You may’ve heard the name in passing over the years .

Such a catchy name, but couldn’t quite place her.

Old-time movie star? Puerto Rican musical import? Variety show hostess?

On January 30th, we lost one of Broadway’s best, at the age of 91.

Never fear, my buried musical theater maniac mindset has been reignited.

Allow me to tell you about Miss Chita Rivera.

West Side Story

Even if you didn’t know her, I’m sure your life has been touched by the art that she helped create, the art she in fact originated.

Ever see the movie West Side Story? You know, where Rita Moreno wears the purple dress and dances on a rooftop to the pulsating rhythms of the song America?

Great number.

Chita did it first!

Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and choreographer Jerome Robbins — musical theater heavyweights and not exactly easy men to please — selected her to originate the role of Anita in their masterpiece, West Side Story, which opened all the way back in 1957.

She must’ve made quite an impression.

It’s pretty darn rare for leading roles to be entrusted to dancers alone. Anita also sings but most especially must also act upon learning of the death of her lover, Bernardo. Both Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose won Oscars for the meaty role of Anita, of course, for they were handed excellent, well-worked material.

But it was Chita Rivera in that rehearsal hall in the late ‘50’s, working out the kinks, learning the complicated Bernstein songs like A Boy Like That, and helping the collaborators craft this now-mainstay of American musical theater for its original debut.

CHICAGO

Most people with even a passing knowledge of musical theater recognize the opening vamp to the song All That Jazz, sung with gusto by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Oscar-winning movie Chicago. The musical’s revival is still playing on Broadway to this day, and All That Jazz opens the show, lighting up the night with the promise of fun.

Chita did it first!

Chita Rivera was selected by none other than Bob Fosse to originate the role of Velma Kelly in the original Broadway production of Chicago in 1975.

When I first learned of Chicago in the early 1990’s, it was literally still a forgotten musical way ahead of its time. There’d been no revival yet and the film was still a decade away. But when I heard the passion and bite behind Chita’s rendition of All That Jazz on the CD for the first time, I was mesmerized.

Talk about putting a stamp on something!

Again, a dancer first who can also act and sing — a triple threat, name-up-in-lights Broadway star, entrusted with the daunting task of opening new material to a potentially vicious New York press.

Bye Bye Birdie

A favorite musical for high school drama clubs, you may have smiled (or suffered) your way through a production or two of Bye Bye Birdie in your day, silently wondering to yourself —

Hmm, why is the lead female character going into a solo dance number again here in Act Two? Is this really needed? Is this advancing the story?

That’s what happens when the role was tailor-made for a very specific star who can mesmerize an audience through dance.

Chita did it first!

To me, this is the one most theater people overlook — the fact that an enormously successful 1960 Broadway musical had Dick Van Dyke acting opposite a Latina leading lady love interest as Rosie.

And when you’ve got Chita in a lead, you need to incorporate dance into the character’s numbers, craft the entire character around her. The Spanish spitfire stereotypes and innuendos are all through the show, and to this day the opening song An English Teacher is a difficult ask of any actress — it was written for Chita’s deep, husky voice specifically, written for their star. Talk about some low bass notes!

The movie role somehow went to a heavily-made-up Janet Leigh (cough).

But oh well, at that point the film had become mainly an Ann-Margret vehicle so the character of Rosie was considered second-fiddle to the teen focus anyway.

As a late ‘80’s developing musical theater nerd studying Original Cast Recordings, I knew she was worthy of my praise. I’d never seen her perform, I’d never met her, yet I adored her.

As any young theater kid does, I caught The Tony Awards and saw a 60-something Chita tear up the stage in a dance number for the original Broadway musical, Kiss Of The Spider Woman.

Vanessa Williams eventually took over the role, but, say it with me —

Chita did it first.

She won her second Tony for Spider Woman (her first was stunningly not until The Rink opposite Liza Minnelli in 1984). And though I had the music memorized, as a working actor I never had the funds to see the Spider Woman tour when it arrived in Cleveland, Ohio.

But I was certainly aware of the show, because the musical director of one of my musicals proclaimed —

“I’m going downtown to see Chita, because I want to be inspired, seeing someone in their 60s like me, dancing like that, headlining a show.”

But that’s the thing, with Chita it was about longevity. She was a poster child for the aging dancer, carrying shows into her seventh decade. Despite a horrible car accident that broke a leg in 12 places — a nightmare injury for any dancer — she was back winning Tonys in a show full of dance.

Nine

But yours truly didn’t lay eyes on Chita, in person, until 2003, when I scored a ticket to the revival of Nine staring Antonio Banderas. During the spine-tingling Follies Bergere number I had to pinch myself. I was witnessing the original Anita from 1957, the original Rosie from 1960, the original Velma from 1975 — and I gasped and applauded with the entire audience as 70-year-old Chita masterfully threw a leg up onto Antonio’s shoulder during a sexy tango number.

A consummate professional — one of the old school who didn’t skip matinees, who did all eight shows a week, and was never out of the show. Sure, there were flops and disappointments. Shows that didn’t quite go anywhere. The gypsy years as an unknown dancer. And then the legendary-status roles in The Visit and in the revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the 2000s.

The woman just kept working.

But apart from a great role in the movie Sweet Charity, where director Bob Fosse captured her dance prowess in the Shirley MacLaine-led film, Chita remained known and worshiped mainly by Broadway devotees alone.

It was the medium that had blessed her the most, and she rewarded us all by coming back to it again and again.

In December 2022, eleven months ago, I learned that Chita was doing a one-woman cabaret show in Orange County just south of LA. I knew in my heart of hearts this may be my last chance to see her perform, certainly in person. She was a few weeks away from turning 90.

And as the piano player brought forth the familiar vamp of All That Jazz, it was impossible not to be moved. When she performed Nowadays, there were chills – chills!

I’m so mad at myself for not at least trying to step backstage after, to thank her for her years, her contributions to a favorite art form. It’s not like the older crowd in the audience was rushing the stage door. Alas.

But at least I got to spend those 90 minutes with her storytelling, with her unique, rich, guttural voice cutting across the footlights. She’d been there, in those rehearsal rooms, crafting material with egomaniacs like Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Leonard Bernstein. She worked for heavyweights like Jerry Herman, Kander & Ebb, Gower Champion and lived to tell the tale, came out unscathed with professional reputation intact.

It’s a great lesson in aging. In persisting. And remaining relevant. Chita worked with Ethel Merman in the early 50’s and went on to collaborate with Rob Marshall and the current crop of Broadway stars like Stephanie J. Block.

I’ve always had a soft spot for those non-movie stars who headlined on Broadway and put in the work. Bless you Chita, I somehow thought you’d live forever. It somehow seemed that you might.

I’ll end with this.

My partner Eddie is a former professional dancer and had a brief stint on Broadway way before meeting me. You can imagine the tingles of excitement that went through me the day I learned that even he had collaborated with and even danced with Chita Rivera — sharing the stage with her in the musical Merlin.

And again, the same story — friendly, respectful woman, highly professional and a legend and star with deep respect for dancers.

And my man got to dance with her!?!

That’s one degree away, folks! One degree of Kevin Bacon away from the one, the only, Miss Chita Rivera.

Rest, dear lady, and my hat is off to you.

Quite a few years back, my then-boyfriend Jim and I were in downtown Los Angeles to partake in a favorite pastime, live theater. As we wandered the plaza, enjoying the kind of evening only Southern California can provide, we noticed two ladies, probably in their early 80s, walking in front of us. As they approached the steps mid-plaza, one of the ladies lost her footing and started to teeter. We gasped. In slow motion, we watched as she reached out to her friend for help, subsequently pulling both of them down to the pavement, bam! 

“Oh no!” we exclaimed aloud, albeit for different reasons. Whereas Jim and another gentleman went dashing to help these grannies out of concern, my “oh no” meant something more like, “Oh no, now um, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen… allow me to just turn my back on these ladies like I didn’t even see it and, oh look, discover something non-existent on the wall over here that’s just fascinating,” which is exactly what transpired. 

An airline pilot, Jim’s personality is hard-wired to deal with a crisis and confront it head on. After helping the ladies up and assessing all was okay, imagine his surprise to find he was performing this altruistic task alone, for I was still rooted to the spot where we’d first witnessed the fall, a good 30 feet away, kind of facing the opposite direction.

“What the hell?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I just… couldn’t,” I replied, feebly.

Jim had just witnessed one of Joe’s classic I’ve-Got-to-Leave-The-Room moments. Even though there was no official “room” to be “left,” there I was, still trying to leave and be anywhere else. 

A short time after, Jim witnessed another episode during a Stephen Sondheim celebration concert we attended at the Hollywood Bowl. As stars like Anne Hathaway, Bernadette Peters, Eric McCormack and others came out for final bows together, we watched Angela Lansbury catch her foot on a mic cable and boom, ungracefully fall to the stage floor. Sixteen thousand people all went from mad cheering to a gigantic, “Ooooooh!” at the same time as a beloved then-almost-80-year-old woman hit the deck. How embarrassing and awful for her. Of course all the normal people kept their eyes on the stage to see how she was. I put my hands over my face and placed my butt back in my seat so I couldn’t witness more.

“If you could’ve climbed over that hedge behind us, you would’ve,” Jim said, shaking his head. 

So what exactly constitutes a Have-to-Leave-the-Room moment, you ask?

A stand-up comedian or improv person is completely bombing up there. 

I’m not sure why it’s my responsibility to take on all their pain and shortcomings, but I do, and therefore this needs to be avoided at all costs just in case there’s the slightest whiff of them not being funny and making me uncomfortable. BE funny!!, otherwise you’re making me nervous!

Karaoke-as-an-activity, period. 

Do you remember the scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding when Julia Roberts connives to make Cameron Diaz’s character look bad in front of her fiancé by forcing her to do bad karaoke singing? That right there was a four-alarm Leave the Room Moment for me, even just on film! Thank Christ I saw that flick for the first time on DVD and could fast-forward through that queasiness! If I had been in the theater, popcorn would’ve been flying as I shoved my way out of the aisle for a fake bathroom break. 

That Figure Skater is about to attempt a Triple Axel

Is it just me? It can’t only be me. The tension as they approach every jump tears at my stomach lining – what if they FALL??!!? – and I just have to leave the room and not watch. Consequently I don’t get to see much competitive ice skating at all.

Betty-Jean’s About to Sing the National Anthem

I don’t watch a lot of sports, but if I do, I can guarantee you I won’t be arriving to my seat until after The Star Spangled Banner. Super Bowl Party? Cool, my majestic, well-timed arrival will be after the kickoff, when things are safe. That one time I arrived too early I was inexplicably in the kitchen, the margarita blender suddenly spinning during, “Oooo-oh say, can you see.” If those notes reaches the ear canal, you will have the unique pleasure of watching a panic race through my body. I’m not sure why. It could be bad associations with forced-patriotism, it could be that America the Beautiful should be our National Anthem instead of a song about the bombs bursting and the rockets red-glaring, or it could be that the I-want-to-be-on-American-Idol approach has ruined the song for me. 

The Doctor’s Waiting Room has a TV and The View is on

This is my one hundred percent definition of Hell. I will get up and hover by the door or wait out in the hallway and that receptionist can just come find me. Side note: the biggest nightmare for my future is being in some old-folks home or hospital where something like Keeping Up with the Kardashians is foisted on me, blaring out of some TV without my consent, all day long. Just end me, please.

That Sports Journalist is Interviewing an Athlete Post-Match Again

Roger Federer, you just spent three or four physically and mentally draining hours defeating your opponent, so congrats, here’s some lame person with a mic to ask you the same BS questions you’ve heard for 15 years after every match. I’m always amped to watch an entire tennis match with glee, but the moment Mary Jo Fernandez or some other schmo steps out there with a microphone, you can literally witness a dust cloud as I go flying out of the room like the Road Runner from Looney Tunes. No thank you!

You get the idea. Some of those are just not-fun situations to endure. Like when things go wrong during a live TV broadcast. Or anytime Liza Minnelli decides to speak – um yeah, I’ll just be over here, examining the egg salad… is she done talking yet?

So many friends rabidly live and die by award shows and yearly Oscar parties, and nothing feels more cringeworthy to me – all that fake patter and self-congratulatory muck – oooooh I just got the shivers. How can they take it in like candy, while I’m always squirming and have to stand in the back of the room, swaying back and forth, pretending to watch, hoping for it to just be over?

But allow me to now confess the one event that tops them all and takes I-Have-to-Leave-The-Room to a different level, and that is…. The Toasts at Weddings. 

Let’s go back to dear old Jim again…. Oh all the Joe-isms he witnessed first-hand over the years. We’d been invited to his pal Mark’s wedding in Portland, Oregon, and Jim was one of a trio of friends asked to give a toast. Naturally he was worried about it, trying to balance his humorous and heartfelt moments carefully. It was important to him and he appreciated my support at his side, as his significant other.

Apparently he gave a lovely speech, or so I’ve been told. Just before the time came for this ritual, I excused myself for a lengthy bathroom break that segued into a 15-minute linger over the wedding cake table, followed by a re-visit to the photo collages on the walls. Crisis averted.

“You didn’t even hear my speech, did you?” Jim asked, tracking me down by the dessert table. 

“No, but I’m sure it was great,” I countered. “Isn’t the cake unique?”

“You just left the room?” he asked, smirking. “Who does that?” 

He had a point, but this is the big one for me, folks. It doesn’t even have to be a real wedding. Do you know how many damn movie plotlines and TV episodes all hinge on speeches or toasts at weddings, and how many clichéd, predictable, dewy-eyed or unintended spill-the-bean plot-twists tumble out during the best friend or bridesmaid’s speech? That’s a lot of fast-forwarding for me to do! My poor fingers can’t grab the remote fast enough.

I’m not unromantic, it just triggers my flight response, which by the way, certainly didn’t serve me well as a cater-waiter when every other weekend’s gig was a wedding. My God, when I think of all the poor schmucks who missed out on coffee service at my tables over the years. “Sorry Phyllis, I know you’re the mother of the bride and all but my ass cannot be in the room during the toast, so flag down some other waiter please, I’m gonna pretend to search for something off the floor for a time corresponding exactly to all seven tipsy speeches, thanks so much.” I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!!

Did I mention I’m the guy who until recently thought anxiety wasn’t even a real thing?!? A psychologist would have a field day! 

I once had a therapist allude to this, saying, “The standup comedian who’s tanking has nothing to do with you. It’s not your responsibility to take care of them.” Well said, but not an easy mantra for a born-and-bred perfectionist. Add in a healthy dose of avoid-confrontation-at-all-costs and you’ve got a glimpse into my stunted-growth 20s and 30s.

When did it all start? I’d love to proudly claim these idiosyncrasies flew under the radar, but then I’m reminded of the high school best bud (another Jim, ironically) who once assembled a VHS tape for me senior year that he literally labeled, “Those Things That Joe Cannot Stand to Watch or Listen To.” Apparently there were glaring neuroses even then, like the off-key singers who made my shoulder blades slam together during rehearsals, or Act II of our high school production of Anything Goes, which showcased three boring or ill-conceived musical numbers in a row. By a godsend, my character wasn’t on stage for any of them, giving me the opportunity to hide offstage and pretend they weren’t even happening. 

“That Xylophone solo is so stupid during that number, right?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, I don’t really watch it,” I blurted. “It’s so painful I just have to look away.” 

“What?!” he demanded. 

“Same with the horrible “Blow Gabriel Blow,” I offered. “It’s so embarrassing. I’m sooooo glad I’m not onstage during that mess.” 

Hence, the VHS tape where he threw together all those moments Joe Can’t Stand to Watch or Listen To. I still don’t know if I ever perused it all the way through. 

Same story in 1996 when I was in a production of Gypsy – one of my favorite musicals – when I was the little snot who thought the woman playing our lead, Mama Rose, wasn’t up to par, so I chose to sit in a corner in the dressing room, as far away from the stage as possible, and cringe, cringe as she did her rendition of the final number. “It’s almost over, it’s almost over,” I’d inwardly chant, hoping I wasn’t guilty by association. I may’ve even put on Walkman headphones once or twice, who can say?

Rude much? And lemme tell ya, it’s not like my number in that show was perfection either.

And yet somehow I wanted to be a theater director?!!?? Can you imagine how counterintuitive it is for a guy with this personality quirk to be tasked with gently nuancing every moment and every performance when he can’t even keep his eyes open and has to bolt for the exit when something starts to go wrong?

What kind of ego does a guy have to have to imagine everything happening around him is a potential negative reflection on himself? 

Issues much??? Do you wanna perhaps get over yourself?

I used to convince myself the reaction to the bad comedian or the falling athlete was out of compassion and care, that I was a good person who just cared SO much.

Nope. Nada. Yo, mister control freak, that would be a big fat NO.

I’m just now realizing how many close friends have witnessed these quirks despite my best intentions. I’m also awakening to how much of life I felt I needed to miss or skip out on because it was too uncomfortable… and not perfect. 

But you’ll be pleased to know most of these examples are from at least a decade ago if not more, and that with age there’s been progress!, as evidenced by the new term my partner Eddie coined: Hanging in the Doorway, as in, “Are you having a Hang-In-the-Doorway moment, Joe?” I’m not fully leaving the room any longer, you see?… just sort of lingering in the doorway, halfway in, halfway out, so I have the option to bolt if that beautiful figure skater gal takes a tumble. Or possibly, just possibly, sit there and watch her fall and realize I’m okay and it has nothing to do with me. Baby steps.

But alas, when that day-drinking bridesmaid is clamoring for the mic, all bets are off.

The reason? The audience was awash in blue-hairs.

“How’s the house today?”

“Oh, you know… a bunch of blue-hairs”- a.k.a…. old people.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we were grateful they were there – ANY theater company relies on and barely scrapes by based on this dedicated group of older ladies and their dragged-along hubbies. But, also known to us performers, they could be a conservative bunch and scoff at the material as being too racy, too inappropriate, too modern, too confusing. In the ‘90s, I understood it – these ladies had been in their 20s during World War II and might not quickly take to the culture of Hair or the air-the-dirty-laundry aspect of, say, A Chorus Line.  

But today’s blue-hair? Today’s “little old lady?” It always surprises me when some are still so offended by certain issues, clutching their pearls, aghast, as they view Spring Awakening or Next to Normal. But has it occurred to you that today’s 80-something lady was fully in her voluptuous 20s during the bikini-wearing, hip-shaking, Jim-Morrison-fueled, swinging 60s, when Vietnam was splitting the country apart, free love was everywhere and she was the first with access to The Pill? She may’ve fainted or broken down a police barricade at a Beatles concert!

Even those older ladies in their 70s today don’t seem like they’d have room to be all offended so easily. Fifty years ago, in the sexually free 1970s, these lithe 20-something broads were slinking off to the disco hall, grinding away to the incessant beat, attending key parties, dabbling in recreational drugs and witnessing the women’s movement in the workplace while friends experimented in swinging.

I was reminded of this at the library last week. On the way in I’d observed the stereotypical librarian – a woman of a certain age who the world throws into the “she’s just there” pile. Just there. Doing her job. I hate to confess I even pre-judged her as a certain type of lady, simply based on stage of life. But upon my departure, while checking out some music CDs (yep, I’m still old-fashioned), she came upon my Tom Jones CD and I watched decades melt away from her face as she purred, “Oh, Tom Jones. Now that was a hell of a concert. I’ll never forget it.” She glowed, giving off a naughty twinkle. 

Hello, my name is Joe, and I like old people.” I’m just intrigued by it all.

Most friends don’t like it when I bring up this crap. 

Me: Hey, see Alma over there, with the walker? 

Friend: Yeah? 

Me: I wonder if she was the ball-buster at the office…

Friend: … what?

Me: Or see Eleanor over there?

Friend: Um, yeah?

Me: She could’ve been the headlining stripper on Sunset Blvd in ‘62 –

Friend: Eww, Joe, dude, what is wrong with you?

Me: Okay, maybe she was the head helicopter pilot in Vietnam… slipping in across enemy lines!

Friend: Where do you come up with this stuff?! Who cares?

It’s not that I’m deliberately trying to be provocative or inappropriate. I’m an oddball, I know, but I’m the guy who doesn’t just look past or ignore an elderly guy. Instead, I observe the “old guy” (who maybe marched for gay rights in 1969) or the blue-hair (who was a semi-pro roller derby chick), as not invisible, but as a human who’s lived a whole life, surviving on this crazy planet. I’m fascinated.

Which oldster shuffling along was the lothario? Which Purple Hat Society lady was the shrew of the office before mellowing out later in life? Who worked in the aerospace industry, knowing full well they were developing bombs? Which guy was the private investigator who split up many marriages? Who was the blowhard who was an insecure bully to underlings? Who was the surprise pregnancy mother?

When I first viewed the movie Titanic, it aligned right smack with my odd way of seeing the world, and I loved it. There was dithery yet lovely Gloria Stuart as Rose in the present day, and then we’re whisked back to discover the passionately rebellious Kate Winslet version of Rose – flirting with young Jack, confidently disrobing for him, making love, daring to rebel against her mother’s societal plans for her, then actively fighting to survive a horrific disaster.

So many of the ordinary seniors you pass and ignore on the street have had fascinating lives full of intrigue, sacrifices, lost loves, love affair shenanigans, passionate mistakes and moments of stardom or political intrigue at the office. The awful things they’ve seen – the great moments they’ve witnessed…

But where did this unique worldview come from?

I blame my mother, and all of those Meals on Wheels expeditions.

When I was a kid, my mother volunteered for a weekly route. (She still does, to this day). She was a 30-something woman, two young boys in tow, dropping into the homes of the elderly, trying to help out. My brother and I were probably like most kids, slightly disgusted and afraid of the old people, when encountered – the piles of old newspapers and junk in some run-down places, the distant scent of urine in the air or the scary old-lady housedresses and perfumes. Mom could rarely just drop off a meal and go; she wanted to give them time to talk. So we’d often find ourselves in Mary Woodfield’s living room or on Frances’s front porch, desperately bored and wanting to get home after this epic two-hour commune-with-the-elderly route… but I guess it rubbed off, and we were confronted with the realities, and the humanity, of these folks, as individuals.

I thought of all this again recently when the cover of Ari Seth’s Cohen’s fascinating book, Advanced Love, pulled me in. It’s a deep, entertaining read, chock full of pics of older artistic couples who are truly characters on this earth – a nice affirmation in long-term love and also stories of widows and widowers risking it on a late-in-life love that’s even more passionate.

As with any book dealing with life choices, hindsight being 20/20 and wisdom acquired over the years, it leaves an inspirational, sometimes melancholic feeling, but it gets you thinking. And sure, most of those featured here are the extreme – real characters in their deliberate dress and their worldviews. But even then, there I was – ME, with all my perceived enlightenment about respecting older folks – and I caught myself pre-judging some based on first impressions of their current, older selves. “Oh, aren’t they cute?” I’d think, and then I’d see a pic of them in their vital 30s or 40s, deeply entrenched in life, full of opinions, obligations and goals… and I’d have to recheck my assumptions and realize how cruel aging can be, plain and simple, on all of us. And how it takes a certain grace to get through it with gusto.

I think we’re so afraid to age in this country because we see how seniors and even late-middle-aged people are not respected in our culture – how they’re mistreated, ignored and considered grumpy and difficult. Of course they’re grumpy – these people are experiencing aging for the first time – former beauty queens, head cheerleaders, lead quarterbacks and cutthroat salesmen.

One of the cruel ironies of life is that people stop listening to these older folks right at the time they’ve acquired the knowledge and real-world experience that could answer so many of our questions and issues. Every grandma who was once a working girl has sexual harassment stories from the office back in the day that would make your skin crawl, and most older guys have been through life long enough to instantly pick out the shyster in the pack – who knows, they may’ve even been one. It’s a lot of learned knowledge wasted, that we forget to claim from our elders before they leave us – the stories of early romances, risks taken, how things were accomplished, and the bad things from the “good old days.”

A few years back there was a really powerful meme going around social media, showing an older lady looking in the mirror, and the reflection back showed her as a front-line young nurse, from her profession when young, or an older gentleman looks in the mirror and sees his dashing younger image relflected back, wearing a form-fitting uniform from the factory. 

I love this idea. I’d like to propose that every older patient in a nursing home – hell, every feeling-invisible middle aged person out in the world – had a permanent photo name tag emblazoned on his or her shirt, sporting a hot young picture of them right there, pinned to the chest – a pic of them in the prime of their ultimate power and sexiness, looking their best, looking formidable and full of “worth” – so the caretaker, the doctor, the nurse, the store employee or the complete stranger on the street can “see” the individual before them and the life they’ve lived… and not just see “some old guy” or “just that old lady.” 

It’s a long shot, but as I’m the weirdo who already thinks this way, it’s a sincere hope. We should all hope for this – for someday some young whippersnapper nurse may be so in her own drama that she’ll never take the time to believe we were ever cool, were ever sexual or ambitious. With luck, maybe when I’m 90, I’ll encounter a young 20-something aide (or by then, a freakin’ robot!) who is able to see me and respect me too. One can only pray and hope.

In the meantime, play the game with me. 

See Mildred over there? She and her hubby met on a date seeing the movie Jaws in the theater!

See Gerry over there in the wheelchair? He was in Elvis’s backup band! Did Vegas for years!

And see Norman there? I know he seems like a cranky asshole now, but… oh yeah, sorry… he was a cranky asshole when he was 28 too. Never mind. 

Celebrity deaths can be tricky.

There’s the “oh I didn’t even realize she was still alive” comment. There are the mega-fans who are devastated, creating shrines or YouTube tribute videos to weep with. Then there’s the gaggle of crazies that want to elevate the death to a level of 24-hour tribute reporting that the general public finally screams, “Enough, already!” (Think Queen Elizabeth coverage.)

We’ve been all over the losing-a-celebrity map recently – beautiful Olivia Newton-John. James Caan. The one-of-a-kind Jerry Lee Lewis and Loretta Lynn, plus other trailblazers like Nichelle Nichols, Leslie Jordan, Naomi Judd or Sidney Poitier. 

A few years back, friends and I pondered the gasps that’ll be heard around the world as some true biggies shuffle off this mortal coil. Entertainers like Carol Burnett or Dolly Parton – ladies who cross socioeconomic, political, male/female and generational divides to have all types of fans and admirers. Can you imagine the zeitgeist-core-shaking that will happen when now-80-something Julie Andrews is suddenly no longer with us? People will Lose – Their – Shit.

Decades of annual Sound-of-Music-viewing family memories or emotions tied to childhood and any Mary Poppins song will come a’ floodin’. “Feed the Birds”…? “Let’s Go Fly a Kite…”? Sniffle, sniffle.

At the time, I wanted to add a name to the list that would affect me if we ever lost her: Angela Lansbury. But… did she belong on such a list?  She wasn’t quite a superstar like say, a Michael Jackson or John Lennon. I assumed this strong attachment I had would of course only be unique to quirky little me. 

Imagine my shock last month to discover I was wrong. A full week after her death at 96, so many people were still coming to terms with it, feeling compelled to post their Angela Lansbury stories. A cousin even mentioned she and her young teenage kids watch Murder She Wrote episodes in the background while getting ready for the school day. Say what? Apparently there are people across the globe who welcome Angela into their homes daily as comfort food, just like some use The Golden Girls the same way.

But where did this hard-to-explain connection to a 60-something actress start for me? I mean, YES, I was the weird 11-year-old kid who tuned into a Jessica Fletcher mystery every Sunday with the grannies with as much fervor as other boys craving Knight Rider. At the time, I was all about mystery books and whodunit TV specials – the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Perry Mason Returns glossy TV specials, and also therefore, Murder She Wrote.

I knew I was watching a show with “an old lady,” but who cares? – she was smart, funny and exuded a kindness while still pursuing cold blooded killers. And to me, she seemed like and looked like my Grandma Minnie. I remember pointing it out, “Grandma, you look just like Angela Lansbury; she reminds me of you, with your reddish-blonde hair! Don’t ya think?” At the time I wasn’t sure she took it as a compliment, but looking back, Angela was probably a good 12 years younger than Grandma, so perhaps she was flattered… (and mildly concerned her grandson fixated on such things, but I digress).

But it was my new obsession with Agatha Christie books that led me to discovering Angela Lansbury’s lengthy career, in reverse. I’d fired up the VCR to record the 1978 movie version of  Death on the Nile – with an all-star cast! – and was subsequently stunned speechless to discover my dear, sweet Jessica Fletcher inhabiting the character of a gaudy, feather-adorned, turban-wearing, man-hungry romance novelist named Salome Otterbourne, bringing welcomed humor with her always-drunken vibe while tango dancing with David Niven or pawing Peter Ustinov.

A year or so later, I found my calling, my true north: high school musical theater. Diving in head first and researching all-things-showtunes, my 13-year-old show-queen-in-training self was suddenly confronted with clips from the 1979 Broadway musical Sweeney Todd. Wait now, you’re telling me Jessica Fletcher… is a singer, and she’s part of a murderous duo that bakes their victims into meat pies… to be eaten?!? Angela Lansbury did a part like that? She’s one of us “crazy theater people!!” I realized with glee. 

It continued. And wait, Ms. Lansbury was the toast of Broadway when she made a “career comeback” as the original Mame Dennis in the musical Mame in ’66? You say she and Bea Arthur are best pals in real life? (Can you think of two who are more different?) And wait, she made her Broadway debut in an obscure flop called Anyone Can Whistle at a “washed up” age of 39!!!, playing the villainous matron and working with Stephen Sondheim? You mean to tell me she was the first star having the guts to attempt the impossible: to recreate the role of Mama Rose in Gypsy, a role all assumed no one could ever do justice to since Ethel Merman’s voice and personality were forever stamped all over it? 

Whoa. Murder Mysteries: check. A Tony-winning mother hen of the Broadway crowd: checkmate. 

And it was probably ten years later I discovered her old movies, and lo and behold, a whole other side of this woman. Oh, first, she’d been a movie star!?! Nominated for an Oscar in her first movie, Gaslight, and then a subsequent nomination in only her second movie, The Picture of Dorian Gray, age 18 and 19? Check. Part of MGM’s storied studio-system stable of stars? Double check. When I witnessed her as the va-va-voom bad glamour girl against Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

And meanwhile, in my college years she was still out there, putting her vocal stamp on Beauty and the Beast’s Mrs. Potts, to enchant a whole new generation of Disney animation fans for decades.

But still, come on, Joe, there are tons of hard-working actors with lengthy careers. Why did I have this affection, admiration and genuine respect for this particular human? I think I was impressed with her gumption and longevity, her kind, class-act professionalism in a career full of stars who faded out amidst backstabbing hysterics while climbing the ladder. And that she had the talent to back it all up.

Here she was, an obvious, unique talent, nominated for Oscars right out of the gate, but surrounded by sex goddess bombshell babes like Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth. Despite only being in her 20s, poor Angela kept being cast as much older women.

I heard so many people say, “I thought she’d be with us forever – she seemed eternal,” after her death. Well, no wonder she seemed eternal – the woman had been playing middle aged and older since 1955!

My theater-boy soul could relate. (It’s all about me, you see!) At age 13, I was cast as Ado Annie’s old-man father in the musical Oklahoma, then as Hellen Keller’s father in The Miracle Worker the year after. Inside, I wanted to play the handsome leading man type. But with my unnaturally deep voice and old-soul personality, I was always cast as the second lead or someone’s middle-aged dad again and again, before eventually honing in on murderous killer roles with a scary, deep-bass laugh.

I’m not crying for Angela – the woman worked for decades. But she must’ve been so frustrated, in her 20s and 30s, always playing some middle-aged mother to the star, a harpy, a nagging raving bitch of a wife, the hero’s loose and demanding woman on the side, or a power-hungry, sexless political businesswomen. For evidence, check out State of the Union (1948), A Lawless Street (1955), The Long Hot Summer (1958), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), Blue Hawaii (1961), All Fall Down (1962), In the Cool of the Day, (1963), The World of Henry Orient (1964), Dear Heart (1964) and Harlow (1965). She reaches a level of shrill that brings your shoulder blades together. 

No wonder she wanted to escape to Broadway. But one of her shrew or villain roles, for me, was elevated to pure evil. When I first was introduced to The Manchurian Candidate, my respect for her reached a new level. Her scene as the mother from hell, briefing her brainwashed son to assassinate a political rival is spine-chilling. Again, she’s only in her late 30s, but plays a 50-something matriarch with conviction. 

Ain’t no trace of Jessica Fletcher there!! What frustrated her so much in youth… is what turned into her superpower – “castable” for decades and then more decades. (Again, back to ME! – I always felt the same way. As a performer in my 20s and 30s, directors had a hard time casting me…. I hadn’t grown into my cast-ability – my baby face and sheltered innocence had to age into my old soul essence.)

I admired and loved Angie because the work stood on its own – the work, the work, the work – and mainly because people of all walks of life had nothing but kind things to say about her. 

A more senior catering friend told me how he encountered her almost daily in his building’s elevator in the ‘70s when he lived in Manhattan, as she resided upstairs. He adored her.   

In a recent documentary, playwright Terrence McNally mentioned, “Angela Lansbury saved my life,” to which I threw up my hands and said, “Of course she did.” He went on to recount how he was deep into alcoholism, career spiraling nowhere, and while other industry types looked the other way, Angela, this major theater star, stopped what she was doing and took the time to take him into a separate room during a party, sat him down and said, “Why are you trying to kill yourself? You’re a bright light, a talented writer. My own kids were decimated by drugs for a long time. Listen to me, very carefully – look me in the eye – STOP drinking.” Peer-to-peer, yet motherly advice. And he did.

She never won an Emmy for Murder She Wrote, (though nominated 12 consecutive times), but as a 60-something woman she dominated television, was a cash cow for CBS and most tellingly, used her power there to cast and hire former peers, MGM star of yesteryear, for guest spots so they could work and qualify for health insurance and pensions.  

A class act. Buckets of talent. A collosal ambition. Yet, a way of treating colleagues with kindness and respect. Plenty of heartaches, disappointments and feeling snubbed, but a woman who learned the art of reinventing herself again, and again and again. 

You’d think I’d have crossed her path a few times with all the industry events I helped cater, but dammit, no, she remained elusive. I should’ve tried harder. 

In 2004 or so I was wandering the New York theater district and the play Deuce was letting out, and there she was, with fans. I stopped to take this pic of Angela and costar Marian Seldes signing autographs. Why I didn’t stick around to at least look her in the eye and say something eludes me. I guess, like everyone, I thought she’d always be with us. In 2005, I had the good fortune to be at a Sondheim tribute at the Hollywood Bowl when she and Len Cariou waltzed out to gasping applause and brought down the house doing the Sweeney Todd Act One closing number, “A Little Priest” flawlessly, even 25 years after they’d debuted in the show as “already middle-aged” actors. 

And then eight years ago, I made it happen. Yours truly finally got to see her perform in her scene-stealing part in the play Blythe Spirit. I witnessed her – at age 87 or 88 – earn laughs with ease, do a little dance where she kicked her leg up above her hip, and I thought to myself, “This woman played Liz Taylor’s teenage sister in National Velvet, and she’s still here, doing what she loves, and doing it well.”

It’s like she was everyone’s Grandmother, for the past four decades. And like many grandmothers, she pursued work and a career in a men’s world of sexual favors, misogyny and casting couches, and made it through. She danced the night away at Oscar night balls, kicked up her heels with the chorus boys in Mame, raised a family, and spearheaded a ratings juggernaut until around age 73.

It has to be a rarity for one actress to say she’s played opposite Katherine Hepburn… and also Jim Carrey. Sassing Ingrid Bergman… and charming Ben Wishaw. Acting with Gene Kelly, Vincent Price and Jerry Orbach – Hedy Lamar, Tony Curtis, Kim Novak and Randolph Scott – with Danny Kaye, Paul Newman and Emma Thompson. Collaborating with Peter Sellers, Jane Fonda and Mia Farrow, to Maggie Smith and Victor Garber. She flew inside animation in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, sang with Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline in The Pirates of Penzance, chided Catherine Zeta-Jones on Broadway, and even did an episode of Magnum P.I. with Tom Selleck. She employed more than a thousand working actors on Murder She Wrote (including my partner, Eddie on one episode!), and dropped in on Law and Order – all while still being the actress who once played mom to Warren Beatty… and Elvis. 

THAT is what you call a career that spans decades and makes an impression on different generations. She was that rare thing – a reliable character actress who became an above-the-title, name-up-in-lights star in her middle aged years. And for all these reasons, I loved her. Broadway, classic movies, television – even VHS exercise videos – she did it all and did it well.

Thank you, dear Angela, for proving the naysayers wrong again and again. May we all age with such grace and relevance. Thank you for all the laughs I still get watching you stumble around in Death on the Nile. Thank you for having the power to get me misty-eyed again and again watching you perform Mrs. Potts’ song before a live audience, age 88 or 89.

It’s nice to have finally learned I’m in good company with others who are missing your shining light. For once, “only the good die young” wasn’t true.

I originally aimed to pen my feelings on this topic later in “the season,” but this past weekend, (please note, mid-October), I was pushed over the edge.

I’m not one who enjoys shopping as a rule. So in fairness I was already in a huff, finding myself in a store, looking for a birthday gift for a friend.

A gift card again? No, I wanted to get something real, something unique – you know, for a birthday. Over here…? No, that corner is overrun with Christmas trees. Perhaps down this aisle? No, that’s where the Halloween décor has been unceremoniously shoved onto one tiny shelf to make room for beads, string lights and fake poinsettias . Oh I know, back here? Sorry, you lose, and please don’t trip over the inflatable Rudolf and Frosty glowing-yard-displays that are here to block all of Aisle Three.

In desperation I head to the men’s clothing section to find some safety, some sanity, but the ceiling loudspeaker above my head is terrorizing me, taunting me, blaring decibel-ten-level music into my skull, and though I try to focus, Andy Williams’ voice joyously reminds me it’s the MOST, won-der-ful TIME, of the year!!! 

Oh really, Andy?

And just what part of the year is it you are speaking of, hmmm? It’s October freaking 15^th. The Christmas trees have been lingering in Costco since September. Are we talking the two weeks before Christmas? All of December? Perhaps November and December? No, apparently Andy is talking about October too! And oh joy, we get to be assaulted by this false feeling that the year is over, done – just pack it up, Nancy, you did your best!

Cue the Mariah Carey song! Yes, you too can watch as the poor schlubs working retail melt – into – the – floor – as they realize they’ll be blessed in hearing this song 5 times a day for twenty-five percent of their year.

The stocked store shelves are one thing. So be it. But somehow it’s the Christmas music that makes me throw my hands up in the air and scream, “For the love of God, I’m buying Halloween candy here!” 

It’ll be no surprise that I opted for a gift card and got the hell out of there. But this wretched experience brought back to my consciousness the loss of Daniel.

Last August I reconnected with him, a high school acquaintance, via Facebook. He reached out after reading my writings on mental health struggles. We had a few days of fun back-and-forth messages recalling school days – mind you, we were never hang-out friends in high school, but there was a mutual respect. His life since then, I learned, had been anything but a bed of roses. There’d been divorce. Drinking. Possible addiction. A work injury that left him in constant pain. Run-ins with the law. The stresses of solely caring for sickly, aging parents until their recent deaths. And most tragically, a son who’d died of a drug overdose.

The poor guy was fixated on the past, on mistakes, and how his ex-wife, in his words, had turned his beautiful boy into an addict. One text in September read, “It’s two years today that my only son died. It may be a rough one.” By last November 5^th he was already dreading the upcoming Christmas season. His text: “Haven’t seen my kids for Christmas in 20 years. My son’s Christmases are over, and my daughter won’t return my calls.” 

I commiserated over how society forces Christmas cheer on us earlier and earlier and advised him to “hold strong these months.” His reply: “It’s rough, Joe. I don’t know if I even WANT to make it through.” I offered a phone chat. He said he’d ponder, but I never heard from him. On Christmas Eve I thought of him and texted, saying, “Just writing to say I’m thinking of ya, and it was nice to reconnect with you this year. Stay off social media. Do your best, have whatever version of Christmas works for you. And pretty soon this forced holiday stuff will be behind us and everyone can chill.”

But in January I learned that I needn’t have sent that last text on December 24^th – for he was already dead then, possibly by his own hand. 

The details are sketchy on if it was suicide, an accident, or a stress-related health issue – the family danced around it, not giving any details – but I was deflated, angry that I hadn’t insisted on talking via phone when he was down. I’d made it through my dark night of the soul alive, but he hadn’t. Somehow the impending Christmas season was just too much for him to face.

Plenty of people will point to his history of struggles and that it wasn’t just the extended Christmas season, but this is a real thing, y’all! Earlier this month a very distant relative wrote me out of the blue, in distress: “I’m doing awful. Decided to do Christmas this year. Haven’t done Christmas since the kids.” (She lost two young children years ago in tragic accidents). “Really nervous. I always had Christmas here for everyone – 25 people. Now everyone is gone.” 

I don’t know if it’s the curse of being a good listener or that I’m now seen as someone non-judgy, but people now seek me out to tell me these things. But note, it was only October 5^th, and this poor gal was riddled with dread and fear about getting through a holiday season more than two months away. 

I blame this on the American Christmas Industrial Complex and our now-extended Christmas mania. In plain sight, it is literally killing the souls of so many Americans. It’s like a slow, tense, four-month build up to an orgasm that finally explodes – for one day – whereupon you’re left feeling kind of spent, underwhelmed, disappointed. Light that cigarette, baby, for the pleasure won’t last long enough to get through January. We all know those who feel let down after Christmas, but now there are millions who are depressed and anxious months before.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 64% of people with mental illness report holidays make their condition of Depression worse. I’m betting the percentage is similarly high for anyone struggling through Christmastime due to loss of a cherished loved one, an over-fixation on the now-past good old days when the kids were young, or the debilitating debt and holiday over-spending to keep up with the Joneses. A forced jolly cheer that should be two weeks, but now is four months.

In the past, you only had to gird your loins to get through. “Just one month, okay, I can do this.”

Instead, now we’re faced with The Hallmark Channel playing 24/7 Christmas movies starting mid-October. Eartha Kitt is purring “Santa Baby” over the loudspeaker while you’re in Rite-Aid buying supplies for your kid’s Halloween-themed art project. The festive ribbons are taunting you in every grocery store, and an Elf on the Shelf maniacally leans in to whisper, “Will you have a good Christmas this year? Hmmmm?” while there’s this pulsating, nagging, insidious feeling that another year is basically over, with very few of the goals accomplished, so why even keep trying? 

In reality? It’s only October, (only September if you’re in Costco with the Christmas trees), and you’ve still got a full three to four months, 25 to 33 percent of your year to claim and live fully with your eyes wide open to possibility. But try focusing on that when your Inbox is full of reminders from retailers having pre-, pre-!, PRE-Black Friday Sales!! on November 1^st, or with George Michael already singing about “Last Christmas” on half of the radio stations. 

This warped, extended season can cause even the most ardent Christmas fan to loudly declare on December 26^th, literally, that they cannot listen to one, more, Christmas song. They’ve been beaten to a pulp and they – are – DONE, stick a fork in them, let’s move on. One day later, let’s forget it! But my devoted Catholic mother will go out of her way to kindly inform you that the Christmas season actually only begins on Christmas Day, and the twenty-some days leading up to Christmas are only the Season of Advent. Imagine her and other true blue, by-the-letter Catholics greeting people on December 29^th with joyful declarations of, “Merry Christmas!” only to be confronted by dead-in-the-eyes postal clerks and exhausted friends who’re already fearing their impending January and February credit card balances, ready to haul off and smack her.

They can’t help it – they’ve been pummeled by four months of it. It’s almost like the pharmaceutical industry is in cahoots with the retail industry to help boost the sales of very-much-needed antidepressant meds. 

Now don’t worry, my soul hasn’t been overtaken by the Grinch.

Ebenezer Scrooge hasn’t won the day.

I like Christmas very much and Christmas music even more… in the time between say December 15^th and January 1^st. Some loved ones adore everything Christmas and thrive on the decorating and the festive cheer, and that’s wonderful because it’s for them and they’re not force-feeding it to everyone else.

Be good to yourselves; it’s rough out there. Initiate self-care, now.

And if you’re having a great season, keep an eye out for friends and loved ones who are annually just hanging on by a thread to try and endure the now four-month reminder of all they feel they’ve lost – their Season of Pain. 

They need our kindness, for they are fighting the every-growing Christmas Industrial Complex.

So be charitable. Take “Jingle Bell Rock” off the November playlist. We all thank you. 

Fun tip: If a party ever gets dull, this simple conversation-starter is guaranteed to provide loads of juicy details, animated returns to past horrors and revelations where even best of friends may be hearing something for the first time:

What’s the worst or most unusual job you’ve ever had?

At first, the expected responses: Horrid retail experiences. Degrading waiting-table gigs. Telemarketing or door-to-door book sales that crushed the soul. But every so often there’s the former carnie, the gal who traveled as a circus clown, the phone sex personality who put himself through college, the recruiter for that timeshare scam, or the obscure bull castrator or cigarette girl. Seriously, ask around!

It wasn’t my worst job. Now that I think of it, some of my catering gigs involving costumes could check that box. (Me working a buffet at Universal Studios in a dinosaur outfit complete with tail and horns, serving Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell food, comes to mind.) But thankfully those were only one-night affairs, therefore not perpetually painful. A walk near any industrial dishwasher and its steamy food smells can take me right back to the summer I was a busboy and dishwasher at a Big Boy Restaurant. Not fun, but not necessarily unique either. So when I whip out the Superior Valve card, it’s certainly my most unusual, or the one that surprises people the most.

In the early ‘90s my dad worked as a Controller in the front offices of Superior Valve Company in Washington, Pennsylvania. Though the manufacturing facility in the back was a union shop, they had this great program where the children of any employee – whether from the front office, the warehouse or the assembly lines – could spend summers making a great hourly wage (compared to folding sweaters at The Gap) as long as we kids were enrolled in college.

I can still smell the lubricating oil in the air, always on my hands. It was tedious, boring work in a loud, non-air conditioned environment. Thankfully they revolved us youngsters through different departments, to give us a taste – Receiving, Warehousing, Assembly, Testing & Machining – (choice areas where only pros could be and we could only assist) – and then Final, for boxing up, preparing for shipping. 

It was a not-so-subtle nudge: See kids, this is why you stay in college! But inadvertently and perhaps more importantly, it introduced us wide-eyed youths to the truth of any work environment – the cast of characters, the personalities, the sexual escapades and tensions, the politics, the betrayals and alliances, the clashes between management and the union, and the incredible gossip, even in a plant where eyes were on you everywhere you went. Perhaps that was why there was so much gossip – boredom breeds it. “Oh, he’s chatting with Amelia. Now why would they need to chat? Hmm, I’d better find out… maybe they’re strategizing against me and my job.” 

I’m not sure how it came up, but before my first day, dad casually mentioned, “The people in charge down there, the team leads, are mostly lesbians. Just so you know.” 

Okaaaaaaaaaay. Thanks, dad, let me just page through my Tips for Working with Lesbians journal that any 19-year-old Pennsylvanian male has at hand.

Perhaps I should’ve paid more attention during the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, gotten K.D. Lang on speed dial or prepared my shield and spear to match my Doc Martens, to breed solidarity. But dear old dad was right, it was crucial knowledge to have, for the drama, betrayals and alliances on the floor had to do with stolen girlfriends, stolen wives and aggressive personalities, which brings me to the head of the Assembly department: Rhonda.

Oh, how to describe the breath of fresh air that was Rhonda… Three-packs-a-day-while-at-work Rhonda. I never truly understood the word “butch” until encountering Ms. Rhonda – her image should’ve been next to the word in any dictionary. Rhonda made Anne Ramsey, the villainous mom from Goonies or Throw Mama From the Train, seem like Audrey Hepburn! And I’m not being mean – I’m talking about her personality! Yes, she was a short and powerful Italian, channeling Danny DeVito or Joe Pesci, with a face and eye bags like Vincent Schiavelli from Ghost and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but I digress. 

On day one she marched up to me with advice. “Look,” she bellowed, “you see this number here?”  

“Yeah?” I jittered.

“This number here is the Standard. This is the amount we workers are expected to produce per hour.” She pounded her fist on my work table. “Now we don’t need you young kids coming in here all ambitious with your energy and trying to impress, assembling more than the Standard. It makes us look bad and then they go and raise the Standard after you leave.” With a voice like Harvey Fierstein, she leaned in for effect. “ So… just do the standard, kid.”

Her girlfriend, I quickly learned, was another manager named Caroline, whose look and voice reminded me of actress Barbara Hale, Perry Mason’s secretary. She was Rhonda’s prize. And her possession. But the hot news on the floor was about Joanne and Tricia. Joanne, a taller Ellen DeGeneres type, was the head honcho, the main plant manager, a great leader and a woman my dad respected and admired “even though she was a lesbian.” Within days I came to learn that Tricia, the mother of one of my college-aged workmates, Anthony, had recently left her husband for Joanne and they were now living together. 

My little mind reeled. But… Anthony’s mom looked like a Southern saleswoman for Mary Kay!, my mind protested. A sweet but blonde Edie McClurg type, (you know, that secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), substantial and kind, with frosted hair – the type of mom who’d serve you lemonade during a visit. And she’d turned out to want to be with a woman, with Joanne? I eyed Anthony for signs of psychological distress, embarrassed for him. Was he ashamed that we all knew? Did he sleep just down the hall from where his mother now slept with Joanne? Could a woman be married to a guy one week and a lesbian the next? How had that all gone down on the work floor?

Like I said, an education: on life, workplace shenanigans and office politics. I was sheltered and clueless, with so much to wake up to.

Daily these four sapphic personalities would butt heads, strut, practically spray on things like a feline claiming territory, gesticulate, let off steam, then go back to smoke another cig – all in a day’s shift… and at the end of the day suddenly they were like Wile E. Coyote and that sheepdog punching in and out of work on Looney Toons – “Good night, Ralph.” “See ya tomorrow, Sam.”

Now it wasn’t all lesbians working there. It’s just those four had worked hard to attain the leadership roles. There were also plenty of tough, bearded guys and a few straight moms and widows too. And an out of place glamour girl with blonde hair high enough (and makeup thick enough) to rival young Dolly Parton. My secret confidant was an early-60-something grandmother type, Annie, who encouraged me to come visit daily for five minutes during break time at her work station in Testing. Sure, she gossiped and was up to no good, telling me how my young workmates Nathalie and Brett were starting to get it on after work hours – “I saw the way they were talking in the parking lot” – but Annie was harmless, and I believe we exchanged cards a year or two after I left.

I certainly didn’t have to diet or work out, spending summers in that baking facility, working around ovens for molding parts and hot water troughs for valve testing. For two weeks my workmate Pete and I were tasked with getting up on ladders and disassembling and cleaning every fan in the plant, total of about 60, which caused a few bawdy ladies with smokers’ coughs to anoint me as “Sexy Legs” – they had an excellent view from below! – and a few old timer guys to claim, “That’s the first time those fans have been cleaned since 1980!” I inhaled enough dust and grime to prove it. 

I’d almost forgotten those times… until, someone recently asked the party game question.

I know millions around the world can top this experience with their stories, but my summers at Superior Valve probably constitute my most unusual one. That is – I’m just realizing this now – until three years later, in Cleveland, Ohio, when yours truly, a virile, prime-of-life 22-year-old male…

… prayed the Rosary aloud on the air, daily, as part of my radio job.

But I guess that’s a tale for another time. 

When I was a kid, we used to visit my mother’s aunt, my Great Aunt Helen (affectionately known to us as “Auntie”) at least 3-4 times a year at her home in Pittsburgh. Trips there included a chance to play with her cute dog, Trixie. I wasn’t old enough or responsible enough yet to be a proud dog owner myself – at least, that’s what I’d been sold – so we had to content ourselves with visits to see pudgy but fun, Trixie.

My brother and I would get a glass of pop from the refrigerator… That’s right, I said pop, like a true Pennsylvania kid. (Not soda, you freakin’ savages!) And every time, Auntie would chime in, “Don’t forget to give some to Trixie.” Then we young lads would enjoy the fun of pouring some Pepsi into an old, plastic onion dip container that supplemented as the Dog Pepsi Dish, and watch her lap it up. 

Did I mention that Trixie had a weight problem?

Auntie also fed Trixie mini chocolate bars during our visits. Special Dark, Krackel, Mr. Goodbar, Hershey’s – really, anything from the glistening candy bowl would do, and she lobbed them straight into the waiting Trixie’s mouth. You can imagine my skepticism years later when people said chocolate killed dogs??!! I mean, dear Trixie lived to be 13 or 14 or something. Maybe the chemicals in Pepsi fought off the chocolate…

But it wasn’t always fun and games. 

During one particular visit, my mother went to run some neighborhood errand, and I stayed back to play in the yard, with Auntie keeping an eye on me. In her overgrown yard my imagination could run wild; I could explore and create adventures to my heart’s content. I don’t know how long Mom was gone, but what I do remember is when she returned, Auntie, right on the front porch, loudly welcomed her back by proclaiming: “Eileen, your son is a sissy!”

I was seven or eight at the time. And based on her tone, I was quite sure that being a sissy wasn’t exactly a good thing. It certainly sounded negative.

Or was the exact wording, “Eileen, you’re raising a sissy,” which was more designed to lay blame at my mother’s feet, like a shortcoming that she needed to address and make right? 

It was one of the two, no matter.  

I’ll always remember the tone, the vehemence of that proclamation, and the feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. But what’s funny is I have zero recollection of my mother’s reaction or what she might’ve said back, if anything. Perhaps she just breezed by, brushed it off as they both went into the house. Perhaps they had a heated discussion. All I know is, thankfully it didn’t lead to any awkward chat during the drive home about how maybe I should act differently. 

But I have to wonder: what on earth did little-boy Joey do in the side yard to make Auntie come to such a pointed conclusion? Was I quoting Bette Davis dialogue at age seven? Did I discuss the merits of why John Schneider was the sexier of the Hazzard boys in those tight jeans on The Dukes of Hazzard? It’s not like I was practicing my best Lynda-Carter-Wonder-Woman spin, whipping my imaginary hair around in a moment of fantastic TV transformation in her yard. 

Hmmm. Or… was I?

Maybe I imitated some Paul Lynde mannerism from Hollywood Squares or had stumbled on Jim J. Bullock camping it up on Too Close For Comfort? Did the anthem Xanadu somehow start pumping out of the radio and I couldn’t help but rollerskate on a rainbow? Was I doing an homage to Flashdance, attempting leaping splits across the lawn, lip syncing for my life to Irene Cara’s, What a Feeling?

All right, yes, I did own the LP to the movie Annie (starring Aileen Quinn!), and yes, I did kinda-sorta dance around the basement to “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” every time it came on. I couldn’t help myself; It was fun! But that was back at home, hidden in the basement – it’s not like Auntie could’ve ever seen that. 

It’ll always be a mystery, what I said or did to arrest her attention that day. But I think I should mention this wasn’t the first time this happened. 

Come with me now back to first grade at St. John the Evangelist School in Uniontown, PA, where a bunch of terrified six-year-olds were under the care of one Sister Mary Jude. Entire psychological journals could be written about the messed up fear, angst and survival skills Sister Mary Jude could bring to your day. I watched two to three young girls’ shoes go sailing out the window because they were lazily playing with said shoe with their foot, and not wearing it, a no-no in this first grade prison. Hence, Sister felt they needed to fly into the parking lot. I saw two or three kids standing in the trash can during lessons as a punishment, rulers smacking desks, and a few lucky tykes who got to inhale all the scents of Sister as she laid them over her knee for a spanking.

Side note: Isn’t it a bit odd that the Catholic Church attracted women who might’ve wanted a different path, who actively eschewed marriage and children, then required them to take vows of chastity … and then as a reward locked those potentially self-identified, non-maternal-at-all women in a classroom forever surrounded by children?

But I will leave this complex issue, and all of Sister Mary Jude’s idiosyncrasies, to another possibly passionate writer and St. John’s School survivor.

Back to our story. I’m age six and it’s recess time. Kids are being kids, loudly playing and frolicking in the parking lot just outside Sister’s window. I’m in a corner by the back wall of the church, chatting up some girl classmates who are probably jumping rope. And then I hear it – a violent pounding – rap, rap, rap!… rap, rap, rap! There she is, Sister Mary Jude, pounding on the window. She points at me, then signals over to her left, to where the boy classmates are roughhousing and playing football. 

Rap, Rap, Rap. Point, point, point – You, Joey – point, point, point – you belong over there, with the boys. Now! Go over, there!

So… I guess I did? I don’t recall. I certainly was a rule follower and always wanted to do what adults said, so I suppose I did meander over and try to look interested. But come on! Hanging with the girls just was… easier… and made sense! I could sit there discussing the fine art of hair braiding or some girl-done-me-wrong drama between Missy and Bobbie Jo, and instead Sister is staring me down because I belong over there, where the boys are all sweaty, tackling each other, making loud and disgusting hawker and loogie noises, ruining their school uniforms by slamming one another on the asphalt, scraping up the knees… being all… “dumb.”

It’s not that I wanted to be a girl as a kid. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not one of those gay guys with stories about playing dress up in mother’s clothing and makeup, or doing a twirl in grandma’s housedress. But I certainly remember feeling like my life would be easier if I were a girl, pre-puberty. Because, well, I didn’t know how to be around the boys. I felt like an anxious pink donkey with a fishtail standing there amongst a bunch of energetic, sports-crazy hyenas. None of this was about sex or being attracted to boys or “perversion.” I was six. I didn’t know what gay was; I didn’t know what sex was. I was just being told I was doing something incorrectly… again. 

I’d forgotten about that whole Sister Mary Jude episode until the “your son is a sissy” moment with Auntie. And then in fourth grade, oh, here we go again, my mom comes in for an in-person parent-teacher conference, and one of my (up until then) favorite teachers tells my mother how well I’m doing in school! …. but then closes it out with, “I’m a little concerned that Joe seems to be more comfortable playing with the girls. He needs to spend more time with the boys.” 

Sigh. Rinse and repeat.

And thankfully, again, I have no memory of any difficult conversation with my mom on the way home. I have no scars from some forced act-more-like-a-boy workshop or visits to any therapist or psychiatrist, or taking part in any Catholic-sanctioned process for light-in-the-loafers kids. Many probably weren’t so lucky. No, they didn’t want me to “end up” gay, but I can honestly give my parents credit for not taking stock in these initial calls for concern and acting on them.

I just learned to go through childhood with my head down, trying not to be noticed, not to engage.

In truth, my mother liked me as a good little boy who wasn’t violent, who followed rules, who listened to adults and avoided trouble, who wasn’t picking up swear words and being crass. After all, I was under ten in fourth grade. Despite three women bringing to her attention that her son might be a little soft, she didn’t take it to mean I was on my way to Gay City and credit card debt from attending Cher’s newest farewell concert!  

But you know what’s interesting? It was around this time, just after fourth grade, that I fully discovered my salvation – the joys of reading, and getting sucked into book after book after book, hiding from the world, avoiding all the games of pick-up basketball in the driveway, the new Atari video game strategies, or the boys marveling over their older brother’s copy of Playboy. And as long as I had such a good, adult-pleasing hobby like reading, always improving my vocabulary and being a “good kid,” hiding from the world with my nose in a book, they didn’t bother me any more about playing with the boys, acting more normal-boyish.

I should remind you that this was the very early ‘80s, so everything I’ve just described was just common practice – if a kid was a certain way, you worked hard to straighten him out. And Auntie wasn’t some tyrant or villain in my life. Quite the opposite. This was one afternoon, not something she ever mentioned or fixated on again. Yes, she was a sharp-tongued, old-school proud German woman who never married, and always made her opinions known in a household of middle-aged brothers where she was the only woman for decades after her mother’s death. She’d had to be tough from age 16, and she’d been through the Depression and two World Wars. But she was a loving, generous presence all the way into my college years, always sending me a few dollars in every card in the mail.

Yet, the stinging memory of that one afternoon remains.

I could fill a book – and just might! – about why I remained closeted until age 26, but those paragraphs are for another time, in many essays to come. But whoa, we never forget those touch points – those moments when, even at age six or seven, an adult you loved passionately expressed disgust, said those words, when you were just living life, being yourself.  

There’s a personality trait I have.

Correction: have always had.

It’s sort of harmless. Yet, it’s driven some of my closest friends and loved ones insane with frustration, even as early as high school and college.

So what IS this illicit trait, you ask? 

Breaking out into showtunes on the street corner?

Having ridiculously strong opinions on James Bond movies?

Composing overly-long, overly-written texts and emails? 

Nope. 

It’s this — I’m always seeing the other side of the argument someone is trying to make. I see the other party’s point of view, as well. 

My worldview and opinions live “in the middle, in the gray areas,” rarely seeing things as black and white. I’m one of that dying breed in our it’s-us-against-them or if-you’re-not-with-us-you’re-against-us world… I’m a Moderate. And not just in politics. 

This. Drives. Friends. INSANE.

They’ll just want to vent, to go on and on about how Greg so and so has been a COMPLETE and utter rude asshole to them, regaling me with every detail of Greg’s missteps, misdeeds and the SO many ways in which they, my friend, have been WRONGED and mistreated! These stories usually end with them asking, “I mean, can you BELIEVE it?!?”

There’s a pause. I nod and ponder. Then: “Well, you have to understand, Greg must be in a bad headspace when you consider his home life, so you can’t really blame him, and…” –

“You ALWAYS take the other person’s side!!!!” they’ll lament.

“WHOSE side are you ON anyway?!”

Or, “You never, EVER take my side!”

Or, “I just broke up with girlfriend, would you PLEASE just agree that SHE’s the one in the wrong!”

A best friend will come home from a trip and tell me everything that went wrong, every letdown, the people who were rude, the misunderstandings and missteps that happened between vacationing friends, who has stopped speaking to one another, the ways in which feelings were hurt, yet again.

My response? Agreeing… but then: “Hmm, that’s a shame… but you have to understand, you’re going into this with unrealistic expectations and keep being let down, and I’m sure they were only trying to …”

Steam comes out of his ears. “Joe, can’t you JUST be a normal friend and feel bad for me and agree that I am RIGHT and they were totally in the WRONG?!”

It’s a pretty sucky and unhelpful way to be, I’ll admit.

Friends are supposed to listen and support their mates by agreeing with them, always backing them up, slapping them on the back, saying, “That sucks, you’re so right!!” 

And I DO that. I AM upset when a friend has been hurt or when something has gone wrong or there’s a difference of opinion… but somehow I have this ability to take a moment to at least ponder the offending party’s motives, worldview, to see them not just as “the evil with the opposite opinion” but to try and burrow into their thoughts. 

In my 20s I started worrying about this trait —  that it was there because I didn’t have a backbone, that I didn’t really have the courage of my convictions to make a passionate choice, and, being a people-pleaser for so much of my life, not wanting to pick a side, not wanting to have a viewpoint in case it made people not like me as much, or think badly of me. 

Sadly, I do believe that was part of this trait’s emergence – balancing in the middle as a way to avoid confrontation or disapproval at all costs.

Or, is it that I have Empathy? I do lean towards empathy for people of all types, and as an actor and writer, having empathy is a requirement, to be authentic. I spend an inordinate amount of time studying humans from a distance, observing behavior and motivations, peering into “the opponent’s” reasoning.

But in today’s America, being a moderate ain’t easy, and some would say it isn’t even welcome or an option anymore. Being moderate is definitely considered being WEAK or indecisive, for there’s WAY more money to be made when there are defined enemies, enraged emotions, a villain. Our entire media structure is now set up this way – daily, there are “news” stories about how so-and-so clapped back with the perfect response, how this politician had an epic smackdown tweet or the most snarky comeback quote. “You won’t BELIEVE how she responded!”

THIS is news? Nope, it’s Us versus Them — you MUST be 100% in agreement with us, with no area for nuance or human understanding!

And this goes BOTH ways. 

When Donald Trump was elected, while I was surprised, I wasn’t in shellshocked disbelief like some of my ultra-liberal friends. 

“HOW could people be so STUPID?” they’d wail, months later. 

Joe’s unhelpful chestnut: “Well, you have to consider the Rust Belt and how the Dems made promises to the working class for decades that never ever came true, so why should they believe them now?”

“No, they’re just idiots!! It’s just that they’re wrong!” they’d shriek.

Meanwhile, my conservative friends: 

“Young people nowadays are so lazy and aren’t realistic about work.”

Me again: “Well, maybe, but they grew up post 9-11, their rent is 5 times higher than mine was and wages haven’t exactly gone up and the interest on student debt… and maybe they figured out what we never had the courage to dare admit — that work isn’t everything, and….”

Them: “No, they’re just entitled snowflakes!”

Yes, in the scheme of things, I mainly lean left when it comes to standard political issues. But not ALL the way left.

Case in point: the immigration issue. This has so many layers and focuses way too much on only Mexicans or people of color, BUT, it does indeed bother me when immigrants who don’t take the proper channels get access to U.S. benefits and programs that offer more empathy and love than is ever given to our damaged, returning American servicemen and servicewomen. That strikes me as inherently wrong. All through West Hollywood and Glendale here in LA there are white-skinned immigrants from Russia, Armenia, Eastern Europe and other places who’ve totally learned how to manipulate the system and double-dip into programs, teaching others how to do it when they arrive, and then never being employed.

When I get upset about this, I end up “sounding like a Conservative” to some people. Same when I’m talking about the police department or homelessness issues. Then, conversely, to my Conservative friends I sound like someone brainwashed by the fruits & nuts on “the Left Coast,” just because I want people to get paid appropriate wages, because I want gays to be able to adopt hurting children in need, and because I see the fallout of a one-mindset abortion stance.

I blame extremism. And media personalities who make a gazillion dollars just getting everybody fired up, creating “good, highly-watchable television” and high ratings, good radio & podcasts and future book deals. Instead of actively trying to make things better, to change the world for the better, these folks make WAY more money when people are outraged, pointing fingers, apoplectic… usually over something that doesn’t affect their lives in the least….. They’re primed and groomed to be OUTRAGED.

But there is a strong contingent of us out here still TRYING to be moderates, still trying to stay away from the extremism that is out there, everywhere, going in both directions. 

So, to my friends, past, present and future, I’d like to say, I’m gonna work harder on putting my empathy helmet on, aiming more towards YOU instead of also examining your arch enemy’s point of view at the same time… but the truth is, I am who I am. I’m not wired to instantly pick sides or always jump on the obvious bandwagon.

As I started to write this essay yesterday, like kismet, a friend shared the following sentiment online, which fit so well with what I was writing.

“Between them exists the exhausted majority. They’re not all moderates. They’re the two-thirds of Americans on the right, left and center who are described as fed up with polarization, feel forgotten in public discourse, and are flexible enough in their views that they’re willing to compromise. This is the group that has the potential to save America from escalating animosity and polarization. It has the numbers and the latent power to transform American politics. But so long as it remains exhausted or perhaps intimidated, then the extremes shall reign. 

If YOU used to be more moderate in your thinking… ponder it. (It’s not for everyone – in fact, I also love and admire some people who are fiery and passionate about their worldview). But… has your echo chamber bubble of yes-men and always-agreeing friends and memes made you an always-agree-er and not an independent thinker? Has the constant media noise pressured you to ONLY think one way to be considered a true woman, a true gay man, a true Republican, a true Black man, a true American? 

Come back to the middle… IF that’s where you belong.

It’s lonely here, and collaboration would be such a nice antidote to what ails us. 

I once saw Melissa McCarthy shopping for a Christmas tree.

I was there in the chain-link enclosure at the Lowes parking lot in Burbank, again doing the annual agonizing. Is it really worth it, paying all this money just for a tree that drops needles all over the carpet? Then my brain registered someone familiar – a shorter guy with a mustache and a distinctive voice. Wait a minute, my brain flashed, that’s… that’s Melissa McCarthy’s husband. (Don’t know him? Even if you don’t THINK you know Ben Falcone, you DO, if you’ve ever seen any of her movies – he’s always guest-starring in them… or directing them).

If HE’s here, I thought, then maybe…

And there she was – yep, just tipping Christmas trees this way and that, spinning them, commenting to her kids in that distinctive voice, acting all like a real-world person, doing real-person stuff. I smiled, nodded my head, and remembered… yes, they live among us. 

I first moved to La La Land in the late 90’s. Within weeks, friends back home wanted the run down on all the celebrities I’d already encountered. As if Elizabeth Taylor was just out there on the street corner, hailing a bus. But they persisted in asking. They needed to know! To this day, my theater pal, Irene from Cleveland, will end a lengthy phone conversation with, “So… any celebrity sightings lately?”

But turns out, they were right all along. It’s a real thing. I’d only been in town three days and was doing the endless walk from the parking structure across the Sony movie studio lot for my very first temp job at The Gameshow Network – data entry, baby! There was a very small film crew set up and a short-haired blonde lady sitting on a bench, rehearsing lines. Oh my gosh, keep walking, but um, I think that was Glenn Close? And it was. Just sitting there, preparing. Less than a week in town! 

That same week I saw Gary Collins pushing a shopping cart at the old Hughes Market in Studio City. Robert Guillaume (from Soap, Benson, The Lion King!!) was just sitting there at Jerry’s Deli having some soup, living life. Random people, but still, whoa, I guess all this time US and People Magazine were RIGHT, with those photo spreads of celebs out and about – Look, they TOO buy food! They TOO wait in line for coffee!! Sally Field ALSO wipes her ass with toilet paper. Don’t you feel better, they’re JUST like YOU!!!

But when your pay-the-bills job becomes being a cater waiter at lavish home parties, at the Academy Awards, the Emmys and movie premieres… the celebrity sightings go into the stratosphere. Throw in some background extra work or acting in TV and films and you’re there to witness them working in their natural habitats.   

And boy, did it become random and ridiculous. 

I once saw Betty White chatting up Judge Lance Ito (yes, THAT Judge Ito, from the OJ Simpson case).

I once watched Oliver Stone and a young Scarlett Johansson dig through a party host’s fridge because the appetizers sucked and they wanted Marshmallow Fluff instead.  

I “attended” Tori Spelling’s first wedding, along with old-timers like Ed McMahon, Tom Poston and Suzanne Pleshette. I was passing hors d’oeuvres, but I DID “attend.”

Speaking of Suzanne, I once worked a fundraising benefit where she told a dirty joke and two old ladies at a nearby table muttered, “She has no class,” followed by, “She never had any.”

I was once locked in a room with hundreds of screaming males and one over-the-top Tom Cruise for the movie Magnolia. Just us and Tom and the crew, for a few days, being all inappropriate.

Josh Brolin once asked me if a book I was reading was any good during some downtime on set. (It was The Shipping News by Annie Proulx and I told him it was only so-so). 

I once sat in a crowded backyard eating off paper plates with Lee Meriwether, perching on a crappy folding chair. I saw Beverly D’Angelo and Carrie Fisher mistaken for shoplifters while shopping for vinyl at Amoeba Records! I bumped into Broadway diva Lilias White ordering hot chicken at her favorite shopping center hole in the wall next to my barber’s place.

I once witnessed Penny Marshall cackling at an event, and Sylvester Stallone a few tables over rolling his eyes and saying, “Somebody, PLEASE shut that woman up!!”

Don’t worry, no NDAs signed. Things were seen and heard firsthand by yours truly.

I once had the distinction at an awards dinner of being the person to “get” Harrison Ford at his table. “Excuse me, Mr. Ford, you were the hero of my childhood movie-going!!, I know you’re busy chatting up Calista, but you’re presenting soon.”… And he followed me backstage, like I was important or something. Gosh, I could’ve led him anywhere. If I was a stalker I could’ve totally hit the jackpot.

I once witnessed Tony Shalhoub singing Beatles songs around a piano with old friends. I encountered The Rock wandering the Disney lot, where he kindly stopped to pose for a quick pic with a visiting friend. I watched Steve Martin and Martin Short kibbitz over dessert in a media mogul’s basement.  

Mike Nichols once remarked to me, in his most snide tone, “You know, I have been reading since I was three years old,” after I took the initiative to read him the menu card before him aloud, as if he were feeble and blind. He was not impressed. 

I once overheard Jonathan Silverman coming out of the closet to Shirley MacLaine as I sat next to them in an early-morning makeup trailer. (Or so I thought. Turns out they were softly running lines for a scene later that day – duh!).

I stood by next to Joan Collins on set… half-naked… in a teddy. (No, SHE was half-naked in a teddy, not me!) A tad scary, and I’m still recovering. I once watched Don Rickles ROAST Norman Lear (and his hat) while Bette Midler, Quincy Jones and Samuel L. Jackson (and HIS hat) looked on.

I once cocked a gun and played an FBI agent in a scene with my schoolboy crush – Lea Thompson from Back to the Future!! That was a memorable day in this lad’s life. I’m sure the earth equally moved for Lea.

Bill Clinton once insisted he get a photo with me (well, and ALL the waiters), two by two, at an event.

I once spent a Christmas with Cher – well, doing dishes in her kitchen in Malibu for a good five to six hours. (She’s a lot shorter than you’d ever imagine). Oh, the glamorous life.

I once watched Annette Bening and Tom Hanks weep tears of astounded joy during an election-night party. A few years earlier I’d watched Tom – (did you catch that? we’re on a first-name basis) – and Leonardo DiCaprio rehearse and perform a movie scene together, while Steven Spielberg hovered, giving direction on set.  

I once overheard Barbra Streisand telling tales about Tom Cruise’s marriage to Mimi Rogers. I saw Debbie Reynolds closing down an Emmy Awards ball. It was the end of the night, we were stripping tablecloths and the ugly overhead lights were on, but Ms. Reynolds still sat there in the cavernous now-empty conference center in her sequined red outfit, glass of champagne nearby, basking in the new attention after appearing on Will & Grace. 

Florence Henderson once grabbed my arm to steady herself at an outdoor-on-wet-grass wedding. Mrs. Brady NEEDS me!!

I’ve seen Goldie and Kurt, Brad and Angelina, Annette and Warren, even Ashton and Demi, (back in the day). I’ve watched Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid look for Easter eggs. I’ve wandered Dustin Hoffman’s home and beach house, trying to look busy. I saw Jane freakin’ Russell!!! smoking a cigarette next to a porta potty on the Paramount lot a few years before her passing. Talk about legendary… and how it’s not all glamour. 

 And YES, since you asked, Hugh Jackman DOES have that much presence and magnetism standing there in person. Yes, Julia Roberts DOES glow from inside when she talks to Drew Barrymore in a living room. And yes, sadly some of the ladies are even scarily thinner in person than they appear on the screen. (I’m looking at YOU, Nicole Kidman! Courtney Cox, you need to eat a sandwich!!) 

Then there’s the music acts I got to witness – you know, Willie Nelson, Christina Aguilera, Olivia Newton-John, Alanis Morrissette, Andy Williams or Lady Gaga – just paying the bills, slumming it, singing in some wealthy guy’s ballroom, at a rich kid’s bat mitzvah or at that Best Buy teamwork-building event. For real. And that time with Elton John, a piano and about 100 lucky folks on the Dreamworks lot. How randomly wonderful that I got to be up close and personal for all these expensive mini-concerts. 

So yeah, let’s just say it’s an odd town. And I’m just one person. There are security guards, former personal assistants, nannies, second AD’s and estate managers who could put me to shame with their personal stories in dealing with the famous and infamous, daily. I have butler friends who could bury you in juicy details.

But in truth, over the years and all these encounters, you lose the ability to be star struck. 

Hmm, who would really make me tongue-tied if I were to encounter him these days? Who? Think, think. Daniel Craig. Yeah, Mr. Craig… Maybe Allison Janney – I’ve admired her talents for YEARS… And definitely Kate Winslet. Yeah, “the Winslet” is a goddess in my book – the kind that makes fully-out gay guys ponder that they just might be straight… or so I’ve been told… 

It’s been fun going down memory lane here – gosh, there were so many more sightings – Chuck Woolery, Vanna White, Neil Simon, Fran Drescher, Melissa Gilbert, Kathy Bates, Pierce Brosnan, Paul Rudd, Christina Hendricks, Scott Bakula (dreamy!), Tina Fey, Robert Wagner…. but really, let’s get real, WHO… CARES?!??!!! I know this started for the folks back home, but, gees, NAME DROP MUCH, Joe?!?? 

Seriously.

It’s not like I worked with these people as colleagues or made a splash in their lives. I poured them drinks. I maybe welcomed them to an event. I was part of a scene one day when they went to their jobs and created a movie or TV moment.  Jane Seymour does NOT recall meeting Joe Guay! Melanie Griffith and Antonio aren’t asking me over to chat with Tippi Hedren, (even though their place was the BEST!)

And NO, they do not live “just like us” in the ways movie magazines want you to believe.

But what I’ve witnessed is they ARE just like us in human interactions. They’re just as nervous about who they’re stuck sitting next to at dinner party. They’re just as tired and frustrated going to that fundraiser they promised to go to after a long day of work. And some are just as insecure and moody, sometimes rude, buried in their phones, or all over the map emotionally, saying, “I’m too old for this shit,” just like any of us on a given day.

Sure, I can say I was at The Oscars. I was in so-and-so’s home with Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner. No doubt about it, the celeb-viewing was off the charts. But it’s still the everyday-activity sightings – like Melissa McCarthy and her Christmas tree, or seeing Vince Vaughn trying to find his Uber at the Hollywood Bowl – that I hold more near and dear when recalling the decades spent in Los Angeles.

So, after all this, the big thank yous go out to Eric McCormack, who locked eyes with me in the produce section at Ralphs… to Jane Lynch who nodded at me after I recognized her in the Trader Joe’s parking lot… to the bearded and sunglasses-wearing Steve Carrell who waited off to the side for “his usual” order at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf while I got my simple coffee. Here’s to you three – thank you for having the class and professionalism to nod, slightly smile and then have the restraint to NOT ask for my autograph. 

I appreciate it. You three are a class act.

It’s a well-known fact that I keep a running list of countries and natural wonders to visit right at my fingertips. Less known, however, is the local list – also at my fingertips – of reborn neighborhoods, attractions and architectural wonders I have yet to see in my own city. LA is sprawling and ever-changing and I like to keep up, keep it fresh, and be an explorer in my own backyard.

So what did I cross off that list recently? The newly opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Miracle Mile, when we finally ventured down to view the Oscar collection and the impressive almost-rooftop views. 

A few weeks ago we also journeyed down to Inglewood, setting eyes on the unique design of Sofi Stadium, the new(ish) home of the Los Angeles Rams. (Alas, no, I did not have the 100K for a Super Bowl ticket .) Another day, off to Pyramid Lake, finally spending time lakeside between mountains in person instead of just zipping by on “the 5” with all the trucks on the Grapevine. 

We make a habit of regularly having “feet on the ground” in places like Leimert Park, Mt. Washington, West Adams or Sierra Madre, uncovering obscure, real-neighborhood treasures. I just love it.

Do you need to have an inborn exploratory curiosity for these quests? For sure, it helps. But the secret sauce is the no-traffic, free-parking SUNDAY in Los Angeles. 

It’s a common tale. I have friends in Santa Monica – technically only 13 miles from my North Hollywood home in the depths of the Valley – yet years will go by before we ever think of getting together, since everyone knows it’s an often unpleasant 50-minute drive to cover those 13 miles, if you’re lucky. Los Feliz people are never itching to zip over to Culver City; Woodland Hills folks don’t pine to visit locales in Lincoln Park – not worth the headache or the gas. 

And it’s not exclusive to Los Angeles. When I lived in Cleveland, friends from the East Side and West Side rarely had the inclination or time to meet up. Don’t get me started on the boroughs of Manhattan!

But when you play your magic Traffic-Free Sunday-Morning Card right, possibilities unfold here in LA. You can create fun, zip-around itineraries you’d never dream of stringing together any other day – and shorten that list, baby!

Do I have a list-making issue? I guess that’s another essay. Anyway…
I first noticed this phenomenon one Sunday a few months ago. We were visiting our favorite quaint neighborhood, South Pasadena, to see the leafy lanes and Craftsman bungalows. But in the moment, I decided to next go see the grounds of Will Rogers State Park for the first time – deep, deep on the westside of LA, a completely inane journey by most people’s standards. Half an hour later we were wandering Will’s famous living place and horse stables – a westside treasure we’d rarely considered.

There’s something fun and freeing about hitting 65 miles an hour on the 110 or 405 in Los Angeles, tearing through places normally clogged with idling cars, idling dreams. The fun is in the speed and freedom, zooming from Eagle Rock to Marina Del Rey, reflecting on what life in LA could be like when you’ve got time on your side.

Two Sundays ago it happened again. We were sitting there minding our own business in Descanso Gardens, one of our favorite sanctuaries in the La Canada/Flintridge area of LA, late afternoon approaching. And suddenly, a wild hair. “Hey, let’s go down to the USC area. I want to see that new funky museum George Lucas is designing!” I exclaimed. 

“Um… okay,” said my always-willing and adventurous travel partner/prisoner, Eddie – gotta love him! – and we were off!

But first, on the way, couldn’t pass up beautiful and unique Silverlake without circling the reservoir, seeing the homes clinging to the hills, the walkers and joggers (and their dogs) out enjoying life. I adore the bohemian energy that still exists in this former Edendale of 1920’s LA. And oh yes, wait!, then we HAD to also go a few blocks to see the views of downtown from that one particular angle at Echo Park Lake to observe the hordes of Latin and hipster families picnicking and frolicking. 

Did we ever make it to the working construction site of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, you might ask? Indeed we did, but after first driving down the wide, palm-lined Rampart Boulevard to see the once-old-money apartment buildings and residences near the old Bullocks Wilshire building. Then being distracted by the unexpected enormous Victorian-style homes and mansions off of Hoover near USC, now being used as student housing. We parked the car – (AGAIN, secret Sunday sauce of no paid parking hassles) – and wandered the block, commenting on architecture, the passage of time.

Would outsiders ever guess such architecture existed in Los Angeles? Hell, how many Angelenos even have a clue about places outside of the bubble of West Hollywood or Beverly Hills?

We did finally view the raised, futuristic-looking Lucas Museum of Narrative Art site (looking like a cross between Avatar’s Pandora and a Millennium Falcon or spacecraft from The Mandalorian).  But not before circling the historic Shrine Auditorium where Eddie and I had both, in varying decades, worked at Academy Award ceremonies. What a superb historic building.

We got to spy the old Colosseum used in the 1984 Olympics, the funky new(ish) Banc of California soccer stadium, and even stop to wander the enormous and beautiful Exposition Park Rose Garden – a place full of childhood memories for Eddie. His beloved mother used it as a “free entertainment” place for a single mother raising kids on a budget. And yes, it’s still free… and entertaining.

We finished up the evening near the Music Center Plaza fountains and the Walt Disney Concert Hall Gardens, watching the sunset. Glorious fun! All because of the omnipresent “I want to check that out someday” list, and the willingness to get off the butt and take advantage of a Sunday.

As I close out this writing, it’s just occurred to me — this “discovery” of mine may not be news to the 9- 5, normal-job-working set. “Duh, Joe, when else are we going to do this stuff? On a Tuesday at 2:00 p.m?!? Thanks for the tip!!!” And so I say to you, LA is its own weird animal – the love/hate relationship is real. For me, these jaunts are a must-do practice for sanity’s sake – to deliberately remind myself of all the unique positives the city has to offer… on a Sunday.

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I tinkered with including all my favorite off-the-beaten-path places in Los Angeles and Southern California here. I adore introducing tourists and hardened Angelenos to things hiding in plain sight… but that’s for another essay someday soon. Stay tuned.