My Roman Holiday with Elizabeth Taylor

I did promise Liz that, if she was up to it, we'd hit DePaolo's in Turners Falls tonight...

Steppin' out tonight!
The way we were: Academy Awards, 1970

And then popcorn and Champagne in bed, while we watch the 83rd Academy Awards.  All for love, Liz!  :-)

A Wonder Woman Double-Latte: At Starbucks with Lynda Carter

Obama, I Beg You: Extend the Patriot Act!

!!! Feb 25 Update:
Celebrity Romp Plea Heeded: Obama Reverses, Signs Patriot Act Extension.

After her Hollywood success beautiful Lynda Carter (don't call her "Linda!") married Robert Altman - no, not Pret-a-Porter, Nashville and The Player Bob Altman, but Washington insider and J. Clark (BCCI scandal) Clifford confrere "super-lawyer" Robert Altman.  A Hollywood-on-the-Potomac SuperHero marriage.

A question of cup size...

In 2000, I was living a few streets away from the Heroes in Potomac MD, and involved in some technology start-up projects around the busy Washington region.

All day long one would ping-pong from Starbucks (Potomac, Bethesda) to The Palm (Tyson's Corner), to the Hyatt (Reston), and then into the District to the Four Seasons, the (other/original) Palm, the Jockey Club, or the Washington Hotel rooftop (all downtown) pitching and hearing pitches: Exhilaration and Nonsense in unequal measure.  "Stimulation."

Hot Camaro w/Lynda hood art, courtesy AirBoston Graphics

While the hustle was bustling, a low sexy murmur whispered in the background.  There is a class of women whom you know from Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise, who sport the daytime uniform: make-up, diamond tennis bracelet, and track suit.  We wags called these "eating suits," because usually the Real Housewives of Potomac wore this costume to drop off the kids at pre-school, hit Starbucks, then the salon, and lunch at the Hunter's Inn before perhaps cozying up for a golf lesson at the Congressional Country Club (or a private riding lesson with an Argentine polo star).

Lynda Carter didn't need any of that stimulation - but this particular morning she did need caffeine, so she breezed into Starbucks and out again, a tall go-cup in her beautiful hand.

She came at me face-first.  And smiled!  Navy blue track suit; no golden wrist shackles nor tiara.

I did not even manage the pathetic "You're! You're/- uhh - Lynda Carter!"

Instead, there my meeting and I sat, flat-footed and slack-jawed.  The blue eyes sparkled and she sparkled.

"Change their minds and Change the world!" And then she was out of my life forever.

How Much Froth Can An All-American Boy Stand?

Carny Night in Vegas with Dave Friedman

First Tura, now Dave.  RM, you have dear company up there, and I salute you.

RIP Dave Friedman

"Two Old Warhorses and Porter Hall"

Russ Meyer and I enjoyed an annual dinner in Las Vegas for many years, and it was in August, 1992 that he insisted I join his good friend and old partner in crime Dave Friedman for a magical evening of gigantic steaks, good wine, cigars, ... and then lining up in the parking lot to micturate on the wall of the Rosewood Grill restaurant, before pressing on to the Olympic Gardens for a floorshow and finally drinks at the Riviera Hotel: No Greater Glory.

We corresponded a bit following.  Dave sent me a copy of his tremendous memoir, A Youth In Babylon: Confessions of a Trash Film King, and later a videotape about drive-in/exploitation movie history in which he was heavily featured, Kit Carson's "Sex and Buttered Popcorn."  My life was enriched by Dave Friedman.

How many times in life do you get to crack carny all night with the man who brought you

"ILSA, She-Wolf of the S.S." ?

For me, just once,

and it was glorious.

Double-Dating with George Stephanopoulos

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGIE BOY!

ever charming...

In the mid-eighties, while I was courting the first Mrs. Porter, we often would go out with her best friend, a most attractive co-worker who'd begun dating a very bright (Rhodes scholar), nice, and attentive young man.

Friday afternoons, I recall he was wont to skip out of Congressman Feighan's office on the Hill, hop the Metro, and show up at Cheryl's desk with a bunch of daffodils in his hand.  We spent many, many hours out as a foursome, enjoying the DC nightlife - often in Adams Morgan where young George Stephanopoulos lived.

Stopping by the apartment one morning I caught George in a fascinating ritual: with NPR on the stereo, he maintained an extemporaneous dialog with the liberal politician being interviewed.  As George walked around buttoning his shirt and knotting his tie he improvised a stabbing, conservative counterpoint to every statement, every phrase.

I knew George's politics, and understood he was training himself - like a "profiler" - to think as the enemy thinks, to get in-character so as to sharpen and speed his reflexes.  George had amazing instincts for this thrust-and-parry, and was naturally armed with a chessmaster's foresight.

Two Handsome Dudes

We made a few long trips together, notably a great Fourth of July weekend with friends in Wrightsville Beach, NC.  While there George and I went for a 5-mile run together, and rounding the crown of a hill we passed a solitary shack where AC/DC's "Long Way To The Top (If Ya Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" was playing at top volume.

I mercilessly made him run through the yard and circle the property with me, provoking George to ask me about the attraction of heavy metal, as he pleaded that "It just doesn't have any appeal to me."  We discussed AC/DC and Van Halen, then Motorhead, which I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to interest him in during the drive south in our VW Camper Van.  George was unmoved.

A week later on Nantucket, when I proposed to my fiance, Cheryl and George were the first people we called back home with the news.

It Had To Be Him

... but could have been me ?

Well, eventually George made his way to NYC, then back to DC for Dick Gephardt's campaign, then the Clinton WAR ROOM, and the rest is history.  He's married - not to the old friend, but to the sister of a different DC friend.

And they say he's on TV...

Without fail, always a super, caring, and decent guy.  Hey there, Georgie Boy!

Breaking News - Tura Satana Has Died

Sure it sounds crazy, but Tura and I were acquainted, and once had the good fortune to drink champagne together at midnight with Russ Meyer on the rooftop of the Hilton Hotel in Paris.

I just learned (thank you Dr. Rising) this sad news, and will take the time to give this a proper write-up very soon, as - unlike so much of what's here in this blog - it deserves a genuine, full and honest treatment.

Tura Satana: "Awesome, Unbridled Womanhood"

Goodbye, Varla - Rest In Peace.

Mardi Gras Hurricanes with Larry "Bud" Melman

Twenty-five years ago today, 7 friends and I converged from points hither & yon, on the fair city of New Orleans, for a Mardi Gras celebration.

We first four who arrived in time for happy hour checked in at Le Richelieu, "down deep in the French Quarter,' and headed out into the wild wind.  Returned home 3:00am.  Doorbell 3:45 and it's the quartet from Florida, arrived by car and toting softball bats... naturally, back out into the wild wind - this time to Pat O'Brien's (Home of the 'Hurricane').

Laissez Les Bontemps Rouller! ...

...with Good Buddy, "Bud" Melman (and Kissinger?)

Staggering about Pat's at around 5:00am, I heard a raucous shrieking laugh and there he was: Calvin DeForest, a.k.a. Larry "Bud" Melman.  I screamed, he screamed, and we all screamed at the top of our lungs.

He was laughing, screaming, yelling but not saying anything comprehensible (neither were we, I'm sure) - long, lugubrious hair-pulling laughter - and in the continuing din we all sort of hooted, pointed, and went on lurching and screaming until I grabbed a house photographer to take a lovely portrait of the group.

A Total Scream

In the next four days and nights, we survived all manner of insult, eviction (from Le Richelieu), and depravity... but I count our good fortune at meeting and imbibing with Larry to have been the "lucky clover" that got our Mardi Gras off on just the right foot.

Leigh Keno: an Elegant Highboy

Leigh Keno: A Hamilton Original

You know him as a peripatetic TV host and one half of a matched-set of enthused antique furniture appraisers.

I first knew him as a hyper, wired sort of guy in the class a year ahead of me at Hamilton College.  A local-area kid from Herkimer, one exit over on the NY Thruway, Leigh was a pretty good drummer who sat behind the kit for Robbie and the Nylons, a new wave band on campus that occasionally shared rehearsal space with the band I was in, Rogue.

Queen Anne, c. 1760

Leigh and I also took a couple of the same courses in Art History from notorious department head Rand Carter, although Leigh must have really been paying attention.  He and brother Leslie (Williams '79) have parlayed their love for the "breakfront," the "high-boy," and all things "clawfoot" into a multivariate avocation - not only as an appraiser, collector, gallery-owner, philanthropist and all-around personality, but most recently as impresario with Keno Auctions.

Come to find out that Leigh's quite involved with the antique and collectible car market, personally as a race-car collector & driver, and ceremonially as a judge at the annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance charity event.  And in 2005, he wrested a National Humanities Medal from the hands of President George W. Bush.

In college I had a '74 Chevy Nova 350-SS. No match for Leigh's 1938 Jaguar SS 100 . . .

Though I didn't know Leigh well, from our paths-crossings I can attest that what you see is what you get - he's really that nutty, animated and passionate about the 18th century furniture that your great-great-grandfather, in his youth, thought was long in the tooth.

Will Leigh Keno be our last link to the Golden Age of the American empire, now in such wretched decline?

Shekhar Kapur, Dim Sum and the Director's Cut

"But how does it turn out ???

Kate Hudson as Ethne, the late Heath Ledger as Harry: What Destiny Awaits?

On its opening weekend in 2002, my nearly 9-year-old daughter and I attended a grown-up historical romance film, "The Four Feathers." In a nutshell, British Officer boy (Harry) meets girl (Ethne), boy goes to war (in Sudan, 1884), boy deserts troops in moment of cowardice, boy cannot live down disgrace, boy loses girl to upright best friend (Jack).  After the war though, at the film's end, Ethne has just broken her engagement to Jack - and is seen reaching for Harry's hand.

Exiting the cinema, my daughter demanded of me, "But who does she end up with?" as it is not clear whether Ethne (beautiful Kate Hudson) will choose the imperfect Harry or the valiant, polite Jack (Wes Bentley).  "I don't know," said gallant Dad. "I'll ask the Director what happened next."

He of many a lush and lovely epic

Four days later, I was in London seated for lunch with Shekhar Kapur at his favorite dim sum place in Soho, and I pressed him on it.

Now, in 1999, Mr. Kapur had dazzled with the spectacular Elizabeth starring brilliant Cate Blanchett, dashing Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, and all sorts of stupendous costumery.  By 2002 coming off Four Feathers Shekhar was involved as the Film guy in our little UK-based Music/TV/Film outfit, Artist Network, and I as the U.S. "suit" had business with the Londoners that October.

We spoke at first about business, then at length about Shekhar's wild idea for a caste-struggle science fiction concept set in a futuristic upstairs/downstairs India where water is rationed.  After we solved the scarce resource problem, we turned to Four Feathers and I pressed him on it:

"She is not with Jack, this much we know - but there remains affection between them.  However, Harry has clearly been a first and enduring fascination for her, and we see that she is willing to reach out to him."  So she ends up with Harry?  "It's not that simple.  If she is to proceed in her love for him, he will need to change. The relationship cannot succeed unless he will undergo a growing process.  We don't know whether this will occur. But we see that she is willing to consider giving him the chance."

Perfect.

My little girl, now 17, is beginning to learn her own lessons about love, not from the movies, and certainly not from her gallant Dad. As Ethne demonstrates, time and mystery go hand in hand: they dole out their measure of wonder and tragedy, and provide us the drama in life.  So much of drama is in not knowing...

As for dramatic resolution, fans of Elizabeth waited 9 years for the sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  But until a sequel to Four Feathers is produced, only Shekhar, you and I know what happens next.

Don't spill the beans!