Tonight our friend Dawn Turner shared the sad news that our friend Ransom had lost her battle with cancer. Her first name was Susan, and I occasionally remember her being called Sue Ransom, but we only EVER called her “Ransom”.
She was cool as shit and we always got along really well. When we worked on an episodic back in the 1990s she and I would often tag up after lunch to talk, sitting in the dark on set Continue reading Sue Ransom was a Bad Ass
My friend Katie Willard Troebs called me today and told me that Burt Reynolds was in heaven with JL, a legendary transportation captain we all knew and loved. We lost JL nearly a year ago. JL and his wife Cindy were longtime friends with Burt and have several hysterical tales of regular life incidents with him. After Katie and I ended our call I began thinking back to the spring of 2010, when I was struck by a sudden, inexplicable nostalgia for the movie Smokey and the Bandit.
Sure, I enjoyed the movie when I was growing up, but I was more of a Star Wars kid which made it kind of odd that I suddenly felt compelled to track down a copy of the original soundtrack from the movie. At that time I couldn’t find the album in an MP3 format, so I ordered an old CD from someone on eBay. It was crazy, but the only deal I found was from some dude over in England. That’s right, England. When the package made it across the ocean I cut open the envelope only to discover that I had paid for Continue reading Saying Goodbye to The Bandit
I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot this week. One memory in particular. It was the late 1980s and I was still a college student. We were at the Burger King in Arrowhead Plaza, in Jonesboro. We had already eaten and were heading back out to the car when we spotted a strange looking truck parked off to the side of the restaurant facing toward highway 19/41.
The truck looked like it was covered with scaffolding – interconnected pipe rails ran from the front of the truck to the back, and the bed resembled a set of risers stepping down to the ground the further back it went. It looked crazy.
Behind that truck was a strange Continue reading The Time I Met Gary Duncan
This past Saturday morning we met down near Forsyth, Georgia, to celebrate the life of JL Parker, who passed on September 27th, 2017. I have written down my memories of the funeral services for those who could not be there, and for posterity.
As I exited the highway I noticed that my car’s low fuel indicator had come on during the drive down to the funeral. I couldn’t help but think back to a time when JL’s crew had kindly filled my tank on one of those occasions when I was young and dumb and had coasted on fumes to set.
As I coasted down the final quarter mile to the church on Saturday I was surprised to see a big tractor trailer rig emblazoned with the TEAMSTERS logo. It was an impressive honor from the union that JL had belonged to for so much of his career in the motion picture industry.
And then, as I began to turn into the driveway, I saw the Blue Truck. Continue reading The Funeral Service of JL Parker
Yesterday morning I was finally compelled to begin cleaning out dad’s office.
A year ago this would have been impossible, as that room reverberated with his passage through life. Every single item inside was something that he had touched and considered. I could feel his presence there. In that room he was still alive, so the door remained closed and the contents undisturbed.
I sometimes go to walk in the cemetery, and I always end those walks at his grave. I study the headstone and the flowers, and while I know his mortal remains lie below my feet I do not feel close to him in that place.
In Hamlet, Polonius’ final bit of advice to his son is “To thine own self be true”.
For me that advice has meant learning to see the world and the things and the people in it without self-deception and to keep the ones that will provide true happiness.
It had been more than six months since I had last ventured into dad’s office, and when I opened the door I could tell that things had changed. It was the same room, with the same smells and the same items, but I could finally separate the treasures from the trash.
The thing that had changed was me.
On the way to lunch last Tuesday my friend Linda Simon made a passing reference to Chick-fil-a discontinuing their coleslaw, which seemed a rather odd thing to say since the very idea seemed preposterous. Since Linda is not generally known as a merry prankster I simply turned to her and shouted as loud as I could “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE DISCONTINUING THEIR COLESLAW????”.
A few minutes later we were sitting at our local Continue reading Chick-Fil-A Coleslaw Catastrophe
In the early hours of Saturday morning word went out that our friend Tate Nichols had passed away in North Georgia, and my condolences go out to all of his loved ones. For those of us who have not seen Tate in recent years the news of his death has been a shock. In the “old school” Atlanta film circle it has been felt most keenly, especially by my friends in the art department, many of whom have worked side by side with Tate for Continue reading Remembering Tate Nichols
Dolly grip Tripp Pair has been handing out little stickers that say “Stop and Care” for several years now, and he’s been so very earnest about it. He has meant it with every fiber of his being and I saw him sharing #stopandcare on Facebook again this morning and was moved to write about something that’s been on my mind.
This past Thursday a young woman named Sarah Jones, a member of our local film community, died on the set of a movie shooting in south Georgia. She was hit by a train. We all hold the strong suspicion that she died due to some very bad decisions made by the people producing the film, but that suspicion has not been confirmed by criminal investigators (not yet, anyway). While the final assignment of blame is still under investigation, Atlanta crews have been mourning the loss of their friend and of a bright young woman whose lifetime of cinematic adventure ended far too soon.
So many people have written about Sarah and shared stories and photos and clippings about her. I appreciated the Continue reading Sarah was all of us
I made the accompanying USA Today style illustration to show the location of my scars without grossing anyone out, and to tell the story of how I decided to let a surgeon and his robot use tiny little surgical tools inside of my body.
In the fall of 2008 I went to my new primary care doctor for a physical. My PSA levels were high so we ran a round of antibiotics to see if it was an infection of some sort. After two weeks we re-tested and the levels were just as high so I went to see a urologist, who suggested that everything pointed toward the need for a biopsy. I opted to wait until after the holidays.
On January 27th of 2009 I went into the hospital for a surgical biopsy. Three days later the doctor was on the phone telling me that I had prostate cancer. Somehow I knew that I was going to get that call, but it still shocked me to my core. On the way home that night I called an old friend to tell him the news, still trying to make sense of it myself. Later, I wrote a letter to a friend living out of state as I didn’t want to Continue reading Scars from The Cancer Grenade
With her passing at age 86, Bea Arthur, star of “Maude” and “The Golden Girls” is once again in the news. As a child I always found Bea Arthur rather frightening and didn’t appreciate her comedic gifts until many years later when Golden Girls re-invigorated her career.
Looking back to those early years I now realize that it wasn’t her smart, assertive personality that bothered me so much as it was her androgyny… my brain just couldn’t accept a woman who had a gravelly voice, wore polyester pants suits, or those long vest thingys that start with the letter “k” (which partially explains my distaste for Hillary Clinton).
But not everyone was put off by Bea Arthur. In fact, our friend Geoffrey Brown had quite a hit on his hands on the coffee shop circuit a few years ago with his tribute song to Bea Arthur entitled “Bea Arthur” (aka, “I Want to Be Bea Arthur”). Won’t you have a listen?
Check out Geoffrey’s website GeoffreyBrown.net and find out more about his latest venture, the Dancing Monkey Cabaret!
