I found the unused vintage KISS logo iron on transfer on ebay a year ago. Same one I had in 1975. Rainbow glitter. I found a black tee and washed it a few times with bleach to get it to the right shade of vintage off-black. Then I tried my best at simulating the mall iron-on transfer kiosk heat-press by putting the iron on super hot, laying the shirt on the floor and pracically standing on top of it to apply the logo to the shirt. Did this a while ago and numerous washings have even started to lift up the corner of the vinyl transfer giving it the true retro look. 

I wear it when I'm feeling particularly ratty, or particularly stylish. With jeans and a jacket - it's da bomb. 

I was wearing it one day when I was having lunch with my friend that owns a guitar store. As we were coming back to his store from the parking lot, I see a kid coming out of the music store with his Mom and dad. We were walking toward each other and still about 20 feet away. The kid looked about 13. He had this crazy head of permy looking hair, like that dude from The Strokes or those early photos of Dylan where he looks young, geeky,  vibrant, lucid and capable of cracking a smile. 

The kid was with his parents. I don't know if they were picking him up from lessons or shopping for guitars. He was walking with a bit of that 'too cool to be seen with my folks' slump, But not so much that you want to slap him for it. More like he's just trying to distance himself a bit to be cool, but he's respectful that they might be buying him his first Epiphone Flying V. 

He's wearing a 3/4 sleeve baseball tee with a more recent KISS design on it. As I see him and his shirt, he sees me and my shirt. His gaze meets mine and without breaking stride, widening his eyes or giving any other sign of acknowledgement - he simply cocks his index finger and thumb (gun fingers) at me and mouths silently "nice shirt."  As we got closer I returned the gesture with a nod and an audible "right back atcha"  that mystified both his parents and my friend walking with me.

He could have chosen other ways to communicate the brotherhood of the shirt. He could have given the Clinton thumbs-up or the 'metal-devil-horn' fingers. He could have pointed it out to his parents "Look, there's an old guy who likes KISS too Mom!" He could have. But he didn't. The combination of the Sinatra-esque point along with the silence of the  'nice shirt' comment launched him right over the rico suave barrier. 

The kid is cooler at 13 than I ever got to in the height of my powers. 
The world could use more of him. 
Adolescent white teen suburban rockers who dig KISS and know the difference between seeming like you're not with your parents and just being a prick. 

-s-

You made it through worse than I have ever had to yet.

For five years you tried. For five years we all tried.

For five years we watched a newcomer make all the difference in the world.

Then we lost our guiding star.

Your heart failing, your body compromised by ignorance and apathy.

Your heart empty, your mind compromised by loss and exhaustion.

We knew she was all that held you.

We blamed you for all her sorrow.

But we wanted to bolster you. We wanted to save you. We wanted to be enough.

We promised her we'd take care of you. Of each other.

You were all we had left of her. Of the set.

But you saw.

One shoe without a match becomes less than useless.

You sank, you rose. You were saved - twice? Three times?

Or do we flatter ourselves and never really made a dent in someone's plan.

I called all day, felt familiar fear when you didn't answer.

I rationalized. I've felt the same countless days before.

You were out. You were with Erin. You were Christmas shopping.

Then I found Erin and she hadn't gotten through all day either.

My heart knew.

I sped up my pace. I called again. Late in the day now, even for you.

To be safe, I dropped off Alexander at home before going to Dormont.

My heart knew.

You had been out the day before on your own, hunting camcorder batteries. I Mapquested it for you. You stopped at Best Buy and did some shopping. If your car is not in its space - all is well.

I turned the corner from Ordinance to Voelkel and saw a distant figure down the street standing outside  your house. Still too far away and dark to tell - but not tall enough to ease my fear for more than a moment. And both your cars are in their spaces.

As I approach, the house eminates darkness like a negative image of a well-lit house in a warm holiday painting.

In 30 years the house has never appeared that dark. Not one light visible from the outside. Even the Christmas lights that Erin and I hastily put up last week -  that you would never turn off far into February were now somehow black. It looked to me like a one-house power failure.

I park in front, the figure becomes an older neighbor and fades away into the landscape as I steel my confidence to go inside.

It is usually now that I have been made to feel foolish in past times. It is usually now that I find you just having gotten up after staying up until 4am the previous day. It is usually now that you are sitting in a t-shirt eating cereal out of a sherbet container with gloves on because the neuropathy keeps your fingers so cold.

It is right now that I try to anticipate feeling stupidly anxious. It is right now that I try to convince myself that I have been foolish. But the absence of all light doesn't allow confidence to take hold.

I enter the house and hear no noises. Not one of multiple televisions are on. The lights you always left on , the media you kept running even when you eventually, reluctantly climbed the stairs to sleep only after nodding off several times on the couch - all is silenced. I feel brave as I turn on the overhead living room light. Then relieved. You are not crumpled over the couch or coffee table. One hurdle passed.

I climb the stairs making conspicuous noise and calling your name. You've been harder to wake than this before.

I pause outside the bedroom door for a moment. Conflicted. My rational, pragmatic side wants to burst in loudly and find you stirring, groggy and just finding your voice. My spiritual, intuitive side wants to slip in carefully - not knowing what shape your already long-dead body will be twisted into.

It is Schrodinger's Cat in that moment. For a second you are both alive and dead. For a split second, I feel that I will turn back, because If I don't find you dead, then you are NOT dead. For that moment I think that I am God. But God could manifest any reality he wanted to then. And nothing in me believes that I could cause change. Only that by not yet discovering reality - that it will allow God to alter it as he sees fit. Like I am honoring a covenant of the possible. I am Candide.

If I turn the door handle a certain amount - you will be sleeping. Turn it a bit more and Mom will be in there with you, the Sunday paper spread all over the bed, Shannon sitting on them, her tail beating in greeting, the TV blaring QVC while you tell me to move out of the way of the infra-red remote's myriad pathway down to the stack of VCR's downstairs in the living room. Turn it a notch more and I come into an empty room and I will need to look in the bathroom or down the cellar steps for you. Turn it just a little more and I come into a darkened room to find you in bed, the illusion of peacefulness - the way we all claim to want to go - but contradicted by an eyes-wide-open watery stare into vague nothingness, and your upper denture plate slipped downward behind your blue-tinged lips so as not to offer the slightest hope that the inevitable 911 call will help at all. Or that anything remotely peaceful awaits us at any point in the future ever.

And I turned the knob all the way quickly and came into the room.

And I found you.

Better me than Erin. Better me than Mom.

A Man's a Man for a' that

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by --
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine --
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that,
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that?
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that,
The man o' independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might --
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree an' a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that. 

-Robert Burns

When does innocence die - or does it fade?

People often measure it globally and generationally.

For the generation before mine, some say that watching JFK get killed on national television marked it for them. I have to think for the generation before that, Pearl Harbor must have been quite a blow to any collective hope left after the Great Depression. 

Maybe it would be better to measure it individually. I know exactly the moment it happened for me. It was 25 years ago tonight. About this time exactly. We had been watching TV with no real interest when the news broke in with the bulletin that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside the front door of the Dakota in New York City.

I remember my Mother cried. I remember just staring unbelieving at the images that unfolded for the next hours. Who on Earth would have killed one of the Beatles? Was it just a random act of typical New York ultra-violence, stereotyped for years to Middle America )really to anywhere that wasn't NYC) by movies and TV? No it wasn't that. We learned quickly that it was a deranged fan, one who I won't validate by using his name.

He was a nobody. And apparently that was the problem.

What it did to me I cannot describe accurately. It wasn't the loss. It wasn't the way it happened. It wasn't because I was a huge Beatles fan. It was all those things and more. Maybe because I hadn't lost any family members at that point. I mean, I was really into the Beatles at the time. The Beatles were like Santa Claus, God, Mom and Dad, and the Pledge of Allegiance all rolled up with a killer soudtrack. Yes, they had not been a band for almost 2 decades, but their music was still the bible, and they were icons. Permanent, all powerful icons. The idea that another human being had intentionally stalked and killed one of the Beatles - One of the FUCKING BEATLES - was heresy. And incomprehensible to me.

And John was the King.

For any young Beatle fan, after the bubbly discovery phase goes away, when you are so intimate with the material you stare in disbelief when people tell you they can't really tell the lead voices apart - it is inevitable that you gravitate to John as the King. His was the poetry, the angst, the rebellion, the soul of the Beatles. Maybe of the 60's themselves. Regardless of what incoherent mumbling ranting that Dylan was able to spew out - John said it for the rest of us. He said it with brevity and skill. He said it with British wit and charm. And once the Beatles had become more powerful than 22 year olds should ever have to deal with - he said it with the unstoppable, rebellious middle finger of a decade that had just started to look inwards and see decay. Paul was all about making it rhyme. Making it fun and cute. Making the melody unforgettable. John was all about cutting through the horseshit. John was everyman. The working class hero. Even when he had more millions than he could give away. And he loved this country. He was more American than many Americans knew how to be. He certainly appreciated our freedoms as only an immigrant can.

But this isn't really about what a fantastic example of humanity John was. On the contrary. Later on, as Beatles fans grow older and information becomes more available - we become sadly aware that John used to be kind of an asshole. He was a classic bipolar, jacked-off deadbeat Dad who had left his wife and 5 year old son when things started going well for him. While Paul was a devoted family man who worked for Peta and sent Christmas cards and phone calls every year to the son John had abandoned. But just like the posthumus fact that Martin Luther King bedded down dozens of nubile followers (Yeah Doc, lots of guys have THAT dream) doesn't affect his message or worth as a leader - we choose to look past the bumps and the thorns and breathe the smell of the rose anyway.

The sad thing about finding out the faults of heroes who have died is that they never get the chance for  redemption. They stay frozen with their mistakes and their faults lumped on them and and only conjecture about what could have been.

John never got to finally apologize to Julian. He never got to see his first album in 10 years go platinum. He never got to see Sean turn six. And the rest of the world never got to see what it would be like to live through the 80's or the 90's or now with John Lennon as a part of it.

And in the end - the love you take is equal to the love you make.

December 8, 1980

These posts are starting to seem like only my music reviews, which originally I was going to keep for another blog. But maybe I'll just comingle them here a bit more.

I have a whole list of artists who, while very good in their own right, perhaps - just plain wouldn't exist if it weren't for some other artist. I don't mean literally - I mean artistically. I call it the "In their album collection" thing. Meaning, for example - If you take the Joan Armatrading records out of Tracy Chapman's album collection, her music wouldn't exist anymore.  

It's slightly different than the "Meets" observations. As in - if Radiohead never had met U2, we'd never get Remy Zero, Starsailor, or Coldplay (and many others.) In the Album Collection thing - there is usually ONE influence that is so sleeve-worn, without them the new artist simply would cease to have a musical career or voice. They would be hairdressers or accountants who hummed a lot. Often the earlier influence is less well known adding to the glut of irony in the musical world.

So without Joan Armatrading - NO Tracy Chapman. Without Fairport Convention - NO 10,000 Maniacs. Without Scott Walker - NO Cousteau. Without Dave Matthews - NO John Mayer...und so veiter.

And with no Kate Bush - NO Bjork and NO Tori Amos and practically NO Sara MacLachlan and a host of other haunting, melodic, powerful, quirky, sensual orchestral female solo artists.

Kate has been off raising a baby boy since 1993's "The Red Shoes" album. Her new album came out yesterday and is ethereal, magical, and typical Kate. Except it's a double album. So typical Kate with a healthy dose of George Martin style - "I am crazy rich just from the royalties of Running Up That Hill. If I feel like doubling my new album by including a whole shitload of orchestral pieces, or me tweeting like a bird - I'm a do it."

Buy it. Download it. It's very good.

There's a one-panel cartoon I saw in a magazine a dozen or more years ago that has a sad, loser-looking guy sitting on the floor amidst a bunch of record albums and a woman going out the door and addressing him: "I'm going out to the store for a bit. Try not to identify with too many song lyrics before I get back."

It's funny because it's true. It's also almost impossible to avoid sometimes. It's like EVERY song is EXACTLY what you are feeling. Oh my God.

I defy anyone who has ever felt any human emotion to put on the Decemberists "Picaresque" album and not find one song to identify with.

I've had some live Decemberists tracks from shows from 2002 and 2003 for awhile. To be honest - I was looking forward to getting out to see them, but maybe more for the solo drive to Columbus. I love the band but they didn't sound THAT great live on the few tracks I had downloaded from other fans.

Well the THING happened between their constant touring for the last album and then the recording of this new one and this tour. That same thing that happened to the girl next door that one summer in 1977 when she went out a lamb and came back in September a Lion.  The band is now fan-fucking-tastic live. They are now better live than on studio album. They are now this tight, confident band that is treading on Smiths level transcendance circa 1986.

I highly reccomend you try them out. Picaresque is a beautiful album. But there are many amazing diamonds among the last 4 albums as well. The bonus is the name of their label - Kill Rock Stars.

The Decemberists are not for everyone. But then, neither am I.

RIYL: The Smiths, Robyn Hitchcock, The Beatles, Victorian and Elizabethan England, The Sea, Ghost stories,  Old unused words like 'parapets', 'pantaloons', 'petticoats', or 'pinions', Bands comprised of ex-theater and english literature majors.

From my sister's Blog, "Liberus Lunaris":

My family agrees on two things: we all like Jesus Christ Superstar and we all like John Lennon. Two of my favorite all family outtings were when we attended a local production of JCSS and when we went to the Rock n roll Hall of Fame and saw the Lennon Exhibit.

It was after the former when I realized how much the average person doesn't know about musical theater when my brother, usally rather hip about artistic things, expressed surprise that the character of Herod would be interpreted as a Drag Queen. It's a traditional theatrical convention almost as sacred as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest being played by a man.

Well.

My family actually have agreed on many things in their history. One of them being my sister's penchant for revisionist history. Well, not all of my family - I don't think she will ever cop to it. But then - I really don't think my Father likes Jesus Christ Superstar or John Lennon all that much either. And he never went with us to the local JCS performance. But her blog subtitle says "It's not a lie - it's a gift for fiction" and really - that's how we all see it too. Lots of the facts are correct but sometimes, in lieu of actually being the person who said or did something  (and therefore knowing their motivations for doing or saying so) she changes a detail here or there that others may have done or said. That's the broadest, most diplomatic way I can paint it. We all (my family) have memories that exemplify God's British style sense of humor. But I'm sure anyone out there with a family has similar feelings. We all think the others have worse memories than we do. And we're all correct. :) Don't get me wrong - I definitely am the pot saying the kettle was black in 1994 but - trust me - in my family - with memory and stories and remembering - we're all a bunch of blacker than black pots.

First off - I've been to three local performances of JCS. One in Indiana in 1987. One in 1992 when Ted Neely and Carl Anderson revived it. And I know I went to at least one of them with Erin and family. I am 90% certain that the one she is referring to was the 1994 'official travelling broadway' version which was memorable for two reasons:

1) Dennis DeYoung played Pontius Pilate

2) They abandoned the hydraulic crucifixion stage.

Now, there are things you need to know about me and JCS. I LOVE Jesus Christ Superstar. I mean - forget that I listen to Madonna, Stevie Nicks and 60's Brit Girl Go-Go-Boots Pop - my most secret musical pleasure is listening to JCS. The original 1970 British album recording. The BROWN double album with the gold graphic logo. Not the photo-cover movie soundtrack. And NOT the American Broadway cast version. And I spent so much time listening to it as a kid it's amazing I'm not gay or Christian. (insert 'fine line' joke here)  I listened to this album SO much - I can tell the difference in any of the recordings within the first 4 seconds of the ominous Overture's drone cellos. I know all the words to all of the songs. I secretly rehearsed the Judas role when I was younger in hopes that our school would put it on and I would get the part. I can do it right now for you if you like. I really, really like this album.

You can take all the general bad will, disdain and derision I harbor for live theater as a whole and musical theater as a subgroup and it wouldn't equal up to the love I have for JCS. And as it turns out - there are understandable reasons for this.

First - The original British recording with Ian Gillian (Deep Purple) and Murray Head is the absolute only one worth listening to. The weird thing about JCS is that it was not first a musical. It was released as a studio 'rock opera' album first. Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, both nineteen at the time, created this opera and got the most amazing bunch of singers and musicians that could be found, coupled them with traditionally superior British recording engineers and made a transcendant rock album. Not an album done with the cast of a show already in existence or even planned. Just - a rock album. It was a hit. Then the show went to Broadway in 1971. Then BACK to London's West End in 1972. Then the guy that played Pilate on the original brown album decided to direct it as a movie in 1973. The original rock album's music and singing were so much better than any subsequent version because they had rock musicians doing it. It was supposed to be a "ROCK opera". But, since that album -   apparently the cast decisions have been made based upon theater experience. So in every version since we get overly emotive, loud, vibrato-filled performances where the only criteria for Jesus' role was to be able to hit the high arena rock notes of "My temple should be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!" (if there is any doubt here - witness the recent choice of Whitesnake's Sebastian Bach in the Jesus role. Then witness the reviews.) Don't get me wrong - Ted Neely and Carl Anderson were fantastic too, possibly better than the originals. And of course Yvonne Elliman, as the single Kevin Bacon thread that made sure she got herself into EVERY version of the show including, I think, an Icelandic touring production - wasn't bad either. But the instrumentation of every other recorded version blows. The secondary and tertiary characters' singing almost all stink. The engineering and mixing all suck. So - if this makes you curious - only listen to the big gold logo brown album version. (which apparently has been digitally remastered as a big gold logo white CD version)

Conversely - I will sit through any live rendition of the show at all. Aboriginal touring cast? Sure. Eighth grade school for the deaf production? Sign me up. I don't know why. I just love this show. And there is something amazing about the fact that both Ted Neely and Carl Anderson revived their roles like 4 times since 1972, the last of which was 3 years ago. Carl Anderson was slated to be doing Judas now, during this current tour but sadly died of Leukemia in 2004.

So - here we were at this 1996 "revival" of the Broadway show with ex-Styx singer Dennis DeYoung as Pontius Pilate. Apart from the mixed signals that were being triggered in my brain from the ridiculous juxtaposition of  "I dreamed I met a Gallilean" being sung by the same voice that blasted "Rockin' the Paradise tonight" in my headphones in 1975 - the show was pretty good. The only crap thing was when they got to the crucifixion - no hydraulic lift stage.

Now - my sister has thrown the gauntlet down that I am lacking in knowledge about 'sacred theater conventions' and I pray to all that's holy that she is right and will stay right about that for the rest of my life.However, I do know a few things about theater. I know that even, nay especially in theater if a "sacred theater convention" comes into existence over the years then sure as Pooh Bear loves honey - there will be plenty of  fabulous, desperately-breakthrough directors that will strive to discard those conventions as if their lives depended on it. The very existence of John Leguizamo's career is evidence of that.

"We're doing CATS but with no music!"  "We're doing an all black, hip-hop version of Annie Get Your Gun!" "We're doing Hamlet except with all women!"  and one of my sister's favorites - "We're doing the Wiz with an all-white high school cast!" (that one was real, it was 1979, I played the Wiz - seriously. Is there any wonder I am left with a bad taste for live theater?)

So while I NEVER would have been surprised by the idea of Herod being played as a Drag Queen - being as the original Mike D'abo part was supposed to have been Elton John on the album and then went to the movie version as a Benny Hill romp with Josh Mostel prancing around like Charles Nelson Reilly in Lidsville on fire like the freaking Ohio Players. However, a few productions of the show did NOT always take Herod over the top and this 1996 version we had seen seemed to have toned down much of the 'spectacle' aspect to the show (other than the aforementioned Come Sail Away part) and I DID comment that I thought it was odd that THIS version was doing the Herod drag queen thing. Because THIS version couldn't even keep alive the one true "sacred theater convention" that it really needed which was the damn hydraulic lifting stage for the crucifixion!! THAT has been a STC for the entire life of the live show and apart from low budget church/school productions where they can't even afford sandals  - it is ALWAYS there.

So - was she wrong? No. Did she understand why I made the comment? No.

While I appreciate the "usally rather hip about artistic things" comment I know it's really just a bone being thrown my way before being lumped in with "the average person" and our surprising lack of commonplace theater knowledge. And I would usually never even dream of going up against her knowledge of all things thespian. Nor can I imagine a world where I would want to.

But don't mess with me on the JCS stuff.

One last bit of JCS trivia that brings it all home. In July of 1971, after the original concept album was such a big hit - Weber and Rice were planning to take the show to Broadway but needed to debut the show in an arena setting  and still have it be sort of a 'one-off' tryout show to guage the public's acceptance. If it tanked - it might not have gone to Broadway. If it did well - it would arrive with much less trepidation from the producers. Remember this was the first time what was essentially a rock concert would be staged on Broadway. So they did a single, fantastic blowout show to prove what they had envisioned. Before London's West End. Before Broadway's Mark Hellinger Theater debut. The very first EVER live staged production of Superstar, personally directed and conducted by Weber and Rice themselves took place in July, 1971 in Pittsburgh at the Civic Arena for a crowd of 13,000.

God Bless Rock and Roll

The problem with scientists is that they must never read or watch any science fiction. Oh sure on the outset, it may SEEM like a good idea to clone a bazillion work animals for farm slavery. But once you dial in words like "super water buffalo" and "enhanced" it becomes the hastily written plot of a hundred really bad B-Movies. And as bad as they were, as silly as they seemed - they all ended the same way: Extremely unpleasant for the humans. I guess none of the Kajillion dollars of ticket sales for Jurassic Park were spent by any members of the science community.

The best part of this article though is a tiny little blurb two thirds down where the writer adds a mention, just as a throw away, of how Brazil has saved some cow from the verge of extinction by cloning. And then they make the statement: "In terms of the future worries of these animals getting extinct, it's not going happen"

Yeah. Except that in reality - you didn't save a species - you just copied a million of ONE member of that species. And you did it to make slaves, not to save them. Bravo shitheads. Keep drinking that cloned milk. I can't wait to see what amazing new viruses we'll be facing in about 12 years.

Cloned Water Buffalos

Saturday evening driving back to Erie from Edinboro just me with Alexander in the car seat. We take 99 because it's prettier than 79. The weather had been touch and go for a couple days. We left Edinboro in a downpour but seven miles out, it was clearing up. Erie is famous for its sunsets. Rated #1 in Rand McNally one year actually. I used to think it was due to the emissions of the Hammermill paper factory but they've been gone for years and the sunsets still amaze.

So over to our right, the world is grey and stormy and wet. Over to the left - we have a blazing sun and fantastic Norman Rockwell sunset with billowing melodramatic clouds. I start thinking about rainbows. You need sunshine and rain for a rainbow, right?  The raindrops act as prisms between you and the sun and you get the rainbow. For three miles, I try putting us in every conceivable position to facilitate this and end up with   - zero rainbows, as Alexander would say.

This irks me. I tried to remember the last time I had seen a rainbow in person and couldn't. It had to be a long time back. I can’t really recall a plethora of rainbows. But I do remember that when I was a kid, we'd see them sometimes. I am irritated. Here I am with what, from what little I remember from science class, should be the perfect conditions for a killer rainbow and I have squat. Perfect opportunity to show my four year old his first RAINBOW -  one of nature's wonders, legend of song and fable - but no - I've got a completely even distribution of  summer showers to the right and beautiful blazing Rand McNally sunset to the left.

What the hell, can't we even get a rainbow right? What if it's something in car windows now? What if it's some stupid byproduct of UV-protected glass that nobody can see rainbows in cars anymore? That would be just perfect. For an instant I blame Washington. Then even my addled, conspiracy-seeking brain dismisses that as goofy. I review the science. Maybe I just forget how they work. I'll get on the internet later and Google "hunting rainbows" and find out REALLY how to spot them. Though "Hunting Rainbows" on Google will inevitably churn up a bunch of  Goth-girl, suicide poetry so maybe that's not the best plan.

Ireland has about a million rainbows, how do they do it? Go to the travel section of any book store and actually find a photo of Ireland that doesn't have a damn rainbow in it.

Thinking about Ireland makes me remember my plan to go there next year to scatter my Mother’s ashes. Thinking about my Mom makes me remember - everything - about her. But then meanders back to her passing, two months previous. That reminds me that I compared her to an Irish Rainbow in her eulogy. And that brings the inevitable longing up into my throat.

Busy as I was with my silent grief I missed something Alexander had said.

"What did you say, tiger?"

"There's something over there like a lighthouse, I think Dad."

"Where?" (You have to have true patience with him on location questions. He will NOT lift a finger to point. He will just keep saying "There” while you verbally list everything in your field of vision)

"Over there."

"In the sky?"

"Yeah, like a lighthouse"

I'm now feeling guilty for being preoccupied with nonexistent rainbows while driving  at about 80 miles per hour with my four year old in a storm, so I do not immediately start craning my neck 360 degrees to see where he means, as he expects me to do. But quickly, I rationalize - Lighthouse = Lightbeam, maybe = Searchlight, most likely. And that makes sense. We were in a dark storm, maybe they were signaling a plane down or something. But working that out made me surmise he must mean the grey side of the sky so as soon as I could - I shot a glance over to the right.

And of course, you know what I saw.

Thrusting down from high above the McKean farmlands was a vibrant, perfect seven-colored arc of light that quickened my pulse and shortened my breath.

"That's a rainbow Tiger, isn't it great? Your first rainbow! Rainbows are the best! We'll have to tell Mom you saw a real rainbow."

And then, as if my spout of saccharine movie dialogue wasn’t sickly sweet enough, after a small pause during which you could almost hear a hard drive spinning to archive the event into long term memory -

"Yeah, rainbows ARE the best, Dad."

Tears collected in my eyes. Not a flow, just enough to ensure a bit of damp sleeve dabbing. As I wondered how many more times I was going to get to feel, unquestionably, that my Mom was watching over us. Maybe they hand out only so many opportunities for you to send signs down to your loved ones. Do they allow it until your family finally gets it? We're pretty thick, my family. Do they only accept poetic metaphors and abstract hints? Because I know my Dad. A big glowing "Bill - it's me, knock it off with the Ho-Ho's" message in the air wouldn't really be as overkill as you'd think.

If it's all the same to everyone involved - I'm going to need as many more overt, resplendant  coincidental signs as she's able to send our way.

(This was the eulogy I wrote and read at my Mother's funeral)

Judith M. Fleming

1939 - 2005

Thank you everyone for being here. From Judi’s entire family to all of you, your support these past several days has been overwhelming.

Those of you who know me at all may not be surprised to hear that I started writing what I thought of as my Mom’s eulogy almost five years ago. I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to take some time. And most importantly, I wanted it to be right. I never told anyone about it and I could never bring myself to finish it. She kept surpassing everyone’s expectations and I put it back in the drawer many times.

The purpose for all of this - The reason we gather now, those of us who knew and loved my Mom is to help hold each other up. Share our pain and grief and celebrate her memory. We also attempt among the broken heartedness, to find the silver linings, some tangible rays of optimism to clutch to later, as the weight of it all sets back in.

So allow me to give that a shot.

When my Mother was born in 1939, she was to be named Patricia Catherine [Manion]. She had pneumonia and wasn’t expected to live to make it home from the hospital. Her family prayed to St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate lost causes. She survived and was christened Judith Catherine in honor of her amazing recovery. This was the first time her 100% Irish stubbornness thwarted others’ expectations. But not the last.

This was my Mother.

When we were kids, my Mother dove off a 5 foot high concrete retaining wall because she thought my sister was falling off of it on her bike. In the process, she injured her leg and knee so badly that she had to have a metal pin inside the bone for an excruciating amount of time. When, more than 30 years later – she was getting examined for knee replacement surgery the doctors would look at the x-rays and the twisted bone and scar tissue, and were aghast in disbelief that she had been even remotely ambulatory all that time.

But my Mother  walked unassisted the entire time we were growing up. All she showed us was a pronounced limp and the assertion that when it rained it hurt a “bit more.” She never owned a cane until 6 years ago.

This was my Mother.

In January of 2000, she came down with pneumonia and in the process of her convalescence we learned that she had small cell lung cancer. Her first thoughts, the first words from her mouth when we came into her hospital room were how sorry she was for letting us down.

This was my Mother.

When we met with her doctor after she was first diagnosed – he explained to us that the type of cancer she had was particularly aggressive and lethal. He told us that with immediate treatment we were looking optimistically at maybe two more years. And I remember making the mistake of looking on the internet which gave an outlook of about 90 days if left untreated.

My mother started her fight with months of chemotherapy, radiation on her throat, and radiation on her brain where her biggest fear was losing her hair. Her hair came back thicker and stronger each time. Just like she herself did.

Her progress was exemplary and we all celebrated – only to have her suffer a stroke that spring on Easter weekend.

Later that year - my son Alexander was born exactly one month early and caught us all a little off guard. We were unprepared and nervous. Ten months after her initial cancer diagnosis, struggling with the fatigue of Chemo and Radiation recovery and ravaged by the pain of her recent stroke - my Mother was the first person through our door at Magee Hospital to view her new Grandson, minutes after he was born. And just so none of us had any doubts about the true nature of the gift God had given us – he was born on my Mother’s birthday - November 4^th.

In the following year she was among the first faces I saw when I came out of anesthesia for my surgery after I specifically begged everyone to NOT bring her out to the hospital in Oakland in the bad winter weather. 

This was my Mother.

She rebounded from the stroke with  grueling physical therapy and was able to do everything  she had always done so much that she finally opted to have knee replacement surgery in 2003. This was surgery that one of her primary care doctors had advised against bothering with because in his words “you won’t be alive much longer to take advantage of it.” Well she walked proudly on her new knee, for the next two and a half years. She drove herself over to our house every Wednesday for almost four years to spend the day with her Grandson. And she would attend his preschool events, get-togethers at her Sister’s house, bake soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day, and visit her Aunt Rita at her nursing home all the while carrying her cane along more like a fashion accessory than something she actually planned on using for assistance.

This and so much more, was my Mother.

Often people lose a loved one unexpectedly. A car accident or a heart attack. In addition to the loss – We agonize over the things we wish we’d done or said. Unfinished business. Things that slip away too easily in daily life but now we wish we had 30 seconds more with them to tell them how we feel.

Sometimes people succumb to an agonizing, months-long decline where you simply watch everything vital you knew about that person get stripped away, bit by bit until they are no longer recognizable and are a draw on the stamina and well-being of the survivors.

But because my Mother always cared about everyone else more than herself – somehow we were spared all of that.

We tried as hard as we could to live every day of these past 5 years knowing that each one was a bonus – a blessing. She got to spend so much of that time with the apple of her eye, the light of her life – her Grandson that there has never been a question in any of our minds about what was keeping her spirit up and giving her such unbelievable strength.

In her last few days, we were granted the blessing, the opportunity to help her face the end of her fight and lean in and tell her exactly how much we loved her. Her family was with her at the very end, which is a luxury few people get. My mother was my mother until her last breath. She was as beautiful as an Irish rainbow. She was tough as nails and showed me the meaning of willpower.

More than anyone else in my world, she was the absolute best of us. Not one person in our family or extended circle would feel slighted by that for a second. If any of us in her family carry an iota of goodness or worthiness in this world, you can be sure it comes from her. We all are made up of the sum of our parts, and we can list many great things we’ve gotten from my Father, or his family or Mom’s family, but that spark – that amazing quality of pure compassion and absolute grace – that’s all her.

My Mother performed miracles on a daily basis and she is my Saint, my hero and the first love of my life. Keeping her memory and spirit alive is the effort to live up to a fraction of the examples she has set for us, as simple as offering a smile and as challenging as actually meaning it.

God knows she has set the bar incredibly high.

Our family’s thanks go out to all of you for sharing this time with her and us – the sheer amount of compassion you’ve bestowed on us is absolutely humbling. All of you here that she knew - you can be sure she thought about you and cared about you more than you could guess.

Your presence has made this unbearable time much less so for us.

And, as always - That’s exactly what she would have wanted.

Thank you again and God bless you.

Scot Fleming

June 14, 2005

Some years ago, I had done an inetrview for a magazine with Yvonne Craig, (TV's Batgirl) the editor and I got so excited by the reader response that we planned to interview the rest of the cast of the 1966 show. I met with Adam West in New Jersey and we discussed marketing and memorabilia and a bunch of stuff like that, but not quite enough for a cover interview. But we hit it off and at the time Frank Gorshin was enjoying some comeback success from his role in 12 Monkeys. He was also touring and was due to come to Pittsburgh in a month. I had been trying to get in touch with him for an interview but - to no avail. Adam West's manager told me - "I'll call Frank and set up a meeting."

Fantastic. The next week brought several rounds of phone tag but, because I also knew the management of the theater he was performing at, I was able to get a couple messages to him that week. Schedules were tight on both ends (but trust me, I'd have MADE the time to get to Frank if he had been available!) Well mid-week, I was happy because the next day we were supposed to get together for a quick chat.

That night - I found myself at dinner at a small club in Pittsburgh's theater district. I never eat there but there we were having a client meeting about the design of a print ad.

We were discussing a "dark" look for this piece of advertising and the other designers were saying "Well, what do you mean 'dark'?" and my business partner and I were there listing aesthetically "dark" pieces of design that had captured our interest. For us "dark" is not corny dark. Dark is twisted. My partner and I were saying: "Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, ANY Lynch stuff, the film - Repulsion, Tin Drum..." Actual, DARK film stuff. Well one of the other designers said "Oh, like '12 Monkeys' ?"

Well it was a friendly but heated discussion fueled by drinking. My buddy and I always get passionate about films and artwork and style, etc. So my partner, gets his voice up and proclaims "12 Monkeys is a thin, weak piece of fuck!" I happen to agree. There are a plethora of 'play dark' films that came out in that era, all trying to cash in on some Chris Carter homogonized nastiness but all watered down for a consumer public. That's my opinion. Anyway - he said it kind of loud and it made us all look around to see who could have heard. It was okay - there was only one other table occupied and it looked like two guys who didn't care.

So we laugh and keep talking. About 10 minutes later, the woman designer leans across the table and whispers "Hey, isn't that the Joker guy?" I look over and the guys that had been at the only other populated table in the restaurant were now walking toward us.  The guy in front was Frank Gorshin. Who was in 12 Monkeys. And had been sitting well within hearing distance from our table even if we had not been drunkenly shouting in an otherwise empty club. Not the Joker - the RIDDLER you stupid bitch (who probably also thought 'Seven' was dark.)

My eyes meet Frank's. Now here's the deal. We hadn't met yet. And he doesn't know who at our table made the comment about 12 Monkeys. But now we're looking at each other. And he's GOT to think we said that BECAUSE we knew he was there. I mean, what are the ODDS we would be discussing that film otherwise!? But he's a pro. He doesn't say anything to us as he passes the table. I feel 2 inches tall. Because while I thought 12 Monkeys sucked, I also thought Gorshin was great in it. I had planned to talk to him about how underutilized he was and how great he could be now as an older tough guy in films. Now I'm dreading the next day when we meet and he starts to remember where he might have seen me before...

I didn't want to back out of the interview but now I'm an anxiety-ridden wreck about it. I'm hating my buddy for opening his big yazoo. It wasn't even ME!

The next day - Frank's assistant called to say he couldn't swing the meeting due to scheduling conflicts. Local TV news is more important than a fanboy interviewing him for a models magazine, you know how it is. I was blissfully relieved. We'd reschedule a phone interview for later in the month. And he sent over a signed Riddler photo for me which I still have of course.

Sadly, the magazine went under soon after and we never did the interview.

But at least I have a pretty great Frank Gorshin story.

Now if I could just get a meeting somewhere where Walken is performing...