square one.
I’ve been writing, and in edits, and giving notes on a documentary. All of which has been stressful and time-consuming and draining.
It has also been my birthday. For that, I was in the desert with my family poaching myself in a pool while the sun beat down on us at 106 degrees. Those days and nights gave me life. I’m more brown, and mo’ better.
We went mini-golfing (at night, when it was like 99 degrees). Before that, I got in a batting cage and hit a few (balls and strikes coming at me 40mph). I wore a helmet with protective facial gear. When I made contact with a pitch, it vibrated through my thumb, tip to wrist. Shook it off. I felt wildly out of shape. But got through it, feeling good, feeling my eyes coordinating with my hands. Feeling like it’s still possible to hit one out of the park.
Thanks, Boomers (a lovely recreational establishment). That tall strawberry-lemonade Icee got me through the sportiness. I chugged it until my brain froze. And then we rode around like a Black version of The Last Picture Show toward nightcaps of Sonic cherry-limeade.
On my actual day, there was dinner featuring raw tuna and grilled lamb. Plus (my favorite) coconut cake, with candles. Spurred on by my folks (“Show your legs!”), I wore a breezy new blue ‘n’ white sundress from Free People (the fashion church where my sister prays). Back in the pool, under a waning strawberry moon, we broke out whiskey, tequila and wine. Traded the aux all night: DeBarge, DJ Quik, Mariah, SZA, GloRilla, Johnny Gill. Wu-Tang. Future. Teena Marie. A lot of this ⤵️
actually. And it was grand. We sang. My terrier tried to howl. WE midnight snacked. And at dawn, after a dead sleep, it was already hot enough to dive back in.
My family is a gift. I’m sugared-out, exhausted, and beloved. Still on deadlines, but have the weekend off, so I’m recalling with anxiety every sentence I wrote last week. Replaying in my head every doc scene, and grieving every phrase snipped for clarity or length.
I went to stretch class yesterday (ouch), walked my 5000ish steps today (fun times), and now I’m watching Netflix’s A Family Affair with Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron. So far there’s more slapstick than I like. But it’s basically a Hallmark movie — which, if you’ve read this essay from me, you know I tend to be into. I’m also watching the documentary series: Visible: Out on Television.
I’m one episode in, and the footage from the act-up era of the AIDS crisis take be back to when I was a Bay Area journalist in the early 1990s, writing for and being an editor at San Francisco papers during the the long aftermath of the George Moscone/Harvey Milk assassinations and trial. So many compelling personalities show up for this doc. Miss Major Griffon-Gracy, Wanda Sykes, George Takei, Billy Jean King, Don Lemon, Dustin Lance Black, and Lena Waithe ⬆️. Anderson Cooper. Karla Jay. Michael Douglas talking about Liberace. Laverne Cox finding out in real time that Raymond Burr (the most famous “Perry Mason”) was gay. I’m embarrassed to say that don’t know as much about the Army-McCarthy hearings and Lavender Scare as I thought I did.
The heartbreak in Visible is relentless. The closets are deep and packed. There are the necessary clandestine partners, and double lives. I paused at the election of Richard Nixon. Could feel the evil rising up like steam.
I recently started and stopped viewing Apple TV’s Presumed Innocent. I read, in full, Scott Turow’s original, thick 1987 book when it was a bestseller, and saw the original film ⤵️ when it was in theaters. I recall the narratives of both hating the woman (as portrayed by Greta Scacchi) it so viciously killed.
I haven’t liked Jake Gyllenhaal in anything since, well, anything (in fairness I have not yet seen Donny Darko, Jarhead, or Brokeback Mountain). And the new Presumed gave me the ick, of the rip. I’ve sort of signed out of movies/shows that open with the horrific action of or immediate upshot of a raped or murdered woman. And when when the woman is ceremonially posed or staged in some way? I gotta go.
Remember True Detective’s first season, when a woman’s body was found posed by a tree, with a crown of deer antlers and rose thorns on her head? That’s why and when I stopped watching. I recall the body of the victim in Presumed Innocent being “hogtied” like an “ugly tormented bow.” It terrified me. In so many films, a woman is dead in some weird symbolic way and then the focus shifts to a man’s complex emotional response to the murder, and/or his brilliance with regard to solving it. Nah. Can’t do it. There’s too much other grand and funny and cool stuff out there.
I just started MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine with Danny Pino (Mayans M.C., Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), newcomer Don Mike, Michael Chiklas (Wired, The Shield), and Mark Feuerstein (Power Book II: Ghost, Royal Pains). If it avoids stereotypes (Cuban, Haitian, American), and the dialogue resists corniness, I’ll stay with it. A few months ago I liked the historic mystery The Pale Blue Eye (murky! worth it!) with Christian Bale, as well as Sam & Kate, a double love story with Dustin Hoffman (and son) Jake Hoffman, and Sissy Spacek (and daughter) Schuyler Fisk.
Ticket to Paradise, with Julia Roberts and George Clooney, is super cute, and so is its lower-budget but just as enjoyable doppelgänger Mother of the Bride (Netflix) with Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt. In my queue now is Season 2 of High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America (more Netflix), as well as D.I. Ray (Amazon Prime Video) with my favorite Parminder Nagra ⤵️
from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and of course, from one of the best sports films ever, Bend It Like Beckham (which I think streams on Disney+).
Until next time,
In music,
Danyel
Loved this post! And happy belated birthday! 🥳🎉 Also, that cake looks divine! 😋🍰
🥳🥳🥳🥳