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Midnight Missives and Musings

Midnight Missives and Musings

Monthly Archives: July 2018

Only Time Can Tell

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by blahblahblogm in RANDOMLY I GO

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Andy Hill, family, future, home, house, kitchen, remodel, time capsule

I looked down into that space in the corner of Andy’s kitchen where two cabinets would join, but because of the limitations in design nothing with purpose could we give it. The cabinets were in, but no countertop as yet. That big empty space would beckon to me as I walked about the room doing this or that remodel task.   It is such a waste of space I thought more than once. And then close to the time when it would be sealed up forever, a thought occurred to me. What if we use the space to talk to the future?   Kitchens last for decades, some for 20 to 30 or more years before anyone is so dissatisfied with it that they undertake the grueling task of a another remodel.

I began to imagine that future family and wondered about them. Who would it be? What would they be like? Would it be a family just starting out or someone entering their sunset years?   And if it were a family, what would its composition be? Would it be a return to the traditional ones so long gone in our times of a mom and a dad and a junior and a sis?   Or would it be some other manifestation of the familial concept?   Let’s do a time capsule for your lost kitchen space, I said to Andy. Let’s let the future know about this home that now belongs to it. And so we did. In a pretty silver box we put a few CDs of Andy’s original music. We put a Dylanfest postcard. This was the 28th year Andy and Renee put this annual homage to Bob Dylan on via an all day concert of music by them and their band and their musical friends. Would this future have a Dylanfest? Andy put some American and Canadian coins in, I believe and another Canadian artifact or two. Time was of the essence. I wrote a quick letter to the future. I wish I had more time to do a better one. I wonder who will read this letter. Let’s hope it’s not us!! Or maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing either. And with Andy’s permission, here’s to the future.

“Dear Future Owner of 17411 Delia in Torrance CA,

Today the kitchen you are tearing out decades into the future is brand new. I am the current owner, Andy Hill’s, friend. The year is 2018. The day is June 9. I hope you all can still read in the future. This is a great house. A little history: Andy and I and my husband all bought our first house together. In December of 2000, we split and I found this house for Andy to move to. He has been there ever since. The kitchen was old when he bought the house and now 18 years later it is finally going to be brand new.   My role in this was to help him through the final design and remodel stages. So this week we finished it and this space here where you have found this silver box had to be left as an unavoidable void so I thought let’s talk to the future from it.

I hope you still feel the sound of music in this home. Andy is a singer/songwriter and a wonderful musician. He had lots of concerts and musical events here at his home. He is the one that turned your garage into a music studio. A little bit of the times we live in now. Turbulent and fractured, something that has been common to our country unfortunately for decades. I so hope you all have solved these differences by the time you read this letter. Donald Trump is president, and don’t believe ANYTHING good history may re-write about him- he was nightmare.   I don’t know much else to tell you about popular culture other than we have a horrific school shooting problem right now. Kids are going into high schools and shooting up the place. The gun issue in this country seems insolvable. Common sense things like outlawing assault rifles can’t get done thanks to the National Rifle Association’s power that prevents any progress in this area. It is sad. I sure hope you read this letter and think wow what an archaic way to live and that the gun problem in this country is solved forever. Homelessness is another major problem in our times. The policy of the Republicans- (the other political party is the Democrats) to cut social services for those most in needs and to build prisons rather than institutions to help the mentally ill and house them problem is a national shame right now. That is another wish I have for your future, that compassionate institutions are built for those among us who can no longer take care of themselves.

Music and theater are my passions. I can’t tell you too much about the popular TV shows, but the plays right now are Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen and School of Rock and not sure if you are a music lover but Bruce Springsteen is currently on Broadway in an extraordinary show he did. I flew back in November to see it.

I am retired from the US Customs Service so I don’t have much to report in the work force arena.   We didn’t get our woman president in 2016 as we had all hoped. Hillary Clinton lost the election, I so hope by the time you read this, we will have had a woman president and perhaps even a gay president. Parts of the world seem to be slipping back into intolerance of people who are different. I so hope you read this letter and think- wow that is a thing of the past and glad we are no longer there.

I am a fledging writer and who knows perhaps by the time you read this, even a published one!! Look me up, LOL! That was an acronym devised for the proliferation of texting that we all do on our phones that means Laughing Out Loud. The most overused thing we have today. I hope your future has gone back a bit to the more personal exchange between humans. Today all we seem to be able to do is stare at a tiny screen to communicate with anyone. A humanistic backlash to that would be great. I wonder what technology you will have to listen to music or read books or get your entertainment from in your time? A little observation, no matter how far we go with our technology there is NOTHING like live entertainment. Think of it, in Shakespeare’s day in the 1600’s all there was were live plays and hundreds of years later in my time today, it is still the best form ever. I hope that doesn’t disappear in your time.

My sons are 16 and 21 right now. Their names are Max and Marco Bowers. We live at 16431 Illinois court, not far from you. Who knows they may still be there and with a bit of luck, maybe so will I by the time you rip out this kitchen for a new one. If I am, please come and say hello.

Well this has been fun talking to you and I wish you and your family/occupants of this home, a wonderful and happy time here. Thanks for reading.”

Sincerely

Maddalena Beltrami

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26

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by blahblahblogm in TO AJ

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

AJ, Angel, Anthony Argento Jr., birthday, death, Facebook, grief, happiness, laughter, music, plays

2018 PRESCRIPT: Happy Heavenly 26th Birthday, AJ. I would write you a new blog but I am too busy going to the plays and concerts you keep helping me get great tickets for.  We love you and miss you every day you are gone, so today isn’t any more special or different other than it’s one of the two happiest and best days in your mom and dad’s lives.   Take care AnJel and be heaven happy always as you were down here!

I’m not putting this on Facebook . Well it will end up there cause it’s the only place my internet writing can be shared. But that doesn’t matter cause it will still only be read by the few and fiercely loyal. I appreciate them and love them. Tomorrow AJ will turn 25. No, I cannot say would have. It doesn’t resonate nor feel right. There is something about this number. I can’t put my finger on it yet and hope I can by the last sentence.   Tears just keep flowing and so the words must as well. It should be over. That is the phrase that runs through my brain in a loop of not understanding. He is 25 now. He is no longer a child or an adolescent or a young adult. It is the age of male mental maturation. This I have been told by a few experts recently when so ready to pull my own hair out over the teenage/young adult angst and antics of my two sons ages 15 and 20. The magical number I am told. Just wait, boys brains are not fully matured until then. You will see such a difference. The magical male mental maturation age. Not fully understood by us females who are pretty done with our own mental maturation at 15 actually, give or take a year or two but no more.

And so it only feels right that his death should be ended as well. Time’s up. Time’s up for the pain and anguish his family and friends and I feel. Time’s up for the stoic and incredible strength and bravery and courage endured and displayed by his mother and father and sister. Time’s up. It should be.   Full blown adulthood begins. That should be enough to end it. But it can’t and it won’t and all the magical thinking in the world won’t change that. It doesn’t get better. It gets different. There are wounds that time will never heal. This is surely one of them.   I believe in the afterlife. I do. My computer geek of a boy has sent me a few signs along his journey in that afterlife. I believe it. I received one today. I won’t share it. Only with his mother. I believe he has reached his angel status in the afterlife now. Perhaps the equivalent of adult status in the here and now. It’s a nice thought and one I shall keep. That’s the beauty sometimes of things that require a leap of faith and not logic and facts. It comforts me to believe he is now a guardian. The two boys he grew up with need one more than ever right now. And so do I. Happy Angel Day, AJ!

 

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 Rest in the Light Of Eternal Youth, Magic Boy…

03 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by blahblahblogm in RANDOMLY I GO

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Brian Gillis, death, friendship, magic, Magic Castle

How are you doing, Magic Boy? I often began my morning or end of night check in with this salutation. It was about a year or so ago during a rough patch in Brian’s life. A mutual friend suggested I talk to him as he liked me and perhaps I could lift his spirits some. I did both I like to think.

Yesterday he died, suddenly, unexpectedly, the ultimate disappearing act for this masterful magician. Today the online eulogies, memories, tributes, near and far in time and place and connection abound. We covet the dead, or at least the great ones. We want to touch the shiny fabric of that coffin and say we were a part of that greatness, no matter how big or small or close or far.   It is the silence of the service performed to miserly memories of mourners that dictates a life not well lived.   Not the case with Brian. He was mentor, friend, lover to more than a few in his time. His art was magic and magical was his art. I called him friend and here is but my tiny presence in his large life so very well lived.

I saw Brian for the first time at a house concert at Andy’s in 2005. I was with my two small boys at the time. I have no idea what I was doing there as I was not one to go to many of Andy and Renee’s gigs back then, being secluded in my motherhood and motherly duties of PTA and football. But for the special occasions I did venture out. Brian and his mentalist partner Sisuephan did their act. I remember nothing of it other than the fire-breathing wallet. I talked to Brian a bit afterwards asking him to do the wallet for my boys again and he said, “I hate kids”. I was taken aback and thought what a jerk! Took me awhile to see he never meant that at all.   He especially showed me in June of 2015 when he played my son’s Grad night for North High for a fraction of his worth as a performer as a favor to me.  The kids loved it and he must have, too, as he stayed way past the allotted time.  But no matter what magic he did, it was always the wallet that never failed to amaze me.  Over the years we would run into Brian at a restaurant gig of Andy’s occasionally and I never failed to go over to him and say, do the wallet, please? Usually my boys were with me and they would just love it.

Fast forward to late December 2014.   I had come to know Brian a bit better since now attending a lot of Andy and Renee gigs on my own in my re-entry to the musical world I loved so much pre-parenthood. Enough that I could ask for a night at the Magic Castle for my friend Val and I. Brian was playing the ‘big room’ as I call it as I could not keep all those rooms straight. It meant to me he was the star and the show was all him. We stopped at quite a few of the Magic Castle bars that night before the show began, sampling Prosecco along the way.   The venue was really crowded and we had standing room only against the wall when a person in the very first row got up for some reason and I took the seat while Val stayed at the wall.   A woman next to me started talking to me and I have no idea what we talked about but I started talking and she couldn’t stop laughing at what I was saying and then a few more joined in. Brian comes out, the show sort of starts but this lady next to me is still talking to me and laughing and I am answering her but trying not to. I know I am in trouble cause Brian knew me by now from various events we were at together and told me I had better behave at the show. I promised, sort of. Next thing I know, Brian stops the show and says, “Let me know when you are finished with your show, Maddie and I’ll do mine” and looks right at me. I was amused and horrified at the same time and needless to say I shut up for the rest of the show. Afterwards we met Brian in the bar for a drink and I just kept apologizing like crazy. I said, what can I do to make it up to you? Well, he said, there is a magician’s code that when you ruin his act you have to buy him a drink whenever you see him for the rest of his life!! Done, I said, done, just forgive me!   He laughed and ordered a Pinot Noir with a glass of ice on the side. A short time later, we were at the first Title Tracker show in Silverlake and Brian was there. I went right over and asked what are you drinking? I brought him his Pinot Noir- a few of them and we had a good laugh over it. It got to be that no matter where we were the minute I saw him I would say, “I know I know I’m going to get your drink.” And I did every time. Yesterday we shared a good laugh over this, as I said to Lorna and Andy, we should go get a bottle of Pinot Noir tonight and toast Brian and they both said, why, his favorite wine was Merlot. No, not possible I said. I have been buying him drinks at restaurants and clubs for three years now and he ALWAYS ordered Pinot. That’s cause it was more expensive and you were paying, Lorna said. Well played, Brian!!

For the dinners he attended at my house he usually got a bottle and I got my magic wallet fire every time and often a great impromptu magic show for the dinner guests. This fire breathing Aries LOVED that wallet. I never tired of seeing it and to me it was brand new each and every time he pulled it out.   I’ll never forget that night in Silverlake sitting next to him and having him do these magic tricks that would send me screaming during the Title Tracker concert. The one with the spider crossing my hand under the cellphone in particular made me jump out of my chair. I think he reveled in the idea of me ruining someone else’s show with my screeches.

Time marched on and we became what I like to think of as good friends. We were age appropriate, Brian and I. We talked a lot over these past three years about life and love and relationships and mostly aging in all those things. He hit a rough patch a little while back in his personal life and I would text or call every morning to check on him and then at night to see how his day went. I was honored to be invited to the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary done on his life and that of three other magicians at the Vista Movie theater. It was a kick to sit with him and watch his reaction to himself on the big screen. What a magical night that was as we then got to go to the Castle see him and his longtime partner Sisuepahn perform.

I brought friends to the Castle over the past several years a few times. He was always gracious and always made room for us. I never ever wanted to go there though unless he was playing the big room and doing his full act. I did go once when he was in the WC Fields Bar downstairs, but it wasn’t the same for me. That night I took my friends Case and Chuck. They went off to see the shows in the main parlors but I preferred to just stay down there with Brian. We ate and drank in between his time at the bar. Yes, of course, the Pinot Noir was on me. When Brian went back behind the bar, I entertained myself by clearing glasses from the tables. The Castle for some weird reason always felt so familiar and home like to me. I used to think I had to have been there in some previous life.   I didn’t go see too many other magicians. They bored me compared to Brian’s show. I preferred to just roam around taking pictures where I wasn’t supposed to like in the fun phone booth with the ghost or sitting by Irma the piano and watching her play herself.

I was supposed to go the Castle a few weeks ago. My sister was coming to town again. It was a wonder that Brian was even going to let us go since her less than stellar performance at a dinner at my house the year before, but he was so gracious. I called and said I wanted to go on maybe Monday the 25th of June.  I asked if he was playing the big room that night. He said he wasn’t but he would come down anyway if he could because of surgery he was scheduled for on June 18. I said OK, but I’m not going unless you are there. What the heck is the surgery for, I asked. Heart, he said. What the hell? But he didn’t answer that text. The following week, I texted him and asked how the surgery went. He said it’s next Monday. I was confused and thought they just postponed the same thing. Well then are you coming to the house concert on Saturday, I asked. No, I can’t, I am so weak I can’t move, he said. What exactly are you having done? Triple bypass he said and a valve repair. What the fuck?? I went into my Brian “what you need, whenever you need it” mode. What time, where, do you have lift there, do you need anything? He said, no he’s fine. Sisuepahn is driving him to Torrance Memorial at 7:30am. OK I’ll call and come see you as soon as I can and left it at that.    Monday came and I thought about him all day. I asked Andy in the afternoon if he had heard anything. He got word the surgery went well. I knew my way around an ICU having spent three weeks there 11 years ago during my husband’s liver transplant. I also knew it was difficult getting in if you weren’t family but I also knew I could do it. But it was late and I was leaving for Palm Desert on Wednesday and knew how out of it he would be anyway. On Tuesday morning, I figured I’ll just call the ICU and see how he’s doing but the ICU nurse put me through. Hey, I just wanted to call to make sure you ain’t dead, I said. He said No, but I am in a lot of pain. I can’t really talk. OK, get better, love you. I’ll come see you soon. He didn’t and I didn’t. A call with a crack in her voice from Lorna at 4pm and I knew it before she got the words out of her mouth. For a week now I could not let go of the thought of where he would convalesce. My mind kept going over logical places. Would Sisuepahn take him in? Would Craig his manager/caretaker have a place for him? Should I offer my house if needed as I am close to the hospital and doctors? Where would his beloved dog go? These thoughts would go round and round but I never saw him in recovery anywhere. I kept thinking how strange that was that while I was fretting about where he would go another part of my brain would say it doesn’t matter at all it’s not relevant.

We got to let our proverbial aging hair down at times, but none so much as that night at Avenue A in early April of this year. I was on my way there when I got a text from Brian saying, where are you, I’m at Avenue A, come down. On my way, I said. We shared a few secrets that night. We would compare some notes on things that made us laugh sometimes and sometimes made us sad. We were age appropriate friends despite the everlasting search for the fountain of youth. We talked that night about a lot of things. He shared quite a few stories with me. At one point, I was about to respond to a text on my phone. He said, put that down, I can’t believe you are going to text during the most important part of my story! OK, OK. I said, but don’t think I am going to buy you food now for the rest of your life just because I interrupted a story of yours. Not the same as a magic show. He laughed. I put the phone down and listened. The conversation ended for good yesterday with Brian. It feels interrupted. The thing I wanted to talk about most with him next was the healing of the heart in all its manifestations, a subject near and dear to my heart right now. It will have to be one-sided now or perhaps this very last act of his speaks volumes to the subject at hand for me.

We don’t get to choose the impact people have on our lives or our connection to them or what they mean to us. I am a firm believer that all sorts of people come into your life for all sorts of things. Impact or connection is not measured in time. It’s measured in space. It’s measured in what occupies the space you share in the time you share it. This was just my own little time and shared space with Brian Gillis, the best magician ever and Johnny Carson’s and my favorite one, too!

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