Another Friend Lost

My Friend, Chris

I took my time in college, attending several schools; starting out full-time and ending part-time (mostly because I couldn't afford to do so any other way). One of the advantages of taking my time was that I got to do and learn from lots of great theatre and lots of great directors and acting coaches. The other was that I got to meet and make friends with a whole lot of people, many of whom I still know and love to this day.

One of those people was my friend Chris, seen to your right in a rather blurry photo taken by our mutual friend Marly while on a trip we took to Salem, MA to do 'research' for a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Chris lived close to campus and we had many parties at his house. We also went on lots of adventures together. 

One of those adventures was a Spring Break road trip to Florida, which probably deserves a post of its own one day. Myself, Chris, our friend Rich and his future wife Dawn all headed down I-95 in car I rented (because I was only one old enough to do so). We took turns driving and I remember waking up around 3 AM somewhere in the Carolinas, as Chris was driving. I glanced at the speedometer - the needle was pressed as far right as it would go. I simply shrugged and went back to sleep, knowing that someone who had once been pulled over for speeding on the Autobahn was at the helm and we would be fine. There's a ton more to tell about that trip, but again - that's for another post.

As much as Chris had a reputation among our clique for being for being a madman, he was sweet and kind and gentle and often very, very funny. A talented carpenter (his father was a cabinet maker) and an often reluctant actor, Chris was known to have a bit of a temper and once infamously and very completely destroyed a beautiful art deco set he'd built for a production of Dinner at Eight after a dispute with the director (the show had closed). We all knew who'd done the deed, though none of us told, even though the incident made the local papers.

Many years passed and while some of us were still in touch, it wasn't until the advent of Facebook that we all reunited (as much as folks can on Facebook). It was last fall when Chris joined Facebook and we were all glad he had done so. 

Then news came in January that Chris had gone missing. Suffering from bi-polar disease, Chris was visiting his sister who noticed he wasn't himself and set out to take him to a local hospital for treatment. She went to get her coat and upon her return found him gone. Scent dogs traced him to a footbridge on the Delaware-Raritan Canal. While Chris was an avid outdoorsman and knew how to survive in harsh conditions, the situation didn't look good. Although we were scattered all over the country, our mutual friends expressed concern and worry. This past Sunday, a family canoeing the canal stumbled across a body which was identified by a driver's license as Chris. Local police are speculating that he committed suicide, though there is no hard evidence to support that theory.

It doesn't matter to me how or why Chris passed, only that he did. And that my life is all the better for having spent time with him. And I can only hope that his was better for having spent time with me and our mutual friends. While I and our friends mourn his loss, we can all celebrate the many wonderful; hilarious; joyous; confounding and exciting times we shared together. I only hope he is finally at peace.

Tonight, at 10 PM Eastern, our mutual friends raised a glass in Chris' memory and posted photos of ourselves doing so on a private Facebook page dedicated to him. I can imagine him smiling at the thought. 

Here's the thing: None of knows how long we'll be here. Take the time to tell the ones you love that you love them. Do so often and sincerely. Savor the joyous moments of your life because they are truly few and far-between. Spend as much time pursuing the joyous moments as you can. Spend even more time pursuing time with friends and family. Be kind to everyone you meet - you never know who'll be part of your life for all of it, or just some of it. Laugh as often as you can. Love as much as you can. Share your joy, but never gloat about it. Slow down. Live the life you want to live and make no apologies to those who disagree with that life. Take time to remember everyone who touches your life, no matter how briefly.

This was one of Chris' favorite songs, and while it isn't exactly a 'happy' song, it's one all of his friends will always remember him by:

I truly hope that Chris' pain has receded, even while his family's and friends' is peaking.

More, anon.
Prospero

Before Laramie

1979

This coming October will mark the 15th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's beating at the hands of two troglodytes in Laramie, Wyoming. But this past December marked the 25th anniversary of the murder of my friend and high school classmate Anthony Milano at the hands of two monsters who have yet to pay for their crimes. 

That's Tony on the far-right of the top row, right next to Uncle P (in the white shirt and over-sized aviators) in a photo from our high school senior year in 1979. The future looked so bright for all of us. 

Tony was quiet and shy but very smart and creative and subversively funny. A talented graphic artist with a skewed sense of humor, we spent three years together (with the rest of the good folks in this photo) in our High School Humanities program, led by a teacher who would go on to be the most celebrated High School Theatre Teacher in the country (and the first adult to tell me it was okay to be gay), Lou Volpe. 

About a year or so after this photo was taken, Tony and I ran into each other in a gay bar in Philadelphia (where we were both too young to be, legally), though neither of us was yet willing to admit even to each other that we were gay. He offered to drive me home to my apartment in Northeast Philly (I had taken the train into Center City) and we parted without saying a word about where we'd met. It was a very different time. 

Over the years since then, we'd meet in various places and situations, never once mentioning that encounter. The last time I saw him, I was working a retail job while trying to establish an acting career. It was early December and I was just too busy to take time out to have a meaningful conversation with him. I promised I would keep in touch and brushed him off, too concerned with whatever it was I was doing to worry about hurting his feelings. A week later, Tony was dead and I was wracked with guilt at having dismissed him.

On December 14th, 1987, Tony stopped for a sandwich and a beer at a local bar, where he ran into Frank Chester and Richard Laird, who goaded him into ostensibly giving them a ride home. Chester and Laird were both relatively attractive men. Did Tony think he was going to have sex with one or both of them? Was he too afraid to refuse their request for a ride? Did they ply him with the promise of more alcohol or drugs? Did they intimate they were willing to have sex with him? We'll never know. What we do know is that they led him to remote, wooded area and murdered him in very cold blood. It's still not clear who did what, though it is certain that one of them held Tony down while the other one slashed his throat with a box-cutter (so brutally that flesh was found in the surrounding trees). They then set his car on fire and left him for dead. Chester and Laird were eventually found guilty and sentenced to death, though both of them remain alive and well in Bucks County Prison, filing appeal after appeal.

I remember attending Tony's viewing and seeing his obviously sedated parents; the undertaker's less-than-successful attempt at hiding the damage to his throat in his surprisingly open casket and the dozens of my weeping classmates. It was surreal, to say the least. Tony's mother never recovered and passed away a few years later. His father, a mild-mannered barber, passed away in 2012. His sister, Annamarie, is the last member of the family to survive. She rarely gives interviews or comments on the events surrounding her brother's death. Chester and Laird are still incarcerated, even though Laird was re-tried in 2007 with the same outcome. 

As a whole, the LGBT community has made great strides in the last 25 years. Just this week saw two  historic Equality issues argued before the Supreme Court. Still, I can't help but wonder what Tony might have accomplished in those years, had his life not been cut short by two ignorant, homophobic creeps. Worse still... There are plenty of ignorant, fearful and violent people who wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to a naive young gay, lesbian or trans person, given the chance.

As children, we're told there are no such things as monsters. Sadly, as adults, we learn that's just not true. Personally, I am usually against the Death Sentence. In this case, I am happy to make an exception. 

Sorry if this post was a bummer but I think things need to be brought into perspective every now and then. As much as we may want to celebrate the eminent demise of DOMA and Prop 8, I think we need to take a moment to remember all that has led up to it. Hate crimes against LGBTQ people are still reported on a daily basis. So many young LGBTQ people are still rejected by their families, bullied by their peers and ostracized by the churches in which they grew up. Suicide among LGBTQ youth remains at an all-time high. It's up to all of us to stop the madness and embrace the idea that we are all human, no matter who or how we love.

More, anon.
Prospero

Cooking with Alcohol

Drunken Desserts

So regular readers know that Uncle P gets together with a group of dear friends from college every couple of months for a themed dinner party. We've had ethnic nights (our very first such dinner was 'Homemade Chinese,' if I remember correctly); chocolate and vanilla; all soups; vegetarian; 'Everything Garlic' and 'Cinqo de Mayo,' to name just a very few. Not all of them have been successful though lately, we've been batting 1000. The list of what we've done in past 25 years or so, is starting to outnumber the things left on the list to try. I know we still have 'Man Food' and 'Carnival Treats' (among several others) left to try.

Tonight's theme was 'Cooking with Alcohol.' We started with appetizers: Beer Bread with Guinness & cheese dip and Drunken Wienies in Rum Sauce. Delicious and decadent. Soup was a shrimp bisque (my least favorite part of the meal - I'm not big on seafood dishes, especially soups) followed by the main course: Coq au vin, meatballs in a red wine marinara, beer-battered asparagus with horseradish remoulade and spinach sauteed with bacon, onions and white wine (the veggies were my contribution). All of it delicious and filling, though we were hardly done.

The drunkest part of our drunken dinner was dessert. While the alcohol had basically been cooked out of most of the food we'd eaten so far, dessert proved to be a whole other beast. There was a Walnut Caramel Pie with Port-infused Cherries; Rum-soaked Fruit Salad; 'Shots O' Cupcakes' and Pecan Bourbon Balls (both of the latter pictured above). The pie was yummy and the cupcakes divine (they had Bailey's and Jameson in the icing) but the Bourbon Balls were both delicious and powerful. The first bite was good, but the second hit you like a double shot and warmed the esophagus all the way down. More than one of those bad boys and I don't think I'd have been able to drive home.

Of course, the food is secondary. The point is an evening spent with people I have known and loved for a very long time. Those evenings are always too few and too far between, making them all the more precious when we do get to have them.

I came home and logged onto Facebook, where my buddy Pax Romano had posted about his meatloaf dinner, which made me sort of sad that our dinner parties are never quite like this:

Oh, who am I kidding? They're all just like that!

More, anon.
Prospero

Cinco de Mayo fue muy buena!

My 'Taco Pot Pie' w/Toppings

It was the college gang's* latest themed-dinner get-together and since this one just happened to be today, we did a Mexican theme, which I think we may have done before because I've had Deb's enchiladas before, but it didn't matter because everything was just delicious. One of our top five efforts, really.  Along with the enchiladas, Deb did appetizers and sangria. Q made both a green salad and a grilled shrimp & mango salad and Mary made a super-delish pineapple souffle and slow-cooked pulled pork.

Uncle P made two new recipes: a beautifully colorful variation on rice and beans that included diced tri-color bell peppers & fresh cilantro and something that the recipe I based it on called "Creamy Taco Casserole." After making my personal adjustments to the recipe (which were minor and mostly cosmetic), it ended  up being something (while truly very delicious) that wasn't creamy in the least, which is why I was so glad that I offered some toppings (tomatoes, green onion, sour cream & crushed Artisan corn chips) and am officially re-naming it Taco Pot Pie (though it's really almost a taco lasagna). I'm making it again for the Day Job's party on Monday, so I'm glad it worked. If you want my recipes, ask and they shall be yours.

Everything was flavorful and well-seasoned without being too spicy to enjoy it and the combination of dishes was superb; each dish complimenting and working with the others in happily surprising ways to create (you should forgive me) Mexican Umami. Most of us had seconds of almost everything. Then, after a bit of conversation came dessert: Q's cinnamon shortbread-like cookies and a chocolate layer cake. While there were lots of left-overs, not a single person left that table hungry. We've been doing these dinners for a very long and have a list we keep adding to (we just added "A Journey Through Time" which would require genuine period or era recipes) and hopefully will never finish. We always have a great time, whether the food is a win or a fail (and when they fail, they fail spectacularly - though there have been more wins than fails, thankfully). Tonight's Cinco de Mayo dinner was a major win.

*After all these years, I've decided we need a group name. So I think I'm having a contest or something. The person who submits the best name for our group will win... something. What you need to know - these are people who know me better than most of my relatives. Our goal is to create a cohesive themed dinner using recipes we've never tried before. Our rules are flexible. The food is simply a bonus and an excuse  to spend time with one another. I hope you are lucky enough  to have friends in your life like the ones I have in mine.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Submit your suggestion and/or ask for my recipes in "Comments."

More, anon.

Prospero

Cooking Fail/Win + The Gayest Thing You'll See This Week

So, tonight was another theme dinner with friends from college. We'll talk about my pretty massive fail after I talk about the first two fabulous wins. of the evening. We started with cheese-puffs and mini-Reuben pastries (Yum and yum-yum!). Then we moved on to my soup, which I was quite proud of, with the exception of my Super-Ball matzoh balls. I don't understand what went wrong. After consulting three experts, I did everything they told me. I followed the directions on the matzoh meal to the letter. Instead of light and fluffy like every matzoh ball I've ever had (and hadn't made), they were dense and chewy. I didn't have to remake them, so I just went. I warned everyone about them and advised them not to eat them and not to feel bad spitting them out should they in fact, eat one. Everyone took one out of politeness. I declined, saying "Don't say you weren't warned." The soup, everyone agreed was excellent. I do make a mean pot of chicken soup, if I say so myself - though for the first time ever, I cut everything up into spoon-sized pieces, which actually improved the soup because you got a bite of everything with every spoonful.

Then they dug into the matzoh balls, which they had to cut into with a knife. Everyone agreed that they looked and tasted right, but were decidedly dense. Truth be told, my friends are too nice - those matzoh balls were the wrongest matzoh balls, ever. Dale, the only Jew among us for our 'Jewish Food' dinner, joked that they were like Nibbler's poo... At least I know the soup was good. Next came a delicious and tender brisket; tsimmis; kugle and string beans in garlic. For desert: apricot; triple-berry and prune/raisin hammentaschen and black and white cookies. By the time we finished, we were all stuffed with yummy goodness. So despite the Great Matzoh Ball Fail of 2011, everything went well and we all fed each other way too much.

I have no idea what our next theme will be, but if it's going to be as good as the last few have been, I can't wait. 

I know I'm long overdue for a movie review, but D and I will be seeing Insidiouis one night in the coming week. But for now, just enjoy the Gayest Thing You'll See This Week (via); the hilarious anti-stereotyping video called "Gay Dude in Wrestling Singlet Talks About Barbra Streisand" (language NSFW):

More, anon.
Prospero

Why Facebook Is Awesome

Back in the mid-90's, your Uncle P found himself in a playing Mushnik (for the 2nd time) in a production of Little Shop of Horrors for Princeton University's "Princeton Summer Theatre," a program which allowed students the opportunity to run a repertory-style theatre company for a summer. They were desperate; I had done it before; I was cast with what was barely an audition.

It was during this production that I met a young man playing the voice of Audrey II, who would go on to cast me in the role which would eventually inspire the name of this blog. This tall, gangly, funny and talented fellow had an unusual vision for The Tempest. He set it in an abandoned subway, transforming the shipwreck to a train wreck and turning Ariel into the spirit of a Broadway hoofer and Caliban into an NYC homeless person. It was the first of many guest performances I have been privileged to have on many NJ college and university campuses, and one of my favorite roles of all time. The PST Board then asked me to direct the following summer, which led to my first time directing Shakespeare. My consequent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream not only proved to me that I actually could direct, but went on to break PST Box Office records, resulting in SRO sales and a long list of hopeful standbys. It also made me the first (and as far as I know, the only) person outside the campus community to direct a production at Princeton, a distinction I will always hold near and dear to my heart. It also allowed me, the following year, to direct the aforementioned production of Much Ado About Nothing, during which Q and Dale fell in love.

Over the years, I lost touch with that young man, though I thought of him (and several other young folks from that era) often. When I first created my Facebook account, I searched for many of those talented folks, to no avail. They had scattered to the winds (as college graduates are wont to do).

A few days ago, through a random connection I had just made with one of my favorite Midsummer cast members (Yes, Suzanne, I'm talking about you), the young man in question (now married with child) made a "Friend" request. You can't imagine how happy it made me to reconnect with someone who not only "gets" me, but for whom I have always had a genuine affection. Dallas from Fort Worth is the original "Dear D" (no offense to the Dear D we all know and love, who will always and forever be that to me) and you have no idea how happy I am to reconnect with him.

People may bitch and whine about Facebook and it's ever-changing policies and layout, but I will always be happy that it's there to help me reconnect with people I have known and loved over the years. And Dallas, if you are reading this, thanks for finding me. I'm so glad you did. Dead Rats, forever! (And yes, that's a private joke.)

More, anon.
Prospero