March 29, 2004
10 Year Anniversary
I was too young to remember where I was when John F. Kennedy was shot. I do remember where I was when I heard John Lennon had been shot. (I was in Dallas with my then boyfriend Tony. We were returning from a night out and heard it on the car radio.) I will never forget the first half of my day on September 11, 2001.
I also remember April 5, 1994. Well, actually I guess it was a couple days after that when we heard that Kurt Cobain was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. KROQ, and then everyone else, proclaimed that he had done it on April 5, but he had not been discovered until later. It was one of those shell-shocked moments that is surrounded by lack of surprise. Most rock fans knew of his drug problems and his chronic stomach ailments that kept him from normal living let alone performing. We also speculated that living with his wife Courtney was at best intense.
What many of us didn’t know, was what the LA Times reported yesterday, that he was passionately creating art in the last two years of his life and was considering quitting music for good and committing to painting.
I would link you to the Times story but they don’t allow you to look at any stories unless you are a seven day subscriber – something that infuriates me enough to be a weekend subscriber only.
When I turned the pages of my Sunday Calendar section yesterday I gasped at a picture of one of his paintings. It was absolutely incredible. I once went to a benefit show at Club Lingerie, it must have been in 1993. Kurt and Courtney did a couple songs together, acoustic. He was quiet in between songs while his wife joked that he was going to leave her for Winona. This was referring to Ms. Ryder’s penchant for rock stars – or vice versa. Kurt didn’t even crack a smile. After their performance Courtney disappeared but Kurt hung out near the stage watching the other performers. I admit my moments of side-line stalking. I couldn’t take my eyes off him – those blue eyes - he was so incredibly beautiful and obviously pained at the same time. Exactly like the painting the Times printed.
He could’ve done it. He could’ve quit and been a millionaire for the rest of his life and just painted. He could’ve worked through some of that pain. He wouldn’t have to show up at galleries or museums if he didn’t want to. He could’ve painted to his hearts content and not answer to anyone. I wish someone could have convinced him. His stomach evidently spoke louder than any words.
During his painting jag here in Los Angeles, Kurt and Courtney left the country for several weeks and while they were away, their apartment flooded and apparently destroyed most of his work. Very little is left and besides the cover art to Incesticide, and his diaries, we will have to see if Courtney can see her way to letting the world see what’s left of his visual arts.
Even though he became a rock icon and made some of the best rock records ever, none of it was apparently to his hearts content and even answering to himself was too much. Hopefully Francis Bean inherited her dad’s creativity and she can use it to work through her own pain. Ten years have passed. He was 27. I was living in a guesthouse at the time, after the ’94 earthquake displaced me. I was creating a bunch of artwork in the guesthouse garage listening to Nirvana at high decibels. He inspired me then and now he inspires me again. Artists create because they have to. I wish he still had to.
March 23, 2004
Casting!
Oh, the downward spiral that so many actors endure. In this case, instead of a lifelong struggle, they could go directly to Hell! Do not pass Godot.
March 22, 2004
Ridiculous X Six
This past weekend not only did number 1 ranked Stanford get kicked out of the NCAA tournament, but my high school alma mater, number 1 ranked West Aurora (and number 6 in the nation), got their hopes of winning the Illinois state championship nipped in the bud. In 1976 I was at the championship game that West lost at the buzzer. Since then they have won it once and come up short a couple other times. Back then everone was a "rowdie" and everyone cried (or busted up private property) when they lost. I'm sure it is as it was then, an emotional rollercoaster for any westside booster. I am consoled by this amusing bit of home town journalism that followed this years third place winners' very upsetting but noble weekend in Peoria:
Final game overcomes blues from early loss
By Matt Hanley
STAFF WRITER
PEORIA — It's a little bit ridiculous, this high school basketball thing. You finish ahead of 281 other Class AA boys teams in the state, and some people want to call it a disappointment.
You play four games in five days, including a rare doubleheader, and analysts say you didn't do everything you could have.
You win 32 of 34 games, and you've wasted your season.
Yep, ridiculous.
That's what the West Aurora High School faithful had to say to people who suggested they felt anything but proud when the boys basketball team earned the third-place trophy, beating Carbondale 68-50 Saturday night.
"Oh yeah," said Ryan Klinger, a vocal member of the student cheering section before the game. "It's all about pride."
No, it didn't have the ring of state champions, but, for the "rowdies" who packed the southeast corner of Peoria's Carver Arena, third place was nothing to hang their red and blue painted heads about.
"I feel badly for the boys," said Barbara Biddle, a West fan who traveled from St. Charles for the weekend's games. "I think kids today think they have to be first. I guess they're no different than kids before them. But they did such a great job out there." "You get this far down the road, and there's not much difference between the teams," said her husband, Max. "It's just the way the ball bounces."
After beating Hoffman Estates 47-42 on Friday to advance to the trophy round of the state tournament, the Blackhawks lost a physical and emotional 58-46 game to Homewood Flossmoor in the semi-finals Saturday afternoon.
Ahead by a point at the end of the third quarter, the eventual runner-up Vikings pulled away with a pressing defense that hurried the West team and deflated the West fans.
"I came down here thinking we were going all the way," said West freshman Caroline Dornfeld, repeating an often-used phrase after West dropped the first game. "At least we didn't lose on Friday, I guess."
Fans were almost surprised to find they wouldn't get the marquee match-up they had been envisioning all week: No. 1 West Aurora vs. No. 2 Peoria Central for the title. Instead, the West squad was going to play in the third-place game — less than two hours after losing their shot at the championship.
At that point, the mood outside the arena was dismal. Cheerleaders cried, players' parents wept, and fans looked for someone to receive the finger-pointing. "I admit that we played bad," said Chuck Gust, a junior. "But the refs made some bad calls."
To most West fans waiting, it just didn't seem the team could recover to beat the Terriers from Southern Illinois by the 6:30 p.m. tip-off. After all, Carbondale had been resting longer, and the Blackhawks were spent emotionally and physically. Their fans were on the verge of giving up. The whole thing seemed, well, ridiculous.
"It's good, I guess," said a discouraged Eileen Amone, a junior, referring to the also-ran game. "But we were expecting to come home as champions."
Yet something happened when West Aurora stepped back on the floor. The Blackhawk seats weren't empty; they were packed. The student cheering section — nicknamed the "rowdies" — wasn't despondent; they were as loud as ever, ready to give their senior-led team a big send-off.
And the players obliged. Jaeh Thomas threw in 24 points, including some shots from distances that were, well, ridiculous. All-Stater Shaun Pruitt powered in 12 of his own to finish with 50 for the weekend.
And suddenly, West had opened up an almost 30-point lead with dunks, no-look passes and fans screaming.
Each of the players — and the seven seniors in particular — were given a standing ovation as they came off the court and got to hear their names chanted syl-la-ble by syl-la-ble one last time.
Yes, it's a little bit ridiculous, this high school basketball thing — pinning the hopes of half a city on the fortunes of 15 teenagers still dealing with pimples and prom dates. But sometimes — and this weekend in Peoria was one of those times for West Aurora — being a little ridiculous is just the right thing for everybody.
"There's so much hassles, there's so much rumors and gossip in high school," senior Ashley Doyle said. "But when it comes to this, all that stops. It's all about the game.
"It's intense. That's all I can say — it's intense."
March 18, 2004
Comment, Comment, Comment
All seems to be working again at the Nora Murphy blog. So feel free to rant at my rants. Props to my web guru Brian Flemming
March 15, 2004
Oops
Don't know what's happening with COMMENTS here. I guess you can't really vote on a name without it...
Aargh. Will get back with ya on that...
March Madness
Its been a hellova month. Put our beloved Chelsea to sleep, moved across town and then adopted a puppy. I did a lot of online searching for a dog at Petfinders.com. You can do a broad or detailed search there for breed, size, age and location of available animals from the pounds or rescue agencies. I mostly looked for terrier breeds from small to large and from baby to adult. My searches continued to show a little guy named Scooby at the Pet Adoption Fund in Canoga Park. A couple Sundays ago, I got in the car intending to go to a mobile adoption in Santa Monica but the traffic was awful so I just kept driving away from the congestion and towards Canoga Park. Needless to say, after passing all the kennels at the PAF and finally coming across Scooby, I wasn't leaving without him.
The Jack Russell pup is only five months old and still going through house breaking, teething and getting over a kennel cough. However, he's been a riot and has already learned to "shake" his paw for a treat and he LOVES people. The Pet Adoption Fund rescued him from the South Central pound so when he acts out or desires a treat we can only imagine him wandering the streets with the gangs, scrawny and hungry.
Well, the thing we can't live with is the name "Scooby". During the hiatus of this blog I sent out an email to friends and family for suggestions and got many great ones and some silly. Frazier, Spalding, Albert, Fred, Milt, Papa, Bezbo, Patch, Mr. Lee, Wolfy, Hoot, Dex and Daddio... We thought of literary and artist references - Ernie, Andy, Claude, Hieronymous, Sherlock, Shizzle McDizzle... We tried a couple things on for size. We went to a party the other night and nearly the entire evening was spent tossing out names for the little guy. We had almost settled on Oscar - full name Oscar Madison Wilde. But then as we played with him on Sunday morning, we called him Rocky as he danced on his hind legs and punched at our open hands. It's been a week and the poor guy hasn't got a solid name! So I ask you - which do you like better? Oscar? Or Rocky? David made a solid point yesterday when he said that there is a reason why dogs continue to have the same 20 or 30 names over history. When you try to give them a unique or arty name, it just doesn't sound right -save Alyosha.
So we've narrowed it down. Please vote for Rocky or Oscar!
Back Up
Hey All! After about a week, this blog is back up and running. We changed hosts apparently and there were issues - as there seems to be with EVERYTHING! When it seemed all our ducks were in a row, I noticed that some of my entries had gained these smart quotes instead of apostrophes and quotations. As I told my "web master" Brian Flemming, he responded with, "Smart Quotes are the bane of Web writing." Aside from crashing computers, and coming up with anything to write about to begin with, I have to agree. Keeping my fingers crossed that the computer karma is with us, we are blogging again.
March 04, 2004
Friends, Readers, Countrymen
Friend and blogger Brian Flemming has written an entry straight from my thoughts through to his fingers. Just recently I was commenting to David about this exact issue. Being a blogger, I now have to think every time someone calls me, "have they read my blog" and if they seemingly have not, "ugh, do I really have to repeat myself" and to myself, "listen to me, I sound so selfconcerned..." I guess some day I should be lucky enough to be too busy to write a blog as some people seem to be too busy to read one. Is that possible? Please don't comment - that way I won't wonder why someone or someone else didn't...
Valley Views
The other day we had scattered showers all over the LA area. It was one of those days very rare here. I felt like I was in Florida where you can often be in the middle of a storm but it is sunny. Thankfully I was not in Florida, but Burbank and Studio City where I was running around on errands trying to find essentials for the new apartment. At about 5:30 I came out of the Rite Aid and found the sky in its last moments before the sun set.
Facing south.
One minute later.
Two minutes later facing west.
Chelsea la Rue's Memorial
Last Saturday, a couple days after a good rain, Hollywood was incredibly clear, you could see all the way to Catalina. It was the day I received the keys to our new apartment and the day I had to say final goodbyes to our little dog Chelsea. I hiked a little ways up Runyon Canyon where Chelsea and I spent nearly every morning. She and I often chose a path that very few people used - she wasn't much for crowds. 
I went up that path and sat on a large fallen tree trunk near where we played cat and mouse, her favorite game. When I opened the can that held her ashes and scattered the first handful, I realized how many times I had come across scattered ashes before. 
Many a morning, I wondered, what the hell is that white powder on my path? Did the after-hour party people leave this stuff? What is it? Is it dangerous? Is it rodent powder? No, I instantly realized, Chelsea was now among the many dogs before her that graced our path and were now part of our path. 
Chelsea is now part of one of the best viewpoints in LA. And one of my favorite places, but it's time to move and move on.