Good-bye, Jay...and thanks for the good times.

Jay Landesman was an integral part of the cultural scene in St. Louis for many years, and a big part of my directionless youth. Not that I was a pal of his. I knew who he was, shook hands with him whenever I had the opportunity, but I doubt if he knew my name. That's okay. He was cool. I spent a lot of time in Gaslight Square. Cool jazz at the Dark Side, the Other Side (Spider Burke's place), and Georgie's; dixieland jazz at Smokey Joe's and the Tiger's Den (the swinging two-beat temple of Sammy Gardner and the Mound City Six); hip and hilarious comedy, distinctive bars, and a vibrant street scene. Like a small rendition of The Village. 

Mary Lee (my wife of several years) and I used to celebrate TGIF there after we got off work at KMOX-TV (before it was KMOV). Olive and Boyle was a great gathering area, and Jay was largely responsible for inspiring it...thanks to his Crystal Palace. I have clear memories - at least they're clear in my head - of that place, where I saw the Smothers Brothers, Lenny  Bruce (it was the first time I ever heard the "f" word on a stage), Jack E. Leonard, a nerdy and nervous Woody Allen, Nichols & May, and others...including a very young and shy Barbra Streisand. When I saw her, as the opening act for the Smothers Brothers, I predicted, "She's not very pretty. She'll never make it." That might have been the same year I bought an Edsel. Thanks to the wonderful comics and satirists and improv geniuses, I developed a love and appreciation for slightly off-center humor. Okay, more than "slightly." 

Jay had a full-time piano player in the bar named Tommy Wolf, who wrote songs with Jay's wife, Fran. Strange: the more I'm writing about Gaslight, the more I remember. Some other time, maybe.

Yes, St. Louis had a Golden Age once, and its name was Jay Landesman.

Thanks, Jay. Whenever I think of "cool," "hip," and an inspiration, I think of you.

 http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/obituaries/article_85d046b6-63cb-5544-a689-d286b2debddf.html

AARRRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!

I woke up this morning and looked out the window. IT'S BACK!!!!!! Words fail me.

                

The Call

I’m waiting for the phone to ring. It will be the vet.

He will tell me that he has good news.

I will ask him what it is.

He will say, “That neuromuscular problem with Hannah? I think we can treat it.”

“But,” I will say, “You’ve already euthanized her. On Monday.” I can barely get those words out.

“No problem,” he says. “We have reversed the effects of the injection. She’s back. You can pick her up tomorrow morning. Good as new.”

And that’s where the fantasy fades.

The neuromuscular problem was myaesthemia gravis, two words forever seared onto my soul. The prognosis was grim. 

How do you know when to say, The time has come? Hannah was 12 years old. That seems to be the magic number for Golden Retrievers, the genetic time bomb. I always thought she’d go the way most Goldens go - from cancer. Okay. No more medical talk. I don’t like writing about it or even thinking about it any more than you do reading about it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what hurts the most. Possibly the loss of one of the best friends I ever had. Maybe the sadness at seeing a beautiful creature come to the end of the trail much too soon. Then there’s the sheer habit of having her around, developed over twelve years and thousands of miles of travel, including New England, Florida, Chicago, Colorado. Finding motels that took dogs, and sneaking her into those that didn’t. If we drove, she was a passenger. Even scoring the front seat on several occasions. She would watch the road as carefully as I. And she knew the landmarks in town. Where we turned off I-44 for West Tyson County Park and our hike through the hills. Where we pulled in at Weldon Spring State Park and walked to the river. What part of Forest Park we were headed for, where the cops couldn’t see her off- leash. Where she could expect a treat to come sliding down the chute in the capsule. Answer: Walgreen’s Drive-thru Pharmacy, U. S. Bank, and MacDonald’s. But not White Castle. So I’d order an extra burger for her. No pickles, please.

The loss hurts for so many reasons. But the one that hits closest to home is most beautifully conveyed in a quote that a good friend sent to me after she heard of Hannah’s passing. It’s by John Galsworthy, a British writer best known for “The Forsyte Saga” and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1932. But you knew that. Here’s the quote. 

“Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives...”

I like that. It is true. He understands. “...so many years of our own lives...”

We have not only lost a loved one. We have lost part of ourselves.

My beautiful Golden girl is gone. But somewhere, lodged deep inside me, mingled with memories of a youth immersed in fantasy and science-fiction, of knowing the impossible is sometimes possible, I still wait for that phone to ring.

A Sports Talk Show I Can Live With

Sports "Talk" is really a misnomer. It's actually Sports "Shout." That's where these 3 or 4 guys, dressed in ties and jackets, sit at a long desk, kind of like a counter at a diner, and shout each other down on all the various aspects of sports. I can watch about 3 minutes of it before I realize I AM ANGRY! At what? I'm not sure. Because I don't care who wins the Stanley Cup or the NBA Championship, or who's playing in the Final Four or the fact the A-Rod makes too much or some NFL coach tripped a guy on the sidelines. I really don't care about all this.

But I do like being entertained. Which is why I'm so enthused about a new sports "talk" show that begins tonight on Comedy Central at 9:30 CST. It's produced by The Onion, in my opinion one of the funniest publications and websites on earth. I check them out frequently or, when I'm in Chicago, pick up The Onion newspaper, which is available just about everywhere. My all-time favorite Onion headline: "Lou Gehrig Dies of Lou Gehrig Disease."

So if you enjoy sharp satire, if you appreciate The Daily Show or The Colbert Report or The Office, for instance.... if you like Monty Python TV and SCTV and the musicals "Spamalot" and "Urinetown" ... if you'd like to get away from SportsShout, check this out. Mind you, I haven't seen the show yet - it premieres tonight - but I know it just has to be good. I've attached a couple of links. http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/channels/sportsdome/
http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/arts/television/11onion.html?scp=1&sq=the%20onion%20sportsdome&st=cse

That Can't Be Right

Hey! Wait a minute. This is WHAT year?? 2011?
No, that's impossible. Wasn't it just a year ago, maybe two, that we were all waiting for the New Millenium? Sure, just a couple of years ago. The ATM's were gonna go down. Airplanes were gonna crash. Our computers were to be rendered useless. So what's this 2011 stuff? What has happened to the past 8 or 9 years?

Somebody, I'm convinced, is screwing around with Time. Like putting it on Fast Forward, throwing more coal in the boiler, shifting into high and putting the pedal to the metal. It's probably terrorists, or people on Wall Street, or Republicans, or maybe aging hippies who have finally entered that 4th or 5th dimension now that all the drugs have kicked in. Whoever it is, I don't appreciate it.

I want Time to slow down to a crawl. Even during winter. I want to be able to enjoy lots more hikes with my wife and dogs, good pasta and salads at Italian restaurants, pieces of Godiva dark chocolate, episodes of Dexter and Walking Dead, performances by the St. Louis Symphony, new movies that have an honest-to-God plot and characters that I care deeply about. And Time to write a few more posts on my blog, and maybe even another book.

So I guess I've arrived at my thought for this year. Slow down. What's the hurry? We're all going to get there. Let's not be out of breath when we do.

"City Lights" & My Novel at Powell Hall for 2 Nights

Okay, it's another post about Charlie. But this is big. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra will present Chaplin's greatest film, "City Lights," with the full orchestra playing the original score, "live." 

There's nothing like seeing a Chaplin film with a large audience, to share the laughter. 


As an added attraction, my novel will be available for sale in the lobby. It's not as funny. 

The dates are Wed. 12/29 
and Thurs. 12/30, at 7:30 pm.

Irving Berlin had it right

Like the man said, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas." But it wasn't a dream this year. You could also sing "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland" and feel right in place.  And "Jack Frost nippin' at your nose...or toes..." or wherever it was he nipped. Here are some shots of our house, our street, our yard, our tree, and of course our dogs. This is basically a photo essay, which means I don't have to write much. I'm too full.