All posts by junesboy

I Invented Love

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“I thought I knew what love was, but…these lovers play new music; haunting me and somehow taunting me. My love was never half as true.” – RAGTIME.

I invented love.

That probably comes as a surprise to you, but it’s true.

It happened sometime in the early 1970s – I don’t remember the precise moment – odd considering the importance of the event. Oh yes, I am fully aware that love has been written of by poets for hundreds of years before that. I myself have performed and recited and sung words of love written by Shakespeare, Cole Porter, and Harry Lauder that were written long before I was born. All I can say is there are far more prophets in the world than talk radio would lead us to believe.

I invented love.

I invented it a few years before I invented sex.

Didn’t we all?

I could make a big deal out of it. In a Trumpian mood I could say it was “huge”. Channeling my inner Al Gore I could aver that the movie “Love Story” was written about me. But why? I don’t need it. The glory, the satisfaction, the thrill of knowing that no one else had truly known love before I invented it is enough.

Oops.

How does Bob Dylan say it? “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

I had a tiny role in a production of RAGTIME. It required me to immerse myself every evening in a room full of 40 to 50 impossibly young dancers and singers who insisted upon calling me “Mister” and “Sir”.

I hated them.

I loved them.

Utterly.

I could not have been more pleased with my companions.

There are moments in RAGTIME precisely……painfully about just that moment of knowing that you are old and successful and still able to grow and experience new things if only you will allow yourself to do so.

At the age of 21 I knew the full glory of what love could be. How could I not? I invented love.

At the age of 65, I was just beginning to get a glimpse of what the full glory of love can be. That doesn’t denigrate or belittle the loves and passions of the past. It reveals and exalts the fact that we can grow at any age if we allow ourselves to do so. It validates the idea that we can move toward something better and that something better may not be that far away. It may be as near as lyricist Billy Rose says; “back in your own backyard”.

In RAGTIME (America of 1906) characters are confronted with the disturbing possibility that (as the Firesign Theater puts it) everything they know is wrong – or at least could be better and bigger. How do these RAGTIME characters react? It’s the whole story.

On CNN/Fox/MNBC (America of 2025) we are confronted with the disturbing possibility that everything we know is wrong. Can we be better and bigger? How do we react? It’s the whole story.

How did the writers of RAGTIME know that we would need their guidance at this time?

There are far more prophets in the world than talk radio would lead us to believe.

Maybe we can invent a love twice as true as we believed possible. To do so we would have to first accept the tantalizing promise of “new music”.

I’m good with that.

Kazantzakis and the Nearness of Sin

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“He uttered a triumphant cry: IT IS ACCOMPLISHED!

And it was though he had said: Everything has begun.”

With those words, Nikos Kazantzakis closes his novel; THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. And with those words, I closed his book and ended my first reading experience with Mr. Kazantzakis. I was 20 years old in 1971. It was a delicious, hot, muggy summer in Lexington, and I was more than a little befuddled by what I had just read.

I liked the book. Kazantzakis’ descriptions of biblical geography were interesting. The characters were many and varied, and moved through that geography with pace and purpose that pulled me through the story. I did find myself wishing I had paid a bit more attention in my Southern Baptist Sunday School class as a child. The place names might have been easier to follow if I had.

What bewildered me were the hallucinatory passages in the novel, especially the extended passage at the end of the novel in which Jesus experiences and rejects the Devil’s final blandishment. My 20-year-old reaction was something on the order of; “Whoa! Where the hell (or heaven) did that come from? And why?”

Meh… Whatever.

I had read it and now I had to return the book to the upperclassman who had lent it to me with the usual unambiguous instruction that almost always accompanies a book lent unasked for; “You’ll enjoy this.” That phrase always sounds so amiable, but when it comes from an older friend whose apparent intellect and experience you aspire to, the phrase carries the weight of stone tablets from the Mount.

Returning the book meant a trip to the Geek House, usually a mind broadening if not mind improving occasion. The Geek House was a small cottage on a two-way street near the University of Kentucky. Like many of these small cottages it was infested (infested… yes, I think that is le mot juste) by students. Years later when I saw the film ANIMAL HOUSE it occurred to me how lucky Lexington was that the Geek House was a small cottage and not a large house. The population of Geek House was capped at four… or five…… or six………or… (it was a liquid situation) because of the limited space available. The rotating roster of the house included two or three theater majors, two brothers from Pike County (one was in pre-law and the other was a convicted felon who was a hell of a mechanic – it sounds like the making of a great team – I wonder where they are now?), and a graduate student from the Philippines. The graduate student had an amazing name that no one could pronounce. He shortened it for our convenience to Pu Pe. Of course that turned out to be an unwise choice of truncation. “Poopy” he became and remained for as long as I knew him. I learned a valuable lesson in diplomacy from Poopy. I knew he was a graduate student and a bright and well-spoken guy. Yet his English seem to desert him when it came to being properly offended by his nickname. He got along just fine with everybody.

One of the more charming traditions of the house was the weekend poker game. It would begin on Friday evening and continue with a variety of participants coming and going until it petered out on late Sunday afternoon as the last bleary participants wandered away.

This was a serious poker game. There were snorts and grunts that indicated calls and raises. Cards were held close to the chest, or dropped to the floor as the weekend wore on and small motor skills decayed. Challenges to manhood were common and personal financial statuses were altered. Sometimes you would even see a dollar bill in the center of the table on top of the quarters, dimes, and nickels.

It too, as you can imagine, was a liquid situation – mostly beer. I think that’s why they tolerated my spectator-only presence at the game. I was ground control. If any authority figure knocked at the door, I was sent to answer. Usually after a brief reassuring conversation the authority figure would go away confident in the knowledge that a sober 20-year-old adult had this situation well in hand. It was an innocent time.

One memorable Sunday afternoon, the game was continuing but grinding down. There was a knock on the door. I answered. It was the parents of one of the theater majors residing in the house. They had driven in from Madisonville to visit relatives and thought it would be nice to drop in on their son, Carson. Well, Carson had been participating in the poker game off and on for most of the weekend and he looked like it. He leapt to his feet, swiftly visited the bathroom, his razor, and his closet (where he found his “cleanest dirty shirt” as Kris Kristopherson so poignantly describes it), while I chattered away with his parents discussing all the people in Madisonville I didn’t know (not having ever set foot in the town) and while the other poker participants discreetly (again, the perfect word) transferred the beer bottles from the tabletop to the floor. Carson’s parents pretended to be oblivious. Carson presented himself as shiny as a newly minted penny (in his dreams). They left. The house was silent for a minute or two. Then Poopy turned to the pre-law brother and said; “Well, I certainly am glad you kept your filthy fucking mouth shut.” There was general agreement with that sentiment and the game ended about 10 minutes later with a prayer for Carson.

Often on Friday evenings before the game degenerated to Neanderthal-ness, the discussions around the table could be coherent and instructive. It was during one of these intellectual oases that my friend, Ray Skewes was expounding on the genius of Nikos Kazantzakis. He had finished reading THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST that week and was dying to discuss it with someone. No one was interested, but since I was the youngest in the room I was chosen to be the other member of his instantly created book club. Ray went to his bedroom and fetched his battered paperback copy of the book, placed it reverently into my hands, and instructed; “You’ll enjoy this”.

Well…I had duly followed my instructions and now needed to return the book to Ray.

That August the house was practically deserted. The denizens had all dispersed to their various summertime activities. A couple of the actors had summer theater jobs, Carson had been ordered home to Madisonville for a period of debriefing and reorientation to the wisdom of making better use of his time, and the brothers had returned to the mountains to do something murky, into which it would be best not to inquire too deeply. Thus, everyone was gone except for Ray.

I drove to the house and bounced up on the porch and knocked on the door. There was no immediate answer until, after subsequent knockings, the blinds on the window next to the door twitched ever so slightly. Then the doorknob turned and the door opened about 6 inches and Ray peered at me. He was looking pretty rough. His hair was long and stringy and did not suggest that it had seen water for a while. His shirt and jeans were wrinkled and sagging and did not suggest that they had seen water for a while. He had about a three day growth of beard and it did not suggest… Now this look was not rare for Ray. Today we might even say that this was Ray’s “brand”. But that afternoon there was a haggard quality that suffused his usual fashion statement.

I explained my reason for being at his doorstep and held out the book. He looked at it for a moment, processing the information. Then his eyes lit up and he threw open the door and invited me in. He closed the door behind me, put on the chain, and adjusted the blinds for perfect opaqueness. That’s when the smell hit me. It was a sharp, dry, and dusty smell, and it was intense. Ray returned to his position on the couch to continue the project he was working on when I banged on the door. There was a garbage bag (filled with marijuana plants) on the floor in front of his feet and there was a grocery bag (almost filled with marijuana leaves) next to it. Next to that a soup kettle (for the stems he explained). Ray described his project.

“I was hiking in the Red River Gorge a while back and we came across this little field filled with marijuana. I made note of our location and went back last week and harvested all I could carry and brought it back here. Carson’s bedroom is filled with bags. I’ve got to get this stuff processed and outta here before the guys come back to school. Plus, I think it’s starting to stink (starting?). And now there’s fleas! I’ll never get all this done. Hey. How’d’ja like the book?”

I’d like to say I was cool.

Cool was what I would’ve liked to have been.

I was not cool. I was stunned.

I was scared to death.

I was appalled by the filth and the smell and the fleas.

Then…

The car stopped.

Cars were coming and going to and from the University all the time on the street, but they normally didn’t stop in front of the house.

Then…

The car door slammed.

Ray froze with his hands in the middle of the dismemberment of a plant, his eyes wide, and a sick, gray crept into his face.

Then…

A team of big men in dark suits and dark glasses and badges burst through the door. They put handcuffs on me and Ray, and proceeded to haul all those bags and us out to their vehicle and un-gently crammed us all in. They took us downtown in a blur and in an even faster blur we were in a jail cell. The trial was quick and decisive. Sentences and fines were meted out. They were paid and served. I emerged from incarceration to a world that did not wish to hire me for anything ever. No female would come near me. I never married. I meandered into a penniless, barren old-age.

Then…

The car door slammed again as the pedestrian being picked up got on board, and the car drove away.

Ray sagged in relief and resumed his activity. He gave a nervous shake to his head, grinned at me, and said “So, how’d’ja like the book?”

I believe my exact response was; “It was great but I can’t stay and talk about it now I gotta go I got something to do I got rehearsal I’m in a show but I can’t stay and talk about it now I’ll get with you later thanks for the book.”

As I recall, that response was delivered in a manner that was eerily reminiscent of a patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan. I then moved with great pace and purpose to the door and out of the house. I bounced off the porch and to my car and drove directly home, directly to my bathroom to take three consecutive showers – showers every bit as spiritually cleansing as Janet Leigh’s shower in PSYCHO. No, I was not attacked by the knife wielding mother of Norman Bates, but I felt like I deserved to be.

I never returned to Geek House. I only rarely ever saw Ray again and we never had a chance to discuss his book. I never inquired as to the final disposition of his summer project.

It was a long time before I felt clean again.

I had heard the phrase; “the nearness of sin”, but I don’t think it ever really registered with me until that day.

I understood it fully after that day.

I also had a better understanding and a deeper appreciation of Nikos Kazantzakis. That understanding and appreciation leaves me very comfortable with the possibility that none of this story actually happened and yet all of it is true.

“You Nugatory Nullifidian!” – Walt Kelly

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It seems the primary news topic (nay, make that the only news topic) of the last week is the litany of peccadilloes and self-inflicted crises of the Trump campaign, all of which auger impending doom, whether we elect him or don’t – doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t.

I’m as fascinated (a useful euphemism for “terrified”) by all these revelations and speculations as the next guy, but I wonder if in the maelstrom of threats to the Trump campaign, we’re not missing a couple.

A friend of mine posted today about the very real possibility of Mr. Trump running out of voting groups to insult. Oh sure, he has yet to attack Eskimos or the Amish, but at the rate he’s proceeding he’ll get to them within days and then what? I have no good suggestions to offer on this quandary…except…meekly, mind you…to suggest terminating the insults and attacks? It’s just an outré thought.

And there’s also the problem of the sameness of the insults themselves, from everyone. I weary of hearing about people being “dopey” and “losers”. I’m tired of hearing Mr. Trump describe everything Trumpian as “incredible” and “huge”. I glaze over hearing his detractors describe him as “narcissistic” and “misogynistic”. We have 90+ days to go before we vote. If vocabularies don’t expand, we’ll all go nuts. If that happens, we’ll vote for a nut. That can’t be the best business plan.

Sometimes, when faced with a serious consideration like this, I seek outside guidance. Unlike Doc Ricketts in Steinbeck’s CANNERY ROW, I can’t go visit the Seer, and the Oracle of Delphi is not on my speed dial. But, I do have a shelf-ful of Pogo books from the 50’s and early 60’s. In the Pogo strips, two of the denizens of the Okefenokee Swamp are the Cow Birds. These unsavory critters are uber-critics of everything wholesome and have a tortured vocabulary with which to express their views. I’m not encouraging any plagiarism here, just looking for inspiration. Imagine Mr. Trump referring to his myriad enemies as; “lesser pipsqueaks”. Or Ms. Clinton casting; “a pox on absentee landlordism!” Or Anderson Cooper decrying Mr. Trump’s answers to his questions as; “benighted paternalistic infantilism.”

Now THAT would lively.

And would keep me running to my dictionary.

Dictionaries.

Remember those?

Cinema Scarcity – Ack!

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A geezer thought.

We rarely watched movies on TV in Lexington in the 60’s. There were few channels and thus, few movies to watch.

I remember there were two channels; Channel 27 (CBS) and Channel 18 (NBC). When Channel 62 (ABC) finally began broadcasting, it was overwhelming. How would you find time to watch it all? That turned out to be a non-problem since no household I knew owned more than one TV and dad controlled it. Lawrence Welk, Walt Disney, and Jackie Gleason’s domination of my home’s screen (singular, please notice) was assured no matter what channel the Beatles were on.

The only time movies were offered was in the mornings (I was at school) or after the 11pm local news (I was in bed on school nights). The late flick (singular, please notice) would be followed by a recitation of the poem “High Flight” over images of jet planes (“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth…”), the Star-Spangled Banner over a static image of the flag, and a sign-off announcement from the station until tomorrow morning over a geometric image that looked like the title of a musical piece by Anthony Braxton who none of us had ever heard of much less heard. None of this late programming could remotely be called inspiring.

Things improved when ABC took a chance one Saturday night and screened The Day the Earth Stood Still under the TV banner; “Saturday Night at the Movies”. It was a surprise ratings hit and within a couple of years almost every night had a “… Night at the Movies” broadcast.

Still, there were only three channels, and no such thing as video tapes, DVD’s, DVR, NetFlix, YouTube, or Roku. It was tough for movie lovers. The Student Center at UK would screen foreign films once a week, but it always snowed on those evenings or rained frogs and it was a three-mile walk (uphill both ways) to the theater. I’m tellin’ ya, it was tough!

If Channel 27 scheduled Frankenstein at midnight on Saturday, you sucked it up, stayed awake and open-eyed, and prayed your antenna was aimed in the proper direction coz there was no recording capability and the chance might not come around again in your lifetime to experience Colin Clive screaming “It’s alive!!!”

Desperate times for movie addicts, indeed.

I remember in 1971, my friend Chuck Pogue and I would climb to the top floor of the UK residential towers on Saturday nights at midnight to commandeer the communal TV set and tune in Channel  9’s broadcast (out of Cincinnati) of Uncle Bob Shreve’s blurry presentation of awful all-night flicks sponsored by Schoenling Little Kings Malt Liquor.

It doesn’t get more desperate than that.

Awful films.

I loved ‘em.

When I hear today of the “good ol’ days” and let’s “make America great again”, one of my many trepidations concerning that thinking is the fear of returning to those movie-watching options of my youth. Call me shallow, but I’ve seen all the Lawrence Welk I need to in this lifetime. Bobby and Cissy, the Lennon Sisters, and Myron Florenz on the accordion…just kill me now.

Lawrence & Myron – What’s worse than one accordion?

Cold-Weather Corman

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Movie night!

If you are a devotee of cheesy horror, Edgar Allen Poe movies, women-in-cages flicks, and films about vegetables that aren’t vegetarians, Roger Corman is your guy.

Where would you like to begin?

There’s his contemplative “beast” series (The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes, The Beast from Haunted Cave, and The Beast of Yellow Mountain)?

Then there’s his Machen-like exploration of nature run amok (Attack of the Crab Monsters, Attack of the Giant Leeches – featuring Yvette Vickers in her best slutty Daisy Mae rendition, It Conquered the World, and The Creature from the Haunted Sea).

Or his taboo-shattering exposés of the sexual politics of beings that don’t even exist (Scream of the Demon Lover, The Wasp Woman, The Velvet Vampire, and Night of the Cobra Woman).

Corman’s canon is a treasure trove of cultural delights; discomfort food for the easily entertained. I shop there willingly and often.

Tonight’s film fare however, is a bit off the beaten Corman trail. It’s his 1960 WWII epic; Ski Troop Attack. Imagine The Longest Day. Now, imagine everything as much the opposite of The Longest Day as possible.

Cast of thousands? Try six – not six thousand – six.

The English Channel? German mountains.

Thousands of ships? Skis.

Years in the making? Two weeks tops.

You get the idea.

I will give the nod for acting to Ski Troop Attack but that’s by default as any discernible acting that happens in The Longest Day is accidental and laughable. Who can ever un-watch Richard Burton’s interpretation of the deathless line; “Ack-Ack.” Or Roddy McDowall crooning the word; “June” in the drizzle. Heady stuff.

Given all that, Ski Troop is OK in my book. It tells a straight-forward, stripped-down Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, etc. war adventure story pretty well. However, I didn’t care for all the snow. Frankly, I got cold. I think I would have preferred Surf Troop Attack with Lieutenant Moondoggy leading the squad. Ah well, I just put on a jacket and finished watching the film.

A Tale of Two Conventions

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Four years ago, about this time, I was watching the political conventions. I’ve been fascinated by these events since 1964; Huntley, Brinkley, Cronkite, Vidal, Buckley…and balloon drops. Part of me died in 1968 in the parks of Chicago…but I hit pause on my demise while I enjoyed the balloon drops.

Little did I know four years ago that I might be enjoying my last political conventions as we know them. These unreality shows appear to be evaporating in the stark reality of COVID19 and social media.

But enjoy them I did. I grabbed my popcorn and I watched.

And I had thoughts…

I you will, “return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear” (apologies to the Lone Ranger).

******************************************

After watching two weeks of political conventions. My head is not spinning. I have a passel of thoughts but they seem pretty clear.

  • It was the best of conventions: it was the worst of conventions. I confess I plagiarized and paraphrased that.
  • I enjoyed seeing Paul Simon and Carole King while flinching at hearing them. Gettin’ old sucks.
  • The Trump family is lovely to look at – sans pere.
  • One of the things I enjoy about traveling is hearing languages and accents I rarely hear in Lexington. It humbles me a bit (always useful in my case) and reminds me I’m part of something bigger than the blissful bubble Janie and I live in and cherish.
  • In his late eighties, my grandfather was taken hunting one afternoon by one of my cousins. When they emerged from their hunting ground, they were confronted by a game warden waiting by their car. He asked for my grandfather’s hunting license and in the ensuing confusion about the existence of such a document (not to mention any relevant emails, birth certificates, or tax returns), the warden said he would need to have my grandfather’s gun/rifle/bazooka/whatever. My grandfather responded by cocking his gun/rifle/bazooka/whatever and saying “I don’t think so.” I think my mom had to bail him out on that caper.

I relate this to point out that I, like many of us, come from a culture of personal weaponry that is not even in the same area code as rational thought. I, like most of us, would like to see some improvement in the number of weapons of mass destruction currently in the hands of dangerous people (toddlers and terrorists alike). But I also think this is one of the two “third-rail” issues in US politics today. This issue will be tough for Democrats.

  • By the way, the other “third-rail” issue is Social Security. Republicans might want to tread warily here. This geezer would respectfully suggest they get offa my lawn. Or, to quote my grandfather; “I don’t think so.”
  • A wall. Really? A wall? Didn’t Russia try that in Berlin? If we’re gonna build something, let’s RE-build our infrastructure. Bridges, roads, and airports – yes! Wall – I don’t think so.
  • I’ve witnessed history-making things in my lifetime.
    • Humans bounding on the moon.
    • Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
    • John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
    • Barack Obama’s election to the presidency.
    • Hillary Clinton’s nomination for the presidency.
  • I’ve also seen a good many balloon drops in my lifetime and I always like’em. Yesterday’s Democratic Convention balloon drop was the best.

Finally, I’m watching a couple of films by Danish director Carl Theodore Dreyer. In his film Gertrud, one of the characters advises;

“Two things have been and still are more important to me than anything else. These two things are love and thought. You’ve spoken about love. As far as thoughts go, we should have courage to think good thoughts for the good thoughts bring us to the summit of truth, and truth is the only thing worthwhile.”

Michelle Obama might have said that more succinctly; “When they go low, we go high.”

No, my head’s not spinning…I’m goin’ high.

Magical Legends & Legumes

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Movie night!

INTO THE WOODS.

I liked it…a lot.

Meryl Streep is impossible to look away from – nothing new in that. I am always amazed at the energy, imagination, and range of Ms. Streep in the projects she chooses. Hell, I think I was the first one standing at the opening night of the film version of MAMMA MIA at the Kentucky Theater. It was a brave choice and I loved her performance.

The songs in this show are engaging and clever – nothing new in that. It’s Stephen Sondheim.

The stories Sondheim mashed up to create the narrative of INTO THE WOODS are some of the most exciting stories ever told…and told and told. Again, nothing new here. Giants, witches, philandering princes, magical legumes, senior-citizen-devouring wolves; this is the stuff of legends. Oh wait, they are legends.

I will watch this film for the rest of my life, perhaps in bits and pieces as I stumble across it while channel-surfing, but I’ll watch it from now on and happily so.

But let’s be honest. There’s nothing new here. Nothing has been added to the luster of Meryl Streep, Stephen Sondheim, or Little Red Riding Hood. It’s simply cultural comfort food.

And I’m OK with that. I watch old films over and over, and indulge in cutting-edge speculations as to what Frank Capra could have done with a Godzilla film. But I also wonder what would happen if Mr. Sondheim wrote something totally new…specifically for film…specifically for Meryl Streep. That, for me, would be wandering into a woods wonderful and unknown and scary and thrilling.

I’d like that…a lot.

The Provocatively Obtuse

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They have always been among us – the provocatively obtuse.

I remember in high school, in every class, there were always one or two kids who would answer “five!” (I believe the exclamation point is important here) to the question “What is two plus two”. Everyone in the class (sans the teacher) would be amused, the provocateur would bask in his/her 14.5 seconds of attention and then the class would move on to the real work at hand. As a group, even then, we instinctively understood we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be long distracted from proven and useful truths. There’s real adult work to be done, real progress to be made. The provocatively obtuse are fun, but not to be taken seriously and not to be called upon too often for serious answers.

Until now.

Cable TV and the internet and this election cycle have congealed into a “perfect storm” for the provocatively obtuse. When polled on candidates and issues, they yell “five!” and their answer is duly recorded, tabulated, and reported as if it were something more than an attempt to amuse and attract attention. AND with a voracious 24/7 news cycle, un-fact-checked viral memes, and candidates more than willing to repeat gruesome legends on national TV, the provocatively obtuse are being called upon more and more often for their nonsensical answers. All in the name of being “fair and balanced”.

This can’t be a good business plan.

I would suggest not calling on those children anymore. Thus, the rest of the class could move on.

If you find yourself near someone who avers; “I’m not a scientist”, accept their word for it and don’t look to them for a scientific opinion. Go find a scientist. Listen to them about scientific things. Hey! That’s how we got to the moon!

If you find yourself near someone who says; “Facts lie”, …………just flee.

The provocatively obtuse; whether they’re in your high school geometry class or running for elective office are hungry for attention. Starve them. You have better and more important things to do.

Like…outvoting them…over and over and over…

A Quietly Extraordinary Afternoon

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40-plus people gathered in a room in an historic neighborhood in Lexington. The people brought food. They brought wine. They brought minds and hearts questing for a higher dialogue than we endured in Cleveland last week. They were promised Beethoven. That was the lure that brought them out on an insufferably hot Central Kentucky afternoon.

A word about the room itself.

It’s located on New Street; no more than an alley inaccurately named, since it’s one of the oldest streets in town. The room was designed with this afternoon in mind. As our pianist declaimed; “It’s not a living room, it’s a musical salon.” The walls of the room are ornamented with musical instruments – real musical instruments with individual histories of performance. The room is strewn with photographs that document the personal saga of our hostess performing the words of Thomas Merton with John Jacob Niles.

Indulgent Side Note.

Playboy 02

  • My first show at the University of Kentucky was J. M Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World” in 1969 (pictured above). I had been a student at UK for about four weeks when the show opened. I initiated the show by slowly pushing a center stage door open, peering straight out at the audience, and timidly inquiring; “Where’s himself?” On opening night, I pushed the door and peered straight into the whiskered face of John Jacob Niles. I wasn’t quite sure if I should say my line or simply sit down on the floor and wait for him to pull out his dulcimer and sing. Understand, I would pretty much be in heaven with either choice. My fellow actors, the rest of the audience, and probably Mr. Niles himself were lucky that I chose to move on with the play.

End of Indulgent Side Note.

Our hostess this afternoon is Jackie Roberts, a remarkable singer and teacher who has nurtured and continues to nurture several generations of Lexington musicians. When I arrived early this afternoon to set up the chairs for the concert, she had already completed the task herself and “hoped that was alright.” We sat and chatted. She told me with a pride I could only envy from afar that one of her young students had just been cast in this October’s production of “Ragtime” by the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre.

The crowd, the food, and the performers arrived.

The musical program was superb.

Dr. Tedrin Lindsay’s introduction to his performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #2 to open the afternoon placed us in the time and spirit of the piece. I felt as if I was sitting, turning pages for, and peeking over the shoulder of Beethoven as Tedrin played. It was not a performance tethered to today. It was adrift in time. We could have been in a room today, a room in Tedrin’s early years (he played today from his sheet music as a youth), or a room in Vienna in 1796. And the Rondo ended with the sigh Tedrin promised, closely followed by my own.

Then Dr. Lindsay introduced Janet Scott, a gifted local actress. I’ve worked with Janet in two productions by On the Verge Theatre; Lillian Hellman’s “Little Foxes” and Shakespeare’s “Much Ado”. Tedrin and Janet were featured last year in Athens West Theatre’s “33 Variations” by Moises Kaufmann. Janet and Tedrin performed several selections from that play which features Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Janet’s diction in this material is as precise and pleasing as the music. Her character’s initial striving for logic decays into a longing for more time…more variations…and the music ends as of course it must…teasing us with the suggestion of the perpetual existence of more music…but no more time. Bravo Beethoven! Brava Ms. Scott!

I think.

Dr. Lindsay closed the afternoon with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #18, an excellent choice after the first two selections and a favorite of mine. It sounds so modern, so purposeful, so energetic (but energetic with a plan). This is not a young person’s damn the torpedoes idealism. It’s a celebration and exhortation of what’s possible if we’ll just get up and do it.

The room was rapt.

There was no fear in the room.

There was art in the room.

And we all participated.

And we were all made great again

…as we always are when art is in the room.

This happens with frequency in Lexington. We should recognize it and celebrate it every time it does.

Pre-Ernest Musings

Lexington Theatre, Lexington-70's, ,

I had the great good luck to be about the same age as Jim Varney which means I’m old and any reminiscences I might relate about Jim would have to be a ragout of truth, legend, wishful thinking, the haze of decades, and a heavy dose of; “this is how it shoulda been”. To quote singer/songwriter Mitch Barrett; “I ain’t lyin’, I’m just tellin’ you a story.”

I met Jim when we were both in high school. I was participating in the State High School Drama Festival. It was held that year in a cavernous theater on the Eastern Kentucky University campus. I had performed the day before and was sitting in the house watching that day’s performers when Jim came loping up the aisle. At that time he was legendary as a high school actor and was already developing riffs and routines that would evolve later into his standup comedy routines and, of course, Ernest. He stopped where I was sitting, squinted, stuck out his jaw and drawled;

“I’m Jim Varney.”

I snappily replied; “Yes, you are.”

“You’re Roger Leasor.”

“Yes, I am.” (striving to maintain the high level of repartee).

He then took us to a higher place and purpose; “I can spell ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ – on my hands!”

I hurled the gauntlet; “Then do it.”

He proceeded to flop his hands about like a cross between a birthday party magician, a seal asking for a fish, and Ted Cruz giving a speech.

When he completed his charade, I took a wild shot and pointed out; “You left out ‘dises’.”

He squinted harder and said; “Well, goddy-dam, that’s closer’n I usually get.”

He sat down next to me and for the next two hours I wept with laughter and shame as he eviscerated each performance he didn’t like and grunted at each performance he admired.

Jim was good company, but he “was not a tame lion” (thank you C. S. Lewis).