Forget Outing Gay Sports Players. I Outed a Straight One!
Thirty-eight years before the NBA’s Jason Collins announced he was gay, another famous athlete did the same thing. While one is being roundly praised for his actions, the other was mostly scorned. I know. I was reporting from the sidelines.
The Lessons I Learned as an AIDS Volunteer
When I heard that St. Clare’s Hospital in New York was in desperate need of volunteers to help AIDS patients, I decided to sign up. I went to the hospital, which was then located in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, one evening after work. I met with a thin, silver-haired woman who was in charge of the volunteer program. She looked very Upper East Side. Proper, but also flustered and overworked.
Annette Funicello: Forever Young
I remember exactly where I was the moment I heard that Annette Funicello had died — some 56 years ago. It was the most shocking news I had ever heard, prior to the Kennedy assassination.
The year was 1956. I was 8 years old. I was on a cement playground at the Evergreen Elementary School in Whittier, Calif., which was Richard Nixon’s hometown. I had stayed after school to play with some classmates. My friend Raleigh came over to me with a stunned look on his face. “I just heard that Annette died,” he told me. “She was killed in a car crash.”
I Saw ‘Star Wars’ With George Lucas
I was thrilled to hear George Lucas’ recent announcement that he has signed Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford to recreate their iconic characters – Luke Skywalker, Princess Lea and Han Solo — in the next Star Wars movie.
But I couldn’t help thinking, what about me?
The Work-at-Home Dress Code: What to Wear Now!
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s Fashion Week in New York City. The world’s leading designers — Marc Jacobs, Prada, Chanel, Armani, Calvin Klein, Lagerfeld, you name them — are in town to show off their new collections.
According to the media, the well- dressed woman this spring will be wearing bold patterns in stripes, checks, polka dots and animal prints. As for sportswear, look for short suits, tweed jackets, maxi dresses, ’60s silhouettes and sheer panels. The hot colors: Deep red and beachy turquoises.
I Am Not a Curmudgeon, I’m a Boomer!
I was at an outdoor mall the other night with a friend and his college-age nephew. We were on our way to see a movie, walking down a street that’s only for pedestrians. Canned yuletide music was playing. “I can’t stand it,” I complained. “I don’t want to hear music when I’m outside. Bad enough I have to hear Christmas songs inside every store and supermarket and when I’m on hold on the phone.”
“You’re such a curmudgeon,” the nephew said to me.
Boomers Redefine Sex as Extended Foreplay
I had lunch with a friend last September who’s a few years older than me (I’m 64). He and his wife are in advertising. We hadn’t talked for a while, so I looked forward to our catching up at a local bistro. From the moment we sat down to eat, he began telling me about their rejuvenated sex life. You’d have thought he was 18 the way he carried on, a glow in his eyes.
High School Gym Class PTSD
If I thought my high school physical education coaches were still alive, I’d write them all demand letters:
I want the C’s you gave me every semester changed to A’s. In so doing, my GPA would be raised to where it should have been. I was an athlete, even if you didn’t know it.
How Marilyn Monroe’s Vocal Coach Taught Me to Sing
Things you do come back to you As though they knew the way —from “Where or When,” by Rogers & Hart
When I first met Hal Schaefer in 1978, he was in his early 50s, which then seemed old to me. I was barely 30. He had just moved from New York to my hometown of San Francisco with his second wife, Brenda, a singer in her late 30s. Hal was a famous jazz pianist. In his younger days, he had made his mark as a protégé of Duke Ellington,
who routinely introduced him on stage by saying, “Now you’re going to hear a real piano player.” But rumor had it that Hal’s career was later thwarted by alcoholism, although he had been sober for many years by the time I met him.