defying gravity...

i am back from the promised land..no, not israel...boca...thankfully missing the brunt of a brutal cold spell...flying delta this time which was sad because there was a time when it was a somewhat "classy" airline...and now saying "no frills" would be a severe understatement...adding to the glamour, and our being held somewhere in the skies over philly because of a little snow at laguardia, was the incessant cough of a young woman in front of us who i think had bubonic plague...anyway, i am back and it is the end of january..therefore, we are in the middle of the avalance of award shows...tonight's was the sag awards...this is the one where actors vote for actors...actors schmoozing at tables as the telecast crawled along...they kept showing the food at the tables...which of course was never touched, this being hollywood...they could have just rolled it all over to food kitchens in the area...but i digress...there were many talented actors in the room...but i kept waiting for the movie stars...for a cue from the orchestra...for everything to turn to black and white...tuxedos and satin...burt lancaster...bette davis...cary grant...katherine hepburn...hell, i would even settle for a generation or two later...shirley maclaine...warren beatty...julie christie...and always, jack...but here i am watching winners and losers...many around my age...many fighting the age fairy with the talented skills of hollywood surgeons...some more successfully than others...but all reminding me of the swift cruelty of time...as if the mirror at 6am couldn't do that already... and it's easy to be an armchair critic...loving julianne moore in "game change" but wondering who let her out of the limo in that dress...then sighing as i am 52 also...still dreaming of winning a golden statue...but I'd be armed with a neatly folded acceptance speech...and a roll of some "fashion tape"...just in case...

girl, put your records on....

i heard carly simon's "that's the way i've always heard it should be" on the radio today and got nostalgic...for the songstresses of the '70s...i remember doodling lyrics on the back of notebooks...every line speaking directly to me...the quiet  angst of teenage girls...carly...joni mitchell...linda ronstadt...and for those "life sucks" moments, janis ian...some songs featured their own lyrics...some the pure poetry of dolly parton...karla bonoff...images of vinyl...the excitement when purchasing a new record...scrutinizing the pictures...the layout...playing them over and over again...the first awful scratch...revealing to everyone your favorite song...or chorus...and i catch my breath and wonder...was i ever that young?...were they ever that young?...the radio snaps the moment...taylor swift is whining that "we are never ever getting back together"...it's like an audibly-induced coma...it makes me secretly wish that harvey weinstein would sell her as the next kate winslet...keep her from the recording studio...ah, well, "that'll be the day"...

the wind beneath whose wings

so i am sitting in horrible traffic...three blocks...twenty minutes...we won't discuss a lane closure for road work on one of the busiest strips in nassau county during the height of rush hour...i am listening to the radio...changing a station...and there is bette midler..."wind beneath my wings"...back in the day when she was transitioning from wonderfully wicked to wonder bread...i almost sing along...then catch myself in horror and quickly change the dial...the broadway channel briefly saves me with the overture from "chicago"...original cast...back before that went from wonderfully wicked to wonder bread...but those bette lyrics get me thinking...and i am mulling over a thought...what or who lifts us when we are down or when we fall...we all can think of a "hero"...someone who has been our champion...but really, when we stumble, don't we really save ourselves...i am not going to bring in faith...many will argue the intervention of a higher power...and i am not here to argue for or against...because even the act of being saved means we reach out at our weakest moments...a 50/50 proposition, if you will...so i guess when bette had us crying our eyes out...before we cried over barbara hershey's awful face work...the wind beneath those wings was really the firm clasp of a friend walking you along...personal training wheels...holding then letting go...maybe realizing, like dorothy, that you had the power all along...here's wishing that in these uncertain times we all have a hand to grasp and our own wings to fly...