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John Meyer

~ Memoirist, Novelist and Songwriter

John Meyer

Monthly Archives: July 2011

Weekend drama for John

31 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by meyerwire in MacQueen show, Chat-room fight

≈ 2 Comments

Two things happened over this weekend that affected me emotionally:

1) I saw the Alexander MacQueen show at the Met. The guy had a theatrical sense that was/is knockout. He thinks in terms of drama and expresses it through his clothing design. His gowned models performed amidst a ring of fire, for example. Or underwater. Or as pieces on a chessboard. This show is horrendously popular, we were herded along claustrophobically, but I have to say it was worth it. “I design from the side…” he said, “the most awkward angle from which to view a woman’s body.” Unique and original.

2) Second thing, I got into a dragout fight with a poster on a chat-room devoted to writers. He disagreed w/ one of my opinions, and did so in an arrogant, abusive way. Got my back up, and I called him on it, and he became even more abusive. I matched him in tone, then decided to rise above it and nip the battle in the bud, but he insisted on continuing in a most disparaging manner. I finally had to post the webmaster about him -and this is not the first time he’s done it.  Has anyone else been in a situation like this? And please, how did you deal with it?

Working on getting Operation Ruby Slipper ready for a late August release.

Stay tuned.

Let’s Welcome John to the 21st Century!

26 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

  • Hello, you musical theater fans, wine lovers, classic film buffs…and especially, Judy Garland enthusiasts. Print this and save it, because this is my first blogpost -and will be worth zillions after my death. Which can’t be that far away; I was referred to recently -in the context of my Judy Garland experience- as “the last of the remaining objective observers” -it’s like getting the Lifetime Achievement Award -you’re obligated to die the next day.
  • Every Monday, be sure of it, you will find new information about what’s going on with me, especially as it regards my theater projects, my CD releases and, of course, any Judy activity -speaking of which, please access the Operation Ruby Slipper page on this site -to learn about a brand new Judy Garland novel I’ve just completed. It’ll be available soon at Amazon.com (CreateSpace), I should say by mid September.
  • I look forward to receiving a lot of Positive Feedback as well as a few Brickbats from all interested parties.

Judy at the Paley Center

25 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by meyerwire in Heartbreaker, Judy Garland

≈ 7 Comments

John Meyer at the Atwater LIbrary May 10, 2011

John Fricke hosted the screening at The Paley Center of four TV appearances Judy made in the late sixties. One of these was a Tonight Show where Judy sang my songs, It’s All For You and After the Holidays. John, to me, has become the principal Keeper of the Flame, and we are lucky to have someone who is not only vastly knowledgeable, but articulate in the most charming, non-pedantic, non-academic fashion. John, I applaud you.

I hadn’t seen these shows in years, and though I remembered Judy’s rendition of Holidays as woeful; I was wrong, she sings it with great feeling and, though you can tell she’s short of breath and unable to sustain, in a curious way this helps the poignancy of the song.

It adds another layer of vulnerability.

But It’s All for You brings back a bittersweet memory.

Because, initially, she ridiculed the song. It’s a hearfelt, sincere love song, but as I sang it to her, in the first days of our romance, she started laughing. In the middle of my passionate recital.

“What’s so damned funny?” I asked her.

“Oh, I was just thinking,” she said, “here he is, the young composer in love, and he wants to demonstrate his nn, grand passion. So he sits her down and he plays her the nn, absolute, worst song in the world.

And she has to pretend it’s the most, nn, glorious thing she’s ever heard. Hee hee.”

She made a joke of it, but I was a bit put off, as you may imagine.

I was surprised, therefore, when, a week later, she asked if she could learn it. “It really has quite a nn, majestic quality,” she said.

Well, this was quite a turnaround, and now we’re booked on The Tonight Show to launch the tune. I say ‘we’ because

Judy needed to be shepherded and looked after, so we went everywhere as a couple. This changed when I got sick, felled by the Hong Kong flu, and was unable to help her through the preparations for this appearnce. I had to catch her performance from my sick-bed.

This is where the bittersweet part comes in, for while she sang, she was in the process of switching her allegiance from me to Mickey Deans.

But watching her yesterday, singing It’s All For You, I could still believe she was singing to me…and even more, it’s apparent from her hand gestures that she’s singing to you, the audience.

And the song takes on a larger resonance; it becomes, in her rendition, a tribute to -and affirmation of- all the audiences, everywhere, who have applauded and supported her throughout her career, from the days in vaudeville right up to this moment.

Yes, she’s telling them, it’s all for you.

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