My Intersection with Tim Curry (R.I.P.)

This morning, Aug. 26, 2026, I was driving to the Disney Lot in Burbank. I turned on the radio and they were playing “Sweet Transvestite” from the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the song again from that rock n’ roll musical but I was baffled. It’s just not the kind of song KCRW plays (or for that matter any of the rock radio stations in LA). Nick Harcourt came on after the song finished to announce the passing of Tim Curry at age 80.

These are some photos I took at Grammy Museum when they did an exhibit on producer Lou Adler whose club The Roxy in West Holywood opened its doors with the American premiere in 1974 of the stage show of Rocky Horror. The concept of the set was of an old abandoned movie theater. (Note: the photo angles are odd as I was trying to minimize the glare on the photos.)

A fairly long life. A beloved actor. I always enjoyed his performances which were both “big” but still retained something grounded and real. However, I haven’t seen him for a while and hadn’t realized that for the past 14 years, his life had been one of physical difficulty as he had survived a stroke and emergency brain surgery that had left him wheel chair bound, paralyzed on his left side and initially unable to speak. However, he taught himself to speak again and even was able to do some acting voice work eventually.

I felt this death so much stronger than a host of recent deaths of accomplished people, e.g. I’m sure many, many had that same feeling of loss I had about Tim, after the also recent passing of multi-talented, apparently very good person, Dolly Parton. Now, I never met Curry though I was about 6 – 8 feet away from him when I saw him perform at The Bottom Line in NYC in 1978 (or was it 1979?). The date is key – Curry came into my life at that time of profound change and connection, i.e. high school into college. My group of high school theatre friends spent a gloriously stupid summer (either after junior year or after senior year – again that part of narrative is fuzzy for me). We would get high every Saturday night then go to the Belmar (NJ) cinema to watch THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW to shout comic lines in unison in between the dialogue of the movie (or to throw toilet paper, etc. – the theatre closed later that year as it was too trashed). I went to the movie once in the West Village of NYC and found that experience lesser to the Belmar one. The New York audience was undisciplined and just shouted all through the movie obliterating the point of INTER-ACTING with the movie. The point was call and response, not chaos.

A bumper sticker I placed in the basement of my parents’ home (and a note still there in 2023 from my late beloved brother Joe.

We dressed up a few times for a showing and my friend Michelle won the female costume contest as Riff Raff and later as Dr. Frank-N-Furter (lab coat version) and I won as Brad – in the not very visually amazing blue terry bathrobe similar to the movie, but more importantly, I won for my “performance.” I took off the robe, the walked around in tighty-whities where I proceeded to shake everybody’s hand in the front row with a “Damn glad to meet you.”

Michelle and Michele
Michelle as Riff Raff

Nancy as Magenta

As Tim said in some recent interviews after the publication of his memoir “Vagabond”, he’s proud that the character he played helped people find freedom and acceptance. For me, going to the movie created connection, a release from self-censorship and good fun, but for my friend Michelle, it was something more, and her experience still touches me. She had what seemed to be a romantic crush on Curry from his Rock Horror performance. When Curry released his first album (my favorite song “Anyone Who Had a Heart”) and then came to the Bottom Line in NYC, we all had to go see him. We got there very early so we were either the very first people in line or nearly so. Michelle acted like she was a Beatles concert – not in constant screaming but rather by being in a delirious passion. She literally was in the chair next to the stage and had direct moments with Curry. (The Bottom Line had long tables perpendicular to the stage and I was at the other end of the table.) I remember she took a tissue from the stage that he used to sop up some sweat and holding onto it after the concert (later laminating it too!). Personally, I remember a really good showman. However, Michelle couldn’t remember anything – she was just so totally in the moment. Her glowing happiness from that concert still means so much to me.

She was one of my best friends, if not my very best friend, in high school. I was the Best Man at her commitment ceremony to Robin in NJ and then at her wedding to Robin years later in California when gay marriage became legal. Michelle latter would credit Curry in her life’s journey for she came to realize his Rocky Horror performance allowed her to express feelings for a feminized male, which was a key bridge toward her understanding and acting on her sexuality of female attraction. (I hope I’m expressing this properly, so forgive me Michelle if I made a mash of it.)

So thank you Tim for your commitment to your craft, for the wonderful acting and musical performances and for the freedom you inspired.

More photos from the original LA stage version of Rocky Horror at https://rockyhorror.fandom.com/wiki/Roxy_1974

Here’s a link to a wonderful rendition of WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN, that Tim did at the Bottom Line in 1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA5UK5YL8vw

The theatrical Curry as the Pirate King in PIRATES OF PENZANCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWzqcele1tY

I think most of his movies and TV shows are fairly easy to find, but for something different about the man’s courage, some post-stroke interviews:
Short one with Ben Mankiewicz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4i3u714nxQ

And a long live interview on stage with Adam Felber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxoXfC0qDe4

Art in Between (life), Comedy, comedy-drama, Los Angeles, Music, New Jersey, New York City, News, Theatre, Uncategorized, Updates

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Twinkie Update

So, I recently wrote a little paean about the totally artificial snack cake that brought the word Twinkie into the lexicon. But quasi-good things often have a dark heart alas.

The corporate main stream media has been presenting the Hostess bankruptcy as being precipitated by a union strike in reaction to management demands for wage and pension give-backs amongst other things, essentially parroting the headline from Hostess’ own website: “HOSTESS BRANDS TO WIND DOWN COMPANY AFTER BCTGM UNION STRIKE CRIPPLES OPERATIONS”. And it’s not just Fox News leading the story with this spin.

This is the Google search headline for CNN: “Hostess Brands closing for good due to bakers strike – Nov. 16, 2012 money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/ 2 days ago – Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs, says strike by bakers forcing its closing. … Hostess filed for bankruptcy in January, its second trip to bankruptcy court since 2004. …. 2012 Cable News Network.” In fairness, once you click on the link, the actually story doesn’t use that headline but nonetheless, the first paragraph of the story is similarly worded.

Likewise, NBC has a story with this headline: “Twinkies Maker Hostess Going Out of Business, CEO Blames Union Strike “It’s over. This is it,” Gregory Rayburn tells “Today.”
Sunday, Nov 18, 2012 | Updated 4:21 PM CST”

I should note that I’m fairly passionate about the vilification of work and unions as opposed to the so called great good of the “job creators” and capital of the corporate kind. (I think small business people generally practice capitalism in a different manner than corporations so this rant is not about them – after all, they usually work side by side with the people they hire, and small business people don’t get golden parachutes whether or not they make good business decisions – their capital is actually at risk.)

So, I love reading correctives to our corporate mainstream media when I found out the inconvenient truth that Hostess had raised 4 of its top four executives compensation by up to 80% just a few months ago, even though the company had already filed for bankruptcy prior to that pay raise. Granted after that public relations gaffe, the then CEO left (with a nice package) and the 4 top officers took both a real and highly symbolic pay cut to $1, but they also guaranteed themselves a return to their full 6 or 7 figure salaries by January 1st.

So M.S.M., it’s all the fault of the guys making $20 bucks an hour for not believing that the company didn’t have enough money to honor the contracts they had previously negotiated with the union??? I WONDER WHY these baker and drivers were so distrustful of management? I f’ing hate hypocrisy and greed…that means the media as much as Hostess exec’s.

Here are 2 links (one of which cross links to an earlier CNN story for those that don’t trust non-traditional journalists) that back up my assertions here: http://americablog.com/2012/11/hostess-twinkie-ceo-salary.html and http://www.examiner.com/article/the-real-reasons-hostess-went-bankrupt

Art in Between (life), Politics and Finance, Uncategorized

Thoughts on Popeye and a review of the Bond film “Skyfall”

Saw the latest Bond movie, a really superior popcorn movie with great stunts. Solid performances, creative staging by director Sam Mendes to re-invent the familiar, exotic locations, high quality tech elements and a well written, intelligent script are some of the reasons for this creative success.

It puts one foot in the Bond past (e.g. the Aston Martin gets a big cameo amongst many nods to previous iconic Bond tropes and gadgets), while modernizing technology, attitudes toward woman (a bit) and even “stooping” so screenplay 101 to do a little character development… the only quibble was that the wit was not as pervasive as some previous 007 entries instead replaced with a melancholia about getting old and changing times. “Skyfall” actually threatened to be deep on occasion but fortunately something goofily over-the-top intruded and brought the film back into the realm of escapist fun.

But here’s an odd reaction I had during the opening action scene where civilian health and life are treated in a typically cavalier manner as the British agents chase the bad guy: I kept thinking about Popeye. When I was a kid, I watched Popeye cartoons on TV just because that’s what was on – but I disliked Popeye. I have a distinct memory of Popeye rescuing Olive Oil, who was tied to some train tracks, by punching the train, causing it to crunch into itself. I didn’t say to myself, “Thank god, Olive Oil was rescued.” No, I said, “There were people on that train and Popeye just killed them.” That was how my brain already worked at 5 years old.

Art in Between (life), Film Commentary, Uncategorized

Hostess Snacks Going Out of Business Today

I hate to admit it but I have a soft spot for Twinkies.

When I first went to New York City to study theatre at NYU, I regularly went to a mediocre deli on Broadway and Waverly Place, where I often would buy some very bad coffee to go. Now it must be understood that while there were some fine Italian pastry shops that served good cappuccino in the Village, this was B.S.E. (i.e. Before the great Starbucks Expansion and the ensuing decent to very good coffee boom of it and its rivals). Thus this java had the taste of what one would imagine what edible gasoline and milk would taste like. This was true New York deli coffee served in those famous blue and white coffee cups with ancient Greek icons encircling the cup. If there were sizes to order, they were small, medium or large, not grande or venti… a “regular coffee” was milk with sugar; a “dark coffee” was a little bit of milk. I ordered a “light coffee, no sugar.” It was immensely important to specify the “no sugar” – otherwise the default was 2 heaping, overflowing teaspoons of sucrose. I have never been one to add sugar to hide the bitterness of the bean, but instead crave something sweet to contrast that bitterness.

That sweetness was Twinkies.

Obviously, if I could get a good pastry or a decent bagel, I would, but at this deli nothing surpassed the packaged yellow sponge cake filled with “creme” in taste bud goodness.

I heard on the radio (KPCC) that of the 36 ingredients only two are plant or animal based: there is only a smidgen of flour and 1/500th of an egg per Twinkie. So, they may get hard but they will never rot. I’m very tempted to buy one and save it for a future time when I’m in the need for hygenerated nostalgia.

Art in Between (life), Uncategorized

When “reform” is just “change” or “re-structuring” or “privatization” but not “reform”

Not surprisingly, I can be very sensitive to language, and how language can manipulate. This is most nakedly apparently in our political advertising a.k.a. propaganda a.k.a. the way politicians speak every day. That may sound rather cynical but it’s really quite a fact that conservative think tanks issue Talking Points daily and just a superficial gander at any one day’s quotes from the Republican noise machine is just how choral that noise is, i.e. they all say the same thing. Democrats are more likely to show some surface independence but also try their damnedest to be as “effective” in communicating as the Republicans. Note that President Obama’s office recently created a kerfuffle by telling reporters that quotes would only be given to those that agree to verification of those quotes, i.e. editing of those quotes.

So, one of my biggest peeves is how Republicans, usually, take advantage of the word “reform”. Typically they use the word “reform” in conjunction with ending something by privatizing it. Ideologically, this fulfills their dictum that private companies always do things better than government (whether it matches facts or not) and secondarily results in contributions to their political war chests from the companies that would benefit / profit from such a privatization.

Privatization as a word, however, is not automatically popular with people who hold pragmatic ideas about particular government programs. That’s why, Bush – at the very height of his power – suffered his first major setback when he tried to privatize Social Security because average people suddenly became motivated to protect something they depend on. (On a tangential note: the administrative costs for Social Security are the lowest, thus the most efficient, of any investment fund including index funds… so much for government inefficiency.)

Thus, we hear the word “reform” used over and over again by Republican marketing. Social Security reform. Medicare reform. And so on.

Since they’re trying to sell something, I’m may be annoyed by the incorrect use of the word, but I accept it from a free speech point of view. BUT I become completely infuriated by the press, rather lazily accepting and repeating propagandistic language instead of challenging its premises. Obviously this is symptomatic of the modern corporate press overall failure of its adversarial, watch dog role that was actually enshrined in our Constitution but it’s exactly in these details, that one can press the Press to be more Press-like, i.e. actually adhere to the standards of true objectivity (not he said she said type of false equivalencies).

I wrote the following letter on NPR’s website after New Yorker political reporter Ryan Lizza was interviewed by Teri Gross on Fresh Air regarding his article on the power and background of Rep. Paul Ryan (and Lizza is one of the better journalists in the business yet even he gets sloppy and falls into lazy reporter verbal group-think… in the actual article, he was much more precise and accurate):

“While Mr. Lizza seems to be a careful journalist, I do have to take serious issue of language – in fact something that infuriates me – with how he began the interview regarding Rep. Ryan’s proposals on what Lizza called “Medicare reform”. The incorrect use of the word “reform”, a word commonly used as a propaganda strategy, which the press blithely goes along with either out of group think or actual ideological sympathy. (In this case, I’m guessing it’s more group think.) Reform by definition predicates that something is broken and needs fixing. And secondly, reform carries an automatic positive connotation. Reform brings benefits. Reform is good. So of course, it makes sense Rep. Ryan and other Republicans would label something as “reform” that actually ends Medicare. As to the first aspect of the word reform, it is also highly arguable that Medicare is broken. It’s expensive. But it mostly works very well at getting seniors medical care. So Lizza, so as not to be a party to propaganda and adhere to the journalistic idea of objectivity should have used the neutral word “change” or “re-structuring”. Language matters and has immense power. Mr. Lizza is a good writer; he should know that and correct himself for the future.”

Art in Between (life), Politics and Finance, Uncategorized

The Jokes NOT on you, Steve Almond – a response to his critique of Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert

In “The Baffler”, Steve Almond wrote a long, critique of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert… he makes a lot of good points, but instead of staying on track, he meanders. Almond should hope for at best to influence Stewart to be a little more hard-hitting (let’s face it, why would Jon mess too much with success???), and especially to make Jon’s audience more aware of Jon’s failings as a cultural/media/political comic. Jon will change if his audience changes. (His critique of Colbert is so wrongheaded and so completely lacks an understanding of the power of irony that it forms another black hole in his argument.)

This is the letter I wrote to the editor about this essay:

This essay shoots itself in the foot over and over. It bemoans the fact the Daily Show and Colbert are mostly entertainment and wants them to be different. To be a massively rated Lenny Bruce hour or something. Because? Why? Is there something inherent in either man that is aching to rip-off their Clark Kent populism for a more rarified comic Super Man (i.e. in the eyes of the essayist, the brave, confronting, angry male comic.)

Does one bemoan an orange for not being an apple? Or to be fruitful in the metaphor, does one bemoan an orange for not being a cherimoya? One is common and fairly cheap. One is rare and expensive. There is reason why people eat oranges every day.

The essayist misses the point that first and foremost that they – but Stewart in particular – are replacements for the mild political humor of the Tonight Show and its progeny (Letterman, etc.). It’s all the same audience that used to watch Carson which then split off into Leno/Letterman camps and has no now splintered further in the Cable / Internet age.

If you add up all of the people watching one of these incarnations of the Tonight Show, it would roughly be that same number of people. Instead of lamenting what Stewart and Colbert aren’t, he should be lamenting that population ism’t like the essayist: smart, angry and uncompromising about those in power.

Even though I actually seem to agree with Almond’s politics, I’m being harsh with him because he deserves it. He’s like the son who’s angry with his father for not being the man he thought his father was. It’s Almond’s expectations that are at fault here, not the father for being human.
That’s not to say that the media critic / humorist Jon Stewart doesn’t deserve to critiqued as well. And here Almond is correct to point out Stewart plays false equivalencies between the right and left… he commits the same sin of “balance” in the name of civility that the main stream media does in the name of “fairness”. After all, many times, facts dictate that one doesn’t have to be fair, e.g. Creationism should not be given equal time with evolutionary theory because is one is religious thought and one is well-tested scientific thought. So taking Stewart to task for this and being a shill for whoever his guest is, are all well and good.

But Almond goes off the rails when it becomes a daddy plea of why are you what I want you to be. The critique of Stewart’s failing should always be directed to his audience. That the audience must always look at Jon with the same jaundiced eye that Jon looks at Fox News pundits. Jon is not god, but a fallible entertainer.

Almond further weakens his critique by seeming to miss just how much of a satirist that Colbert is… that irony is a potent critical weapon… that one doesn’t have to directly confront power to confront power… in other words, the essayist just doesn’t get Colbert. It’s utterly unsurprising that he ignores Colbert’s very Super Pac potent theatrics. It was quite simply the best critique and criticism of the effects of the Citizen’s United Supreme Court ruling on the political system yet leveled.

Again this is Almond’s own failing as a critic. He seems to (A) only appreciate direct, in your face, comedy, and (B) not realize that other forms of humor are both funny, viable (beyond their initial satirical role models) and an effective means of puncturing those in power.

Furthermore, Almond’s examples of the opposite of Stewart/Colbert were very weak. He was right on when he cited a deceased comic that I frankly have never heard of but from the quotes seems to have been a very funny man with a very strong, confrontational political critique of the political system. But note, that mean remained an outsider and never gained a mass following.

But the moment he approvingly named South Park and Bill Maher as corporate exceptions to the Stewart/Colbert his argument falls apart. In the first place, “South Park”, minute for minute, is essentially non-political and to praise it for the rare exceptions that it took on the powerful but also universally reviled cult /Church of Scientology is no different than when Stewart took on Republican Senators about 9/11 responders. In other words, corporate financed entertainment will have its momentary exceptions to its usual soft confrontation with power technique, but the leopard can’t drop its spots without becoming another kind of cat.

Ditto for Bill Maher. I distinctly recall how Maher became far more jingoistic immediately following his debacle with ABC corporate sponsors. The “brave” Maher” went out of his way in his next show to correct his bonafides. And let’s not forget, the man has always been a sexist. He’s learned how to protect himself… just have such a mash-up of contradictory opinions left, right and middle that you can hide under the mantle of undefinable and respected maverick . So, if you want to damn Stewart and Colbert for not being pure enough, don’t evoke someone like Maher who is even more of a corporate entertainer and a narcissistic opportunist on top of that.

Finally, Mr. Almond should remember that sometimes a cigar is a just a cigar. And enjoy the laugh. And after that, I’ll be happy to follow his example of leading the charge on the barricades… oh, I’m sorry, he isn’t a well-known liberal activist anymore than Stewart is. He’s just a cultural critic like his fallen idol.

Art in Between (life), Comedy, Politics and Finance, Uncategorized

SPAM BOT’s

I haven’t made a blog post in a while… saving my outrage and joy just for the 144 character Face Book status update. But here it is the last day of 2011 and I feel I must commemorate that with a longer observation on modern life.

One of the reasons I haven’t posted, besides because of the various distractions of actually living offline, is the Spam Bot’s that patrol the blog world. It leaves me with a gut of rancid bile that robs me of the motivation to blog. For, every other day, I have to clear away 1 or more spam messages from the teeth of my comment filter.

Since I set up this website primarily as a professional work site, but with occasional musings and new photograph posts as a kind of a frosting to the cake… something new or at least a bit different to round out the picture of who I am as an artist… and since I wasn’t trying to be a traditional blogger, I removed the comment box from most of my web pages (that took forever to figure out how to do) from the WordPress template.

However, that doesn’t stop one from commenting or accessing the comments if you click on such, i.e. IF I approve the comment.

Now, originally, I fully expected to never get a comment. But what’s disheartening is dealing with the spam robots who need none of those qualities to spread their guano.

I believe I have received exactly one legitimate comment, but I’ve allowed a few more to be published too, even though they are quite suspicious in their general-ness. The rest – scores of them – have gotten trashed or labeled spam. (I have yet to be faced with the moral dilemma of publishing or not publishing any vitriol regarding my opinions…)

In my pre-website creating innocence, I had no idea that these robot programs existed. I deduce that they apparently scour for any blog that exists and then deposit their droppings like so many mechanical pigeons.

There are the subtle, probable spam posts, that say something like “Great blog. I’ve been looking for something just like this” wherein the advertisement is simply getting their name and website (for exercise equipment and such things) listed after this generic comment. At first, I was snookered but then I saw the pattern where nothing specific from my blog was ever referenced. Worse is when one of these blah comments gets repeated, word for word.

I’ve also gotten a fair amount of spam in German, Italian and fractured English (this seems to be from Russia).

And then there are the grotesque paragraphs of spam advertisements for pain killers, porn, disreputable software or just junk characters that look like the bit and bite visual equivalent of a viral genetic helix

I fully expect lots of spam posts to this post about spamming.

I am tempted to actually allow them to be published to prove my point BUT that would be giving them too much power. Perhaps I will cut and paste these, removing the links and thereby foiling the Bot invasion.

One small step for Julius, one great leap for humankind!

More likely, I’ll just be too overwhelmed to bother.

And to think our ancestors were busy being devastated by things that could eat them and drag them away in the dark. Oh such petty and small complaints, huh?

Art in Between (life), Uncategorized

Immorality or Isolation

Just a quick revisit to the “Blame Game” post… one that other site, another online conversation got started regarding financial regulations, Occupation Wall Street, morality and accountability.

One of the more interesting comments I got to that post (and I’m not sure if he’d want to be attributed here or not, and I stress that my paraphrasing could be inaccurate so mea culpa up front) had to do with objecting to the idea that the 1% are behaving immorally.

He made the legitimate point that wealth isolates people and sometimes creates a sense privilege that they deserve their wealth. He made it clear he knew this was nonsense, i.e., that the accumulation of wealth may or may be a result from just desserts, but that wealthy were not inherently immoral, that many are quite engaged with, and worry about the state of the world.

I really want to give this point of view its due. There really is an oversimplification with the sloganeering: we are the 99% and that the 1% is to blame and are immoral.

Clearly there are good, moral rich people as there bad, immoral poor and middle class people. And of those in the 1-ish percent that seem to have benefited directly and greatly from the recent run up to this worldwide financial crisis, some of what seems like immorality really can be attributed to isolation or isolation / arrogance.

A good example would be those who made a massive fortune by making bets on the failure of various investments (i.e. those who bought derivatives that were betting on all those foreclosures happening. These truly clever people didn’t create the system but they recognized its inherent flaws and made the proverbial killing exploiting those flaws. It wasn’t about wishing those people any ill will. It was statistical analysis of bad investments that they thought were likely to default. I really don’t see these people as evil in any sense.

Also, QUITE a few people within the 99% have enabled some of the worst behavior of a portion of the 1%.

However, I still hold true to my belief however that those within the 1-ish percent that actively lobbied to create or maintain this very rotten system do have a moral culpability, and should be held accountable. They wanted the Glass-Steagall act junked; they wanted the rules changed to be able to see investments to one party while betting against those investments with a different party; they wanted special treatment by federal government; they wanted their investment firms re-classified as banks to receive TARP funds, etc. They then funneled this money into their personal fortunes and have done everything possible to pay lower and lower taxes on these accumulated fortunes.

These people I will continue to classify as immoral and selfish. None of these actions are criminal, though a few them had been illegal prior to the lobbying to have certain laws changed, but yes I see these things as unethical. (Now of course, people have a way of compartmentalizing their behavior so they can be highly ethical and moral in one aspect of their lives and the reverse in another… so even here, there can be complicated patterns of black, white and a multitude of grays.)

Unfortunately in our mass media age, if a message isn’t simple – in black and white with no shades of gray – the mainstream media will ignore that message and the consumers of such media will not watch / read beyond the headline.

So it’s become an unfortunate necessity that OWS is so simplistic in its messaging, though I don’t know if that was planned or just a result of the non-hierarchal aspect of the movement. But the topic has quite fortunately been raised.

But thoughtful people everywhere have a duty to deepen the conversation, now that it has been begun.

Art in Between (life), New York City, Politics and Finance, Uncategorized