Tuesday 2 Mar 04

From the desk of: Frederic Kahler


Hi,

Only yesterday, well, almost, Annie Lennox won an Academy Award, and
today is Karen Carpenter's birthday. She would have been 54 to
Annie's 49 years today. They really are two of the rarest, rawest
female voices/eggs to resonate in many of our lives, and it all
boils down to hurt. But today, in the endless, Seattle-like rain of
Las Vegas, there is no hurt, just the calming detritus of the
avalanche Charles Ryder evokes when the wall of fire between him and
Julia is broken in Evelyn Waugh's `Brideshead Revisited.' (I have a
beloved copy of the trade paperback with Patricia Neal's autograph.
We met once at 35,000 feet.) Last night on a fluke we drove off into
the night, into the environs of the Strip and I auditioned for a
role in 'Torch Song Trilogy, Part 1.'

I was the only dude there who brought in a head shot and actor's
resume (q.v.) and was thus relieved. I love doing cold readings
rather than studied scripts; it strips away the fear and acid of
nervousness like so many alkaloids (think: coffee). And there's no
need for "what if?" if you let it go right away. We'll see if I get
and accept the part. There's a lot of class in the entertainment
industry. Usually you hear only about all the inevitable decadence
and the Fatty Arbuckle upheavals, but `tis many a time an actor is
asked to tea by a project's director and graciously, refreshingly
INVITED to play the role of Sylvia, or Lear, or Jasmin, or Melanie
Daniels in "The Birds." It's protocol of course but a nice part of
the business.

One can always improve upon a performance. Karen Carpenter would
certainly agree to that. Any Jew in the entertainment business knows
this; any Momma's Boy knows this in advance, LOL. Every success is
gained how?
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I don't always see eye-to-eye with this lady and my instinct would
have been to shake her and say, "WAKE UP!" and it wouldn't have
worked. I'll be at the Beverly Hills Hotel Crystal Ball Room in 18
days, where Karen wed the much-maligned Tom Burris. But why is he so
dogged? Sure, he technically discard Karen at the Japanes restaurant
in Downey, CA but he was up against a wall imbedded with so many
figures like the kids in `The Wiz:' Richard, Agnes, and huffy-puffy
Harold. Was he a shrewd businessman? Wasn't Karen parsimonious? A
good match, nicht wahr?

It must be so different to the heterosexual male addicted to the
pleasures of a diva. Perhaps he appreciates the musicality of the
gal or her brother's or friend's or husband's music perspicacity.
Perhaps he feels like the Eternal Mother is resonating within him,
is shaking him. "We will rock you" after all, is a line from a
lovely Christmas carol as well as a 1977 hit by the great Queen.

On Karen's birthday there is cake and ice cream. We even toyed with
the idea of having an empty seat upcoming at our `Top of the World
2004' table at Carpenters Performing Arts Center in her honor. It
wouldn't be the first time I did this. When I did a live "How to
Host Your Own Birthday Party" show for public access – with tons of
appointments from the crazy emporium Antiquarium in Seattle – we
left a chair at the long table open with a place card for the
recently deceased Pineapple Princess entertainer.

Now I know some of you out there in the web have access to several
stuffed animals and a table and chairs. Remember the Yiddish
dictum: `A tischele, a benkele, a balaboosteh bei mir zu sein – A
table, a chair, oh, to be the master (or mistress) of one's home!' A
good birthday party begins with friends, even of the acrylic
variety, and tables and chairs. Add party favors like confetti, hats
and balloons and pass the Champagne! In an `urban pinch' you can
substitute amphetamines for the party favors, but the emphasis is
horribly altered. The altar upon which one prays suddenly needs to
be swept clean and redone and the florist in all of us forgets the
honoree for her gifts...

Divas. Simple gals with enormous talent and great luck for the most
part. Cognitive therapy teaches us the magic of positive thinking, a
common sense long relegated to the back of the spice cupboard. It's
been more entertaining to be miserable, it would seem, in our
cultures. We, as cultures of well-meaning dilettantes, are quick to
emulate the poet's take on distress, projecting our legitimate fears
and vomitous hope onto well-crafted, raw-voiced pop songs. We might
even venture into the endless Tuesdays of the likes of Beethoven or
the Pauls Hindemith and Klee, or Ethyl Meatplow and Joe Satriani.
Music is like rain, or the oil over existence evoked in a haunting,
modern non-song, a book by Booker Prize winner J.M. Coetzee's `The
Life and Times of Michael K.'

Happy Birthday Karen Carpenter. God only knows! Yours was such the
sweetest voice and so knowing and dark, a kind of chic molasses.
What is your legacy, Karen? In my Taurus brain `tis this: an
exquisite musician and singer (Annie Lennox) who follows in your
primordial footsteps; a rocker from Aberdeen, WA (Kurt Cobain: same
initials) who stopped the walk in his tracks, like a deer with his
own rifle and headlights; female entertainers and businessmen
(Madonna, Oprah, Cher, Sheryl Crow, Barbra) who tore past passive
feminine power; the egregious trio Cristy Lane, Anne Murray and
Celine Dion; and a brother (Richard Carpenter) who does what he can
to reintroduce the music you two crafted and is probably pretty
miserable without you.

Misery loves company, hence the fan base. What is it about divas and
great people in general, like Karen? They are teachers, who usually
get the short end of the ruler. You teach us more than we can ever
know.

Frederic Kahler