SCARY MOVIE FOR HALLOWEEN: HUSH, HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE

HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE is one of those psychological thrillers that they did in the early 60's.  It has an amazing cast.  Bette Davis is Charlotte Hollis, wealthy southern spinster shunned by her community for a grizzly murder of her intended that took place some 40 years earlier. 
The state wants to take her house and her land for a highway.  Charlotte calls in her cousin Miriam played by Olivia de Havilland.  She's a coniving bitch, so unlike her Melanie character in Gone With The Wind.  Add to that cast Mary Astor, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Victor Buono, Bruce Dern and George Kennedy as the foreman who wants to tear down the Hollis plantation home that's been in the family since before the Civil War.

It was filmed on location at "The Sugar Palace" also known as The Houmas House just northwest of New Orleans right on the Mississippi.  When I was little, this black and white film would play on late night television.  I loved it because of Bette Davis.  It will scare the bejeezus out of you!

In 2005 I was working on the MISS TEEN USA show in Baton Rouge, LA.  The young ladies and Miss Universe Staff had been treated to a dinner at The Houmas House.  Most evenings they serve dinner in what is the original plantation home built in the late 1700s.  I decided that I wanted to drive my two favorite ladies from Miss Universe staff, Sandy and Gayle out to dinner one night.  It was raining like crazy and I missed the road I was familiar with.  Long story short I got us lost and we stopped to ask for directions from a gentlemen down by the levee.  He told us to go "way on down the road, and when you get down to the bar you turn left, then when you get to the highway you turn right and then you hit the levee again and you make another right until you come up on the Houmas House."  Then he cautioned us, now if you keep on going on down this road then you're going to end up in jeopardy."  Now I didn't know if he meant a "town called Jeopardy" or if we would be in serious trouble.  We finally found our way to the Houmas House around dusk that evening after the rainstorm had subsided and had a lovely dinner.

It is quite the plantation home and you just feel the history when you step on the property.  They have reconstructed the "cemetery" set and which is a hoot! 

If you're ever in Louisiana, treat yourself to dinner and a spooky tour!

GM

I LOVE PROJECT RUNWAY

There are just somethings that I consider a guilty pleasure.
PROJECT RUNWAY is one of those things.
I don't usually watch reality TV but this show cracks me up!
Two things:  advisor TIM GUNN telling the designers to "make it work"
and HEIDI KLUM kissing the designers off the runway with her signature "Aufedersein."

We are coming up to the finale where three designers make it to Bryant Park and Fashion Week in NY.

The pins and fabric are flying toward an all ladies finale.  Thursday nights at 10PM on LIFETIME.

Enjoy,
Gerry

I LOVE ME SOME WORLD SERIES GAME ONE

Okay so some of you are probably scratching your heads saying what?  Gerry a Phillies fan? 

The dude that loves THEATRE and LIZA is a fan of Major League Baseball?  Yes and no. 

I love the WORLD SERIES.  It's the pomp and circumstance surrounding the best of seven that really turns me on.  In the words of Ed Sullivan...."its a really big shew!"  From the singing of the National Anthem to the throwing out of the first pitch, I enjoy the show.  And when a player hits a homerun, well the excitement leaps out of the television set or nowadays the computer screen! 
But for me personally, I like seeing really big men hit a ball that's traveling close to 100 mph. 
Now that's an athlete!

I'm not a fan of basketball or football unless it's football from a foreign country. 
Now those are some "real men."  There will be more sports coverage from me later this year starting with Australian Football season which should be right around the corner and in the spring soccer season and the World Cup.

Non American athletes have no problem showing their affection for each other.
(American's on the other hand are so insecure about sexuality, God forbid you show affection or emotion.  I'll take soccer over American football any day.  And these guys are real men.
No pads or protection!  I'm just sayin'....)

Is it any wonder I want to go down under?  A visit to Australia, what were you just thinking...?

TUESDAY is song day

Tuesday is song day.

I've been a little busy over the past few weeks and I have forgotten one of my favorite features in this blog, Tuesday is Song day.
 
In doing my search through the Love Songs website I came across this song.
Elton John has been all of my life one of my favorite artists.  He just keeps writing and growing as an artist and more importantly, Elton took his money and created a charity foundation for AIDS. 
The first album I bought at 12 was the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album.
Even at that age I identified with Elton.  Hummmm
 
Here is a song from Lion King.  Enjoy.

CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT ? (Elton John)

There's a calm surrender
To the rush of day
When the heat of the rolling world
Can be turned away
An enchanted moment
And it sees me through
It's enough for this restless warrior
Just to be with you

(Chorus:)
And can you feel the love tonight?
It is where we are
It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight
How it's laid to rest?
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

There's a time for ev'ryone
If they only learn
That the twisting kaleidoscope
Moves us all in turn
There's a rhyme and reason
To the wild outdoors
When the heart of this star-crossed voyager
Beats in time with yours

(Repeat chorus)

It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

I LOVE THE P-TOWN ROUNDUP: POST WEEKEND

Talked today with several of the guys I met back east at the Provincetown Roundup.
We talked about the "let down" that comes from being in such a positive supportive environment for a long weekend.  And the transition back into the reality of our daily lives. 

One of the guys put it very succinctly, "the roundup is reality, what we live in day to day is and can be an illusion."

If we choose, we can live in the reality of having love and support, kindness and happiness in our everyday lives. 

First, it starts with a mental choice. 
(Today I choose to live my life this way with love and support, kindness and happiness.)
Second, I make a choice to act this way toward others.
Third, I give thanks for being in a loving environment.

It is amazing what we create on a day to day basis.

When I went to the ocean and yelled into the wind I asked my higher power to open my heart.
And my prayer has been answered.

Have a wonderful week.

Peace and blessings,
GM

PEACE AND SERENITY

  

This morning I experienced my “Serenity By The Sea.”
A seagull came to visit the girls next door to me and then he wandered over to my deck.
After I snapped about 25 shots of him, I got the perfect shot of my new friend.

We’ll call him Floyd.  Floyd was probably looking for a snack.  But I had none and he wandered off.  I look at the bay and the early morning sun and I cried.  “It is so beautiful here.”  The morning would be filled with packing and arranging final travel plans back to Boston, along with our large closing “Gratitude” meeting. 

This roundup has changed my life.  I finally grieved the loss of so many people.
I opened my eyes to the possibilities of life in ways that surprised me.  I flirted and was flirted with.  And I met some people who changed my life. 

My neighbor Dave for instance.   I get Dave’s humor.  He was in the room at the Inn right next door.  He along with a “posse” of guys on the second floor, became my dinner buddies for two nights.  We would walk into town up Commercial street for an early dinner before our big evening meeting each night.  The first night we ate at Backbay Betsy’s.  The second night at George’s Pizza further up in town.  I cherish the warmth and inclusive nature of these men from the east coast.  They welcomed me into their fold, sharing with me their experience, strength and hope.  I’ve seen  people in LA for years who have never walked across a room to say hello much less invite me to join them in fellowship.  What I learned from these men was how to include everyone and more importantly they taught me to open up my heart!

And for that I am truly grateful.

It stormed on Saturday evening during our big meeting.  The tent held up and the wind whipped the side flaps and the rain pelted the tent and flowed down.  Sitting next to my new friend Dave I gave him a look and he told me a story about the time they held the roundup and had to evacuate the tent because of a storm.  30 minutes after they all got everyone out, half of the tent collapsed!  This did not inspire confidence in me as I watched the big top shaking from storm.  But I sat there with 900+ other people, who are also working on improving their lives one day at a time and realized we were all safe and dry from the storm.  Together we could do this.  The rain continued throughout the hour and a half meeting and then subsided.  Finally it  diminished to a gentle rain.  We are after all halfway out into the Atlantic at the end of the land that the Pilgrims first landed on.

Earlier on Saturday I had hiked up and over the moors to the beach and walked along it’s shore, collecting stones like my Grandmother Mary Alice use to do.  She would bring them back home and put them in her rock garden.  I put mine in a ceramic bowl that I have at home along with sacred stones that I work with during meditation.  These stones carry with them the Atlantic ocean and the healing that I found there on the dunes, overlooking the land pretty much the same as it was found almost 400 years earlier by people that could have been my ancestors.
(There are several Mullins’ in those first pilgrim’s who made that voyage from Europe to the new world and “New England.”)

What I take from this Roundup is a sense of belonging.  As it says in AA’s promises…”we shall know a new freedom and a new happiness.”  When I got up Sunday after the stormy Saturday night and saw the sunshine on the back bay, how could I not embrace the light!  For this place and I are one now.  Forever burned in my mind is a moment in time when I knew that all is right with the world and I am one with it.

Peace and blessings,
GM

Gerry at peace with the world.  Remember we're only borrowing it for the moment we are there, so enjoy your life right where you are.  Someday I will probably buy a place like this but for now I am grateful they let me borrow it, if only for a few days!

FRIDAY: DAY TWO P-TOWN

Woke up later this morning and enjoyed a lovely continental breakfast.
All I could think about as I sat in the little tired dining area was..."what would Ruth Watson of THE HOTEL INSPECTOR make of this place!"  It's a very worn out little hotel/convention place in P-town but the only place that can accomodate the 1,000 or so attendees of our little roundup.

I finished breakfast, checked in online with Spiritual Bootcamp class and then hit Commercial street for my morning of the Tower and shopping and then lunch at the Lobster Pot!  Awesome day.
Back by 2PM to pickup registration and attend the first of many workshops. 
I lead a workshop tomorrow afternoon and looking forward to it.

One of the many unique guesthouses here in P-Town.

View from the tower of CITY HALL and Commercial Street with the warf beyond.

Feel like you're in Hitchcock's VERTIGO yet?

Freezing up there but a lovely view of all of P-town and the Atlantic ocean.

Behind me is downtown P-town and the bay.  This hike up to the top is a butt workout!

Having fun in the Tower Museum with the bear!

My reward is a bowl of Lobster Bisque from the LOBSTER POT

after a quick power shop for the must have P-town zip up hoodie and

my hike to the top of the tower.  Yummy and the staff is most excellent!