All That Jazz

 

All That Jazz

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

I’ve always been fascinated by what I call ‘life’s journey’.  Much of my reading is biography and autobiography – the stories of peoples’ lives.  Each life is a journey, a classroom really.  Each of us is growing, learning, changing.  Each of us makes choices – whether we choose to be aware of it or not, as to how our life journey will unfold.  Sometimes we may say to ourselves “I had no choice.  I had to…..”, but in reality – we are always making choices - this direction or that, every moment of our lives. 

One of the many things I love about Willits is the surprising number of interesting people I’ve known here.  All kinds of stories, enough to fill a library.  That’s one of the reasons I’m so fond of making theater.  Theater is really the ancient ritual of telling stories, passing from person-to-person what has been learned.

For example, here is a fascinating person I’ve met in Willits, although our paths literally crossed in New York City’s East Village many years ago in our youths.    I’m speaking of my friend, Linda Posner.  But she wasn’t called Linda Posner.  She was the dancer, singer, actress Leland Palmer.  I didn’t know Linda then.  I was a student at the Neighborhood Playhouse in midtown and Linda was starring in the off-Broadway hit musical, Your Own thing.  If you’ve ever seen the Bob Fosse movie All That Jazz, you’ve seen Leland Palmer.  Linda was kind enough to sit down and talk with me about her life recently.  Here’s some of that story:

“I always loved animals as a kid.  My life became about horses.  I finally got my first horse when I was 13.  I thought my career would be as a veterinarian.  When I was in high school I took a class in modern dance.  My father saw me do a high school performance and encourage me.  I began studying with Eugene Lorring at American School of Dance on Hollywood Blvd.  I did a number of shows in L.A.

My friend Michelle moved to New York City, I followed in 1963.  I was 23.  I rented an apartment and began taking 3 -4 classes a day.  I started studying acting with Gene Frankel and singing with Yul Brenner’s sister, Vera Brenner.  My first professional job was in the show Bajour.  The audition was interesting.  In typical Broadway fashion, we began in a big crowd, then people would get eliminated as the audition progressed along.  It got down to just two of us.  The other girl got chosen.  Three weeks later I got a call from Diretor & Choreographer, Peter Gennaro, “Could you do the show?” 

When I went to join Actor’s Equity, the actor’s union, there was already a Linda Palmer so I had to choose a different name.   My mother suggested Lee “but maybe they would think you were a boy”.  Linda added Lynn, that morphed into Leland.  Now she was Leland Palmer. 

Broadway choreographer and director, Michael Bennett was in the chorus of Bajour.  Chita Rivera was the star.  That’s when I met both of them.  The show ran for a while but not a huge hit.  Michael Bennet got a job directing & choreographing West Side Story in summer stock and asked me if I would play the character Anybody’s.  After that Michael asked me to assist him.  We would work out steps for auditions and I would help him cast shows. 

On Broadway I did Applause, Hello Dolly, Pippin for which I got nominate for a Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award, among others.  The first Tony Award I got nominated for was A Joyful Noise starring John Raitt.

A big break for me was the off-Broadway hit Your Own Thing in 1973, which I also did in L.A. and London.  A funny story about that.  In L.A. I was in the dressing room after the show we were taking off our makeup.  The Stage Manager knocked on the door and said “Leland, someone’s here to see you.” “Who”, I said.  “Rudolf Nureyev and Margo Fonteyn.”  I began to laugh and said “Like right!” thinking he was joking.   I looked in my make-up mirror and there they were standing in the doorway!

I worked with chorographer & Director Bob Fosse on several shows.  Whenever he did a show his wife, Broadway legend Gwen Verdon was always there, so I had met her.  When it came to casting the movie All That Jazz, I had retired.  The film’s writer later told me Bob had me in mind for the Gwen Verdon role.  Fosse’s assistant called me several times to offer me the role.  I turned it down, then Fosse called me himself.  “Just let me fly you to New York and meet with me.  That’s all I ask.”  I said “Bob, I don’t dance, I’m not singing.  I’m not interested in performing anymore”. 

I wasn’t in shape to take on a role like this.  Well, I did fly to New York and walked into his office wearing a long linen caftan & sandals and a flower-child hairdo.  He said “What happened to you!  I know.  You found God.”  He was right.   I wasn’t wanting to be performing again, but I took the part.  Let me say about Bob Fosse, He’s a genus.  Perhaps too sensitive.  Bob was a very, very complicated person.  All That Jazz is the story of his life. 

I’ve had a great career and am still having a great life.  I’ve had the privilege to work with some of the best actors, teachers, chorographers, directors, dancers.  I was very fortunate.  And now when people ask me “What’s been your favorite role?”, I answer ‘Being the mother to my daughter Pearl.’ “

Bill was a 2016 inductee into the Realtor® Hall of Fame, and served as Chair of the County of Mendocino Assessment Appeals Board settling tax disputes between the County Assessor and citizens & businesses.  707-489-2232

The Loved One

 

JOURNAL

The Loved One

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

The other evening I looked over at the sweet, soft cat curled up between us, sleeping peacefully.  I’ll call him Spot, not his real name.   A beautiful boy with a safe place to relax as the cold rain poured down outside.  I’m really more of a dog person but our last dog died a couple of years ago at an old age.  I still miss her.  One of the lessons of these little ones is their, usually, shorter lives.  We learn about love, affection, loyalty – and death, grief and eventually some sort of healing with any luck. 

Spot came into our lives as a kitten, a neighbor’s kitten.  Cute, playful, wild.  He had a good home.  Slept on a child’s bed.  I’m sure, teased and played with as kittens and people do.  No doubt some sweet-talk and eventually falling asleep together.  Cats are known for that, being cuddly and affectionate – also for scratching suddenly for no known reason.  They are, after all, wild things by nature. 

Domestic cats are raised to be dependent on their humans, for food and shelter – even kindness.  Dogs too. 

As Spot got older and lost his kitten-ness, his status in the household changed.  Other things became of interest to the child and the adults.  His food bowl was moved out onto the front porch.  There are many cats in the neighborhood that have free-reign, too many – way too many.  Studies have shown that the songbird population in human-occupied areas, humans with cats, has declined at an alarming rate. 

Anyway, Spot was a gentle cat.  As his importance to the neighboring household became less important, and his food got eaten by the more aggressive cats in the neighborhood, he found a high perch on a set of shelves on our covered patio.  I put a soft blanket on the shelf for him which he seemed to like.  Since he was getting skinny, I began to feed him and since he felt safe and comfortable on his shelf, he began to gain some weight and enjoyed this home-away-from-home. 

When the weather got cold, I got him a heated cat bed, since he no longer went into his old house.  He was still treated like the neighbor’s cat and he went to them for petting.  They seemed to care about him.  Always put that bowl of food on the porch.  He was still a little skittish around us.  We weren’t his humans after all.  But eventually, he would let me pet him as I fed him and finally just let us pet him for mutual affection. 

He and our own old cat got along OK and even played in our backyard, rolling around and doing those cat-things that amuse them.  I couldn’t seem to entice him into the house even when the weather was  cold and wet, although he showed interest, probably because our cat lived inside only venturing out to be in the sun or to poop or to see Spot.  Our cat has his own pet door but Spot couldn’t seem to figure it out.

A couple of years ago the neighbors moved.  They are good people and we had a friendly relationship with them.  Their child now grown to a young adult in college.  Spot was about 7 years old at the time.  I had told them that we didn’t want another cat so when they moved they would have to take Spot with them or find him a home.  Apparently, whatever efforts they put into finding him a home were unsuccessful and when they moved – they left him.  Some people should not have pets.  They don’t have the empathy it requires.  We reluctantly said we would look after him for a brief time till they could come and get him, but now, 2 years later he was still here with us.

He learned how to use the pet door and took to sleeping on our sofa, curling up between us.  Our other cat didn’t like that particularly but they came to some kind of a cat-agreement and got along with this arrangement.  We would pet him and he would roll over playfully, liking his belly tickled, sometimes rolling around with such exuberance that he would fall off the sofa and have to jump back up.

Both boys liked their cat treats and when Spot would come inside in the evening, he would first sit at my feet looking at me with an intense stare letting me know he expected a treat, not just “cat food”.  I always gave in.  Each boy had their own place for their treats so there would be no argument over whose treat it was. 

Spot was an early riser and when I would get up in the morning he would be outside on his heated bed, waiting to detect my morning movement and staring at the back door for his breakfast.  I would feed him and pet him and tell him what a beautiful boy he is, for indeed he had grown into a beautiful adult cat, lithe and easy – he seemed to know this was his home now.  I’m convinced after a lifetime of sharing my life with dogs and cats, that they truly appreciate the humans that share their lives and care for them. They are sentient beings that feel and give back. 

Recently, Spot was attacked by an aggressive cat that badly damaged his ear so I took him to the vet.  Since he was still a bit of a feral cat because of the life he’d had, he was traumatized about being put in a carrying case and taken to the vet, like many animals.  It seemed more extreme with him, so I asked them to give him all the vaccines he needed and a good checkup.  It was discovered he had Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), the cat version of HIV/AIDS.  Incurable, ultimately fatal, transmissible to other cats – which is how he obviously got it. 

We were told he had to be kept inside for the rest of his life, a way he had never lived in his 9 years.  There was our other cat to think of, still healthy.  Spot was showing signs of declining health.  As a former caretaker for AIDS patients in the early 80’s, I knew that a death like that was horrible.  Something I didn’t want my, by now, beloved Spot to have to go through.  After a long consultation with our vet and hours of agonized conversation, we decided to euthanize Spot.  It seemed the kindest thing to do for him rather than a few years of ever more opportunistic infections and vet visits and suffering. 

As I write this, days after his death, I’m still in deep grief.  Every time I think I’m past it, I look out and see his empty shelf, tears well up in my eyes.  My chest constricts.  Perhaps I have PTSD as my vet suggested from all the death I saw in the 80’s as I helped dozens of young men die, horribly from HIV/AIDS.  Some begged me to help them end their lives, which of course I couldn’t do – but wanted to.  Spot wouldn’t have to suffer that kind of death.  His death was quite, gentle, literally an injection to help him go into a deep sleep – then a heart-stopping injection that ended his life in seconds as he rested peacefully. 

Now, my anger.  “Pets”, dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, birds, fish, mice etc. – are NOT TOYS to be discarded, neglected, chained up or locked in a small pen as people sometimes do with dogs!  They are living, feeling beings.  They literally put their lives in your hands.  When you adopt an animal, you are making a commitment for the lifetime of that animal.  The exception, your own severe ill-health or death that prevents you from fulfilling that commitment.  If you don’t agree with me, that says a lot about you in my opinion.  Not anything good.  Animal cruelty is a crime.  People who are cruel to animals have a mental illness, often dismissed, which also manifests as cruelty to spouses, children or people that are just different. 

The last couple years of Spot’s life were relatively good.  We did our best to make it that way.  He was still easily frightened.  Still afraid anytime I went near a broom, perhaps he was beaten with one.  Yet he had his last years of evenings curled up safely on our sofa, loved and cared for.  He deserved a better life than he got. 

The Art & Joy of a Community

 

JOURNAL

The Art & Joy of a Community

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

Joe & I came upon a short documentary the other night on YouTube about a German man who became fascinated by the old rural architecture of Japanese country houses.  After years of rescuing these architectural gems, largely abandon by the booming Japanese culture as it “industrializes”, he and his wife bought a small piece of land & its derelict old house in a remote village.  He lovingly restored this historic house that was on the brink of being lost.  It’s now a remarkably beautiful home, a work of art truly.

His passion for the art & craft of these old houses, some of them from the Edo period of Japan – a time of peace and art, has revived this village that was nearly abandon.  People, all Japanese except for this now elderly German couple, have come together as a mutually supportive, joyful small community to live in their mountainous village reviving derelict rice fields, creating beautiful gardens, raising food, enjoying & each other’s company, raising happy children where older people fill in as surrogate grandparents for the young children now being born to the young people who are choosing this simpler rural life to raise their families.

All of this made me think of our own town of Willits.  I’ve loved Willits since we first moved here in the 80’s.  We too, lived a rural life here in a remote cabin in the forest with kerosene lamps, an outhouse, no phone at first, just cold water and a garden were we followed the instructions of John Jeavon’s book, How to Grow More Vegetables.  We revived an abandon garden.  That first crop of broccoli, Romaine lettuce, onions & garlic – was so abundant that we literally hauled boxes of our abundant harvest to town and gave our produce away on the streets of town. 

Now, years later, I’ve retired from a 30-year very active career and we live in town.  We’ve restored or remodeled four houses, passing two of them along to others.  I have a feeling of belonging in my adopted town after all these years.  I had the city-life of New York & San Francisco as a young man, but at this stage of my life, like the old German, I’ve come to treasure this small town with its slower pace and feeling of community.

We have our own appreciator of the old houses in Willits.  Steve Marston has restored several beautiful old Craftsman houses on Commercial St.  One, in particular, was in danger of being torn down because it had been so neglected.  Now, thanks to Steve, it has been restored to its original pristine beauty – an emblematic example of this beloved architectural style.  Steve’s affection for this style and his own craftsmanship has given our community the gift of new life for nearly lost homes that are gems of their kind.

I struggle with my own 60’s vintage house, to discover what possibilities its uninteresting styling can reveal.  A house transforms once it becomes a home.  When it is loved as a place to nurture the ones who live there, is cared about – it begins to reveal hidden possibilities.  Tom & Sara Mann have also restored a once dilapidated Craftsman to its former beauty.  I watched as Matt & Tara Moratti carefully renovated their simple cottage in town, lifting it from its deteriorating foundation in the mud and lovingly restoring it to a simple yet elegant home for their family. 

The town of Willits is a kind of wonderful mix of different kinds of people.  It extends far beyond the city-limits and is the “town” for thousands of people in rural subdivisions, ranches & farms, individual homes in the unincorporated areas of Mendocino County that surround the town.  This expanded population has given the town the resources and community to create one of the newest hospitals in the country, a beautiful new fire station, a vibrant arts community. 

Yes, our community still has work to do, like all towns, cities, villages.  There are schools to improve.  There’s poverty, and substance abuse and mental health issues, people struggling to just live day-to-day.  There’s the unfolding effort to understand how to figure out the cannabis business – like it or not – that is a part of this community.  Our lush forests once provided many jobs here, before giant corporations primarily headquartered in Southern states, invaded our region with a “cut-and-run” profit motive that has left hard feelings and lost jobs that still linger, still hurt. 

These, and other issues, need solutions.  I feel hope as I see people stepping up to discover ways to solve our challenges.  Big cities have their own concerns as they deal with their ever expanding populations of more people occupying finite space & resources.  Our own small town has limited resources such as infrastructure, sewer, water, money to pay for what’s needed.  And just as important, discovering what’s not necessarily needed.  As new technologies evolve that help us escape from the strangle-hold of fossil fuels and that industry’s often toxic cousin – plastic. 

All of humanity has the huge concern of how to deal with things like over population, the urgent problem of waste.  We can’t survive as a part of the ecosystem of this planet if we continue on the dead-end path of “the disposable society”.  We must prioritize clean air and water.  We must take on authoritarian government that robs the financial resources of the many and deposits them into the bank accounts of the very few.  We are a county and really a planet, at a point of needed global change.  Oddly, the solutions are small - the behavior of each individual.  The choices we each make combine to create big change.  Don’t buy the product packaged in plastic or take the plastic bag.  Make your next vehicle more fuel efficient.  Take a shorter shower.  Support your local farmers.  Be more generous to the local food bank.  Recycle & reuse.  Use waxpaper.  See real mental health as a priority.  Pay attention to who you vote for – are they really looking out for you or just lying to you to get reelected?  It’s each decision you make that creates solutions. 

Community, from the Latin word communitas - common.  The responsibility, and the profound impact, of working together, making good choices, so we can all live better and sustain the very planet i.e. environment we depend on to have life itself.  Community.  The simple act of taking care of your home.