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Clap Hands, Here Comes Ella

April 25, 2018 in Astro Matters, Music Matters, Past Matters, Spirit Matters

Photo: William Gottlieb

When I think of Ella Fitzgerald, who would have turned 101 today, I always flash on this image of her singing at The Downbeat in a fabulous coconut cake hat, Dizzy Gillespie visibly swooning by her side. Really, we’re all Dizzy when it comes to Ella. Hard-working and ever-radiant, she was a true Taurus goddess who channeled Venus at her most luscious and life-bearing. As a young person, I never understood this sign but now I relish its ambassadors, Ella especially, like sun-warmed soil between my toes. Continue Reading →

If I Was Your Girlfriend

April 22, 2018 in Music Matters, Past Matters

When I was in college, I wrote Prince a letter once a week. I didn’t do it in a stalker capacity, though it still seemed pretty stalkery. I just was going through an incredibly hard time and deeply felt he was the only straight man alive who understood the pain and pleasure and vulnerability and courage and full-frontal honesty required for matters of the heart. I never heard back from him, but even two years after his death there’s a part of me that thinks he’s still alive–still learning, still shining, still putting it all together in a way that will move everything and everybody. Basically, there’s a part of me waiting for his neon call. Rest assured, I’ll come running.

A Place So Hard To Find

April 19, 2018 in Book Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Film Matters, Music Matters

Last night at Westchester’s Emelin Theater, I lectured on RBG, a new documentary about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was beyond reassuring to discuss this well-mannered, succinct, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, courageous, tenacious, and scrupulous woman. Even more reassuring to watch scenes of her working out vigorously with a trainer at age 85.

We need the Justice to live to a biblical age—200, even 250. Maybe clone herself too. But right now, she’s still a key cog in the U.S. government, the ultimate antidote to  this political climate of hot air, hot heads, (not) hot messes. As I zoomed back into the city, the traffic a mere trickle at that hour, I looked at the spiny diamonds of the city skyline and just grinned.

It’s still ours.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The world–especially the United–is still going to hell in a handbasket. But I am starting to think my prediction that Trump and his cronies will exit the White House in cuffs will be realized. Better yet, every day I continue to work on a book I’ve wanted to write for decades. Today I already have penned 1,600 words, and now am swilling an extraordinary spicy turkey sandwich and a post-work glass of vino. On my speakers Marc Dorsy is crooning: “Somewhere in life there’s a joy to be/Between the hope and reality.”  I feel the extraordinary solidarity of my girlfriends far and near, foremothers alive and dead, and Miss Grace, sitting pretty on my legs. O, if money didn’t exist, I’d be the happiest 47-year-old in all the land.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy