I admit to an obsessive attachment to Mad Men, and to it being the only network show outside of TCM that I watch.
Why? It’s bundled and packaged just right. Except, that last night they shook their wasp noses at their Jewish client, and set him up as a freak show. Am I alone in observing something amiss here?
MOTHER’S DIARY
MOTHER’S DIARY
The diary my mother never wrote is from what I read in theย FBI surveillance reports,ย newspaper articles and what my father told me.ย My motherโs emotionโs and thoughts erupt from years of research, intuition and imagination.ย When I was eleven she gave me a diary. I’ve been writing ever since. I wanted my daughter or son to understand who I was, in case I died young like her. Instead I became dedicated to writing not childbearing.
I think every mother should keep a diary for her children.
Manhattan, December 1944
I am dancing at the Copacabana Night club for the next few weeks. This tiny smoky club is filled with many interesting people. Itโs different from any modeling job.
Iโm tired after working all day and night, and then taking the train back home to West Orange. Some of the girls are staying at the Barbizon Hotel, so I may also if itโs not too expensive.
Last night, a group of men were seated in the front row. I didnโt know who they were, but this one stared at me all through the show. He sent a bouquet of long-stemmed roses backstage and asked me to meet him for a drink.
When I declined, he was very insistent, and so persuasive I gave in. Later on, I found out he was seated with Frank Costello, the gangster. His name is Allen, and he asked me to dine with him the following night. I hesitated again, and Iโm not sure why. He made me laugh and entertained everyone at the table.
January 1944
A talent agent from Hollywood came to the Copa to see all of us dance. Mum is so excited she is already telling everyone in town, I hate when she does this.
Allen called and I agreed to dine with him. We went to El Morocco. He knows so many people. He says heโs in the film business, but thereโs talk amongst the girls that heโs a gangster.
March 1944
Iโm going to Hollywood for an audition. Swifty Lazar, the one that came to the Copa to see our show, said MGM is signing musical actors. They liked my photos. Allen lives in Hollywood, and is handling all the details. Heโs become very interested in my career. Itโs all so sudden. There isnโt time to think.
April 1944
I spent a week in Hollywood. Allen drove me all over the city, took me to Santa Monica to see the ocean, to the nightclubs on Sunset Boulevard, and Beverly Hills.
Itโs like a dream. I love the city, and MGM has offered me a contract. Again, Allen is helping me make decisions and understand the film business. I donโt know what he does, but he carries a lot of cash. He gets very disturbed when I question him. I met his friend Benjamin Siegel. They are both so handsome and get anything they want.
Summer 1944
We are moving out to California next month. Allen found an apartment in Beverly Hills for us, near where sister Pat can go to High School. Sheโs so excited. One of the models told me Ben Siegel is a gangster. I wish Allen would open up to me more.
When we moved, our new apartment was on a beautiful street. The apartment is smaller than home, and Mum misses her garden, but she seems happy. She found a Church she likes. She is going to learn to drive.
I have already learned to drive and am saving for a car. Allen knows someone who sells cars, and said he can get me a very good deal. Sometimes, I donโt hear from him for a week, and then he shows up on the studio set with presents.
Allen, Ben and George Raft were arrested for bookmaking. George called and said it wasnโt like the papers wrote, and that Allen would call me when he could.
Iโm not to discuss this with anyone. I hid the paper from Mum.
George took me out to dinner. He wants me to be in a movie with him called Nocturne. Heโs very fond of Allen and said not to believe what I read in the papers.
Next week we begin filming โZiegfeld Follies.โ Fred Astaire is magnificent to watch. Life is spinning. There is no time to read, or even think. Everyone in Hollywood wants to be a star. I still daydream of going to college one day.
November 1944
I am in love with Allen. There is no turning back. He is Jewish, and his family lives in Winnipeg, Canada. He wonโt talk of them, but said he loved his mother.
I wonder so often about his life, but I cannot ask questions. Maybe one day heโll trust me more. Heโs suspicious of everyone. He said heโs going to marry me when his life settles down.
SALON THERAPY
In the salon, Wendy, who sees me coming in and senses my mood, whipped out a particularly invitingย greeting.
” What’s happening laaaaady?”
” Turning the page on another year.ย OMG- how did I get to be this age?”ย Screening my head for imperfections , she stroked my shoulder.
” You don’t need hi-lights, and you look terrific.
” That’s not enough,ย I haven’t planned well.
” You’re an artist, you create..
” You sure I don’t need hi-lights
” No, you look fab-u-lous.”
Two women in the salon, the conversation cuts through all of our individuality, and ends up in the center, of our tribal understanding, our sensitivities, and insecurities.
THE POST OFFICE AND FACEBOOK
About the post office, it’s a relic, a dying old fortress of communication, where we all stood in line at one time to send our letters, the ones that took us a few more minutes than we can afford today.ย I wrote a lot of letters, long five page letters written on delicate stationary, and art cards I bought in museums and boutiques.
The Post Office loses 96 million dollars a day according to a reporter on television.ย We have stopped buying stamps, because we don’t mail letters. We don’t even need to send packages, because weย buy it online and let them ship it directly.ย The cards are printed by the shipper, and impersonally attached to the gift. The type is formal, and even though you know that person, had his mind on you for the minute they typed out that note, well, it’s not the same really.ย Progress is rapingย us of the personal touch.ย People like Zuckerberg are reinventing the way we share our thoughts, our photos, our everything.
Letters, of people that acquired prominence in the world of literature, art, and science wereย adapted into books.ย I wonder if their emails will be considered for a book.
The postman still comes to the house, he’s usually talking on his cell phone, or listening to his iPod, when he drops the mail off.ย ย There is no need to rush to see what he’s brought, it’s always the same, a stack of bills, a few discount fliers, and a real estate brokerage announcement that they can sell our house in thirty days.ย The postman has changed too.ย They used to say hello, and have a nice day.ย I suppose if I wanted to have a conversation with the Postman I could go to their Facebook page.
I’m going to check, and see if they have a Facebook page….ย The first threeย Facebook post offices:ย one in the UK, one in St Louis, and one in Pakistan.ย Clicked more, and there they are. You can Facebook the Post office.
UNCERTAINTY LOULOU
UNCERTAINTY LOULOU
Morning comes after two cups of French Press.ย ย I sit here at the desk, peeking out the glass door toย the shady side of the street.ย I do not know where I will be living, what I will be doing, or who I will be doing it with next month. ย Uncertainly, I move in and out of situations and get swept up in my ideas and fantasies.ย I buy and sell, make and remake, move-in, move-out, leave homes, careers, friends and relationships.ย I move out of comfort
and into uncertainty because it feels more like home moving than staying in one place.
I have to put the words on the paper and look at it to make it real.
Raising a family, sprouting barriers and responsibilities might have changed me, but I didnโt. Iโm unchanged in some ways, still running through the hallways of the hotels, gardens, and neighborhoods. Do you know what I mean?
LEVON HELM
Within minutes of my post, I had five responses.. I’m feeling five times better.
So maybe is Levon.
LEVON HELM DIED… DID ANYONE KNOW THAT
I have this greatest love for The Band.. brought on by a listen when I was about seventeen.
My two best friends, Lizzie and Billy. Billy played the guitar, from Tulsa, so he got it, and his sister Lizzie sang.
I sat crossed legged in her English boudoir bedroom in Bel Air, and knew they were the musical advisories.ย I never may have known the Band if it wasn’t for them.
How come no one has spoken about Levon? Are we too obsessed with mediocrity? How did our tastes vanish into
CNN.
Now it’s the Kardasian, whatever her name is.ย Who cares. Why? What happened to us?
I loved you Levon. I love you The Band. It breaks my heart.
EDITS AND REVISIONS IN THE GARDEN
SMILEYโS DICE-ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS
By:Luellen Smiley
ย SANTA FE,NM.
Iโm sitting outside in a flowerless garden because no matter how many flowers I plant, they only last one season, if that long. The garden is erupting out of its winter coat, and lime green leaves, plants, and stalks will have to do for now. The sky that seals me in is licked with revisionary hope. The kind that comes back laundered and fresh after a chosen recess from believing in the possibility of a preferred life correction.
Behind the garden, a neighbor is drumming a soft tribal beat, and on Palace Avenue the choir is singing inside the Episcopal Church on Palace Avenue. Between these distinctive tastes, there are sparrows fluttering from fan to nest to fountain. The chattering sounds like; โhere she comes, donโt come over here, get out of my nest, watch out for that fat crow.โ
Itโs a mind drift, to be caught inย such UN-structured beauty, away from the manuscripts, remotes, doors, and phones. Itโs like being on an island out here. ย Everything we bring into our experience can be revised; a work of art, a way of speaking, thinking, portraying yourself, your way of loving, or lusting, and we all know about appearance, because our society shoves it down our throat.
Look at the possibilities in revising our patterns of behavior. What we accepted twenty years ago doesnโt mean itโs carved in our organs. We can transmute. The interior life needs lifting and tightening, just as our mind and muscles do. You wonโt find any immediate remedy, or advertisements, or books on the subject because weโre consumers of products that change and revise only the visible tangibles. I wonder if I traded in my eleven year old Land Rover for a new one if Iโd be really happy, and for how long? Or if I flew to Los Angeles and bought cartons of antiques, hats, and perfume if I would be grinning from ear to ear.
I begin with revising the way I experience Santa Fe. Iโve lived on the outskirts, like a storm that blew in and is waiting to blow out. It seems my storm is here for now, and so I let go of the criticism and intolerances. ย Beginning with my favorite activity, dancing, I returned to ย El Farol, my chosen dance hall hullabaloo, then to La Posada across the street and mingled with an assorted group of locals, guests, and actors, (who were real as pippin apples)spent a day cruzing the ghostly town of Madrid to experience the cinematic sparseness, and walked up and down Canyon Road one morning before the shops opened, and was greeted half a dozen times by strangers out walking, uniquely different in attire, disposition and stride. I love that about Santa Fe. You donโt conform, itโs a religion here!
My homework for the next few weeks is revising the interior doors of emotion, and the exterior doors of expression. Iโve set aside the memoir, (did I mention I started that again) after a publisher suggested major rewrites and editing.ย I mean you have to know when to give up because youโre not going to make the team.ย Iโm a six page essayist. If you get me into one hundred and fifty pages, I march all over the globe and lose the reader.
You guys are smart. You know all of this; Iโm just learning. I am a case of insufferable arrested development. If I felt my age, which most of you know, Iโd be looking at retirement brochures. Instead Iโm planning on breaking into new territory. Its a joke between my dreamer self and my inner critic, but Iโm not listening to the critic.
Today I swiveled in my desk chair trying to write the column I thought I was going to write. In between gazing out the window at sky scenery, I made oatmeal cookies, watched the birds, took care of business, had a hair cut, plucked at paragraphs from Anais Nin, and danced on the treadmill. The column didnโt come out of a conscious thought wave; it just rose up, after I typed the words, the throw of the dice. The odds were Iโd find my way from there.
My dad the gambler, who laid a bet on everything from sports, horses, gaming, to the Academy Awards and elections, taught me many valuable lessons. He actually told me once, โTake a chance for heavens sake! Go out and get arrested.โ He knew the odds of that, which is why he dared me. Life corrections begin with edits, then revisions, and then you have a new story!
Any dice to throw email:folliesls@aol.com
Movie recommendations:Bread & Tuplips, Angel Face, Head in the Clouds,Late Marriage, Water for Elephant’s, Sarah’s Key,Pierrot Le Fou, No Where in Africa, The Lives of Others, Gangster, A Love Story, The Counterfeiters, Senso, Croupier, El Grido, The Wide Blue Road, Deja Vu, The Whistle Blower, The Young Adult, John Rabe.
Our nest, is something we build on our own to give us permission to explore, and then question, and we go back to our little nest, and add a bit more certainty because the dinner was great, and the party lasted longer than we thought, and someone smiled at you in a special way, and then you saw a rainbow.
Some things happened last week; that liquefied into a mirage, ofย an opinion I inhabited. Iย directed this opinion with outdated information, and second hand narratives by writers in print.ย I believed whatย I’dย always believed;ย that actors arenโt like you and me. ย I was wrong! Some actors are like you and me.ย They have open hearts, and inquisitive minds, they drink beer, and dress without designer labels, they like to hang out, and not talk about the movie business, they have interests beyond their Imdb ย star rating, and they answer questions, if you ask them. ย Unless we infiltrate what we criticize, weโre adding to the hypocrisy of theย human condition.
THE MEMOIR IN PROGRESS
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย MY HOODLUM SAINT
WHERE TO BEGIN THIS STORY OF A FATHER THAT I ONLY CAME TO UNDERSTAND BY READING HIS FBI FILES, BOOKS ABOUT MOB HISTORY WRITTEN BY LAW ENFORCEMENT AND COLLEGE PROFESSORS, AND DOCUMENTARIES PRODUCED BY FOES OF MY FATHER.
My last year with Dad was 1981. Naive, and unconcerned with where I was headed, or how Iโd get there if I figured it out,ย I was spinning around in an executive chair; waiting for the big hand on the black and white office clock to set me free.ย Time didnโt pass; I hauled it over my head, in my bland windowless office, under florescent glare. I was trouble shooting for an ambitious group of USC guys as they gobbled up all of Los Angeles real estate. Without any real sense of survival or independence, my life was in the hands of my father.
โMeyerโs coming to see me; havenโt seen the little guy in twenty-five years.โ ย ย Dad said during a commercial break.
โMeyer Lansky?โ I asked as casually as heโd spoken.
โWho else?โ
โWhy did you two wait so long?โ
โItโs no concern of yours; heโs my friend, not yours.โ I was twenty-nine years old and still verbally handcuffed.
The three of us went out to dinner, and while the two of them spoke in clipped short wave syndicate code, I
noticed that neither one of them looked at all happy.ย It was rare to catch my father in public with a friend, without raucous laughter, and storytelling.ย My attempt to revive the dinner conversation with my own humor,returned two sets of silent eyeball commands to resist speaking.
Several months later I received a call from Dad asking me to come over to his apartment, he had collapsed on the bathroom floor. ย When I arrived, he pleaded for me to stay close by.ย ย โIโll be all right in a few minutes; I just need to catch my breath. โย I sat outside the bathroom door biting my nails, and waited, like our dog Spice, for my orders. For the first time in my life, he was weaker than I, and my turmoil centered on that unfamiliar reversal of roles.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 