launch-pad

 

        Someone was saying recently that cough drops are just candy and don't help a sore throat or a cough.  I don't feel that way, though.  I think they help.  (And they do taste good...if you have a sore throat, the small pleasure of a good taste can offset the negative thing, the pain....)

I love it when cough drops are called "lozenges."

I don't know why, but I love that word.

LOZZ - enge. ... That soft "g" like in gem, not hard "g" as in gaffe.

        (Politician:  "I surely cannot make a gaffe, as long as I imbibe a lozenge before going up to the microphone."

        British politician:  [same sentence, but with an English accent...])

lozenge

lounge

        "We had a peppermint lozenge at the Peppermint Lounge."

[Wikipedia] -- The Peppermint Lounge was a popular discotheque located at 128 West 45th Street in New York City that was open from 1958 to 1965, although a  new one was opened in 1980.  

It was the launchpad for the global Twist craze in the early 1960s.  

Many claim The Peppermint Lounge was also where go-go dancing originated, although this claim is subject to dispute. ------------------------

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holiday night

 

---------------------------------------

Christmas season

with a reason

for an Island Of Quiet

to rest our thoughts

-------------------------------------

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♪ ♫ slow down, you move too fast

 

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan had a documentary on Netflix.  Online hate racing through Internet -- my android tablet was jumping up and down, and it wasn't even on!

Something I noticed and pondered, over time, was -- before Harry and Meghan met, William and Catherine and Harry used to be kind of a group of "three musketeers," in their casual free time.  They were family, and friends.

        You would see photographs of them laughing together, sitting together....

In a friendly relationship like that, it's a married couple plus a single brother.  Girlfriends and dates of Harry's may have come and gone, but the three friends -- William, Kate, and Harry -- remained solid.  There would be pleasant feelings of being able to count on each other.

        For the single brother, there's the fall-back position whenever he isn't dating someone -- he can always go see William and Kate.

        For the married couple, Harry may have sometimes been a "buffer."  If either spouse might be grumpy about anything, Harry would be there to help joke it away -- smooth it over.  He provided masculine company for Prince William, and probably help with whatever Kate wanted, if she asked.

        Let's play a song!  Let's bake some muffins!

        Almost always available.  "The spare," as the royals say.

Then Harry meets Meghan and starts dating her.

In theory:  two happy couples, having fun together.

In practice:  circumstances improve for Harry, and get a little less good for William and Kate.  Buffer -- no longer available as often as before.  Good, trusted, supportive friend -- no longer available as often as before.

Another aspect that occurred to me -- sometimes in relationships of this kind, the married couple can come to depend on a little bit of a feeling of superiority, believing the single friend to be yearning for what they have.  

        Inside of these types of feelings can grow a strong affection for being "onstage," performing their happiness as a couple for the brother / friend who they may come to regard as their "audience."

Then he meets Meghan and it's like, "What happened to our audience?  Where'd he go?  

        What do you mean, he's looking at this American Meghan-person, and not at me / us??!!"

_____________________________

Another thing I noticed was that William advised Harry not to move too fast in his relationship with Meghan, and this admonishment was not well-received.  I read that.

        (Yikes.)

        Is it good advice?  Yes.

        Should it come from his brother, who is close in age to Harry?  No.

I feel like most people in Harry's position would be able to listen to that advice without resentment if it came from someone in an older generation -- a parent, uncle, aunt, even grandparent maybe.

        But to hear it from a sibling who is basically in your same age group -- most people would be hard-pressed to not get aggravated.  It would be received as:  'I am your contemporary and I know so much more than you about affairs of the heart.'

        ('Ah yes, thank you for your wise words -- please follow me over here, where I can show you our swimming pool -- up close!')

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Laguna Beach

 

Jerry Hall, photographed by Patrick Lichfield

------------------ [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille - 2010] --------------------------------

Patrick Lichfield

Patrick and his lovely wife Leonora were neighbours of ours on Mustique.  

They were often there at the same time as us, and their children were similar ages to ours, so I knew him first as a friend.    

We'd all get together at people's houses for dinner and games, and Patrick and Leonora were great fun.  He was an extremely well-known photographer, though we only did the occasional job together.  

        One of them was an advertisement for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel chain, which we shot in Laguna Beach, California, with me in a cowboy hat and a white shirt standing in the desert.  

On the day we had to shoot it one of my children was sick and I had to stay in the hotel, so Patrick shot the background and then came and shot me and superimposed the two.  

It was very successful and is still running all these years later.

___________________________

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picture this

 

Terence Donovan photograph of Jerry Hall

--------------------- excerpt ----------------

Terence Donovan

I did a lot of work with Terence after I came to live in London.  

He was one of the original celebrity photographers in London along with David Bailey and Brian Duffy.  

        Between them they captured and helped to create the swinging sixties that made London the fashion and style centre of the world.  

Terence was a lovely guy, and great fun to work with.  He'd take the photos quite quickly, get it all sewn up and then we'd go out and have caviar for lunch and he'd entertain us with stories.  

He was a black belt in judo and wrote a book about it, and he used to tell me about it.  

        He was an adventurous photographer, who always loved to try something new.

______________________

{Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille Publishing - 2010}

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photographs and memories

 

photograph of Meryl Streep, by David Bailey

--------------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures -- Quadrille, 2010] -------------------------

David Bailey:  A Lifelong Friend

David Bailey is the most wonderful photographer to work with.  

We have had so many good times, producing such glorious photographs together.  

His sharp, pared down, tightly cropped and gritty monochrome images transform his sitters into heroic figures.  

He gave me a shot he had taken of Bob Dylan which is one of my favourite photographs of all time.  And I have always loved the photos he has taken of me.     

        One of the things I love most about Bailey is his integrity.  If he doesn't feel inspired by a job, he turns it down -- no matter how much money is on offer.  

Bailey has dyslexia and, while not always adept at articulating his thoughts verbally, he is a visual genius.  He left school at 15 and learned his art by becoming a photographer's assistant, and by his early twenties he was taking pictures for Vogue.  

        Because he works so instinctively, clients have to trust him and let him do his job -- and he always produces stunning photographs....

        One of the most memorable shoots Bailey and I did together was for French Vogue, in the south of France.  We went with the great artist and photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, who was then in his late eighties.  

        Lartigue had been famous in his youth for his images of the privileged world of France at the turn of the century.  

His photographs of horse drawn carriages, early automobiles and glamorous women and their friends had really captured an era.

        He had been re-discovered in his seventies in New York and had started working for Vogue.  When I met him he was an adorable smiling, white haired gentleman who took snaps of me while Bailey photographed us both.  Later I called his wife begging for one of those photos, but she told me that sadly they hadn't come out well.  I'd have loved to have seen them.

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in the middle of all that success

 

I really like Jerry Hall's book.

I can't stop discussing it.

I really like it.

Why?

I don't know, for sure.

        When I read a passage in it (and look at the photographs), it's like a trip around the world.

--------------------------- I really like it when she has a series of pages where, on each page, there will be a description of a photographer and her time working with him -- like the guy who photographed her in the museum in France.  And a picture.

November 29 -- Richard Avedon, with his moving feast of light

December 2 -- Horst!

December 6 -- Gunter Sachs

December 7 -- Hiro

December 8 -- Bill King

------------------- [excerpt from the book] --------------- It was a lot of fun being on tour -- travelling with the boys, sharing their after-show tales and jokes, sitting in the private plane after a successful show, feeling a common bond.  

It was like being part of a big family.  

But it was also hard work; all the travelling was physically and mentally exhausting.  And the groupies were really irritating.  

        Girls would sneak into the hotels and get backstage and throw themselves at the band.  I had to watch out for them -- they were ruthless and would do anything to get noticed!  Often they would have sex with the security men just to get backstage passes.

        By 1979 Mick and I had settled into New York living.  We rented a lovely home and had great friends, but Mick wasn't touring and had too much time on his hands.  He started going out a lot without me.  He would say he had a meeting and then call to say it was running late.  

He had been linked with several girls in the gossip columns, but he denied it all, of course.

        During this time I modelled for the big American designers such as Bill Blass and Oscar de La Renta.  Oscar took me on trips to do fashion shows all over America and a couple of times to Japan.  

Being in the middle of all that success was like being in the eye of the storm.  

The phone rang constantly, as did the doorbell.  I always had to answer it because Mick wouldn't -- he was usually watching cricket on TV.

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Linda Evangelista, Rene Russo, Jerry Hall

 

---------------------- [Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille -- 2010.]

Bill King

Bill was pretty mad.

He always wanted high energy and lots of action on his shoots, and he used to have wind machines and an assistant with a plastic water spray.

He'd put on two wind machines and spritz you and shout 'jump, jump, more, more, more'.  It was exhausting -- you really had to be in top shape with him.  Because of his style there was a kind of looniness in his pictures.  You didn't always look that great because you'd be kind of leaping across the page.

        His look was all about energy and movement.  He was fun, quite wild, a bit of a party boy.  I enjoyed working with him and he booked me a lot, we had a great time together.  He loved gossiping, just like Scavullo.

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on the sand by the sea

 

------------------ [Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille -- 2010.] --------------------------

Hiro

Hiro was a great artist, and a lovely man who had started out as Avedon's assistant and we worked together a lot along with the Japanese hairdresser Suga, who always worked with him.

Everything about the way Hiro worked reflected his Japanese culture.  His studio was incredibly organised and minimalist, and his work was very technical and beautifully crafted.  His assistants didn't have anything to do but hand him something because he knew all the technicalities and he prepared it all himself.

        He had a lovely personality; sweet, gentle and very giggly.

I'm surprised he's not more celebrated as he took such wonderful pictures -- elegant, clean, with startling colour and often with unexpected elements.

        We went to the Caribbean island of St. Martin to do a campaign for the Japanese designer Hanae Mori, where Hiro took this incredible photo of me, using a camera lens that NASA had developed.

        It was a huge close-up of my head, as I lay on the sand by the sea, looking like a giant sculpture from Easter Island.

        There was no retouching then, and only someone of 18 could get away with having their pores magnified like that!  It was later used as a poster and in a calendar.

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"no" in six languages

 

artwork by Gunter Sachs

---------------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall:  My life in pictures.  Quadrille - 2010] --------------------------

Gunter Sachs

Gunter was a famous photographer who was also an economist, a mathematician and an industrialist.  

He had been married to Brigitte Bardot and had quite a reputation as a ladies' man, but when I went to stay with him and his wife Mirja in Saint-Tropez I found a polite, charming guy.  

        His wife was lovely, they had little children and it was all very normal.  

I was booked to do a shoot with him but I wouldn't go topless, so all the other girls in the photo are topless, and I've got my hands and hair covering myself.  He took the shot in his house on the beach where he had a giant chessboard made out of stones.

        Every photographer wanted you to do topless shots, it was a constant battle.  Most of the time I said no.  My mother had warned me not to do nude shots, but I wasn't just being modest -- in those days if you were working for Vogue, which was the pinnacle of every model's career, they wouldn't work with you if you had pictures in Playboy.  

High fashion and soft porn just didn't mix, so I was always careful.

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the one where Chandler writes a book

 

Matthew Perry (Chandler on Friends) recently had a memoir published, that gives the story of his life, and also discussing his addiction issues.

        He has been telling interviewers he wrote the book to help other people who struggle with addiction.

        Some Internet commenters complain that he "made bad choices" and then wants to get even richer by selling a book about it.

        I came across his book on Audible, where he himself is reading it aloud -- it's on YouTube, for free.

        So then -- having it free on You Tube takes away the criticism that he's just trying to make even more money, with this project.

        Then some commenters under the You Tube book were yelling -- "this is stealing from Matthew Perry!  It's wrong to have this on You Tube!"

        LOL, someone's always caterwauling in the comment sections, no matter what you do.

        Another comment there said what I was thinking:  Matthew Perry must have a lawyer and an I-T and an assistant and a veritable "army" of people, some of whom cover the Internet daily and "block" anything on there that belongs to Mr. Perry, if he doesn't want it to be out there for free.

        I think that book sitting there on You Tube proves he wrote it with the first priority being to help other people.

-------------------- Book-people will still buy the book.  And there are people who never go on You Tube.  So it isn't such a "threat," imo.

_______________________________

Meanwhile, I listened to most of it while doing chores -- it was interesting!  I had to skip over parts where he described some of the severe symptoms and hospital treatments.  Can't do it.  And the drug stuff, I kind of understood and kind of didn't -- if these drugs like Zanax and Vicadin cause such horrible effects, why do doctors prescribe them?  This doesn't make sense to me.

I sort of have a prejudice, or stereotype, when it comes to doctors and other professionals.  The top part of my brain can know that these are just people, and some of them may be corrupt.

        But an intense and immovable belief, in the back of my brain, tells me doctors, lawyers, priests, teachers, etc., cannot be corrupt, they have to do the right thing.

        (I guess maybe I need to work on my brain, or my belief systems and assumptions....)

In the book Matthew also talks about the entertainment business and how some of it works.  That part I was really interested in.

        He mentions several times having a lunch-meeting, or dinner-meeting, with Bruce Willis or some other major star -- they go to an expensive restaurant and order food and never eat any of it.

        They have their conversation and then they leave.

They should box up that food and take to a food bank, or ask the restaurant people to do it.

        (Actors can be imperfect??  Aaaauuuugggghhhh!!!!)

I got to thinking, if they're not going to eat a meal, why go to a restaurant?  Meet at each other's houses, or sit on the front stoop, and have bottled water.  Don't worry about food, and save money.

        But then I remembered Matthew Perry mentions in his narration of his book, that when they go to these expensive and trendy restaurants, at the door there will be a gaggle of "paparazzi" to take their pictures.  So I guess they want that.

        (Some of the paparazzi should take photographs of all the food those guys waste.)

He also writes / talks about what kind of stories work in the TV business, and what kind of stories don't work.  Except there are no rules.  A lot of it is luck.  You can't always tell what is going to be popular at any given moment.

        Apparently when you work on an Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson's War) project, you cannot change one word, or one contraction -- if script says, "He is going to be late" and the actor says it as, "He's going to be late" they have to shoot it over again.  And Mr. Sorkin doesn't like to hear any ideas from actors.

        MP was accustomed to more of a collaborative environment at Friends.

Perry uses the "Shakespeare" example when describing how you have to say the exact words, exactly as they are in the script, when working with Sorkin -- Matthew Perry says, "like it's Shakespeare or something."

        That's a familiar expression -- I've heard some other actor say the same thing, or maybe I read it....

Back in Shakespeare's time over in England, I wonder if they would be rehearsing a play and one of the actors would get impatient and grumble to William Shakespeare, "Come on, man!  Like it's Shakespeare or something...!"

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"you'll see things in a different way"

 

Rodin Museum

     (Urban Sketchers)

--------------- [excerpt from Jerry Hall, My life in pictures.  Quadrille Publishing.  2010] --------------------------

Horst

Horst was a German-American photographer who had taken some extraordinary photos of celebrities as far back as the thirties.  

When I worked with him he was in his seventies and working for American Vogue.  

His style was very arty and surrealist, I thought it was beautiful and I did quite a lot of work with him.  

Horst liked natural light and tungsten light; he was an old-time photographer who took very stylized black-and-white, graphic photographs.  

He was a charming man who was polite and thoughtful, entertaining and very knowledgeable.  

He loved to use a classical setting and one of my favourite photographic sessions with him was at the Rodin museum in Paris, where he pictured me alongside the stunning marble sculptures.

__________________________________

♫♪ ♪♫

If you wake up and don't want to smile

If it takes just a little while

Open your eyes and look at the day

You'll see things in a different way

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

Don't stop, it'll soon be here

It'll be here, better than before

Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Why not think about times to come?

And not about the things that you've done

If your life was bad to you,

Just think what tomorrow will do

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

Don't stop, it'll soon be here

It'll be here -- better than before

Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

All I want is to see you smile

If it takes just a little while

I know you don't believe that it's true

I never meant any harm to you

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

Don't stop, it'll soon be here

It'll be here, better than before

Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Don't - stop - thinkin' about tomorrow

Don't stop, it'll soon be here

It'll be here, better than before

Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Don't you look back

(Ooh)

Don't you look back

(Ooh)

Don't you look back

_____________________________________

{"Don't Stop," song written by Christine McVie, recorded by Fleetwood Mac, Rumours album, 1977}

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can you hear me calling ♫ ♪ out your name

 

Fleetwood Mac is such an interesting band:

All the early line-ups from the 1960s to '74.

Then the 1975-onward version, with Buckingham and Nicks --

Three men and two women

Three English people and two Americans

Three songwriters (Christine, Stevie, and Lindsey)

songs from

Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

and Rumours

that were written by Christine McVie:

"Warm Ways"

"Over My Head"

"Say You Love Me"

"World Turning" (with Lindsey Buckingham)

"Sugar Daddy"

"Don't Stop"

"Songbird"

"The Chain" (along with the other four band members)

"You Make Loving Fun"

"Oh Daddy"

Two more from later on:

"Everywhere" (currently in a Chevrolet commercial)

and

"As Long as You Follow."

__________________________________

        Reading Comments under the New York Times story about Christine McVie, I found that there were some from people who were very critical of the post-1974 Fleetwood Mac that included Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

        These commenters seem to be mostly people who were fans of the earlier Fleetwood Mac that had Bob Welch, Danny Kirwan, Peter Green, Bob Weston, Jeremy Spencer rotating in and out of the band.

        These fans / commenters liked these early iterations of "FM."  Then when Buckingham and Nicks joined, it was a somewhat different band.  

Both were songwriters, and Lindsey played the guitar, so there was bound to be change in both sound and in what kind of songs were going to be created, because now you've got total of three songwriters, two of them new.

        The band then focused on making records that would reach a large number of people, and hopefully sell, and it worked.  Fleetwood Mac reached a new level of success, with the famous Rumours album.

And that new version of FM is vastly irritating to some fans of the earlier "Mac."  They remark on the post-1975 FM being a "candy-pop band," etc.

-------------------------- It reminds me of the fans of Bob Dylan's earliest folk albums getting mad when he "went electric."

(concert promoter in 1965, trying to calm down a crowd:  "OK, OK!  Bob has gone to get his acoustic guitar!!")

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