Apologies to my faithful readers and to artists who have sent me discs or participated in interviews.  While a source of pride, this site has been a labor of love and generosity of time can only go so far. 

I continue as a contributor to the Times Union in Albany, NY and will cross-post occasional stories that are relevant to this site.  A new pursuit is modern residential architecture, which is focus of my real estate practice.  Check out ModernHome-NY.com.

Thanks for your support and best wishes,

jody

inside a pause in time

In a still pool

of silence

a formidable ring,

where bright stars

crashed into the twelve black,

floating numerals.

from Ode to Walt Whitman and Other Poems, Translated by Carlos Bauer (1988 City Lights Books)

Call me Old Man Puck   Call me Peter Panic
Call me what you will but call for dear life
I offer any number of far out connections

As an unlisted long-distance metaphysician
I service a direct line to outer spaces
but I’m a down-to-earth sugeon when it comes to the heart

My goal is to make the world safe for the amorous
Are you primed for a bypass from miserty to mirth?
Or are you addicted to a habit of agony?

I teach the sex of loving and the love of sexing
i preach the sacred msuic of the body’s organs
I advocate a regime of intersecting genders

I am Adam with his Eve still enribbed
I am Pan with the groin of Aphrodite
I am Dionysus in the lap of the Virgin

I am also Doctor Undoing    the wrongheaded remover
ready to extract the deformities of your mind
and put you in the pink of genital condition

And I am Polly Morphous   transorgasmic nurse
Convalesce with me in the hotsprings of surrender
Come alive and kicing to the playing fields of love

Come on! Why cling to a moth-eaten doldrum?

from Packing Up for Paradise (1997 Black Sparrow Press)

home. It was easy — I drew
on your already having been
corrupted by a dream, which
after meeting you that night at

Chaps I helped you realize.
I only failed in not being
able to draw corruption
out for good.  Instead, we became

friends — with a similar dream.
Or is it — corrupt, I mean? Why
should I think so when you’ve not
once visited baths in Boston,

claiming that they’re reputed
to be not very good — as if
that ever kept anyone
out of them!  We have a standing

date — Sundays, at 5:30 —
for a Dignity Mass. What do
you pray for, Doug? Isn’t it
that something — say, Timmy’s coming

back to you from Orlando —
will spare you final subjection
to dream? Well, at least to my
mind’s eye you look luminous in

the midst of a surrounding
darkness, the way you appeared on
the night of your debut at
the Mineshaft, wearing as if in

darkness about the demands
that would be put to them, a t-
shirt and a matching pair of
carpenter’s pants, perfectly white.

from Lasting Relations (1984 The Sea Horse Press)

can do to help ya let me know, my farther is
a lawyer & I live at such & such a place
& this is my adress — I like you very much —
& if yr ever alone int he world come to me.
So I loked at him getting sad & tuched &
then years latter like now, 28, laying on
bed, my hunney-due mellon Allen sleeping next to me
— I realize he was quear & wanted my
flesh meat & my sweetness of that age —
that we just might of given each other.

April 1962 Bombay

from Clean Asshole Poems & Smiling Vegetable Songs (City Lights Books, 1978)

previous on MyBigGayEars:

Remembering Peter Orlovsky

Scott Pender

“Post-minimalist” is an entirely accurate description for the piece.  As Scott explains in his program note, he was inspired to sit down and write it after hearing Steve Reich’s Double Sextet in a performance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars in 2010.  You can’t get much more literally post-minimalist than that.  The piece does have that same constant pulse and interlocking grids of sound, but its own sweet tunefulness as well.  What’s also different is that after listening to Reich I usually carry away a timbre.  After listening to “In the Time Before” I have a melody in my head plus a bit of wistfulness.  Maybe that nostalgic feeling is something I’m projecting onto the piece, but then there’s Scott’s title to consider.

The Navano release, titled “Lock & Key,” also features music by R. David Salvage, Daniel Purttu and Malcolm Hawkins.  The “digital booklet” features extensive notes plus full scores and even a short video of Scott and members of the Morovian Philharmonic prior to the recording session.

Below is a recent video of the composer at the piano with Jeff Kahan performing Scott’s Variations for Piano and Oboe.

Excerpt from the score of “In the Time Before”:

The film is “Five Dances” by Alan Brown, whose previous efforts include “Private Romeo,” a gay retelling of “Romeo & Juliet.”  The star is Ryan Steele and choreography is by Jonah Bokaer.  Follow the website for information on the forthcoming world premiere and subsequent screenings.

Meanwhile, enjoy this trailer.

and jewels. I don’t know,
he said, when he woke in the hospice,
I was watching the Bette Davis film festival

on Channel 57 and then —
At the wake, the tension broke
when someone guessed

the casket closed because
he was in there in a big wig
and heels, and someone said,

You know he’s always late,
he probably isn’t here yet —
he’s still fixing his makeup.

And someone said he asked for it.
Asked for it —
when all he did was go down

into the salt tide
of wanting as much as he wanted,
giving himself over so drunk

or stoned it almost didn’t matter who,
though they were beautiful,
stampeding into him in the simple,

ravishing music of their hurry.
I think heaven is perfect stasis
poised over the realms of desire,

where dreaming and waking men lie
on the grass while wet horses
roma among them huge fragments

of the music we die into
in the body’s paradise.
Sometimes we wake not knowing

how we came to life here,
or who has crowned us with these temporary,
precious stones. And given

the world’s perfectly turned shoulders,
the deep hollows blued by longing,
giving the irreplaceable silk

of horses rippling in orchards,
fruit thundering and chiming down,
given the ordinary marvels of form

and gravity, what could he do,
what could any of us ever do
but ask for it? 

from Fire to Fire (2008 HarperCollins)

         Though he’s gone on to triumph in television and film, it was a Broadway role — the emcee in “Cabaret” — that made Cumming famous.  He offered one selection from that show, “Mein Herr.”  Otherwise, the material was all quite recent and not apparently extracted from any musicals, except a medley from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

So much for my comments after Charles Busch’s recent show at the same venue, that cabaret always means nostalgia.  The themes of Cumming’s songs and stories were utterly now.  They included gay sexuality, body modification (plastic surgery and regrettable tattoos), and American consumerism, among other stuff of today’s world.

It’s too much to say that it all came out as lovely poetry, even if there were some darned funny rhymes along the way, such as those in “Taylor, the Latte Boy,” a song Cumming borrowed from Kristin Chenoweth.  But even when Cumming was telling elaborate and explicit stories of drunken nights, bad breakups, and rude awakenings to middle age, he wasn’t harsh and comically offensive, say like Chris Rock.  Maybe along with his Scottish brogue came his gentle and eloquent way with words.

It’s another matter entirely to find good songs that cover the same ground but Cumming certainly did so.  Several of the selections were by his fine accompanist, Lance Horne.  And among Cumming’s other talents, he can also write words and music.  A showstopper was his “Next to Me.”  A kind of ode of gratitude for his husband, it starts as a ballad and ends with a belt.

Cumming has an impressive vocal technique, with a hearty and masculine forte and a fine controlled pianissimo.  He handled long phrases and jumps of register with unexpected ease while his diction — for all those words about modern life — was always crystal clear.

Besides that opening from “Cabaret,” the most familiar material in his set came at the end. The first encore was a medley of songs by Katy Perry and Adele, with Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory” as a refrain. That was followed by Annie Lenox’s “Why?”

Bringing a star like Cumming to the intimate venue in Hudson will be tough to top.  It’s going to be fun to see what the producers of Helsinki on Broadway can come up with next.

Originally published in the Times Union.

Prevously on MyBigGayEars: 

Charles Busch at Club Helsinki

Hold on to your Santa hat. John Waters is coming to town.

Like a St. Nic for the adult set, the filmmaker, author and raconteur arrives with a sleigh full of nostalgic, smutty fun. It’s all done up as “A John Waters Christmas,” a touring show presented on Sunday night at The Egg (12/2, Albany NY). (See full schedule below.)

“You could call it my obsession, having the right kind of Christmas,” says Waters. “But everyone should have whatever kind of Christmas they want. Even if you’re Jewish, you can have the right kind of Christmas.”

As a writer and director, Waters is best known for comedy spoofs like “Hairspray,” “Serial Mom” and “Pink Flamingos.” It’s been eight years, though, since his last effort, “A Dirty Shame,” received a commercially dooming NC-17 rating. Since then, he’s published a couple of books and has been getting lots of mileage out of the grandest and campiest of American holidays. Along with his annual one-man show, Waters has released an album of songs and carols and also made efforts to produce a Christmas movie — titled “Fruitcake.”

For Sunday night, bring him your questions — about your Christmas dilemmas or his legendary career — and expect some fun memories and sharp advice.

“Growing up in Baltimore, I was so confused by Christmas. I though the holy trinity was Jesus, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus,” he recalls. “Sitting on Santa’s lap was fun, but stay away from Easter Bunny. That costume is always filthy.”

Speaking of filth, Waters admits that his take on the holidays is probably not right for families. But nothing in our interview came off as mean spirited or even X-rated. Waters is just highly opinionated with a rapid-fire delivery on a vast array of topics.

“Books are the best gift, you really can’t go wrong. Clothes are the toughest because you never really know the person’s style,” he says. “The Salvation Army is a great place to shop, but only if you get for the most outrageous items and wear them all together at the same time. That is, if you’re brave. But if you’re old enough to remember the style, then you’re not allowed to wear it again. And no one over 25 should put on those skinny, skinny jeans. And never leather pants.”

“A more stylish Santa would be nice,” continues Waters, hardly taking a breath. “They should have a slimmed down Santa at Bloomingdale’s telling you which expensive things to buy. Santa’s always great but never ask the fattest person to play Santa. It’s discrimination.”

Speaking of distinctive styles, I told Waters that I pictured him in an ascot. Or did I imagine that?

“Oh, I maybe wore an ascot in grade school,” he says. “That would explain why I turned out the way I did.”

Here’s Waters’ full 2012 schedule: 

11/29…Philadelphia
11/30 – Providence
12/1 – Poughkeepsie
12/2 – Albany, NY
12/3 – Tarrytown, NY
12/4 – Solano Beach, CA
12/6 – Los Angeles
12/7 – Boise
12/8 – Phoenix
12/9 – Branchburgh, NJ
12/10 – Alexandria, VA
12/13 – Atlanta
12/14 – Minneapolis
12/15 – Detroit
12/16 – Rochester