The Best Song You Are Not Working Out To

My friends make fun of my work-out music, but I truly do not know better way to run than accompanied by showtunes in my ear to keep me going.  Dream Girls???  That sound track is full of songs that start with a beat and just build til I can hardly staaand it.  "Move"?  Yes, please.  The disco version of "One Night Only"?  Fuh-get about it.  And who wouldn't run (as my Dad used to say) "full-tilt-boogie" when listening to the theme song from Wonder Woman?  You can always surrender to the power of thigh high red boots for the two minutes it takes the song to run its course. 

But my favorite... my go to song... the one that I play when I'm just about tuckered out and I don't think I can make it to the end end of my regularly scheduled work-out...is from the musical version of All About Eve, a little show called Applause, which featured Lauren Bacall's Tony winning tenacity and foghorn voice.  Said voice is prominently dispayed in her tour de force song "But Alive". 

Imagine yourself on the treadmill for a moment:

It starts out like they often do, nice and easy, a saunter really, a stride.  But one minute into it and we're cantering, trotting, energized.  The anticipation is palpable and so we've sped up the treadmill up a couple levels.  Then, 2 minutes-  We're up to a nice run, nothing we haven't done before.  We listen to the chorus of disco chicks and dudes scatting the nonsense words "Tralla- Shaba-Daba-dada" and can imagine Lauren throwing down some sassy dance moves.  3minutes in you feel like this must be the mecca!  The high point of the song.  Lauren is braying "ALIIIVE" over and over again at the top of her leather lungs and the chorus of gay boys (this scene takes place in a gay bar in the Village, btw) is chanting "Margo!"  You unflinchingly add another level to the treadmill.  It's done right?  That's it?  But no!  3:24. Key change!!  You are kicking it at a 8 or 8.5, nothing can stop you!  You feel brilliant and brash and bombastic, limp as a puppet and simply fantastic, but alive!  Even when Lauren is done singing the chorus goes on and on and just when you think you can't go any longer they finish it off with one last rousing "MARGO!!!!!"

If you're ass isn't kicked by the end of the song, you didn't do it right. 

Here's a clip from the televised version of the musical to give you a visual, and if you know where to find the full version of this little gem, lemme know, will ya??

 

 

 

And Oh and yeah, while searching for this video I found another treat.   The same song as lip synched by a rather zaftig drag queen lip-synching in front of a chorus of well-built tight shirted "sailors".  I post this only on the condition that you watch the legit version first.  And don't bother thanking me.

 

   

Marilyn, Marlon, and Truman

It's not new to say that film stars are the Greek Gods and Goddesses of our time, but I can't think of a better analogy to explain why they hold such a fascination.  Movie Stars fulfill the same purpose for us in a lot of the same ways that those ancient beings did.  They represent giant ideas and emotions in a comprehensible, human package.  This is especially true of those stars from the mid-twentieth century.  Not only because their stories are complete, with a beginning and an end, but because their images were so concrete, shaped by themselves and by some of the best PR people in history.

Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart.  These are people we think we know.  We can reduce them in our minds to one image, to one adjective even.   We place our hopes and dreams upon them, see our struggles in theirs, find hope in their triumphant moments.  It's almost religious, and sometimes their...people hood... can be usurped by what we need and expect them to be.   

In keeping with my current interest in long form journalism (albeit, entertainment journalism)  I found two features on two of the great stars of the past, as seen by the fractured and mischievous sensibility of trickster, Truman Capote.  Both of them made me rethink what I thought I knew.

The first one is a 1980 article by Truman in which he recounts an intimate encounter with Marilyn, and it's a tellingly different look at someone who often gets reduced to a wispy, powder faced baby doll.    The second, is a profile of a profile, the story of how Truman Capote seduced Marlon Brando into giving up more of himself than he'd planned.  The resulting piece premiered in The New Yorker in 1957 and was the forerunner of the current trend in celebrity journalism.  Both articles are juicy as hell. 

For those of you who are also interested in longer articles, and like me were having trouble finding them, longform.org culls some of the greatest pieces on the web, old and new, and will surely provide you with hours of reading pleasure.

Michael Chabon as seen by Kathryn Schulz

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was one of those novels that I devoured like porn when I was in my early twenties, that is to say with one I glued to it's pages and ears to door in case someone should stumble upon me reading it.  I was at that time, not ready to come out of the closet (even to myself) but still had this... "itching", this intense curiosity about what it meant to be gay.  Luckily the book was a respectable book, appreciated by critics, and mainstream enough, with a bland enough cover that no one who might see me reading it (people at the office, friends, my parents)  would have any inkling what it was about.  And if anybody did asked me what it was about, I told them in a way that I hoed sounded as blase as I intended it to. 

After all, what was I hiding?  I was just a straight dude with a passing interest in how a different breed lived, right?  But as I hungrily flipped page after page I should have known that I was far too curious about what might happen between two men and a lone bottle of corn oil than any straight guy would be.  And while I hated the protagonist for cheating on his girlfriend with a man, I just as much pitied him for his inability to escape what I deemed at that time to be mild perversion, and   feared that his fate would be my own.

So ... that was my introduction to the hesitantly hopeful work of Michael Chabon and his well meaning protagonists who seemed doomed to fuck up their lives and others.  Years later I read and absolutely loved his short story collection "Werewolves in Their Youth" for its ability to suck me into the pivotal moments of ordinary men's lives, and equally adored The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for it's epic scope and rich pulpy details. 

Aside from his work, there is something else that has kept me intrigued by him, a personal ambiguity that I find fascinating.  He is so mysterious, fumbling, intellectual... a straight man who admits to having had affairs with men, a man who writes both the high and low-brow (aside from his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, he also wrote the screenplay for John Carter) He's a kind of hipster/geek/intellect/sensitive/hetero-flexible/dreamboat, and in short, I would love to be the proverbial fly on the wall of his office, and living room, and bedroom. 

Thanks to Kathryn Schulz and her feature originally penned for New York Magazine, I feel like I have been.  She has a great ability to evoke his style, his awkward charm, and his gentle intensity, and has crafted an article that is as much of a page turner as Chabon's compellingly readable works. 


 

"Where in the World Can I Find the Camp Classic 'Stepping Out'?"

It's a rhetorical question, because I already know that the deliciously hokey and heartwarming 1991 comedy about a former Broadway dancer named Mavis Turner (Liza, but of course, looking and sounding lovely) and her rag tag bunch of tappers, is available in its entirety on Youtube.  This doesn't mean I'm going to get rid of the VHS copy my best friend and I got from E-bay, but it does mean I will be watching this shit in all its grainy glory, again and again on-line!

Rounding out the cast are Julie Walters as the compulsive cleaner in the class, Ellen Greene as the slightly slutty Maxine, Jane Krakowski looking surprisingly fresh, Bill Irwin, Andrea Martin, and Shelley Winters!!  What?  Yes, it's true!  They DID get that many amazing talents in one film and it is somehow not available on DVD.  Trust me, you will laugh at the film more than you laugh with it (watching Liza Minnelli try to play "edge" is almost as funny as watching Jessica Chastain do "punk" in the horror film Mama) but like the amateur tappers at it's center, this film just oozes heart and the desire to please and if you aren't crying little sequined tears at the end, you might have a cold, cold soul.

ALSO- check out Nora Dunn playing a biatch as only she can, and Dean McDermott (yep, Tori's husband) as "young man at bar".  I know you've been panting for the link, so here it is...

A Podcast I Love: Off-stage and...On The Air

I love podcasts.  Love 'em!  They are basically radio shows available on the air, and while some of them are available on the FM dial, many of them are produced exclusively for the internet.  Whatever your interests or passion (old time radio shows, Harry Potter, crocheting) no matter how eccentric,  it's likely someone on the web is podcasting about it.  Some are professional, very polished shows and some are as simple as a guy (or girl) on a microphone.  In case you've not listened to them, they are treasure troves for artists of any kind, as many shows focus on the creative process, explore art and culture, and these shows will also talk in depth to wildly talented folks like John Hodgman or  Charles Busch, or Neil Gaiman, who don't get a huge amount of time on the radio or TV.    I hope, in the future to talk about a lot of my favorites, but thought I'd start with a local podcast I enjoy which is available on I-tunes.  That Podcast is...(drum roll please)



  Off-stage and... On The Air (with Lisa Scheps and Nicole Shiro)-


 My college professor used to drill it my and my peers young undergraduate brains that if wanted to call ourselves theatre artists we needed to suck up every bit of knowledge we could about current events, culture,visual arts, food, theatre history, and certainly about what was happening in the present in the theatre scene.

I paraphrase him and say, if you want to call yourself a theatre artist (or theatre appreciator), especially in the Austin area, you need to be listening to Off-stage and... On-the Air.  The two hosts (Lisa Scheps and Nicole Shiro) are opinionated, passionate, kooky and have a charmingly self deprecating sense humor.  Both care deeply about their subject, but don't usually "insist upon themselves". They're the kind of people you want to hang out with at a dinner party, and that's exactly what I want out of an on-air personality.  As for the show's content, not only will you hear run-downs and reviews about what's going on in Broadway (what's in development, what's opening and what's closing, and reviews on those shows), but you'll also hear what happened "on this date in theatre history", and get interviews with Austin artists discussing their current projects. 

I've been on the show a couple of times and seeing it from that side is, needlessly to say, a very skewed way of catching the show.  I was so caught up in how I'd sound on the air, whether I'd fuck something up in the dramatic reading of the scene we were performing or some other self-involved nonsense, that I didn't get to enjoy the rest of the program.  As an audience member, I get so comfy and relaxed and I often listen more than once to soak up the tidbits I missed the first time.  So, please sidle up to your radio station on 91.7 KOOP Wednesdays at 2PM CST or download the podcast on I-tunes, or at their website. 
http://www.offstageontheair.blogspot.com

And if you are like I was and had only been on it and never taken the opportunity to listen, do yourself a favor and "step right up".

I will only eat one kind of pickle from now on!

Clausens, that is.  For a while I'd taken issue with the vast difference in quality between the pickles I got at the deli and the ones I found in jars at the store.  In comparison the store pickles were limp, flaccid, and the juice resembled what I imagine formaldehyde might taste like.  And then, a miracle!  I was hanging out at my friend Meg and Dave's house, when Dave offered me a bite of his pickle.  It was delicious!  Crisp, salty, delicious!  I had to see where they came from, because from now on I would only eat this pickle.  One pickle for the rest of my life:  Clausen.  Halleluj.

Imagine my surprise when I went to the pickle aisle of my local store and found it overrun by the Vlasic Stork, and some asshole named "Miss Olive".  No thanks.  I'd been ruined for other pickles.  If it couldn't be Clausen, it would be nothing.  I went to another store, same result.  Had those bastards run the Clausens out of the pickle business I wondered?  A search on the Internet revealed no such occurrence.  Thanks to a quick text to Dave I discovered that Clausens were in the deli area, refrigerated.  Because Clausens are NEVER heated!  I love them so I've even taken to dipping them in hummus.  What a snack sensation.

Accept no other.

Ira Update

I mentioned several posts ago that my cat Ira, who's been with me for many years, has been experiencing major health issues and I was struggling with thoughts of putting him to sleep.  Opinions on the subject were varied, but most were leaning toward the unhhappy ending, and I was completely confused about what was best for him.   Emotions were up and down for about two weeks in conjunction with his health outlook.  And then, a a couple Tuesdays ago my vet became more hopeful that he might make it.  He was under the bed in hiding most of the day, but not all, and the fact that he was feeling at all sociable seemed to be a good sign, plus, the veterinary dentist had seen other cats with his condition recover, and he was taking food by syringe, so home he went.  

I syringe fed him three times a day, gave him pain meds twice a day, and injected fluids into him twice a day for several days.  It wasn't fun for either of us, but it got results, and I'm happy to report that he is back to his sassy, vocal self, sleeping on the bed rather than under it, and he is even drinking and feeding himself (though I'm still supplementing with the syringe so we can get his weight up closer to where it should be).  In short, he seems happy, and I'm glad I waited it out, as bleak as things were seeming for a while.  Thanks to everyone who gave their advice and well wishes, as they were sorely needed.

The Punchy Players!

The Punchy Players have been creating some hilarious videos at their youtube channel featuring celebs and TV characters of the past including Hazel, Caroline Ingalls, Lucy, Liza Minnelli, Julie Andrews and Ann Miller.  Their humor is always fresh, sharp, and never mean spirited, which I love.  They often feature videos with Judy Garland, and they first came to my notice through "Judy's Cream of Wheat".  While that one is definitely a keeper, this new one might be my favorite.  It imagines what might happen if a child brought Judy to "Show and Tell".

And... here's an original medley, for those of you who haven't seen much of Judy's 1960's work.

"Total Faith" due out on April 16th

A new cd from Broadway sass-bucket and all around talent, Faith Prince, is due out in just a few days!  Those who live in Austin and were lucky enough to catch her at Austin Cabaret Theater a few years back will be pleased to know that almost all the material is new, aside from a story about a duck which I'm assuming is the same one she told at The Mansion at Judges Hill, because how many duck stories can there be?  For those who wish to revisit that evening, many of those same songs and stories can be found on her previous cd, A Leap of Faith. 

A few of the promising tracks from the current disc include: a medley of "Somewhere That's Green" and "Suddenly, Seymour", "If He Walked into My Life", "The Ladies Who Lunch", and "But the World Goes 'Round". 

Sir Ian McKellan Spreads the Word

 

At the opening night of the new "Breakfast At Tiffany's", Sir Ian McKellan dropped a juicy tidbit to Michael Musto.  Naturally, while discussing the show (which McKellan isn't in, but was attending) McKellan mentioned that he hadn't seen the film, but had auditioned for its director, Blake Edwards a while back and spoke to someone, asking... 

"Do you think they'd ever employ me if they knew I was gay?  I was told 'What is the problem?  He's gay - and so is his wife'.  That's Hollywood."

Tell it like it T-I- Is, Sir Ian!

Of course, I don't know the specifics of the situation, but this rumor has been making the rounds for years so it's not exactly breaking news, and I'm not sure if I believe it (and if do, it naturally doesn't change my love for either of them).  Still, it's interesting to hear it from such a notable third hand source.

In related news...

Love in Bloom?

Julie Andrews' television special from the seventies, "Step Into Spring", will be available on DVD for the first time beginning April 23rd.  It features performances by Leslie Uggams, Leo Sayer, and...the Muppets!

Updates

1. It looks like I'm moving.  Again.  I've only been in my apartment for about a year, but a dear friend of mine is looking for a roommate, and so after thinking about it a little, I went with my gut AND my practical side and leapt.  Yes I enjoy living by myself and the privacy it provides.  But I also love my friend, and the fun we'll have, and the excitement of a new place to decorate and make home.  Life's too short to live stuck in a hobbit hole.

2.  I have a job tomorrow.  It's a one day temp assignment, and it's not amazing pay, but for the first time in a little over a month it allows me to put my foot back into the workd of the office.

3.  I finished writing a full-length screenplay.  It's something I've been working on for almost three years now, and I finally finished it.  Awhile back I was having trouble fixating on an idea to expand into a long form piece and then I finally remembered that I had something already in progress.  A story I was nearly finished with, but had deserted due to fears it wouldn't be brilliant.  Well, I went back to it and at 10:00 PM this evening, printed it out.  Halleluj.

4.  I don't know if I'm someone who can write much about relationships while I'm in them.  Baring thoughts and feelings, hopes and hesitations while I'm still sussing them out?  That doesn't seem like something to post in a blog, but to confide to friends.  Trust me, once those relationships are over, I feel like they are fair game, but until then... Suffice it to say that I've had a few dates with a nice guy, and I like him. 

Explorer of the World

I remember walking to school as a first grader, by myself.  I lived just down the street from my school, and it was a very safe neighborhood, but regardless, my mother probably wouldn't feel as safe letting me do that today.  But then?  I would count the cracks on the sidewalk as I headed to school.  On rainy days I would look at the worms drowned in the puddles and smell there sickly sweet smell of death, and feel sad for them.  I would skip.  I would run past one house and then walk past the next.  On colder days I would put my head under the collar of my jacket and look through the button holes like I was a headless man.  "Nothing to look at folks, just a headless man walking down the street."  And I would talk to trees.  Have little conversations with them.  Pause and say hello, ask the tree how it's day was.  I would shake it's limb in greeting.  Sometimes my conversations went overlong and my mom would walk down the street to find me, and there I'd be.  Hanging out with a tree.  We all do things like this, as kids.  As a kid, I had "wonder".  I was excited by and curious about things around me.   I explored my world thoroughly.  What happened?

Today, I am an explorer of people.  Of media.  Of MS Outlook.  I look in faces and try to find out what people are thinking, but not saying.  I watch movies and diagnose the structure, and try to apply the things that worked to my own writings.  I double check emails to make sure the spelling and punctuation are correct and that they can be easily comprehended by one who should read it.

But I don't taste a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like I used to, or try to count the stars at night.  Who does?  As people, we explore these kinds of things for awhile and then forget about them, take them for granted.  We've discovered enough about these things to know which ones will and will not hurt you, and if they will how to avoid that hurt.  Then we get on to the big business of the world like achieving those tasks that other people give you, or that you give yourself, and almost always involve paper work.  Yes, we need to support ourselves.  We don't have the luxuries we had as kids.  But I don't do that kind of exploring on my off time either.  If not then, when?

I want to explore more.  One of the things I want to do is go to the Museum of Natural History on campus.  That's my next task.  And the Blanton Museum.  But more than that, I want to pick up shiny rocks.  Collect leaves and paste them in a book.  Look at a lady bug on the tip of my finger.  That's the stuff that makes life fun, and gives all the drudgery of the day meaning. 

Parents get a second childhood in a way, as they get to see this world through their son's or daughter's eyes.  They answer their multitudes of questions and ponder alongside them.  They can't help it.  It must be one of the reasons people say "If you want to learn about something, teach it." 

Well, I don't have a child, but I can become a kid again, in a way, by inviting myself to look at the world a little differently than I usually do.  See how many orange colored shirts I can see at work.  Look at who has curly hair and who has straight.  It's not too late to capture that childhood wisdom, as long as you can stop long enough to remember its worth

Toasty Posting

Random Thoughts:
 
1.  New Girl is totally fucking underrated.  I've watched like twelve episodes in a row and I still love it.  And I love my new imaginary best friends,  And my imaginary hook-up Jake Johnson.

2.  Perks of Being A Wallflower is the best thing to watch when you are feeling a little blue.  It's so good it makes me laugh cry.  That's when you are trying so hard not to cry that you start laughing and then it turns into jagged tears.

3.  I don't care how young Ezra Miller is (20), I still want to lick him.

4.  Will someone PLEASE release the 1991 post-World War II drama Home Front on DVD??

5.  I miss Cedar Rapids, Iowa (my birthplace), land of Loose Meat Sandwiches, Happy Chef Restaurants, garage sales, blue skies to rival Santa Fe.

Calling all JILFs!!

I love Jewish men, and am obviously not the only one.  Shalom Life has posted their top 50 hottest Jewish men.  If you are also a fan of the JILF (Jew I'd like to fuck for those of you out of the loop, and this term is used by Shalom Life so I feel absolutely no guilt in using it) please check out...

 http://www.shalomlife.com/culture/17032/top-50-hottest-jewish-men-10-1/

Here are my top three (in no particular order):

1.  Ben Feldman (AKA Michael Ginsberg from Mad Men)

I don't actually know much about Ben Feldman himself, but his character in Mad Men is brilliant, artistic, outspoken, eccentric and adorable.  I just want to wrap my arms tight around him.

2.  Daniel Radcliffe

In interviews he's so articulate and open, beautifully liberal... From all I've read he has an amazing work ethic and dives whole-heartedly into anything he attempts.  Plus he's a very vocal advocate for gay rights. 

3.  Matt Heinz

He's an openly gay Doctor, a Democrat, a representative for Arizona and a current Congressional candidate.  Need I say more?

Music for an Overcast Day

I was introduced to the music of Johnny Hartman several years ago by a musician friend of mine who was kind enough to say he thought my singing voice was reminiscent of his, and upon hearing this "make you swoon", mellow, vulnerable but intensely masculine voice I just fell in love. 

For a while I listened to this album non-stop, thoroughly annoying my friend Aaron, who is dictatorial about when certain music should be played.  "Respect the Seasons!".  He was adamant that the Johnny Hartman John Coltrane album was only appropriate for Autumn and Winter, but with the weather as cold and wet as it is today, I think it's just perfect. 

Living in Uncertainty

Today I made my third visit to the veterinarian in five days. 

My little eighteen year old cat had been a little lethargic lately and holding his mouth in a strange manner, so I brought him in.  After the examination, blood work, tests, the thought was he might have an abscess tooth.  Fluids were administered as Ira (yes, he's named after Ira Gershwin and you won't believe how many well meaning vet technicians tell me "she's" beautiful after hearing the name) was dehydrated.  He was also very thin.  The mouth pain had caused him to stop eating the past couple of days and he was even skinnier than usual. 

The second visit was for x-rays on his teeth and to have surgery.  Later that day I got the call from my sweet and wonderful vet, Dr. Baker, that both bottom canines were removed as they were infected and there was bone damage as well, but Ira was currently recovering.  When I picked him up I came to realize things were worse than I thought.  He might not heal, portions of the lower jaw might need to be removed...the phrase "quality of life" was placed on the table.  Ker-plunk.  Euthanasia was an option.  Somehow I hadn't thought of that possibility.  I thought "infected tooth".  Remove it and all will be well.  It's that factors of bone damage and kidney disease that make everything dicey.  It did bring me an incredible amount of comfort to hear her say that she didn't like putting that out there as she and everyone had grown so attached to him in a short amount of time as he looked and acted just like one of the tech's beloved cats that had passed.   

When they brought him to me he practically leaped into my arms (as much as a doped up cat eighteen year old cat can leap) and I just held him close.  The vet talked me through it a little longer, we decided there were still too many possibilities at this point and he was going home to heal.

Ira didn't eat that night, nor drink, though several times throughout the night I saw him huddled over his water dish contemplating the process as if trying to work up the nerve.  I didn't sleep, but lay on the floor in case he wanted to be near me.  He didn't.  He was uncharacteristically solitary. 

Which takes us to today and visit three.  I called the vet with my questions based on the prior night's behavior and euthanasia seemed more likely.  As much as I didn't want to think about it, I was beginning to accept the possibility.

My concerns were, and are, the following:

1.  This is my first pet as an adult.  I've had him his whole life, rescued his little yowling, three month old butt from the humane society in Minneapolis.  He's my responsibility and his welfare is in my hands. 

2.  In the past I've made what some might call "rash" decisions just to get out of the uncertainty of a moment, and I'm learning that no matter how terrifying and painful the uncertainty can be, it's crucial to suffer through it and make the right choice.  I don't want to make a decision too quickly that I can never take back.

3.  This decision is about what is best for Ira.  Not what is most convenient and as pain free as possible for me.  I have to do right by him and so I'm not about to let his life end unless it's truly the right choice.  I don't want him to suffer needlessly, but I don't want to cut his life short if he has a fighting chance.  After all, he's been counted out before and pulled through.



When Ira was taken in for his actual follow-up, things seemed much more confusing.  A vet had been consulted and he was optimistic.  One of the local vets there was not.  If a feeding tube had to be used, too many cats didn't come back from that process.  Further surgery was not recommended.  Others have certainly euthanized in similar situations to mine.  It was not "unreasonable".  That term quality of life got tossed about...this was when the whole thing hit me.  This could really happen. 

The doctor talked me through the process, what euthanasia would be like, how some owner's don't want to be in the room so they can remember their pet as he was throughout life and not at the end.  I could only look down at the floor as I heard this as I started to think I might lose it in front of her and no guy likes to ugly cry in front of a relative stranger. 

In my gut I know it is not time yet, so we continue to wait and hope, hope for that little nudge that tells me how to do right by my dear friend who's been with me through so much and deserves all the care, comfort, focus and consideration I can give.

Awaiting "Unsinkable"

I awoke early this morning and finished Jess Walter's sprawling novel Beautiful Ruins.  While it was an enjoyable read, I wasn't as moved as I expected to be based on all the reviews I've been reading, and a lot of that is because much of it seemed...calculated.  I could see behind the illusion.  Could see why the author had placed certain passages in the story, knew what he was attempting to make me feel, and as a result his manipulations were largely unsuccessful.  Anytime an author tries to place his opinions about a character or an incident on me, not only does it take me out of the story, but I tend to rebel.

I'm sad to say I'm much more excited about Debbie Reynold's new Hollywood tell-all (which I had pre-ordered and is set to arrive on my door step tomorrow) in which she claims to tell some pretty juicy stories observed as one of the Hollywood's in-crowd during the fifties and sixties.  I've always loved Debbie, admired her deep respect for Hollywood's past, and loved her bawdy sense of humor which she promises to dispense in the upcoming book.

Now that most of the people she's worked with from MGM's hey-day have passed on, she's said in interviews that she feels freer than she has in the past to discuss their lives.  And though it's likely to be a little salacious, I won't be able to keep myself from tearing into it and devouring it whole. 
One of the tidbits involves Shelly Winters at a party wearing a huge skirt, under which not one, but two men were servicing her.  Yes, it's tawdry, and yes, I'm sorry I placed that picture in your head, because no matter how young she was at the time this little incident took place, I have a feeling you are imagining something closer to this Shelley Winters...

I'm hoping there will be a couple stories about Judy, as I know the two of them were good friends and  I have a strong feeling Debbie will do well by her.  After all, everybody knows how wild and crazy ole' Shelley was anyway, so her memory will hardly be tarnished.