MEANDERINGS – by Peter Rocchio

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Two very special people were called home as we entered 2006.  Let me merely say that Lorraine Reed and Terry (Mason) England were individuals who made, not only significant contributions to their respective communities, but touched the souls of many.

Requiescat in pace!

Did you catch the CNN New Year’s eve television coverage?  While the other news outlets, cable and network, had live remotes from around the world as the clock moved to midnight successively around the world, CNN had among their live shots, Key West, Florida – thank you Anderson Cooper.  The midnight drop on Duvall Street was none other than the Asian drag queen, Sushi. In the course of CNN’s drop-in (oops, bad pun) to Key West, Cooper had interviews with not only Sushi, seated in a giant red slipper waiting for her grand and dramatic appearance at midnight but with several other elaborately attired she-males.  It was more entertaining than watching hordes of milling people in Hong Kong, Sydney, NYC or enduring the embarrassing appearance of Dick Clark.  Whoever thought having him appear was a good idea should be fired.  Wrong time, wrong place!

I have several favorite TV shows to comment on.  I believe BOSTON LEGAL (Thursdays – 9:00PM ABC) was around last season but somehow I never caught it. I do recall Emmy awards being given to James Spader and maybe even William Shatner but not having seen the show I wasn’t impressed.  Well, I have discovered this brilliant latest effort by David E. Kelley.  It is just barely over the top.  This is of a law firm, which, if it truly existed, I would return to the practice just to join.  They are outrageous and witty and clever and bizarre, likeable and insane.  If you haven’t seen it, give it a try and enter a world of people you just might love to know.

On Mondays at 9:30 on CBS is another wacky sitcom, OUT OF PRACTICE.  The cast, which includes, Henry Winkler (the Fonz) and Stockard Channing (recently of The West Wing). Channing and Winkler are both doctors and divorced from each other but not out of each other’s life.  They have two sons, both doctors and a lesbian daughter, also a doctor. (The youngest son is a real cutie).  There isn’t a conventional bone among the five of them.  It is one of the most genuinely funny shows to appear in a long time. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we are all sexually driven – both on and off the job,. Most of us manage to keep those impulses under control most of the time.  Not so with this family. They are open and explicit and outrageous in their constant pursuit of bed partners.

One evening recently, as the holidays were winding down, Bill and I decided to catch a film.  Without even checking what was playing, we just headed over to the Enzian, knowing that whatever was there would probably be to out liking.  The film was, THE DYING GAUL’. My, my, what a story.  Up until the ending, this was one of the more creative screenplays. Without going into much detail, let me simply say that the story involves the gay on-line chat between a gay young man and the wife of his current employer/sex buddy.  The wife, played by the always-brilliant Pat Clarkson, using the anonymity of the internet, poses as a gay man and in chats with her husband’s paramour discovers more than she ever bargained for. Sounds pretty good right?  Well it is, up until the ending. The film turns quite dark and ends with an abruptness leaving the audience gasping for something more.  Might be worth a rental, however.

Going back to the Christmas season for a moment - more specifically, the music of Christmas.  I hate that I’ve turned into the unreasonable, unhip, uncool replication of my parents. Regardless of your age, every one of us, of every generation have had their parents totally reject ‘our music’. “Turn that thing off”, they would yell. Or, “What is that screaming? That’s not music!”  They just didn’t understand us. Well, as the Christmas season moved along I became increasingly aware that virtually every bit of Christmas music I heard, no matter where I heard it was a style of which my parents would approve.  Why is it I wondered, that I do not hear Christmas music of styles and artists from the 70s, 80s, 90s or today?  Artists representative of those decades have recorded Christmas albums for sure, but when it comes to public playing – the only artists to have made it from the ‘trash bin’ to mainstream appears to be The King – Elvis. Crosby, Sinatra, Como, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, Streisand and other oldies endure.  Maybe Mom and Dad weren’t so wrong after all. 

Here’s hoping that 2006 will be everything we want it to be for every one of us and our’.

Ciao for now!

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