July 4th, 2010 - in Oregon with your folks

 Happy 4th, little sweetheart. Love you forever.

Lost and Found

Tonight, little sweetheart, as I sorted through a few things in my endless tower of piles, much of it writing. I found what I just labeled as "The Last Notebook". 

For decades, as I wrote plays - often for you! - I would write them all out in longhand but I still had to cull them from these journals as I moved to my typewriter or eventually my laptop. This was one of the old style. 

My book for you is decidedly composed only within particular and dedicated notebooks- it's only that content, not an ongoing journal with the project included, ongoing. I have a pile of them. Once it is finally completed I may take a picture. The many many notebooks in heap on the floor of this apartment that we knew together. Perhaps with me perched upon all or near it. 

But something happened tonight. 

I found the notebook I was writing contemporaneous to your passing. 

We've returned from our legendary trip to Ireland. We have Christmas. I return for the screening of our film Two from The Line and Valentines Day and our production of Blackbird. 

It's all there, all our triumphs and failures and my own - my struggles, our own together - the normal give and take of our relationship, like any other - not knowing how little time we have or, even happy and in love, that it will abruptly end and the grief that will haunt me to my own grave. 

In the end I'm writing from the hospital and finally in the hours before you pass. It's harrowing. But I needed to see it. It's true.

I have so much work to do, little sweetheart.

We have a new album coming out, our 13th, in 11 days - on June 21st the Summer Solstice. 

I'm so much older now, little sweetheart, I wonder if you would even recognize me. I hope my work, our work, preserves and conjures and honors you. 

I would be lost without Sylvia - who I know you see and love, we'll all be together someday - and your parents, who are so dear to me. Our family. 

I want and need to just keep trying. It was a moment tonight that I won't forget. I've set the notebook aside and marked some of its pages. I think it will help me. I feel like you've told me something - both about our own story, however tragic, and how I must go forward in the love. That that is exactly what you want for me. Didn't you tell me yourself that when we love someone it is forever? We don't forsake them by loving another! It's why we are here! And this love binds us all! Even my faith tells me so! 

I'm so sorry that I make and have made so many mistakes. Thank you for finding me tonight - I often see you in dreams, and I need to write of that here more often. Tonight, I've set aside this "Last Notebook" I just have to fully take it in. 

Love you forever. -M

I Believe

Oh, little sweetheart. I heard the most beautiful song at last night's Good Friday service. It made me cry and cry. It's a quite recent composition and I heard the NYC Trinity Church Choir sing it but the video below is (I think) its very first performance. The young conductor comes out at the end. I'll leave the notes about it (and the amazing words) below. 

It just is a breathtaking expression of faith! How I miss you, little sweetheart, and my mom, too. I hope you two are having a root beer float in Heaven right now and not worrying about me too much, knowing that things like this get to me. We'll all be together again and forever, soon. I believe. With all my love...

NOTES about ""Even When He is Silent"

Commissioned by the St. Olaf Festival in Trondheim, Norway (Olavsfestdagene). 

The text was found in a concentration camp after World War 2: 

I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining. 

I believe in love, even when I feel it not. 

I believe in God, even when He is silent.

On Good Friday

Here, little sweetheart, are remarks I composed and delivered for a Good Friday service a few years ago at NYC's historic West End Collegiate Church. With all my love forever.

 

The 19th

Although the 18th is such a tragically sad day to remember each year, little sweetheart, I must remind myself that the 19th is actually a glorious one because it is the day that we recognized as our anniversary. Although we'd first met in December the year before and had our first kiss a week or so earlier that March, the 19th was the night you drove me home - or rather I drove your car, as you directed me to, with you next to me in the passenger seat - parked on a hill outside the place I was staying in Bernal Heights and made your move. "Oh!" - I finally got it and asked if maybe you'd like to come in and have a cup of tea. You did, of course, and there's far more to tell but it was very much our first night. Let's make sure we remember this glorious day forever. With all my love... 

Nightships

Written for you tonight, my little sweetheart. Sylvia will voice and I will underscore it on the new album. With all my love forever.  

 

NIGHTSHIPS

In restless hours, quiet angels -
Determined,
The holiest of ghosts -
Astride pinpoints of moonbeam
That stream between a gap in the curtains,
Alight beside us at bedside
As we lay dreaming.
Sensing trouble,
She reroutes our course,
Righting these nightships
That carry us far too close
To misadventure and rocky shores.
Anxious thoughts allayed,
Instead,
She steers us toward healing
And the bright horizon
As dawn approaches,
In hopes we will remember.  

 

 

On This Day (and every day)

Thinking of you, little sweetheart, on this day and every day. Some more words of, for and about you here. With all my love forever. 

Last Night's Dream

I had such an unusual dream last night, little sweetheart. You and I were at some awards ceremony - it might have for the theatre or maybe it was a film festival. Anyway, we both were nominated and we both won! I don't know why I dreamt that part - maybe because tonight is the Academy Awards (although I rarely watch and only mostly did with you and even then we usually forgot they were even on until an hour after it had begun and were like "Oh, yeah - the Oscars..." and would turn on the TV in your room, halfway through. 

Anyway, the more interesting part of the dream was after. We were staying in some little hotel and we had to check out by noon. We both got up and I thought you were in the bathroom but just then someone knocked on the door. It was room service and they were bringing up your breakfast order. I asked if they could bring something up for me too and the lady was a little flustered but said yes, she'd have to hurry because the kitchen was about to close. 

After she left I was getting dressed and I looked in the mirror and noticed I had a new line on my forehead. I started to examine and touch it and I noticed that I was bleeding. Like above my hairline and then all down my face. I tried wiping the blood away but it kept bleeding. I knocked on the bathroom door but you weren't in there, so I went in, put a washcloth under cold water in the sink and pressed it to my forehead until the bleeding stopped. I cleaned up and everything looked okay. 

Just then you came back into the room smiling and pushing an upright piano on wheels into the room. "I found it upstairs!", you said, beaming mischievously. It was like an electric piano, a Rhodes or something - short scale, 49 keys or so and a full on piece of work with a wooden base - not just a keyboard on a stand.  But also light enough to move around on casters somehow. "Let's take it home!"  you said. 

We were really happy with your find and our night. Then I woke up. 

Ha! What do you think it all means? 

With love... your Michael

Tonight, Remembered

Tonight, little sweetheart, was our last night before the tragic and impossible. 

Honestly, we'd had a rough day. We were in a difficult period of rehearsal for "Blackbird" - in hindsight an amazing project because it was a play for just we two - and we were a little stressed, after. But we talked it through, ordered a pizza for dinner (we never did that) from a place, incredibly called "Escape From New York", watched a story and fell asleep together.

We woke up healed, hopeful and headed back to a run-through of all we had of the play off book and blocked - our first full run through - and it was astonishing. We had it. Our director was beside himself with joy. This was going to be the best production in SF in a decade and we had it with two more weeks to polish. We headed off triumphant ... to buy groceries (homebodies, we just wanted to be in our jammies together with a DVD) and have a rare night off at home...

More about tomorrow, tomorrow, but tonight - tonight, we couldn't know anything. 

It's years later  - 15 years - little sweetheart. I'm feeling so much tonight and don't know what to say. I'm working on the book. I'm working on our 13th album.

Love you forever. See there. 

Valentines

Little sweetheart, it's Valentines Day and, of course, I think of our famous "Trip to the Snow" - when your folks invited us all to a weekend getaway in Lake Tahoe. 

You and I came up from SF after your class at the YC, where you were teaching. We'd passed by a shop window display a day or two earlier that had featured a pretty bra and panty set, Valentine-themed in black with red and pink hearts. You'd admired it from the sidewalk, so I circled back on my own and bought it. I gave you the brightly colored gift package when I picked you up in the car. You opened it in the back seat and swooned. I was so happy!

We had a long drive ahead through the mountains and increasing snow. We stopped at one point to gas up and get snacks. As I paid inside, I saw a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses and bought them for you. I couldn't help but gush to the cashier "have you ever seen such a beautiful girl?!" You were a little embarrassed but I was overwhelmed. 

How I love you! Forever! Take me home to you, soon!

Forever

Thinking of you always, little sweetheart. Between travels and troubled times, I've not kept up this page nearly enough but you are in my every thought and all of my work. The book goes forward, I'm in the thickest parts of our 13th album - the great Max Reinhardt had me on air recent to talk about it - and I love you with all my soul. More imminently. Love you forever. 

More on the Roof

 Here's a second one I took of you, little sweetheart! Happy Christmas!

First Snowfall!

Little sweetheart, I woke this morning to a surprise snowfall - our first of the season! It always makes me think of the time you were here just after Rock n Roll closed in Boston and just before Christmas. We went up on the roof and took a few pictures. One of them was our Christmas card for many years! I'll post a few. Love you forever!

 

Paul

 Little sweetheart, I saw our friend Paul Keirnan yesterday. I went by McCoy’s to drop off a Christmas card for him and he wasn’t there but the barmaid who took it from me to give to him said he’d just been in and was a probably up the block at Alfie’s - another bar/restaurant that he owns. I started to walk up there and I met him on the sidewalk, He took me back to McCoy’s and made quite a fuss which was very sweet and then he bought me a Guinness and we sat had a pint together and caught up. 

How well I will always remember when you first met Paul. I took you to Dalton’s - yet another of his places. He made a fuss that day, especially over you. We didn’t have drinks that day but he bought us lunch and insisted on you ordering a dessert. He sat with us for a while and when we left he said to you - he was clearly smitten - “take care of him, now”. You smiled and she that you would. 

And did you ever! Thank you, my little sweetheart. You saved my life, you know? Can’t wait to be with you forever in the Forever and meantime I know you’re doing your best to help and guide. Thank you my angel. With all my love.

Driving Dream

Little sweetheart, I had this crazy dream last night where we were in Boston - just like we were when you doing Rock n Roll at The Huntington and you had that lovely little apartment over by Boston University. We were driving. I don’t think it was the Prius but we were both in the backseat. That happens to me a lot in driving dreams - I’m in the backseat trying to reach into the front seat to turn the wheel and stuff. 

Anyway, we were both in the back seat and trying to drive around Boston and then suddenly we were driving on the subway tracks, on the T. It was exciting and scary. Ha! What do you think it all means! I love you!

Perfect Unison

I’m working on the 13th Bipolar Explorer album just now little sweetheart and as I mix down roughs of new tracks, they always automatically go into a super long play list of BPX Demos. If I listen back, because the new tracks are always at the end, the playlist begins after from the very top. And at the very top is your and my very first demo of “Flag Day”. Of course I’ve heard many many times, as well as the finished version on our album, Of Love and Loss, but what struck me tonight was that at one point as we’re both holding a long note, our voices join each other in a perfect unison vibrato. Both our voices begin that tremolo together at the exact same time. It’s kind of amazing. Love you forever.
 

Well Done

 I like to make turkey meatloaf every now and then, little sweetheart. I don’t think I ever made it for you, sadly. Although you really are more of a vegetarian, you did like to have a burger now and again - very well done. I’m more of a medium rare kinda guy, as you know. 

Anyway, it’s my mom’s recipe for regular meatloaf with beef but years ago I asked your own mom how she thought it would come out if I subbed in ground turkey, instead. I did and it’s now one of her favorites! I’ll make it for her and your dad when I visit them next in a month or two! 

There’s always a little of the mix left over that won’t fit in the loaf pan, so I make one turkey meatloaf burger patty and set it aside for later in the fridge. Tonight, I'm having it and with this, and only this, I make sure to cook it very well done. Just like I know you would like. With all my love from the kitchen…

Social Network

I have a subscription to the Criterion Channel, little sweetheart. I got it at the beginning of the pandemic and I always says it was the best $99 I ever spent.,They have all the classic art house movies, of course, but also old Hollywood films and even new releases from all over the world. Each month they create a playlist of films featuring a particular artist, genre or theme. Right now there’s one for the films of David Fincher and among them is The Social Network which I hadn’t seen since I saw it in the movie theatre when it came out. I’d forgotten so much about it, not least that Fincher directed! I remembered that Jesse Eisenberg was the lead - you and I liked him so much in Adventureland - and that Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay, another of our favorites. Thinking of you as it all unfolds tonight. With all my love…
 

Ask Me Why

I love you, cause you tell me things I want to know

And it's true that it really only goes to show

That I know that I,

Should never, never, never be blue

Now you're mine, my happiness still makes me cry

And in time, you'll understand the reason why

If I cry, it's not because I'm sad

But you're the only love that I've ever had

I can't believe it's happened to me

I can't conceive of any more misery

Ask me why, I'll say I love you

And I'm always thinking of you

 

LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!!

 

 

Tom Stoppard

Little sweetheart, the playwright Tom Stoppard has passed away. I wrote this (below) this moring and posted it on some of our socials:

Tom Stoppard has passed away.

Summer was in the first regional production of his play, "Rock n Roll" - which may have been her favorite job ever - a co-production of San Francisco's ACT and Boston's Huntington Theatre.

 

While she was waiting in the wings to go on just before curtain one night at The Geary, Stoppard ambled out the shadows and told her he loved her work on his play. She was stunned and delighted and managed to compose herself before her indescribably memorable entrance, which was akin to Cleopatra arriving on her royal barge.

 

I already liked and admired him but this made me love the fuckin' guy.

 

God bless and rest you, Mr S. I think there's a red headed siren up there waiting to greet you. Maybe you have another role for her...