious enough to come ~ kind enough to be here in my family’s and my great sorrow.

I’m best at describing and expressing how I feel with pen and paper ~ but at this time, my voice cannot speak the words wrote, the words I feel, so I asked one of my soul sisters to read them for me.

What is there really to say? Everyone who knows me knows how much I treasure my mother. It wasn’t the conventional mother/son relationship…we were more like friends. (Heh! Mom always loved a good cliche!)

I know I’ve mentioned this to a few of you, but I feel I should repeat it. Mom believed in fate. All the debates could not stop her beliefs. She felt that when it’s your time to go, you go. Period. She wasn’t a churchgoer, but she kept her own internal religious beliefs. Keeping these beliefs in mind, then, we must accept her philosophy and believe that, YES, it was her time. She was strong enough to wait long enough to escape doom before she just…let go. She held on long enough until she was content, until she realized it was okay now. Of course she knew that whenever it was her time, it would be hell for most of us, but she always told me that when it was, “…do not mourn too long…” Crying is natural, so, yes, cry ~ but also laugh ~ remember ~ never forget ~ but cry not forever. Besides, if we are going to believe it was her time, then tears will not bring her back. I used to tell her, “You’re nuts.” Then we’d laugh. But she really believed in that fate.

We can take peace within ourselves and be thankful that she went away in her sleep ~ gently, quietly ~ finally content in the knowledge that we loved her ~ finally feeling there’s a need to smile. She clawed her way through 34 years of hell, escaping, at last, to a new form of happiness, which was her last few months. Evil incarnate no longer haunted her, mentally abused her [or us]. She was rid of the monster, freed of that anguish, and at last could say she was happy. She told my brother and me, for example, that this past Christmas was the best she’s experienced since she was a child.

Yet, how does one not mourn when you lose someone who is part of your blood from day one? How do you not halt your heart from leaping? And then you start feeling angry ~ angry at life ~ angry at other people’s happiness ~ angry at survivors ~ angry at your family ~ angry at anyone who’s older than Mom ~ and ultimately angry at this entity she named God. “How could you do this to us God!?” you scream to her god. “How could you take away the one constant thread in our life and expect us to believe in you!? And without even the chance to say goodbye?!” Then you start hating her god and denouncing her god.

Then…I remember mom. Then I realized I’m wrong to curse her god because to do so was to curse her belief system. Then the anger disappears and then you cry again ~ then sigh ~ maybe wonder a simple “Why?” I take comfort, then, when remembering Mom’s favourite poem ~ I’ve always loathed it because, non-believer or not, I thought it to be treacly and pretentious ~ but she cherished it. It’s called “Footprints.” and she stood her ground. She loved it, believed it ~ she felt she lived it. So, again, if we are going to accept mom’s beliefs, then we must accept that she felt she was the one being carried by this “lord” in the poem, and that now, she always will be.

She was the mother of us all. Can anyone in this room who knew her say that they called her anything but “Mom“? Any friend was automatically one of her “children”. Who else but she could bring together everyone who is here? Friends who lost touch years ago ~ constant companions ~ estranged but unforgotten family ~ friends who are strangers to other friends? All together for one reason…Mother of us all…

I don’t know if this vast, empty hole which houses Mom’s love will ever be filled completely, or if this sadness will ever cease. For some, I gather, the tears have stopped, for others the tears have not yet begun. I guess an overwhelming sense of loss will linger within me always, with every moment I breathe. But I tell you, we must all move on ~ go on. Mom would reprimand us (loudly, of course) if she thought her passing would halt our lives for more than one moment.

But mom’s leaving has taught me a lesson ~ that bitterness leads to bitter lives. We must live ~ and when we wish to recall, just…remember. We have history ~ never stop thinking or talking about her and what she meant to us, negative or positive (no one is a saint in this world full of sinners). We have memories, photos, knowledge. The point of power is in the present. That’s what I believe because of its truth. We must believe in our present, and believe in our future ~ and never ever forget our past. Let the bitterness fade away. All we have is each other now…

I could go on for one million more pages, but I think its time to let go now…not to her spirit, which I still feel around us…but to her physical presence…the body is merely a shell to that spirit, anyway. Now, that spirit is within all our shells ~ all our lives. When we hear the night owl sing her song, it’s Mom. When we feel a quirt of cold breeze on our sweating brows, that’s Mom. When we hear Garth or Reba or Gary Morris or any of her other favorite singers sing on the radio, that’s Mom. When we turn on the television and see Roseanne or Letterman or The Commish or Magnum PI or The Golden Girls, or any other of her favourite TV shows, that’s mom. The world, our lives, our dreams are filled with her…so all we have to do is listen to the sky, and we’ll hear her…all we have to do is listen to her favourite songs, and you know she’s right next to you…inside you, until your time here is over. Then, no matter your beliefs, your spirit will walk to her when it is your time to greet her…in her heaven, on another plane of existence…wherever souls go…and, if you just listen…

I think I hear her now…

…my mother…Mother Hindsight…Mother of us all…

(My mother’s favourite singer was Garth Brooks, and her favourite song was, “The Dance.” Rest in peace, mom.)

And now I’m glad I didn’t know…
…the way it all would end, the way it all would go…
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain…
But I’d have had to miss the dance…

Legacy: Adam West

As an adult, it’s easy to poke fun at the cheesiness of Adam West and the original “Batman” TV show – after all, I doubt the show took itself seriously; it reveled in its kitschiness. But for millions of adult men and women, West’s tongue-in-cheek portrayal (of a far-darker original source material) remains comfort food, a personification of a more halcyon, long-ago era. We can watch now, decades later, and smile at the audacity of it’s bold, camp value, and for West’s wonderful, deadpan delivery. But, when I was a child, it brought delight to me (still does). I wasn’t old enough to enjoy the original run of the show, but thanks to the rerun gods of TV, “Batman” – and Adam West – were more than a staple of my childhood – they were an integral part of my – our – our formative years. Some of my fondest memories are of watching the show with my brothers, gathered around the only TV in our wood-paneled living room, lying on the shag-carpet floor, watching joyfully as Batman, with his sidekick Robin, battled the larger-than-life criminals in a color-saturated Gotham City (and when the late, great Yvonne Craig would join in as Batgirl, this little gay kid’s excitement couldn’t be contained).

That West DID take the show seriously, even decades after it ended, made him even more endearing. But not in a condescending way at all, rather as a champion for what was good and valuable in the messages he and the show brought to us.

They are lessons we can surely use still, now, in 2017.

Godspeed, Mr. West…forever my Batman.

Music Box: The Queen of Soul-pra

In 1998, twenty-two minutes after she was asked to cover for her ailing friend, Luciano Pavarotti, Aretha Franklin walked on stage at the Grammy Awards to perform the legendary aria “Nessun Dorma.” With little time to prepare Franklin performed the aria as is. In Pavarotti’s key. No one knew what to expect. No one knew what he or she was about to witness.

That performance begets one of the most extraordinary musical moments in awards show history, in a canon as mammoth. It brought the audience to a thunderous ovation and remains, in my opinion, the greatest performance in the history of the Grammy Awards.

Happy 75th Birthday to Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. The Queen of everything.

Music Box: Nobody Beats “The Wiz”

Too many changes pissed me off: Ne-Yo is curious enough, but Ne-Yo writing an original song FOR this? Ugh. Removing “I Was Born On The Day Before Yesterday” and replacing it with a song not even good enough to make the cut of the dreadful movie version, called “You Can’t Win”? Feh. (Though, I do know it was originally written for the stage, but never used.) Queen Latifah and Mary J Blige? As much as I love them, both are ubiquitous. Enough. Now I’m not really adverse to change, but sometimes I’m guilty off being too much of a traditionalist, particularly when it comes to something I cherish. Oh well. Sue me.

Still, my anticipation was – and is – very high, as THE WIZ was the very first Broadway musical I ever saw, and it remains an indelible part of my very heart. And then I saw this. Now, I’m a religious-free man, but…oh my god. Oh. My. God. OH. MY. GOD!!!!! This sent tremulous shivers pirouetting down my spine.

December 3rd can’t get here fast enough.

Music Box: Hamilton the Musical – History Is Happening In Manhattan

I’m dazed. Literally.

I first saw the off-Broadway production back in February, at the Public, as a birthday present to myself. It was a staggering achievement then, but even more so now.

Every so often a work of art descends upon us from the heavens, via the musical theater gods – so breathtaking, towering in its scope, vision and execution – to dazzle us, to thrill us, to exalt us, to inspire us, to perplex us, to educate us, to illuminate us, and ideally, to transform us. Welcome to that pantheon, Hamilton.

Believe the hype. It’s one of the – if not THE – greatest musical I’ve seen in a decade or more, and ranks with the mightiest of all time.

Below is a clip sent to various networks and outlets to use as promos – a partial of “Yorktown (World Turned Upside Down),” which excludes the into, and it’s thrilling. I’m going back in a few months, and I’m sure to make various visits over the next few years.

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Music Box: Ramin Karimloo, Bring It Home!

I’ve seen “Les Miserables” countless times on Broadway since its opening back in 1987, with various actors playing Jean Valjean. I saw the brilliant Colm Wilkison twice during his original run, and his replacement, the great Gary Morris – yes the Country singer – who was outstanding in a complete 180 of his usual metier. I sat (slept?) through the 2006 revival, saved only by the performances (with Alexander Gemignani as Vlajean and Norm Green as Javert) – and, of course, Hugh Jackman in the sadly disappointing movie version. (Oh, and, I used to kill this song at karaoke.)

But it wasn’t until I saw Ramin Karimloo late last year that I witnessed the greatest “Bring Him Home” in the history of my Les Miz-experiencing life, and the most emotionally startling portrayal of Valjean. This video, while breathtaking, doesn’t even do justice to just how transcendent Karimloo was, as absolutely tremendous as his voice is here. To see him was to see Les Miz – and Jean Valjean – as a rebirth, rather than merely a renaissance.

I only wish that I had gone back to see him again, as I promised myself I would, but unfortunately, tonight is his last performance after a year and a half in the role. I’m not usually a proponent of “bootlegs” but I have to admit to being thankful that someone flipped out their iPhone to capture this genius performance.

Bravo for a monumental run, Karimloo. Can’t wait to see you on stage again.

Legacy: Lynn Anderson

I grew up on Country music, thanks to my mother’s devotion to it (you could say my sibling’s and I were Country when Country wasn’t cool – whether we wanted to be or not), and one of my earliest childhood musical memories is of listening to Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden;” it was one of the few 8-Track cassettes we owned (along with Freddie Fender, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves and a few others my memories can’t evoke), and I would listen to music in our ancient 1970s wood-paneled living room of our home, on our wool sofa, across from where our “stereo system” sat. I loved that album as a boy, and revisited it over the years, even into adulthood.

Recently, I listed to the album again and the memories flooded back. I admired her versions of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “I Wish I Was A Little Boy Again,” “Snowbird” (made famous by Anne Murray), another Kristofferson gem, “For The Good Times,” and of course, Joe South’s archetypal “Rose Garden,” for which she is most famous for. She died Thursday, in Nashville at 67. Too young.

Rest peacefully, Ms. Anderson. And thank you for the memories…I’ve never walked by a rose garden without thinking of you.

Legacy: Joan Rivers, Exit Laughing

If there was a god, it’s apparent that he/she has no sense of humor. Still recovering from the loss of comic god Robin Williams only three weeks ago, another comedy giant has left the building.

Joan Rivers is gone.

After a routine throat procedure, she stopped breathing and was taken to Mount Sinai hospital. After going into cardiac arrest, her doctors put into an induced coma, and after hoping for a recovery, and spending her last few days on life support, her family issued a statement that she had passed. I’m still confused as to how this happened at all. And I surmise we’ll be hearing much more about the Yorkville Endoscopy procedures that ended her life in the coming weeks/months.

So to say it’s a sad day in the entertainment world is an understatement. I – most of us, really – grew up, with Joan Rivers as a part of our very fabric, for better or worse.

Her rise and temporary fall is practically mythic. After establishing herself as a stand up comic force to be reckoned with – and in a male-dominated field at that – Johnny Carson made Rivers a household name with her numerous appearances on “The Tonight Show,” during the 1970s, then by allotting her the permanent guest hostess gig in 1983. Her star was in orbit until she was fucked over by that “friend” (well-documented, and something she never really emotionally recovered from). After landing her own talk show, the ill-conceived and short-lived “The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers,” Carson shunned Rivers as a friend and a talent, and never spoke to her again; she was barred from the show and unofficially blacklisted in Hollywood. Her show’s subsequent failure also briefly destroyed her career and was one catalyst to the suicide of her husband Edgar Rosenberg, which shattered her, in 1987.

She was persona non grata and sadly, a punch line for a cruel, albeit temporary, time.

She inched her way back, adamantly, forcefully and tirelessly, regaining her name, her brand, and her humanity. She made brilliantly funny guest appearances on Howard Stern’s FM radio show, started another more successful afternoon TV talk show, “The Joan Rivers Show” (which won her an Emmy and lasted for five years), made a fortune on QVC designing and selling costume jewelry, was center square during a 90s revival of “The Hollywood Squares,” and was Tony-nominated for her performance as Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce’s mother, in “Sally Marr…and Her Escorts.” She never met a gig she didn’t like. She never allowed fragility to define her, rather perseverance and tenacity. From this point on, she was unstoppable, and where once she was a superstar fading, she was ubiquitous from the start of the aughts until the end of her life.

I won’t play revisionist history and state that I’ve been an ardent fan in recent years (I mean, even before her “fall” there were times I cringed rather than laughed). In fact, more often than not, I’ve been angered by the paths Rivers has taken in her final decade or so. There was/is a fine line between being an “insult comic” (Joan was Queen to Don Rickles’ King) and being hateful, vindictive. Always a brilliant, incisive commentator of the world around us, she (in my apparently minority opinion) diminished her art for pure commerce and ego. Where, once upon a time, she eviscerated her targets with intelligence and truth seeped with hilarious sardonic overkill, in recent years she circumvented the truths and went for the jugular, often mean-spiritedly and too-often maddeningly ugly. Particularly as the go-to fashion mouthpiece for every post-Awards show since the mid-1990s, until it became her (in)famous “Fashion Police” specials, which were merely loathsome bully roundtables by a select group of individuals who really had no business insulting or critiquing anyone’s fashion choices. It pissed me off that this comic genius relegated to this. Which, for better or worse, begot countless other wannabes, making any Awards season almost unbearable (it didn’t help that I already thought that fashion killed Rock n Roll). But, it’s been her métier for the last two decades of her life, and cemented her already-icon status for eternity.

Besides, it doesn’t depreciate her overall legacy. Only a liar and a fool would negate or diminish her stature as a trailblazer, nonpareil. She was a cultural emblem, and a tireless proponent of equality (even before it was hip to be that, headlining one of the very first – if not THE first – HIV/AIDS awareness charity events back in 1983! Unheard of for a celebrity of Joan’s stature!), and, most importantly, as one of the last of the great legendary stand-up comics. And that’s how I’ll always remember her. From howling with laughter listening to her classic 70s album, “What Becomes A Semi-Legend Most” (which I listened to again a few days before she passed, and boy, it still holds up), to her outrageously funny “Tonight Show” guest host gigs (I always wished that Carson would retire and she would take over) which I’ve often perused YouTube to watch, to those aforementioned Howard Stern appearances…the woman epitomizes steadfastness. She lived for her family and, unwaveringly, her audience – and they loved her. She loved what she did, even when she didn’t have to do it anymore. But, thankfully, she did.

So Rest in Prada, funny lady. You deserve it. Knock ‘em dead(er) on the other side.

Legacy: Elaine Stritch Everybody Rise!

How do you mourn a legend who’s lived more than you and me combined? At the ripe old age of 89, the great Elaine Stritch has taken her final bows. To see her in a show was to expect the expected AND unexpected, and to bear witness Broadway royalty non pareil. I’m thrilled, delighted, and now nostalgic that I was able to be a mortal spectator over the years – in the astounding “Eliane Stritch At Liberty,” over a dozen years ago, and more recently as Angela Lansbury’s replacement in the revival of “A Little Night Music.” And, I can still, forevermore, as Colleen Donaghy on “30 Rock,” my already worn out copy of the making of the Original Cast Recording of “Company,” and countless YouTube treasures.

Rest in peace and respect, Elaine. And everybody rise…rise…RISE!

Recording her legendary “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Sondheim’s “Company”:

On The Rosie O’Donnell Show from the 1990s:

“I’m Still Here” at the White House:

The full “At Liberty”:

Music Box: Happy Birthday, Phoebe Snow

The idea was noble, the benefit, beyond worthwhile, the execution a little cheesy in hindsight, but back in 1995, Lincoln Center staged a concert reading of “The Wizard Of Oz In Concert: Dreams Come True” to benefit the CDF (Children’s Defense Fund), the child advocacy group whose motto of No Child Left Behind defined their great cause.

The cast included Jewel (as Dorothy), Debra Winger (The Wicked Witch of the West), Natalie Cole (Glinda The Good Witch), Nathan Lane (the Cowardly Lion), Jackson Browne (the Scarecrow), Roger Daltrey (the Tin Man), and Joel Grey as the Wizard (he also narrated, played various other parts).

Rather than an absolute faithful concert, the songs were altered – stylistically – to better suit each singer’s voice, rather than role (e.g. a Rock N Roll-ish “If I Only Had A Heart” – a la Daltrey’s classic rock front man persona).

But the single moment I fell in love with from the whole affair was the addition of the late, great Phoebe Snow. Acting as a muse, of sorts, she performed a medley of “If I Only Had a Brain; a Heart; the Nerve” – as a reprise, alone with only piano accompaniment (with lyrics in hand), and it’s the most glorious 3 minutes of the production. Her voice simultaneously bluesy, bittersweet, nostalgic and haunting, she soars while staying grounded.

The concert was never released on DVD – I transferred the Phoebe Snow medley from an old VHS recording, and converted it digitally (so excuse the shoddy quality) because as a lifelong Snow fan, I feel it deserves to be seen. And what better day than on the date she would have celebrated her 64th birthday?

So, Happy Birthday, Phoebe Snow. Your voice…your brain, your heart and your nerve…are still – and will forever be – missed.