Hardscrabble

Of all the trips I made on behalf of my former company, none was more earnestly envied by my family than the calls I paid on Branson, Missouri. Not that exotic destinations like Hong Kong, London, and Rome weren't to be envied, but with Branson, the folks - who had jumped in the car every time Aunt Elsie (the Oak Ridge Boys' biggest fan) made the offer - knew exactly what they were missing.

The road from Springfield Airport to Branson is practically a straight, flat line south, pile driving through two-story-high sedimentary limestone that rises up frequently on either side of road. It's a hardscrabble country, favored by Scots and Scots-Irish, for whom the stone crust lying just below the soil's surface must have reminded them of the highlands. Water filters through these rocks, passing into caverns that honeycomb the area. 

In fact, Branson's first touristic success was its caves; one such is Marvel Cave, upon which Silver Dollar City was opened in 1960. Today, Silver Dollar City remains the 1880s Ozark-themed attraction that was so authentic, it was used for location filming of The Beverly Hillbillies back in the day (Jed Clampitt's "home" is still on view). It has roller coasters, water rides, and entertainment like other amusement parks, but it also has a "crafts village," where 100 artisans create glassware, quilts, ironmongery, and other handmade items of extraordinary beauty. I still have a bright orange and yellow vase that I think is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, although my mother derides it as looking like "Dilbert." (It's true: I've always liked Dilbert cartoons.) 

I had been invited to stay in the biggest meetings property in Branson, the Chateau on the Lake, and to sample Branson's entertainment. Modern Branson's first home-steading performer was Roy Clark (who was welcomed into the Country Music Hall of Fame last week); his eponymous theater opened in 1983. But when I first visited Branson in 1999, there were dozens of theaters, and the highway was peppered with their billboards, of which the most incongruous were Shoji, the violinist from Japan; and Yakov Smirnoff, the Russian comedian. Most of Branson's performers, however, dated from the era when America had only three TV channels - CBS, NBC, and ABC - and "cable" was something you sent people when you had no phone service. 

Still, I was thrilled to see Mel Tillis in concert, and meet Andy Williams, whose NBC show I had watched each week as a kid, at the new Atlanta Bread Company outlet. (He was in tennis whites, on his way to play a few games with Shoji.)

Later we went to an ice ballet at Williams' Moon River Theater. Williams is an art collector; I once saw him get out of a limo in front of New York City's Museum of Modern Art in a dazzling white suit. The lobby of Moon River is filled with his personal objets d'art, including his Japanese kimono collection and some choice oil paintings. I say "choice," because I only had eyes for one: a portrait of a female chimpanzee, sweating in Renaissance dress. This was my introduction to Donald Roller Wilson.

After the show, we were taken backstage to Williams' personal dressing room, which was really a small apartment, filled with luxurious white furnishings and a higher grade of art. (I seem to remember a Picasso print, and a table sculpture resembling Degas, but I may be mistaken.) But what elicited comment was a bowl of change, sitting on a coffee table. "A guy like this, and he keeps his change in a bowl, like everyone else," mused one of the group.

 

Hit the Road, Jack

In the summer of 2004*, on a beautiful night in June that was my last in London, I decided to take a "Jack the Ripper" walking tour. Following the instructions on the brochure I picked up at the British Tourist Office across the street from my host hotel, the 186-room Sofitel St. James, I took the Underground to Tower Hill Station. The Tower itself stood across the Thames, alone and serene. As our "London Walks" guide identified herself to the gathering group and began to take our money, I glanced over to that grim prison-cum-palace, seemingly unchanged since its Tudor heyday—although it's now quite possible to hold events there (as well as at three other notable residences through Historic Royal Palaces).

But on my side of the Thames, it was a different story. Around me was a modern neighborhood, maybe a little untidy, but basically indistinguishable from any large city's central business district. 

 

That would change. As we trotted at a lively pace through the concrete canyons, a building peeked out in the distance that looked like a giant cigar in its wrapper. "What is that?" I asked. "That's 30 St. Mary Axe," the guide yelled back, as she rushed us to the scene of a grisly murder. Having just opened the month before, the avant-garde exterior of 30 St. Mary Axe, headquarters for Swiss Re, the global reinsurance company, was still causing a furor. Some call it the Faberge egg, some call it the "Gherkin"—and those are the ones who are being polite. However, at 40 stories tall, the building commands, at its cigar-tip top, a restaurant with a ravishing view of London. Private parties "by permission of the landlord" can be done with dinner seating for 75 and reception space for 260.

 

Unfortunately, we had no time to gab about The Gherkin—daylight was burning and we had a date with a curb. Hey, I'm not kidding. "I want you all to use your imaginations," implored our guide for the first (but not the last) time. We all stared intently at the curb at Mitre Square as she began to describe atrocities committed there to Catherine Eddowes on September 30, 1888—the last of the Ripper's outdoor victims. The surroundings are now genteel, but hearing detail heaped on gory detail (slashing and ritual disemboweling), my imagination did indeed kick in. Addressing the singular anonymity of the site, the guide said that the crime scene was once commemorated by a plaque, but it was pried out and stolen within a matter of hours. 

 

On we went. The murky, dangerous Whitechapel slums, where Jack the Ripper escaped detection while killing and mutilating his victims, have pretty much disappeared, reformed and made wholesome by time and the fierce determination of city planning. Some buildings, like Christ Church—which date from the period—and Spitalfields Markets (revamped in the '20s) are still around, and several area pubs, like the Ten Bells, one of the original pubs where hapless prostitutes plied their trade, capitalize on the notoriety. Even so, the guides really do have their work cut out for them. At one point, having been exhorted once again to "use my imagination" to envision Victorian London around me, I saw, instead, the spanking-modern Travelodge London City in front of me. It was then that my imagination took a back seat to my common sense, which told me, "This is your last night in London. Stop looking at things that aren't there!" 

 

With that, the walking tour now became a brief but aerobic exploration of living London. Our group whisked through "Banglatown," filled with colorful shops, throbbing music, and intriguing Asian restaurants. We walked up back lanes, some of which still looked dicey, and some that were offering luxury condos with preserved historical facades. 

 

I guess having been brought up on a diet of Masterpiece Theatre costume dramas, I expected London to be frozen in time. Certainly, there were many efforts to preserve the past; the Sofitel St. James, which had invited me on this inspection, was the former Cox's and King's Bank. Behind its historic exterior, each office had been converted in a deluxe room (with meeting and conference space for up to 170 on the lower level). A previous walk had taken me across the Millennium Bridge to the fabulous London Eye, the phenomenal Ferris wheel that can transport up to 25 passengers in one of its private capsules. Those developments were in what was always the hoity-toity part of town; but, in fact, even London's East End has been undergoing an astounding renaissance, particularly the docklands of Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs, where luxury properties and venues are springing up.

 

The Ripper tour concluded in what looked like a village, but what was, of all things, low-income "council" housing. As a Q&A period took place under a streetlight, I looked around in the gloaming, envying the people, their homes, and their well-kept community. 

 

Lord knows what they thought of me. These Ripper tours, which have always been popular (after all, it's Jack the Ripper!), were the brief subject of unrest back in 2001, when anticipation of the film From Hell swelled the tour numbers into the hundreds around the clock. At the time, this had angered locals, who resented a gawking mob clogging the sidewalks. By last year, however, the tour I attended had subsided to a still-respectable 50, which was then divided in two. 

As applause and people scattering marked the end of the tour, I wondered in hindsight: If I were planning a group's night out, I would certainly put this on the itinerary—but not on the last night of the trip, should anyone want to revisit some of the remaining historic sites. Some of those shops and restaurants had looked really tantalizing, and the crew at the Ten Bells was certainly lively. I wished I had time to regroup and do all those things, and go up in the Eye, too. But no, it was late, I had already lost my sense of direction, and still had to go back to the hotel and pack. 

Looking back on this experience, I will just have to use my imagination.

*Originally published May 2005, in Successful Meetings magazine

The Summer of Bubba

This blog is dedicated to Ron Brown, who died too young. 

On a spring day in 1992 I was listening on the radio and heard that Bill Clinton's campaign was in the red by $4 million. Although I had yet to decide on a candidate, I called his campaign and pledged $25.

I didn't have a lot of money back then; I'd been laid off from my job and was still looking for work. But it remains to date the best investment I ever made. Almost immediately, I began to receive tschotckes in the mail: bumper stickers, hats that said Rapid Response Team, a copy of A Place Called Hope, and ultimately an invitation to the Clinton Inaugural. Oh, and I got Bill Clinton for president. But most thrilling at the time was an invitation to volunteer for the 1992 Democratic National Convention, which was taking place at New York's Madison Square Garden from July 13 to 16.

Prospective volunteers met in an airless office near Madison Square Garden. A Democratic Party employee gave us our guidelines and, after cautioning us that the decision for President candidate had yet to be made, grabbed a tiny Arkansas flag off his desk, started waving it and crying, "Yay!"

Volunteership itself turned out to be unexciting; stashed in the pressroom over in the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street from the Garden, we answered phones and distributed copies of speeches that were being made on the floor. Thanks to a wonky loudspeaker, we could hear roars from the arena but not what they were in response to. Plus, there were too many of us, and not enough work.

I was bored; the only celebrity I'd seen was P.J. O'Rourke.

Then, as a treat, the Party let the volunteers into the convention. We were restricted, however, to the fifth level, which granted us the same access privileges as the delegates from the U.S. Territory of American Samoa.

Compared to the Samoans, the figures onstage were ants. So, while the loudspeakers blared famous speeches given by people who have since passed into history, I studied my neighbors.

The Samoan men wore guayabera shirts with colorful sarongs. They appeared to have a low center of gravity and a rolling walk that seemed - to me - very attractive.

But after a half hour, I was ready to watch the convention from my living room TV.

Confirming that they had enough volunteers to keep them going, I took off for home, where my boyfriend was unimpressed with my attempts to walk like a Samoan.

But from then on, the meteoric rise of Bill Clinton was undisputed. The culmination was final nomination. They'd sent Clinton, Hillary, Chelsea, and the rest of the entourage across the street from the Garden - to Macy's, in the middle of the night, to look at shirts. Shirts!

When the nomination came in, and Clinton was brought back, the cheering was deafening and not confined to the Garden. It was truly one of the most memorable nights of my life.

But life didn't come to a stand still just 'cause the Democrats were in town. Nossir. That week, up in Albany, the New York Court of Appeals had struck down a six-year-old decency conviction against seven women who removed their shirts in 1986, to protest laws that allowed men to go sunbathe topless but not women. Toplessness was now the right of every woman (in New York)! In honor of the "Topfree Seven," the city went silly: a topless bar owner sent topless women around in a makeshift float, waving like it was a combination Rose Bowl and Mardi Gras. They made a circuit around the Garden while the convention was going on, probably picking up some customers.

Back then, on Saturday mornings, I usually walked a few blocks over to a Dunkin' Donuts, where I would enjoy a toasted, buttered bagel. That I would do this attests to my love of toasted, buttered bagels, since the journey was a freakin' war zone that crossed a line of anti-abortion protesters and the abortion clinic they targeted. A crowd of four, praying, with rosaries extended, was usually there to confront women in orange bibs helping women entering the clinic.

The Saturday after the Convention was no exception - except for one VERY BIG DIFFERENCE: in front of the prayer crowd kneeled four young, beautiful blondes. They were wearing grass skirts, they had flowers in their hair, and they were topless. And, they were giggling.

I stood there for so long, slackjawed, that a woman in orange finally approached me and asked if I'd like to be escorted into the clinic.

As I said, it was a time I'll never forget.

Gone Tiki

Just say "Hawai'i" like the locals do (Ha-VI-ee) and the word sets off a sensory overload: air laden with exotic flowers, gentle rains that bring out double rainbows, the twang of slack key guitar. Friendly people with a sonorous, rhythmic language. Shave ice. A dramatic landscape that is both nurturing and cruel.

That I first visited that beautiful, inspiring land on business - business! - is almost deflating. Almost, but not quite, since, among other things, I got to experience two Gods of Tiki.

The O'ahu Visitors Bureau, which regularly invites media, brought me to Hawai'i in April 1998 as part of a general five-day press tour. My husband and I were greeted by a limousine driver, who presented us each with a lei (the first of many), escorted us to a white stretch limousine (the first of many) and drove us to the Hyatt Regency Waikiki. Following a quick change, a cocktail reception overlooking the small but regular waves of Waikiki Beach and the setting sun, we were off to see the legendary Don Ho, who was performing at the Waikiki Beachcomber.

Our group was ushered into a darkened venue to some back tables, because the performance was already in progress. Ho, resplendent in a dazzling white suit, lounged onstage in the type of rattan chair favored by Morticia Addams. Next to the chair was a small table with a white phone. Occasionally he picked up the receiver and talked into it, and then there would be a flurry of waiter activity in the audience. (Once, he spoke, and a waiter suddenly appeared at our table. "Mr. Ho wants you to have these," he said, brandishing copies of Ho's stateside concert schedule.)

The show itself was made up of variety acts, which Ho introduced. One act was performed by one of Ho's children - a young daughter - who sang country western and Christian music very prettily. When she left the stage, Ho reminisced about a conversation he'd had with a friend: "He said, 'Don, you still having children?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah.'" (He was about 67 at the time, and passed away nine years later.)

In fact, his reminiscences and stories are what I remember best. "The original Hawaiians had no music," he claimed. "When the missionaries came, they built a church and on Sundays, they would sing hymns. Then the people would come, gather around, and listen at the door, because they had never heard sounds like that before." The show ended with his singing "Pearly Shells," after which we fanned out to buy our respective Don Ho T-shirts.

It was toward the end of the trip, when we had some free time, that Lee suggested we pay a visit to Martin Denny, who, like Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman, was one of the fathers of what some call "tiki" music and others characterize as "'60s bachelor pad". Denny lived on the Gold Coast, which is the on other side of Diamondhead, the same as the luxurious Kahala Hotel. His was a mountainside condo with a breathtaking 358-degree view (he informed us) of the coastline and featuring Diamondhead. 

Since it was May 1, which is "Lei Day" in Hawai'i, I purchased a beautiful and fragrant lei at a newsstand on Kalakaua Avenue. As Denny opened the door, I presented it to him and wished him a happy Lei Day. He thanked me and led us into the living room, which boasted the aforesaid view, a grand piano, some recording equipment, and much, much memorabilia of a life in the islands.

Denny was agitated; his wife was in the hospital, and he could only grant us a few minutes. But he grew comfortable with Lee, and they were soon talking about Don the Beachcomber, who lived in a beach hut near the Moana, Surfrider, and Royal Hawaiian hotels, and spent his time developing powerful cocktails. The hut eventually became the original eponymous tiki bar (and later the site of Duke's Waikiki), and the Moana Surfrider combined as a Sheraton, where Denny perfected his "exotic tones" in the lounge. "There were a bunch of bands," he said, referring to Lyman and Baxter, "and we were always trying to outdo the other." (The Moana Surfrider is now a Westin, and the Royal Hawaiian a Starwood Luxury Collection property; but subsequent renovations have restored their sense of Hawai'iana while also improving on amenities. Everyone should check them out.)

In his eighties, Denny was still involved in music. Sitting at the piano, he played us a little bit of a song he was working on. But as daylight waned, he grew restive again about his wife. It was time to leave.

As we stood at the door, saying our farewells, we started talking about Don Blanding, the creator of Lei Day. "He loved the islands," said Denny, "and he wanted there to be a holiday where everybody celebrated the custom." Closing the door, he gave me a final wave, adding, "Thanks for the lei."

My Year of Hotness

This blog is dedicated to my high school friend Jane Barrell, who, so far, is my only follower.

In 1975, while still in high school, I attracted the attention of a disproportionate number of famous men. By disproportionate I mean three: Michael Palin, Raul Julia, and Tony Randall. The circumstances were as varied as the characters involved.

That year, Monty Python and the Holy Grail debuted at a theater on the East Side of Manhattan, with a promotion that the first 200 ticket holders would be handed a coconut by the Python crew. My friend Daphne and I were among the lucky ticket holders, but this brush with greatness was way too brief for our taste. (I mean, Terry Gilliam just handed me a coconut in the theater lobby, and then I was out on the street before I could say, "umm . . ."!) As we were arguing with theater security that we should have more access, someone broke into a sidedoor. Security went on a high-speed chase, and we went in through the front door.

"Michael!" I cried, as Michael Palin emerged from somewhere in a white suit and fedora, followed by Jones and Gilliam. "Could I have your autograph?" Certainly, he said, scribbling it on a piece of paper - to which he added his hotel phone number! This I handed off to Daphne, who was more of a Palin fan than me (how much more, he would soon discover to his utter dismay), while I had my coconut signed by Jones and Gilliam. 

In my mind's eye, I often wonder what prompted that phone number invitation. I see myself wearing overalls, Olaf Daughters clogs; my long brown hair in braids, my eyes bespectacled.

The encounter with Raul Julia was normal, by comparison. Alfred Uhry, who would later go on to win awards for Driving Miss Daisy, was then teaching acting at our high school, Calhoun. Alfred allowed us to see his play, The Robber Bridegroom, which was then in rehearsals. In the lead (in a role that would later fall to Kevin Kline and then to Barry Bostwick) was Raul Julia.

You who only know Julia as Gomez in The Addams Family have to understand: In 1975, he was attached to all the cultural touchstones of '70s Manhattan. He had appeared on Sesame Street as Raphael; he was part of Joseph Papp's Public Theater and had helped bring Two Gentlemen of Verona from Central Park to Broadway. He would go on to star on Broadway in The Three Penny Opera and Nine (and take over from Frank Langella in Dracula); and where other actors put their CVs and shoutouts in Play Bill, Julia wrote poetry. So when Alfred introduced his students to Julia, I was one of the most dewy-eyed. But when he later told me that Julia had said of me, "Dot's a cute girl," I was transported. 

And what was I wearing? Overalls, Olaf Daughters clogs, braids, glasses. The only differences were a brown suede poncho, fringed and Hot Sox.

The most incomprehensible encounter was with Tony Randall. I was a babysitter for two children who lived in a Central Park West apartment house, and I was waiting for them in the building's lobby, when Tony Randall entered, wearing sunglasses. Seeing me, he immediately charged at me, yelling, "I TOLD YOU TO WAIT IN THE . . ." When he got six inches away, he whipped off his sunglasses, stared intently at my startled face, said, "Sorry, wrong person," and disappeared into the elevator. The doormen ran up to me, saying, "Do you know who that was?" Yes, I answered, "but who did he think I was?"

And what was I wearing? Overalls, Olaf Daughters clogs, braids, glasses.

Obviously, dressed like that, I wasn't expecting to woo any of these men with womanly wiles (had I wanted to, I would have donned French jeans, a peasant blouse, and some glitter eyeshadow). But a social historian might say that this was the uniform of most mid '70s New York City women, aged 15 to 35. We were Godspell ragamuffins, on the brink of transforming into either Annie Hall ragamuffins or Spandexed disco queens. 

But if it was a uniform, it didn't stand in the way of my getting attention from the most unlikely prospects. Score one for hotness.

Shadow Launch

Welcome to Shadow of Greatness, where I hope to share my thoughts on being part of something bigger, whether it's a relationship, a community, or the universe.

Mine will be the stories of a boon companion to all of the above, but for my first blog, I think I'll start closer to home.

As I sit, surrounded by papers, books, USB drives, floppy disks, computer software, external devices, audio tapes, and generations of recording devices, I can't help but think I am in the shadow of greatness.

(Seriously, were any of these to topple, they might pin me to the ground.)

They are the outward manifestations of my husband, Lee Server, whose biographies of Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner have taken the two of us all over the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Mexico, in search of their particular brand of star dust.

One of the first trips was for the Mitchum book in May of 1998. We were in Los Angeles, on a layover to Hawaii, when Lee contacted Edward Dmytryk. Dmytryk, considered the Father of Film Noir, lived in Encino on a street of alpine proportions and in a house that jutted over a canyon. The view was breathtaking but a little scary.

The interview, which was contracted to take 15 minutes because of Dymtryk's health (he would die on July 1, 1999, at the age of 90), ultimately spanned the entire afternoon, as Lee, Edward, and Edward's wife, the former Jean Porter, reminisced about Mitchum, the movies, the art of film noir lighting, location shooting, and everything but the Black List - the infamous commie-hunting time when Dmytryk was jailed as one of the Hollywood Ten. (At least, that's how I remember it.)

Lastly, the three began discussing Lo sbarco di Anzio (1968), a WWII film shot on location in Italy, where the army extras were given rubber rifles that wobbled in the hot sun (and in the dailies). Porter remembered she had given a party to buck up the cast, beleaguered as they were by weather and other ills associated with location work.

At one point, Porter, who had also starred with Mitchum in the Dmytryk-directed Till the End of Time (1946), reached up and pulled a framed poem off the wall. It turned out to be one that Mitchum had written to her on the set of the film, typed out on the thin smudgy paper I remembered pre-computer era as "corrasible bond."

Finally, we bid adieu when our hosts were just this side of exhaustion. Driving back to LAX as the sunset was pinkening the marble of the newly built Getty Museum up on a hill, we were relaxed and happy. Lee counted the interview a major step taken toward the book. It was - the first of many.