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John Meyer

~ Memoirist, Novelist and Songwriter

John Meyer

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Bricktop, International Cabaret Hostess & Performer

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

blog-bricktop-01.jpg

I met Bricktop through Helene DeLys, who’d sung in her club in Rome. I looked forward to meeting this legendary figure, but I soon learned she took up all the air in the room. Everything she said was totally self-serving, justified in her mind by the dropping of a famous name. A sample monologue (which could run on for twenty minutes) would go like this: “Ernest Hemingway used to come in every night. ‘Brickie,’ he told me, ‘no-one can run a room the way you do. That’s why you’re such a success.’ And Mabel, well, Mabel Mercer used to tell me, ‘I won’t sing anywhere else, Brickie, because you make them listen’, well, that was true, if anyone so much as whispered I would give them a warning, just go stand by the table, you know, but they’d get the message, and in Paris, well, Cole Porter, he was in all the time,

        he wrote Miss Otis Regrets for me, you know, and he told me, ‘Brickie, you don’t have what anyone would call a voice, but I’d rather hear you sing my material than anyone else; did I tell you he wrote Miss Otis Regrets for me? Well, he did, he had a fight on the street with Scott Fitzgerald about it, and one night the Prince of Wales came in–” I will admit though, that as a performer she had something. I heard her sing Miss Otis Regrets (Hugh Shannon accompanied her) at the April in Paris ball. She was terrific. Her big number was called I’m a Little Blackbird, Looking for a Bluebird Now. She was great on the club floor, but God forbid you should draw her as a dinner companion. You’d never get a word in edgewise.

The Power of Musigny

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aviation, food, restaurants

My friend Les treated me to a fancy wine tasting in 1992, back when Drew Nieporent was running a restaurant called Montrachet in Tribeca. When I say fancy, I mean it, because admission to this event was $1,195.00 per head.

The evening was run by Daniel Johnnes, who had started as Drew’s sommelier and was now opening a wine importing business. Tonight he was pouring top-o’-the-line Burgundies, wines most of us would never have a chance to taste because bottles at this level were so horrifically expensive –not to mention rare. There were twenty of us, mostly men, seated at a long table in a secluded corner of the restaurant. Before each place had been set a dozen, sparkling glasses. The evening began with a white Chassagne-Montrachet from Niellon, a top producer, and you knew immediately you were traveling first class: the wine reached down your throat and embraced you, caressed you, as if your esophagus was being sexually stimulated by the delicious blend of honey and velvet. Two more whites followed, and then, about eight-thirty, we started on the reds: we moved through Morey-St.-Denis, Pommard, Clos Vougeot. “What do you think?” Les asked me, waving his glass, “Cherry or black plum?” I smiled. “Les, you’re always safe if you simply say, a mix of black and red fruit.” Les nodded slowly, sagely. We were into our second hour, and he was beginning to get a little snookered. Well, he could afford to, but I was determined to keep my wits about me and define every flavor, every nuance. I was keeping a legal pad on the table, making notes to share with my wife, Suzanne, when I got home. “Les,” I said to him, “it’s amazing how sloshed we’re getting, considering the tiny amount they pour us—now what’s this?” Mr. Johnnes had been announcing the line-up. Now he held up a magnum with a yellow-beige label: “Musigny, Vieille-vignes,” he told us. “Nineteen-sixty-nine. From the Comte de Vogue.” The waiters began circling the table, pouring perhaps two fingers-worth into each glass. As I tilted the glass to my mouth I shut my eyes, the better to concentrate. I tilted a small amount onto my tongue… …and suddenly the room dropped away and I was standing on a river- bank, under a moonlit sky. Across the river was a church with the squat onion-spire of a Russian cathedral, and I knew instinctively that this river was the Don. The air was cool and moist and the river made a quiet whoosh as it flowed majestically along, a few yards from where I stood. The grey clouds moved slowly above my head, and I was aware of a great feeling of peacefulness. It felt both foreign and comforting and at the same time it felt like dying. “What do you think, John?” Les’s voice broke into my fantasy. “Raspberries and black cherries?” I thudded back to reality with a jolt –there was the restaurant, the twenty men, Les to my left, looking at me quizzically. “Les, I…I…” It was actually difficult to speak. I had been yanked back from something immense and profound. And it was the wine, this Musigny, that had done it. I needed to tell Suzanne. However, when I got home, Suzanne kidded me about my experience (“You Winos, you’re on another planet.”) I explained the extraordinary vision I’d had, but she was skeptical. “You were drunk, that’s all.” This irritated me: “I was NOT drunk, I deliberately made sure to stay sober so I could record my impressions!” To avoid an argument, she finally acceded. I felt dissed. “Wait’ll it happens to you,” I chastised her. She was about forty years behind me in terms of tasting, so what did she know? To keep herself on an even level with me, she would, through the next two years, make a remark which bordered on the snide: “Oh, John here claims he can detect nutmeg and notes of underbrush in cream soda. Even when he’s drinking water, he swirls the glass.” My smile would grow tighter and I’d say to myself Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait.

And then we got to Paris. We’d saved our pennies to blow on one extravagant meal, and we chose Taillevent.

The restaurant is housed in a mansion just off the Champs-Elysees. There’s a feeling of expansive graciousness that you don’t get in any U.S. restaurant. The waiter was perfect: a smiling formality that let you know you were in good hands, without being overly familiar. Then came the wine steward: they were pouring something special tonight as a bar wine, he said -an Auxey-duresses rouge from the Comte Armand; would we care to try a glass? Well, I knew the producer was one of the best in Burgundy, yet the vineyard location -the appellation- was an extremely minor one, about the third rung up on a hierarchy of ten. But, if good, it would be a value, and save us the expense of a bottle, which, in this place, would cost a lot. “D’accord,” I said, and a moment later two glasses were set on our table and the steward returned with the bottle, carefully displaying the label. He poured, and we each took a sip. Mmm. Very good. In fact surprisingly so. In fact, there seemed to be a lot to examine in this, ha, minor wine. I sipped again, and looked at Suzanne, just putting down her glass. She was staring fixedly at the tablecloth, seemingly lost in thought. “What is it, honey?” I asked her. She didn’t change her focus, she spread her hands in puzzlement. “I hear an orchestra,” she said, with an expression of wonder. “It sounds like Scarlatti; shh, please, I need to concentrate.” Well, I had to hide my smile behind my hand. So, finally, I thought. It’s happened to you. Now we can communicate about wine…and perhaps some other things as well.

 

Oscar Petersen Dries Audrey’s Tears

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

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This is a story Audrey Morris delivered as we were recording The Saturn Session in West Palm Beach. I’d corralled Charlie Cochran, Patti Wicks, William Roy and Audrey into a recording studio for an afternoon of song and anecdote and this is what Audrey told us -as I remember it. She said early in her career, she was entertaining in a  Chicago club where the piano was in a sunken pit, below a circular bar. Now Audrey is a superb singer/pianist who deserves anyone’s full attention, but at this club the crowd was ignoring her intimate stylings and simply chattering away above her. Audrey did a full forty-minute set and became increasingly frustrated and depressed as she offered these gems to an unheeding crowd: Rodgers and Hart, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, her whole classy repertoire fell on deaf ears. And then, as she took a break, who should enter the room but Oscar Petersen, the great Canadian jazz pianist.

To many aficionados Petersen comes next in the pantheon after Art Tatum.   He was a musician of impeccable taste and invention -and a huge star in the world of jazz piano. Oh, Oscar, wailed Audrey, here I am singing my guts out and nobody hears a note; what am I doing wrong? Petersen smiled in sympathy. It’s not you, Audrey, he assured her, they’re simply not in the mood to listen now, and I’ll prove it to you -watch this: And he climbed into the pit, sat down at the keyboard and reeled off the most brilliant rendition of The Man I Love, with all his dazzle, taste and elegant brio.

And not one of the crowd paid the slightest attention. 

There are half-a-dozen more stories like this on the CD, The Saturn Session –along with some of the tastiest performing and unusual repertoire. Patti and Audrey come from a jazz background, Charlie and Billy come from the Broadway/Hollywood arena. Bobbie Horowitz and I come from cabaret.     You may sample all of us at CDBaby.com.

Various Artists | The Saturn Session

  

Jerry Herman: Survivor Guilt

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

D’you suppose Jerry Herman is suffering Survivor Guilt over Marvin Hamlisch? Good God, Why wasn’t it me??? I was standing right next to him!

Yeah, I know I’ll probably take flak for this, but it made me smile.

The Flickers: A Movie-Themed Bed & Breakfast

05 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

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Tags

Beatle, Bed and breakfast, celebrity stalkers, John Lennon, Maddie, Maddie Fitzpatrick, Maureen O'Hara, Ray Milland, Tessie O'Shea

Casablanca     

English: John Lennon Deutsch: John Lennon

English: John Lennon Deutsch: John Lennon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Her name was Maddie, and she ran a Bed and Breakfast in Hyde Park that had classic Hollywood films as it’s theme -it was called Flickers. Maddie was a cheerful redhead -Irish, like a lesser Maureen O’Hara with a touch of Tessie O’Shea, and she had placed dozens of posters on the walls; Casablanca, of course, and Gone with the Wind, and assorted shots from other 40’s films.  I remember being surprised to see Ray Milland pictured in a still from The Uninvited. The accomodation was no better than usual, but what the hell, we were there, the price was right, and Maddie was glad to receive visitors who could talk the celebrity-sprinkled language she favored. “So you knew Judy Garland, did you? Well, did I tell you about my experience with John Lennon?” she inquired one night after we came home from dinner. I had the feeling she’d waited up for us specially, and had saved this story for our delectation. “No, Maddie,” I said, obligingly, “did you actually meet him?” “Well, not exactly,” she said (Anh hanh, I sighed mentally, I thought perhaps not). John Lennon“But just listen: my friend Seely and I went down to the Stratford, in Philadelphia, you know? Because the Beatles had appeared in town the night before, and next morning we ran down to their hotel before they checked out, we thought maybe we could cadge an autograph or somethin’, and of course there was about a hundred policemen protecting them -all around the hotel, oh, and wasn’t it packed with teenagers, all squealin’ their guts out doncha know -well, what none of us knew was that the boys had snuck out through the kitchen entrance hours before and wasn’t no way anyone was gettin’ an autograph or anythin’ else.” “Wow,” I said, just to keep her going, though I doubt anything could have stopped her. “So I says to my friend, ‘Seely,’ I says, ‘wait here, I’m goin’ round the back’ and I snuck in the kitchen entrance and grabbed an elevator, and took it up to the tenth floor and there was the maid, vacuuming up the suite, they were just beginnin’ to clean it, and I march in with great authority and I says to her, ‘This where John Lennon stayed?’ and she says Yes, and so, –cool as you please, I march over to the rumpled bed, -she hadn’t made it up yet- and there on the night table, in an ash tray, is a cigarette, like all squashed out. So quick as a flash I open my purse and scoop in the butt. I take a quick look around to see if maybe John’s forgotten anythin’ -like possibly a bedroom slipper- but no, there wasn’t nothin’; so I scurry out and when I get downstairs, Seely’s amazed, simply amazed. I showed it to her. And when I got back, I put it in a china bowl and I have it upstairs, now, if you’d like to see it.” “Well, Maddie,” I said, “thanks for the offer, but…what are you gonna do with it? I doubt you could sell it, a used cigarette butt.” Maddie looked at me as though I’d gone insane. “Don’t you see???” she hissed at me. “How valuable it’s gonna be? That little butt? Because after a few more years, when science has made the advance, I’ll be able to clone him. John Lennon. Because I’ve got his DNA -on that cigarette butt.”

Worth the entire trip.

Aboard Cunard’s QM2 and Holland-America’s Eurodam

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Baltic Cruise, Uncategorized

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Here I am boarding the QM2 to Southampton-a grin of anticipation on my face. Our first cruise together, my wife Suzanne and me, and I must say, We started at the top. Seven days aboard a floating luxury hotel; Suzanne, just in the process of switching from PC to MAC, was thrilled to find MAC classes among the activities. She even attracted an admirer who thought he might get lucky -imagine his displeasure when I was introduced. He masked it beautifully. CABIN: spacious enough that we weren’t cramped -and with a balcony that allowed a view of the ocean. FOOD: I’d call it BPlus -we paid a premium for Asian dining and it was the best meal we had onboard. All in all, a very well-run ship, with lovely personnel.  THE EURODAM                                                                                                   was also a lovely ship -top of the Holland-America line. Took us to the Baltic, with stops at Copenhagen, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin (actually Waarnemunde). I’ve posted elsewhere about these ports, but in describing the HA experience, it suffers by comparison to the Cunard ship. CABIN: was roughly equivalent. But…..FOOD: was erratic, though we stayed free of any premium options. Breakfast buffet was our favorite, with a large, boiling cauldron for poached eggs and an omlet station and a large array of cereals, waffles, pancakes etc. Service however, by a predominantly Indonesian crew was so smilingly obsequious and eager to practice their English, that it soon palled. One charming touch: our cabin steward fashioned little towel animals and left them on the bedspread. Here’s one:

Unfortunately, I spent all my energy in our first port, Tallinn, and was unable to attack the other stops with the same enthusiasm -a pity, as both Petersburg and Stockholm could’ve used more time.  TO BE CONTINUED

 

Woody Allen’s Latest: IMO

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

In any Allen film there are nuggets of humor -and sometimes poignancy- that are so knockout they reward one’s sitting through some of the misfires and repetitions of which he’s so often accused. To Rome With Love, the latest, has two such narrative threads: the first shows us a (Roman) mortician with an incredible operatic tenor; trouble is, he can only sing in the shower. This idiosyncrasy leads Woody -as a one-time producer of classical concerts- to stage an entire La Scala-sized production of Pagliacci, with the tenor performing under a shower-head in the midst of the full cast. That Woody takes this incredible comic conceit as far as he does is a mark of his brilliance. He’s also so right-on about human relations: he has Ellen Page, as a narcissistic self-promoter who’s learned how to push the right intellectual buttons (Camus, Levi-Strauss) to impress guys into giving her what she wants. She’s coyly manipulated her best girl-friend’s fiance (Jesse Eisenberg) into desiring her. But in their apartment, alone w/Jesse, when he tries to come on, she demurs: oh, I couldn’t, how could I, she’s my best friend…and certainly not in her own apartment, no never, NEVER here in her own apartment…How about we go downstairs to my car? he suggests. All right, she says, you can fuck me in the car. And her reading is so matter-of-fact, so accepting of the new parameters, that it’s perfect. Yay Woody, keep ’em coming.

Celeste Holm -An Encounter

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Academy Award, Amy Phillips, Broadway theatre, Celeste Holm, Frank Basile, Gentleman's Agreement, Oklahoma, Piano

Cropped screenshot of Celeste Holm from the tr...

Cropped screenshot of Celeste Holm from the trailer for the film Gentleman’s Agreement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Celeste Holm had a floor-through apartment on Central Park West…with a grand piano. I was asked to play for her at a party and went there to rehearse the day before. She was reticent, it seemed to me, displaying no star persona. Well, I thought, she’s ninety-two. But no, I soon came to feel it was because her husband, Frank, was in the room, and she felt she had to defer to him. He was dictating the routining, the tempi, obviously in charge here…and she was simply marking the numbers, displaying little energy or verve. I’M JUST A GIRL WHO CAIN’T SAY NO/   I CAN’T BE PRISSY OR QUAINT –it was a number that required energy and personality, the number she’d introduced in Oklahoma sixty years ago, and here was this pale, pallid rendition coming out of her. Frank’s cell-phone rang, and he walked out of the room to take the call. Getting to Know Youlay open before me on the piano. “Shall we have a go at this?” I asked her. She was sitting listlessly beside me on the piano bench. “All right,” she replied. I began the vamp into the verse:                                                    IT’S A VERY ANCIENT SAYING/BUT A TRUE AND HONEST THOUGHT– all at once there was life, vivacity, intelligence behind the song –THAT IF YOU BECOME A TEACHER– whoa, what a difference. With Frank out of the room, she seemed to flower and become the radiant personality we all knew. And a few nights later, at a packed house-party, she brought the room to it’s feet. For me, a bittersweet memory. So long, Celeste.

Celeste Hom taken at 60th Academy Awards 4/11/88

Celeste Hom taken at 60th Academy Awards 4/11/88 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Gay Teacher Makes Pass

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

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Miscellaneous

Article in todays NYT (6.10.12) about pedophile teachers at Horace Mann -and how the school stonewalled attempts by parents to get the place to acknowledge the situation. Like the Catholic church, this school’s behavior was unconscionable. How glad I am to report that my alma mater, Fieldston, reacted differently in a similar situation: my friend Bob and I (age sixteen) were part of a school field trip when our French teacher, Fen Fuller, approached us. We were sitting on a hill, watching the livestock being fed. “Did you ever see a bull hump a cow?” he asked us. We were both shocked and intrigued that this instructor would let his hair down and treat us as his equals. Fuller then described an obscene dream, winking and laughing all the while, indicating that -between we three worldly fellows- such topics were sources of sophisticated amusement. At the end of this encounter, he told us he was sure our French marks could be improved: “In fact,” he said, “if you guys don’t get an A this semester, I’ll kiss your ass.” The next week, back at school, he invited us to meet him in the boy’s bathroom before classes began. In my naivete, I was ready to go, certain this was some kind of humorous prank the iconoclastic Fuller wanted to stage. But Bob informed his parents, they contacted mine, and the Fieldston authorities were alerted. The infamous Boys Bathroom liaison never happened. And to our school’s great credit (this was the mid-fifties) Fieldston gave Fen Fuller a leave of absence to get some therapy, and allowed him to return to his teaching position afterwards. Bravo, Fieldston!

Sam Goody’s Record Shop & Goddard Lieberson

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by meyerwire in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

celebrities, entertainment, music

Pal Joey(Dah dah) YOU’RE THE TOP/(A-Boop-a-dee Dah dah) YOU’RE THE DAM AT BOULDER/( Dah dah) YOU’RE THE MOON (A-Boop-a-dee dah dah) OVER MAE WEST’S SHOULDER.  That’s Cole Porter. Here’s Lorenz Hart: DON’T CHANGE A HAIR FOR ME/NOT IF YOU CARE FOR ME.  

At the age of thirteen, I found these lyrics on cast albums issued by Goddard Lieberson.  This producer, who worked for Columbia records, shaped my musical (and lyrical) sensibility. He initiated a project: re-recording the scores of the most significant musicals of the 1920’S and 30’s, songs by the best composers and lyricists America ever produced. Take a look at the fantastic roster of brilliant scores: Girl Crazy and Oh, Kay (the Gershwins) and four by Rodgers & Hart –Boys From Syracuse, Babes in Arms, On Your Toes and Pal Joey.  Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. Not to mention The Bandwagon (Dietz & Schwartz)  I ALWAYS GO TO BED AT TEN/OH ISN’T THAT A BORE?/I ALWAYS GO TO BED AT TEN/BUT I GET HOME AT FOUR. Racy stuff for a fourteen year old, in 1951.

Girl CrazyMary Martin was the star on many of these albums, supported by an accomplished cast of Broadway voices: Jack Cassidy, Portia Nelson, Bibi Osterwald -all conducted by the man who later ran the BMI workshop –Lehman Engel. My total allowance went to Sam Goody’s record emporium on West 49th St. -the Broadway Section. Saturdays would find me there, picking through whatever new titles had just been released, and -as I got to know the composers- if there was no new show album that week, I’d search names like Vernon Duke and Vincent Youmans to find whatever related treasures might be beckoning within the thin plywood separators. Of course, listening to these discs over and over, at your most learning-intensive stage, embedded these songs so firmly in my mind that, later, I was able to make a living at the piano, singing these gems to audiences who responded to the fervor in my presentation. “Here’s a song from Anything Goes,” I’d inform them, “introduced by Ethel Merman in 1934.” And I’d sing I Get a Kick Out of You. But I’m digressing -I’ll deal with my adventures at the keyboard in another post. I simply want to record here my passion for this music; I was lucky to be born in New York, and to have parents to whom the theater was a bi-monthly event -they gave me and my sister tickets to My Fair Lady in it’s first week (they’d won the seats in a raffle, had seen it already). By that time (1956) I was a show veteran, having already taken in Broadway offerings Guys & Dolls, Where’s Charley (Frank Loesser), Make A Wish (Hugh Martin), House of Flowers (Harold Arlen), The Threepenny Opera (Kurt Weill), Pardon Our French (Victor Young) and both Hazel Flagg and Two On the Aisle (Jule Styne).

As for the content -the books- of these musicals, it was, admittedly, pretty slim. Of the shows listed above, I can cite only Guys & Dolls as having a book which matched the score. Without realizing it, I found myself gravitating towards revues like Two on the Aisle, which starred Bert Lahr and the very hot Dolores Gray. At least the sketches (Nat Hiken, Comden & Green) had point and were funny. Mel Brooks wrote his Death of a Salesman parody for New Faces of 1952 –which introduced me to both Ronny Graham and Eartha Kitt (years later, Eartha sang a song of mine at the Carlyle, A Voice Full of Yes). I finally got around to Rodgers & Hammerstein (never my favorites) in 1953 with Me and Juliet –a pallid piece. (to be continued)

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