Montgomery Clift

I recently stumbled on a documentary about Montgomery Clift called Making Montgomery Clift that was directed and written by Clift's nephew, Robert Anderson Clift, who's the son of Monty's brother Brooks. The documentary was interesting and prompted me to read up on Montgomery Clift because I really didn't know much about him. Of course I knew he died young, had male partners, and was incredibly good looking. I didn't know anything about his family, how he came to be an actor, or about his car accident. What was fascinating to me is how Clift basically self-destructed. For someone who was so attractive and talented, he just threw himself under the bus with alcohol and pills. In both of the biographies I read about him, Montgomery Clift: A Biography by Patricia Bosworth (show below) and Monty: A Biography of Montgomery Clift by Robert LaGuardia, both authors seemed to feel that Clift's homosexuality (or bisexuality) contributed to his self-destruction. I'm sure that played a part. Hollywood wasn't exactly welcoming to gay men back when Clift was a movie star (and it's not much better now), but I think Clift had other issues that drove him over the edge. He just never seemed to enjoy the success he had. He worked himself into a frenzy over scripts by rewriting a lot of his own dialogue, rejecting scripts in search of the perfect vehicle, and being neurotic about life in general. Even many people who loved and supported him had to eventually distance themselves from him because he refused to get help for himself or to even acknowledge that he had a problem with drinking and drugging. The addict has to want to help him/herself. No one else can do that job. 

Both biographies talked about Clift before and after his car accident and how his face changed as a result. I saw pictures before and after and I don't think his face changed much. The doctors did a great job of putting his face back together after his car accident. He was still a handsome man. What changed Clift's looks were age, booze, pills, and smoking. Clift at 40 was never going to look like Clift at 20.

Clift was only 45 when he died. What a waste. Had he lived, maybe he would have written a book about his life because, really, he's the only person who can tell the REAL Montgomery Clift story. Sadly, that story will never be told.

The Heat!

So many places here and abroad have been experiencing a heatwave. The planet is on fire (or at least it seems like it is). I grew up in a house that didn't have air conditioning and it was fine. (When you're young and don't know any better, you can deal with a lot of things!) Granted, we didn't have the long-term scorching hot days we seem to have now and we had a basement we could go to if the weather got really uncomfortable, but we largely made do with open windows and fans during the summer. But now, I can't imagine living without air conditioning. In my pre-menopausal state, I'm hot a lot of the time, even if it's not 90+ degrees outside. During a Zoom call with my boss a year or so ago, he asked about a ceiling fan he could see going in my home office/spare bedroom. He wanted to know why I was running the fan during a time of year when it wasn't hot outside. I had to explain the pre-menopausal thing to him and how I'm frequently hot because of that. I just had a new ceiling fan installed in my dining room a few weeks ago to replace an unattractive light fixture (shown below) that the previous owner left behind. And I love my new ceiling fan! It creates a great cross-current in my living and dining rooms and cools things down when I don't have the air going. 

What I don't love? Being hot, especially at night. I can't take it. I feel jumpy and slightly delirious if it's burning up and I'm tossing and turning because it's too hot to sleep. The heat has driven me to a panicked state. My place often feels like a meat locker and that's the way I like it. Cool...comfortable. I'd rather put a sweater on because I'm chilly instead of turning the air off. My electric bill will probably be ridiculous when I get it later this month, but I don't care. I'll cut back on something else rather than reduce my air conditioner use.

Louisville

Last month, I spent a couple of nights in Louisville, Kentucky on my way to and from Alabama. Having never been to Louisville, I was interested in seeing the city. My new story Ray's Friend (available now!) takes place in Louisville. I don't know why I set that story in Louisville. I think I was looking for a Southern city that seemed gay-friendly and Louisville fit the bill. In fact, while I was there, the city was celebrating Pride month and I'd just missed the Pride parade earlier that day. Although I didn't spend much time in Louisville last month, I enjoyed my visit. I had a nice dinner at a good BBQ restaurant downtown and got to see some of the city. I'd like to go back and do a bourbon factory tour. I'm also sort of working on a prequel to Ray's Friend that focuses on Ray and his boyfriend Case and that will also take place in Louisville. I've been researching the various neighborhoods around the city to try and figure out where my characters will live. I love looking at real estate from other cities and, thanks to Google maps ad sites like Realtor.com and Zillow, you an really get a good picture of different areas in a city and how much the houses are going for. 

Depress-Fest

A branch of my local library had an LGBTQ+ book swap this afternoon, so I took some books from my collection to drop off. The books I took were all novels that I'd read and had no intention of re-reading, so I figured I'd donate them so someone else could enjoy them. I also hoped to pick up some books I hadn't read from the other donations. Unfortunately, a lot of the books available weren't fiction (my first choice) and there seemed to be an overabundance of memoirs about people who'd come out as gay or trans or non-binary and their experiences. This is great, but many of the titles I saw seemed to be straight-up depress-fests. I'm not knocking anyone's life experiences, but I'm also not keen on reading about someone being bullied, threatened, unloved, and abused. I'm sure many of the authors came out on the other side and their books end up on a positive or even hopeful note, but there's enough suffering in the world right now for me to avoid taking that on in my personal reading. I get tired of reading about people (usually racial minorities and/or LGBTQ+) who have been beaten down by life. I feel that some publishers and editors (who usually are NOT racial minorities and/or LGBTQ+ folks) get some kind of perverse thrill from reading about racial minorities and/or LGBTQ+ people who have been defeated mentally and/or physically. These people take pleasure in someone else's pain. As Hall and Oates would say, "I can't go for that. No can do." I don't tend to read a lot of non-fiction anyway, but I want to feel hope and some happiness in the books that I read, regardless of the genre. I don't want 300+ pages of a depress-fest. We all know the world isn't sunshine and rainbows 24/7, but does that mean it's all gloom and doom? 

Not Again!

I was all set to do a new post about watching old seasons of Flipping Out on Freevee, but that will have to wait. Once again, a mass shooter has taken to the streets, this time a little too close to home. So close, in fact, that my community's local 4th of July events were canceled as a result of the mass shooting in nearby Highland Park, IL. You can't even go to a local holiday parade without fearing for your life these days. You can't go to the grocery store either (see Buffalo, NY) or send your kids to school (see Uvalde, TX). Things are out of control in this country. Too many crazy folks with firearms. I wish I could say there's a light at the end of this tunnel of darkness, but I just don't think there is one, not yet anyway. 

The usual suspects will complain that Chicago sees mass shootings every week (and it does), but does that mean people shouldn't be outraged wherever folks are gunned down in the streets? These criminals need to be brought to justice no matter where the incident happens. If someone is shooting at people on the Red Line or at a suburban shopping mall, that person shouldn't be released back into the general population with an ankle monitor. Lock these folks up and don't give them bail either! 

Jeez. Happy 4th of July, folks.