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Clyde, Bill and I

January 11, 2015
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One thing Clark Gable and Jackson Browne have in common is the nonuse of their first names. Wikipedia says they were born Clyde Jackson Browne and William Clark Gable. Another thing they had in common was their alleged scandalous involvement with movie stars. Mr. Browne was with Daryl Hannah and Mr. Gable was with Loretta Young. Ms. Hannah has alleged that Browne physically abused her; Ms. Young alleged that Mr. Gable fathered her child. One story has been discredited; one has not.

Both of these fellows indulged in derring-do. Jackson Browne wrote one of the greatest protest songs of the 20th Century, “Lives in the Balance.” Mr. Gable flew combat missions in WWII.

And why do I put myself in their company? Well, my hair is straight and used to be brown, like Jackson’s; my moustache is semi-sparse, like Clark’s. All three of us did some time in California. None of us is 99 and 44/100 % pure. And all three of us have had a woman close to us die before her time.

But that isn’t it. Not really. The thing is, Jackson Browne and Clark Gable both possess a quality I want. They have both been Champions, and so I wish to be. I’m not a Champion yet, but I’m encouraged by my Champion’s Training of late.

No need to wish me luck, Friends. If I have it in me to be a Champion, Luck is something I won’t need.

Mephisto, Mickey, and Sweet Loretta

August 1, 2013
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Medieval to Modern & tin to iridium
Evolvement takes choices & acts to ignite
Perhaps Good & Evil are more than a construct
Have KA to personify Desiderata
In meeting the challenge of Climb-To-the-Top
Some hands may be gript in an Evil one’s clutch
The pilgrim might Shake become timid let go
or grab at a chance for the conquest of fear

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I hope to finish this well, and well before the end of the month. I have read MR’s Life Is Too Short, and I’ve just heard about a documentary about elder abuse that features the sad story of his latter life, Last Will and Embezzlement. I think I will need to see the documentary to properly inform the page, since I’m going to draw a current-as-possible him above the “Rooney” on the right.

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I may well just sign this page and be done with it, but that’s because the task of summing up Loretta Young’s bizarre life is so intimidating. Did you know, O Reader, that she had Clark Gable’s child? I didn’t till just this week, though I saw her descend a staircase several times when I was a little kid.

The post is called “Mephisto, Mickey, and Sweet Loretta” because it sounded peppy and it reminded me of Neil Young’s “Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and Me.” The “Sweet Loretta” part owes its existence to a line in “Get Back” by the Beatles. (And Loretta Young was sweet sometimes…)

Gender Bender/Bender Sender

July 30, 2013
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So there were Loretta Young and John Larroquette, minding their own business, when along I come and transvestize them, because I noticed that slight changes to their last names would do the trick. I hope they and/or their spirits mind less about that than I did when it was done to me. (A female so-called friend of mine put my head on a “princess” body as an action figure in a video game. I have forgiven her, but there was a rift. Guess I’m not, or was not, all that secure in my masculinity…?)

Quoth Bob Dylan, in “Things Have Changed”:

Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove…

And of course there are J. Edgar Hoover and Muammar Gaddafi and David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich and heart-stopping mustachioed Gwyneth Paltrow and certain of my widening circle of friends who hail from San Diego…

As for Alcoholism, John Larroquette is more than 30 years sober, and the closest Loretta Young came to it was falling for Spencer Tracy. But I tip my tipsy-hat to my grandfather with the line “Booze O Booze you’ve been my guess” because he was found of declaiming

Booze, O Booze, you’ve been my guest
You’ve often made me lose my rest
You’ve often made me wear old clothes
But since you are so near my nose
I’ll drink you down–and down she goes.

Here are, with some annotation, the two sets of words to the two double acrostics:

Gender Bender

Gum-fill the Cup & with a hepfull Dweeb
Enjoin the maiding habits of the grebe
Nun of above belowdex app’d to swoon
Divining Atlas’d Cloudscape for your wound
Enlightingsource may seize [or cease] us to revere
Raw-skulled NICK of the NITE-MITE bring us Cheer

Line One is a riff on Omar Khayyam’s “Come, fill the Cup, and in the light of Spring…” Line Four is an oblique hommage to the movie version of Cloud Atlas and its gender-reassigned co-creator Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski. Line Six has, I trust, the worst-yet pun based on Raskolnikov.

Line Five has a quantum split in it, depending on whether you choose “Seize” or “Cease.” This is what comes of watching dozens of episodes of FRINGE.

Bender Sender

Booze O Booze you’ve been my guess
Engendering devolv’d finesse
Nun of above avail to moon
Deciduously treed and goon’d
Erelong we’ll be hung over here
Regaining thirst of pitchered Beer

Note the similarity of Line Three to Line Three of “Gender Bender.” Like the rug in THE BIG LEBOWSKI, it sort of “ties the room together.”

“Moon” in Line Three, and “Hung over” in Line Five, are meaning-optional.