Where have they all gone? Woody Allen? ? Diane Keaton’sAnnie Hall… Verdugo Hills High … (Mrs. Burke, Lenny Ross’s $64000 Quiz kid)
The enchantment, the possibilities, the Gershwin immigrativengrip of the musical potential of transcending the stage of the City that never sleeps...
II
Is it the election year? An orphan, the Sultan of Swat? 60 four baggers! Cleaning up the bases, this so of immigrants, sitting in the right field bleachers, chewing on cracker jacks, hearing Gladys Gooding singing our Star Spangled Banner…watching Hilda and her brass band, panhandle the overtures and Wagnerian streams of the unconscious from Sigfried’s destiny,the composer himself fleeing creditors, identifying with daughters( of Franz Liszt, a genius composer) where he could find them.
III
The possibilities of a clean up batter like Lou Gehrig? Pete Reiser or Willie Mays (“the say hey kid) chasing down a thunderous fly like an Alibi Ike (Joe E. Brown) hitching up his trousers, his gazelle like mind into thinking of hitching his dreams to the boss’s daughter.
Julie Garfunkel (John Garfield) “dreams with kisse4s in them” as he and Lana Turner rendezvous at Malibu necking heist.. (“the Postman always rings twice”) their jalopy into the dashing waves of the PCIFIC Ocean, her Cecil Kellaway ‘H’, tied and gagged in the trunk. Julie and Lana on the hill, watching their hubby bound jalopy sin, vanish into the waves of “their impossible drams”.
IV
Lou Gehrig, the cleanup batter, the Columbia graduate, at first base…diagnosed with an infallible crippling disease…””I am the happiest man o the face of this Earth”, the mike in his hand, standing at home plate, immigrants and their children in the stands, weeping crying .
Sanctuary (the Statue of Liberty) , their eyes, chiseled chins, in disbelief as the ballpark metamorphosed into a transcending memorial on life’ stage: one of their heroes, a champion was taken from their midst, dying in front of their eyes. ad their small talk and petty misdemeanors of their own survival.
V
Lana Tuner’s husband gurgling in the trunk, at the bottom of those Malibu based ocean waves.
March 17, 201 6 The City that never sleeps
