Sad, but still Marvelous

We lost another bright light yesterday.

Mary Travers was a big part of my early music life - we had the Peter, Paul & Mommy album. I'm surprised we didn't wear it out.

I knew every song by heart, all the lyrics and all the parts. It wasn't until much later in life that I realized how extraordinarily well-crafted these songs and arrangements were/are. And one of the most magical things about them is how truly effortlessly they sang these songs.

Infused with humor, yearning, giddiness and pathos, these songs grabbed hold of me and never let go.

I Have a Song to Sing, O!

Puff, The Magic Dragon

Day is Done

Going to the Zoo Tomorrow

But. The one that has always been the best, my most favorite, is the one that makes me well up with tears, despite never having had children of my own.

The Marvelous Toy

The last verse just gets to me.

So, today we celebrate the life of a lovely singer who touched the lives of a lot of people for several generations.

Mary, you will always be Marvelous to me.

Utter Bravery

Donnie was not a close personal friend, but I feel this loss deeply. He is an icon of a time that this generation of young gay people don't know or understand.

It is on the shoulders of Donnie Jay and many men and women like him that we stand now, able to look the world straight in the eye - so to speak - and demand to be treated like equals. There are things that Donnie had seen in his lifetime that I cannot begin to comprehend.

Always the consummate entertainer, Donnie did some of the most hilarious (and at times, hilariously inappropriate and dreadful!) drag - even after losing half his foot due to diabetes. I heard him once quip that he was headed out on the town to "kick up his heel"...

And he just didn't care what the world thought - he is the personification of Stephen Sondheim's stunning "I'm Still Here" from Follies, but that's not the song I associated with his passing last week.

There are many definitions of bravery, and exponentially more quotes about it too...I found this one via Google, and didn't know the author's names so I googled that too. There's something deliciously fitting, and somewhat campy in the way that would tickle Donnie Jay - it's from Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries.

“Courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all. For now you are traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be."

Meg Cabot

Donnie Jay knew who he was - and lived and lived and lived. And the world is a little dimmer without his light. And here's what I have had playing in my head since hearing of his passing: George Hearn, and no other, singing "I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles.

Out of Pocket

Yeesh.

I'd like to say it's been one of those days, but it's been one of those weeks and months already.

I haven't blogged much since before Mardi Gras, and wanted to just let y'all know that I am still here. This week has been especially rough - I have not one, but two funerals to attend tomorrow.

One is for the mother of The Beau's best friend of 20 years...the second, which I have to sing at, is for the wife of a fellow church choir member.

Both victims of cancer.

And yesterday, my 23 year old Admin Assistant had 4 biopsy samples taken - hoping against hope that she doesn't have cervical cancer.

I am trying desparately not to lose my crap - The Beau is out of town at a corporate training is in even worse shape for not being able to be there for his friend. Thankfully, he comes in on the red-eye tonight...

Send spare hugs. We need them.

Transitions, Challenges and Such

So much going on, so little time to put it all together in posts - so, forgive me if I empty the gullet here in one post. It's all got to come out.

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I lost a friend last week.

Not someone I'd call at 3 in the morning, crying on his shoulder, but a long-time theatre friend, a Mardi Gras friend, a coffee-with-whatever-bunch-showed-up-that-morning friend - and that rare person who was far-more outrageous than I could ever dream of being.

You always knew when Steve was in the room.

Or 3 blocks away.

Steve's bicycle was festooned with odd (read that as borderline NC-17) ornaments and geegaws, garlands and bells - and when he spotted you, you were greeted with a "Yoohooooooo!!" in a voice that could pierce the thickest New England fog.

Steve was a wonderful dancer, a strong singer and one of the most alive people i think I've ever met. One time at a party, he pulled me aside and said, "Come on, we're gonna put on a show." He pulled me upstairs where he threw a wig and scarf at me - having already selected his own impromptu ensemble - and then jumped out on the balcony overlooking the courtyard where our friends were partying, and started belting out "Let Me Entertain You." I followed up with "Nowadays" from Chicago.

Now that was a party.

Steve was also a great costume designer - here's the photo I snapped on him in 2004. Outrageous to the end, Steve finally succumbed to leukemia after a more than 2 year battle.

I will miss him - and New Orleans is a little less beautiful and delightful for his passing.

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Yesterday, I learned of another passing: my friend Coleen Salley, storyteller, author and bon vivant extraordinaire. Coleen was the Distinguished Professor of Children's Literature at the University of New Orleans, wrote many children's books and taught future generations all about the joy of reading and sharing books. My dear friend and fellow book-lover Susan Larson writes a wonderful tribute to her here.

"I don't want children to read just to perfect their reading. I want them to love books for the joy of it."

Coleen Salley

Coleen smoked and drank for most of her life until doctors told her to (um, strongly recommended thatshe out to) shape up. I don't blush at much, but she swore like a sailor and saw and did more in her life than most of us can imagine. I was fortunate to live in her neighborhood, a stone's throw from St. Louis Cathedral, and get invited to many of Coleen's infamous parties - Christmas soirees before the Caroling in Jackson Square - author parties with Hudson Talbot and others I cannot even recall, due to that fourth Brandy Mild Punch.

New Orleans is a helluva lot less fabulous with Coleen's passing. She's telling wicked and wonderful stories to the angels now.

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Life is too short to be angry all the time or to read bad books - or to tell other people what a bad book is. Coleen's passing only more dramatically points to last week's Banned Books Week.

I had every intention of posting a long diatribe on the virtues of reading banned/challenged books, and the evils of censorship, and blah blah blah. Truth is, the real world intruded. So, do your homework, check out sites like this and talk to other folks about why you think certain books aren't right for YOUR kids - but support people's choice to read what they want.

NOTE: during my research on banned books, I stumbled across this blog site. I've posted about books and some of the (perhaps) misguided challenges to them, but I had never encountered anyone who was against one of my all-time favorites, Guess How Much I Love You. The rationale? It bothered her that the parent always has to out-do the child. Really? That bothers you? Did you really read the book? What say you, parents?

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Other than that, I had planned on writing an Elegy to the Letter G. Thanks to Governor Palin, the final G - which until now been on life support, but still doing moderately OK - slipped away quietly on Thursday evening, never to heard from again.

Folks, please do your part. Don't let final G be forgotten. Let us not become a nation that is merely runnin', walkin', hopin' and wishin'...but please, remember the G.

Dreaming is not just a thing of the past.

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One final thought: I am willing to bet that Sarah Palin was “that girl” in High School - not exactly pretty or smart, but aware enough to see where the power lay. And just charming or shrewd enough to know how to play people to do things for her, to subtly bully people out of the picture - making others’ lives a living Hell for crossing her.

If a real poll could have been taken of her peers, I would bet they’d vote her Most Feared.What training. Now, she’s just a small town bully who never left high school, never learned anything that wasn’t advantageous to her assent, no critical thinking skills and no awareness of the world around her. A brainless bully.

A dangerous bully. A bully who aspires to Cheney-like bullying. And if that doesn't scare you, I doubt little will.

Thank you, John McCain, for Sarah Palin - the gift that keeps on giving to the Barack Obama Campaign.

Peace.

It's been a tough year, even by New Orleans standards.

One of the things that I've always admired (and I must admit it's part of the city's appeal to me) about New Orleans is how it deals with tragedy. Some folks found their way to Louisiana through hardships in their homelands, others suffered upon arrival. So many different groups, with just about as many different kinds of suffering. Yellow Fever. Hurricanes. AIDS.

So much of what makes this region what it is today comes indirectly from the struggles it has endured. That will be what makes us stronger as we move through this ongoing recovery.

However.

It's been a really tough year.

New Orleans is still way below it's pre-Katrina population of 450, 000+. Recent estimates put us at less than half that, depending on which survey and what agency is in whose pocket to set the numbers high or low. That makes us now officially a small city. Smaller than Plano, TX. Tinier than Anchorage, AK. Embarrassingly diminutive next to the likes of Jersey City, Lexington, and Buffalo.

(Not that we're obsessed with size.)

However, if you haven't caught any of our news recently, it seems that people are just dying to get into New Orleans. Or maybe that's not quite right. Dying to stay, perhaps?

This past weekend brought our fair city its 90th and 91st murders. A handful of arrests have been made. No convictions this year. This is not the post to dwell on why. I don't have that kind of time just now. Most of those are gang/drug related retaliation killings. I once thought that you could fairly easily avoid the parts of the city where all this is happening.

I was wrong.

And now it's personal.

Last week, Robin was found beaten to death in his Marigny home. The Faubourg Marigny is the wonderful sprawling neighborhood adjacent to the French Quarter, and my home for many years now. Robin's house is a mere 7 blocks from my apartment.

It's all too close now.

There haven't been any arrests in his murder, although the authorities have questioned a "person of interest". Robin's car was taken at the time and found burned out some blocks away, either in an attempt to make it look like a robbery or some such act gone bad. Truth is we just don't know the truth and might never know.

But like I said, it's personal now. Robin rode the school bus with my friends Mark and Chrissie. He managed a bar that I frequented throughout my most formative years in the city. He was a champion of many causes, using his more recent success at the salon he owned with his sister to raise money for AIDS and breast cancer research. And as recently as October 2006, Robin had been interviewed by WDSU NewsChannel 6 regarding crime in New Orleans:

"Drive-by muggings -- I mean, there's guys riding around in vehicles just mugging people, jumping in their vehicles, going around the corner, mugging somebody else," Malta said. "I'd like to see the mayor actually walk Marigny Street, from Charters to Rampart Street, by himself at 3 o'clock in the morning. I guarantee you he'd get mugged."

No irony there, eh?

In 1997, Robin reigned as Southern Decadence Grand Marshall, and single-handedly scared the crap out of a whole hell of a lot of military guys when the parade he was leading intersected with the Labor Day Parade in the Quarter. In full "I Dream of Jeanie" costume, he mounted the running board of the nearest Humvee as it slowly cruised down the street. Holding onto the driver's side mirror and waving his free arm wildly, singing at the top of his lungs as the parade crawled along Decatur Street - I can still hear him belting out the theme song now.

It's up to us to remember in our own ways each person who's gone now. But it's more than murders. It's all kinds of death now.

It appeared to start with older friends - struggling with myriad afflictions, and exacerbated by the effort of recovery - started to succumb more rapidly. A shocker for me was Sandra. Sandra (whom I always pictured as 40ish) passed away at the tender age of 67 after struggling through the horror of Alzheimer's. I first met Sandra in 1991, weeks after I arrived in NOLA at a P-FLAG meeting - she was president of this chapter for 15 years and spearheaded the national meeting here in 1993. I had not seen her since the storm.

I sang with our church choir at a truly moving memorial service last week for a former choir member at my church. Chris was described during the service as a magnificently kind and elegant woman - and she was. But, oh...she could be salty when she wanted to be. It was her kindness and elegance that made her saltiness shocking and yet acceptable.

Arly, the owner of a local pub and grub, suffered a devastating 45 minute seizure that left her in a vegetative state for 2 weeks before she mercifully slipped away one day. My dear friend Venette's wife Cate worked for Arly for years - and I had the great honor of attending the wedding rehearsal dinner Arly and her partner Louis through for Cate and Venette. Lord, did they throw down some food that night!

An officer in a nearby parish died in an on-duty accident 10 days ago. During the car procession to his funeral, a violent summer storm blew up - winds so fierce they knocked a huge tree over onto the car of two officers on their way to the service...killing one officer and critically injuring the other.

A New Orleans officer took his own life just days before standing trial for brutally beating an unarmed 65 year old retired teacher in the early repopulation after Katrina.

So much death following so many months of struggle to bring this city back to life...

Before the week is over, New Orleans will have its 100th murder. Like other bloodier milestones, this is not one to celebrate.

Somehow, we...We will come through. We will grieve. We will deal with tragedy. We may employ some clearly inappropriate humor and drink a bit too much to do it, but we'll deal.

We - together - will get through this.

There are only two things certain right now in New Orleans. The first is daunting, but the second is much more powerful.

1. More death will come to our city.


2. We will rise.
   

(For those of you wondering where I've been and why I haven't been posting to the blog, it's been a really tough couple of weeks. And this post was trying to get out.)