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My Lunch with Kenneth…third course

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , , on August 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Third course…don’t really know what that would be, perhaps a cosmo for me.  I would now share with Kenny, yes, we’d be on a first name basis by now, an observation my husband once made.  Ken speaks “Shakespearean English” better than most people speak modern English (love their songs, but that’s a whole different blog).

Case in point—watch the scene in Love’s Labour’s Lost when he says the monologue about love.  On the dvd, the one scene is titled “It Kills Sheep” and the next is “Heaven”.  The two monologues sound, from Ken, like regular, everyday English.  It does literally come trippingly on the tongue.  “My melancholy and my rhyme…my rhyme and my melancholy”.  Oh, and the line about Hercules and the line about Apollo’s lute strung with his hair…leading to “And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony”.  Ah, pure beauty.

My sons wanted to stay up late last night and I let them as long as they were watching Shakespeare.  I put in Love’s Labour’s Lost.  After it had played for a few minutes, my one son asks, “Is this Hamlet?”  I told him no.  He said, “But that’s the guy from Hamlet.”  Yes.  He then asked, “Is this Love’s Labour’s Lost?”  How proud was I?  We’ll have to try Henry V tomorrow.

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My Lunch with Ted Levine

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , on July 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Oh, I definitely would order liver and fava beans with a nice chianti to start.  I think that would be a good meal for our lunch-remember, it was Hannibal, not Buffalo Bill, who was the cannibal.  Not that Buffalo Bill was much better for society.

Dear sweet Ted Levine.  Yes, sweet.  But I’ll get to that later.

We would have to discuss how truly creepy Jame Gumb was-a sociopath in the truest sense-particularly with his lack of remorse.    I repeatedly watch the scene when Clarice Starling shows up and he’s looking for the business card of the former owner.  She figures it out, he figures out that she’s figured it out and the cards drop from his hands.  The expression on his face is devious–he knows he has to get rid of this woman.  The hunt between them is exquisite.  Actually, this end part of the movie is my favorite part.

You also have to be truly comfortable in your own skin as an actor to create such a deeply sociopathic character and prepare for people’s inability to sympathize with him.  When Buffalo Bill is wearing his “dress” and tucks his package away, stating how desirable he finds himself, one tends to forget there is an actor in there, performing.  One just shudders at the illness that is Buffalo Bill.

I’ve always been a little off the bullseye.  I thought Buffalo Bill was creepier than Hannibal.  Like Uncle Stevie always says, the imagination always thinks up something scarier than the folks in Hollywood.  We see Hannibal’s horror and gory bloodshed.  Buffalo Bill’s is only hinted at through pieces and scraps that we see-the rest is filled in by our imagination.  Our mind’s eye fills in the dark waiting in the well…waiting for more verbal taunting, waiting for a pair of scissors, waiting for the lotion in the basket.

Ted Levine’s voice is exquisite.  Is it wrong that my husband and I use that famous line for many things?  We say “put the ______________ in the basket” almost daily.  (We store a lot of toys, stuff, etc. in baskets or bins).  We usually say the line in our best Ted Levine voice and add the mock crying/screaming…”put the papers in the basket, whahhhh.”  I will confess that our boys, while not knowing the origin of the line, use it as well.  We can simply say to them, “put the toys in the basket,” and they respond with “whahhhh.”  We are who we are.  Levine’s voice is such a big part of the creepiness of the character.  It’s such a full, rich voice-it haunts you after the fact.

Yet as Captain Leland Stottlemeyer that voice, while almost always authoritative, offers some of the sweetest and funniest moments.  Sweetest because Stottlemeyer was such a true friend to Monk and offered such loyal guidance to him, even when it was hard to do or when he thought Monk wouldn’t listen.   Funniest because through Levine’s timing and that gorgeous voice, great lines received perfect delivery.  In one episode, Disher comes in and says he has two ideas, asking Stottlemeyer which he wants to hear first.  Stottlemeyer replies, “whichever one will get me the least pissed off” (I may be paraphrasing…but you get the idea).  So you have this handsome man with those gorgeous blue eyes and that booming voice at times being full-out captain, friend to a strong yet fragile friend or trying to be a dad.  Levine plays humility (both being humble and being humbled) really well-happens throughout the series-too many examples to list.

I think I may have written it before, but I loved how they ended the series.  With Monk, Stottlemeyer, and company still doing their thing in San Fran.  I miss the show. Thank goodness for reruns and dvds.

The final part of our lunch would be discussing theater.  Oh how I wish I could have seen some of his work at Steppenwolf.  Like Tony Shaloub, Levine’s background in theater makes his performances so very rich and layered.  I would thank Ted for two characters who wander around in my mind-one haunting me and one reminding me of the goodness in the world.

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My lunch with Kenneth part 2

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on June 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Okay, I probably sound silly writing about this since I haven’t seen the movie yet, but Thor rocks.  The reviews I have read are all positive, people are liking it and it made millions and millions of dollars in a respectable time-frame.   Go Kenneth.

My favorite review (I believe in EW) spoke of how it brings an innocence back to comic book movies.  I immediately thought of Superman (of course I mean the Christopher Reeve one).  The level of escapism in Superman was wonderful.  You felt as though the world did have villains, true, but Superman was there to save the day.  He was a nice guy.  Honest guy (“…Pink.”).  You trusted in Superman.  That’s what I’ve read about Thor.  And face it, with a comic book rooted in mythology it doesn’t hurt to have someone like Kenneth bringing it all together.

The next topic I would bring up would be the return of Wallander.  I’ve heard rumors and I hope they are true.  I didn’t think I would like the character or movies, but I love them (from BBC, I watch them on Mystery Masterpiece on PBS).  They are such an interesting character study-of Wallander, the country, and the criminal mind.

I would also have to discuss the role of Sir Larry…I know Kenneth wasn’t the first choice (duh…how’d they miss that one?).  I think it’ll be an interesting movie, but I’ll be watching for Kenneth.

I don’t go to the movies much nowadays.  Too many cell phones, too many dollars, and too many people.  I still wish the movies were at the local four theater cinema in the mall of my childhood.  Better yet, go back to the days when going to the movies was an event and you even dressed for it!  But movies are ten bucks for one (think a dime a dozen raised for inflation).  Movies aren’t EVENTS anymore.  They come in and out of the theaters amazingly fast and most people seem to go for the social aspect rather than the art or experience.  Now the technology can provide such an experience but the glow of the cell phones and the chattering of the crowd interferes too much for me.  I’ll wait for the dvd or bluray or heaven forbid…cable.

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My Lunch with Monk

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on March 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Here’s the thing, I would like to have lunch with a fictional television obsessive compulsive detective. We would have so much to talk about and we could share wipes and antibacterial hand-soap.  The ideal day for this lunch would have been on October 10 last year, so that’s when this would have taken place.

I adored that show and I still do. I can catch any episode that is on and I will sit and laugh myself silly, or weep depending on the story. Obviously this lunch would be with Tony Shaloub and first I would ask how his wife is (I adore her too!). I want to ask him how he made Monk so wonderfully real and then maintained the character for eight years without making him a stereotype. There’s an episode where Monk finally takes medication and we learn why he doesn’t choose to use medication-because he would be putting a drug into his body. A chemical that would alter his mind and that rocks his world too much to wrap his brain around. Plus, once he is on the medicine, he isn’t as good at solving crimes.

I have walked that road. When I was on the meds, I was never quite me. I was more of a zombie version of myself. I could function, but I wasn’t living. I use a different therapy now, and it works great, but it is way more work and it’s harder to maintain. I still struggle with the resentment that I need anything at all to live like a “normal” person. There have been times when I have chosen no treatment because I can do more when I’m not being treated. I don’t need as much sleep or food and I can get more done. The days are literally longer because I can stay up longer. Granted, this is not as healthy for me, but sometimes I think to myself I only have this one life. I want to do as much with it as I can.

The biggest worry with the whole thing at this point is whether or not either of my sons will inherit this lovely part of me. One has gotten my vision and wears glasses and the other has gotten my blood sugar issues and is hypoglycemic. I pray neither gets this part of me. I can see aspects within each that remind me of it, but they are both still so young it’s probably nothing. My youngest is a bit OCD and is rather fond of wipes, actually saying “no, there are germs!” It makes me just a bit proud, a little smile dancing on my lips when he asks for a wipe.

Monk always treated the OCD as a blessing and a curse. He’s so right. There are benefits to what I have-heightened senses for one and they come in handy (sometimes in very weird ways and sometimes in unfortunate ways…amazing sense of smell, need I say more?). A lot of foods have too much texture for me, but it’s easy enough to live without them. It’s the big things in life that I’ve not done that bother me.

In one episode, Monk doesn’t catch the bad guy because of his OCD (the one when he finally takes the meds and calls himself “The Monk”). There are so many things I haven’t done because of it without having a valid reason, only excuses. Then there have been things I have done because of it, without valid reasons, only excuses. Like Monk says, it’s a blessing and a curse.

In the end, my life is so overwhelmingly blessed that I can’t complain. I’ve come to a point where I really don’t focus on it. For eight years I got to enjoy watching Monk, empathizing with his daily tasks, challenges and celebrations. The whole show was a hoot.

There are so many moments that were acted so beautifully. The one I can see in my mind’s eye is in the episode with the garbage strike. Stottlemeyer pulls some strings and gets Monk into a clean room at some facility-a super clean room. He says to Monk something along the lines of “there are no germs here at all.” Monk gets this smile on his face that is pure happiness. The smile shot is in the opening credits in the later seasons-he’s wearing a white bio-hazard type suit and that smile of pure contentment.

And the cast was fantastic. It took me a few episodes to realize that Stottlemeyer wanted us to “put the lotion in the basket.” I think they handled the Sharona/Natalie switch beautifully. They respectfully treated the sad passing of the actor who played Dr. Kroger. Hector Elizondo was a great addition-love him! Ambrose was the perfect sibling and Dan Hedaya as their father was brilliant. The casting and writing was superb.

I still have not found a new show to watch now that this one is only in syndication. Plus, my fabulous hubby has been getting the series on dvd so I still watch it regularly. Slowly but surely I am running out of shows to watch. So, Tony & company, you left it that Monk was still doing his thing in San Fran. Feel free to bring him back. I always thought the series should have been on for ten years…it’s a nice number.

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My lunch with Freddie Mercury

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , on February 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ah, lunch with Freddie. Well, I suppose it would be filled with many decadent foods. Or perhaps no food, just the amazing opportunity to sing with him and his glorious set of pipes. Of course I would have my pre-pregnancy voice when I still had a break and could slip easily enough from head voice to chest voice. (Don’t ask how two pregnancies affected my voice. I’ll give you the short version-morning, noon and night sickness for about eight months each pregnancy equals way too many times getting the sicks (as my sons call it). It did damage and has gotten slightly better. Probably would get a lot better if I actually had the opportunity to sing like I used to.)

“Love of my Life,” “Seaside Rendezvouz,” and of course, “Somebody to Love” would be first up. I’ve sung these songs with him hundreds of times, but to hear his voice in person would be extraordinary. My cousin saw them in concert in the 70’s. I was a bit too young to have attended at the time, but she told me about it. She either gave Freddie a rose or he gave her a rose, but clearly they were in the spit zone. How cool would that be?

Eventually I would have to talk with Freddie about what made my connection to him so strong. Our teeth. It is said he was worried if he got them fixed it might impact his singing. I didn’t know about that as a girl. I just knew I hated being called Bugs Bunny. I happily let the orthodontist stick those silver clamps on my teeth. But you never let go of the feelings. Now I don’t sit each day crying about it, but the hurt remains still buried deep down inside. I dealt with my teen angst in a more creative way, perhaps because of my connection to Freddie. He was bold and audacious. He exuded confidence, regardless of what he may have been like on the inside. I adopted the same strategy. No, not as flamboyantly as he did but I was on a tighter budget.

As I began to find my way and feel more comfortable in my skin, I passively participated in the mocking and teasing of another. I have regretted it since the moment I did. I wasn’t like a “mean girl” or at least I tried not to be one. I fought peer pressure everyday and resisted being like everyone else because I didn’t see the fun in it. But on this one day, I passively participated because I did not stop it or even try to stop it. This poor kid had been treated like I had when I was younger, but for him it continued all the way through high school. He hadn’t toughened up his skin, he hadn’t made it so the game was played on his terms, and he still was getting teased, mocked, probably in more ways than I ever want to know.

Now being a mother I worry that my little ones could be in his situation one day. They march to their own drummers, again, not as flamboyantly as Freddie, but we’re still on a budget. My oldest feels more comfortable walking into school as a dinosaur and relates more comfortably with teens and adults than children his own age (his sense of humor is more dry, British and the other second graders tend not to get it). In his kindergarten picture, my macabre youngest looks like Jack Nicholson from The Shining and he has a deep passion for germs and creatures (as in from the Black Lagoon and “Frankenstein’s…”). My prayer is they do keep marching to their own drummer, but also learn how to play the game by their own rules of engagement so they don’t get hurt.

Freddie and Queen helped me through so much as I’m sure they did for many people. They helped me learn to “Play the Game” so we’d have to sing that one too. I think I would be in awe too much to sing “Bohemian” with him, but I’d definitely do the air guitar and head-banging. “I’m Going Slightly Mad” would be sung perhaps while sipping a drink. Then as dessert was placed on the table we could just scat a bit.

A confession would come out about how I helped that boy get mocked, teased, butchered by boys far less mature than him. An apology for going against an unspoken code of sticking together. I’ve tried to locate that guy. Contrary to popular belief you can keep yourself off the internet if you choose to because I can’t find a trace of him. Freddie would get the apology. For not being bold enough to say stop. For not being brave enough to go against the popular mob mentality. For forgetting my roots. The other way to apologize to someone I cannot find is how I am raising my sons. Many of the lessons I teach them have (and will) come from my mistakes. I know they will have to make their own mistakes to truly learn some of the lessons, but I’ll try to head some of them off at the pass.

“I Want to Break Free” of these sad, regretful emotions, but I don’t  want to lose the lessons they taught me. I’d like to not feel like a nine-year old girl with buck teeth, glasses and a cow-lick that makes all the “in” hair-styles impossible to achieve. I suppose we’re all walking around feeling like our nine-year-old selves. The world could be friendlier if we all remembered that feeling and that we’re all simply doing the best we can. That is a tall order. I stumble with it everyday.

After dessert Freddie and I would sing a rousing rendition of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and probably call it a day. When I got home from lunch, I’d give my two little guys great big hugs.

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My Lunch with Uncle Stevie

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , on February 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Picture the classic Jersey diner. Not one of the ones that tries to make an impression but one of the greasy spoon mom and pop joints. You know the menu-every breakfast item comes with hash browns. Lots of open-faced sandwiches smothered in gravy. Homemade soups.  Now imagine the corner booth with the duct tape covering the cracks in the vinyl. That’s where Uncle Stevie and I will be sitting while we discuss various observations from life. My hope is that we’ll start with comparing stories about our children. This will lead to why I can no longer read Pet Sematary. While all of his stories can give one the heebie-jeebies, what happens to the little boy could happen in real life (not being brought back to life in an Indian burial ground gone bad but being run over by an 18 wheeler) which makes it unreadable now that I am the mother of two small boys. Meanwhile, Cujo is fine. I’m not likely to be trapped by a rabid Saint Bernard at my mechanic’s place of business. He doesn’t even have a dog there. One of the mechanics we used to use always left me with an unsettled feeling. It wasn’t until recently that I realized why…it matched the setting in Cujo. They might have had a Saint Bernard.

After we catch up on the kids, I’d have to do the thank you. Thank you for It. “One for the Road.” Cell. The wonderful short stories. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

The scariest book in my opinion is the novella Apt Pupil. This one haunts me and I can only read it every few years. Each time I read it there are new things to be afraid of. Why? The Reader, the Text and the Poem. I bring new life experiences to it and the world keeps adding new experiences of hate, evil incarnate, to bring to this terrifying tale of the all American boy.  Uncle Stevie is wonderfully talented at creating characters the reader cares about and becomes emotionally invested in. He weaves a story with detail that is real enough to see in the mind’s eye. He captures the creepy nature of the human experience so vividly that one can explore the dark underbelly of existence from a safe distance. Apt Pupil shines a bright light on that underbelly.

Most of his stories also contain hope. None so beautifully as Shawshank (“I hope…”) but readers hope things turn out all right for the characters because they grow to care about them.

I remember seeing Misery at a movie theater while living in Philly. After going through the metal detectors, I bought my goodies and found a seat toward the back in the middle section. I settled in, knowing I was safe enough because the security guard who checked my purse said I could keep my pepper spray, and watched in darkness as Kathy Bates worked her creepiness. As the movie was nearing the end, the audience had really become invested and we were all screaming for James Caan to beat her with the pig (sorry, Kathy, but you were just that good at being bad). You won’t shout at the screen unless you care about the characters.

There are two things about my relationship with Uncle Stevie that some folks think are odd. First, when I can’t sleep, I read from one of the short story collections and it calms me so I can fall asleep. People tell me that when they read Uncle Stevie they can’t fall asleep. I think his stories, particularly his short stories, help me to sleep because I have read them so many times they are like old friends. My copies of Night Shift and Skeleton Crew are well worn and bring me comfort, with the newer collections quickly becoming worn as well. “One for the Road,” “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French,” “I Know What You Need,” “The Jaunt,”and “The Mangler” bring warmth to me, make me feel cozy all snuggled up in my bed. Clearly my life is going way better than the characters’ lives so I relax and fall asleep. The only thing that has surprised me is that “Quitters, Inc.” never made me quit. You would think that it would have worked…

The second thing some people don’t understand is why there are a select number of his books on the top of my Uncle Stevie shrine. These are the books I’ve banked. One day he will really retire. One day he won’t write another story. One day he won’t write another word for the public. The books on the top of the shelf are for that day. Then I’ll ration them so I will still have about ten years of discovering new stories and new friends. It could be a sickness…we’re not sure yet.

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My Lunch with Tom Hanks

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , on January 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

On the first of many lunches with Tom Hanks, I would have to start with the Toy Story series. Ten years ago it would have started with the Meg Ryan trilogy, but since I’ve become a mother, I finally got sucked into the world of Woody and Buzz.

First, how wonderful to have characters named after a stage of arousal and a stage of intoxication to inspire children. Obviously, those are nods to the parents to give them a chuckle. My husband and I look ahead to when our sons are older and will finally get the joke.  “Yes, when you were younger, Daddy and I had to not laugh when you said you were going to sleep with your Woody and a Buzz.” These are future moments of laughter for our family that we can’t wait to experience.

Like most children who have seen these movies, our sons related to Andy’s sense of play and embraced all of the toys. They have a Toy Story bin. They have some of the actual toys (Woody, Buzz, Slinky Dog, and Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head), but as they are 12 pound actors, they improvised the characters they didn’t have. When they were four and two, they added the “Little Green Men” using these alien-like toys from a happy meal. They didn’t have a “Mr. Spell” so they used another toy that was the same shape and played music when the buttons were pressed. For “RC,” they used a remote control police car till they got a real “RC.” “Rex” was originally played by a T-Rex they already had and was eventually joined by an authentic “Rex.” Hours have passed playing Toy Story. They even asked us to get a recliner so they could send Woody into space like Andy did. We told them to improvise.

And like in the movies, toys have come and gone already in their young lives, but the Toy Story bin never leaves our sons’ rooms. One of them always has it tucked somewhere. “Diego” and “Dora” have been packed away, The Backyardigans are now a closely guarded secret, and The Rubbadubbers went away long ago. Toy Story stays.

I cry every time I watch any of the Toy Story movies. Actually, I cry at any Pixar film (damn them…bloody Pixar making me cry at cartoons…not just quietly misting up, but full out bawling).  The boys are especially fond of TS3 at the moment and became a bit worried today as I cried again watching it. They felt a little better when I clarified they were happy tears, but I think my oldest may have started to understand why TS3 gets me going from the opening scenes.

First, I have those videos of my sons. They’ve heard me say “Pretend I’m not here” and then film them as they play.  They know their rooms are bursting at the seams because it’s harder on me than on them to pack away their toys.  Second, I work at a university. I’m one of the people that welcomes “Andy” every September. I watch as the parents say their goodbyes to their babies’ childhoods. And I know only too soon my sons will be “Andy,” all grown up and thanking their toys for being unconditional friends.

Thus, at my lunch with Tom Hanks, I would thank him for helping to reinvigorate the animated film industry.  I would thank him for creating a character that has taught my sons so many good traits. I would thank him for helping my sons stay young a little bit longer and for creating a touchstone they can return to later when they need to reconnect with their childhoods. I would say thank you for a toy, an action figure and a child’s plaything.

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My lunch with Kenneth Branagh

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , on January 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If I could have lunch with Kenneth Branagh, the first topic of conversation would be too difficult to pick. However, I do know that early on, perhaps after ordering drinks, we would need to cover the critics who disliked Love’s Labour’s Lost because they did not believe those four men would break out into song and dance. In my home we do break out into song and dance on quite a regular basis, however that is not the critical problem with these particular reviews. The critical problem is how these critics ever got hired when suspension of disbelief is one of the cornerstones of theatrical devices?

While it is more common for folks to sing and dance during their day than many people realize, I grant you that not everyone does. Still anything that happens in a play, a film, a television show, or a video game requires some suspension of disbelief. One has to give into the world they’ve entered through their entertainment choice and surrender to the world of the director. If Kenneth wants us to believe these four chaps would sing and dance, it is our obligation, our pleasure really, to believe it. I’ll give you that I had reservations about Matthew Lillard (so fabulous as Shaggy) as to whether or not he’d pull it off, but he did. If Kenneth and the choreographer could get Lillard to move as gracefully as he did, the suspension of disbelief becomes even easier to accomplish.

The Kelly/Astaire style dancing of Adrian Lester brings back the glory days of the musical, particularly as he dances around the room in that one scene. The combination of his dancing, the choreography and the directing make that scene such an image of fluidity and beauty. The variety of dancing and music chosen touched upon so many of the glorious musicals that it brought together three of my favorite things: musicals, Shakespeare and Branagh.

Am I biased toward Kenneth’s work? Of course, I find the majority of it wonderful and watch it repeatedly. Those critics need to go to back college and take a refresher course on Theater Appreciation to remember the standard devices employed since the days of Sophocles to entertain the masses. While the film will be remembered as one earning, at best, mixed reviews (and those reviews being the weapon that took the life out of a three picture deal at Miramax), those who love the same three things I do happily suspend our disbelief when entering the world of Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Having covered that topic, Kenneth and I would order appetizers and continue the conversation.

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