Peter Mac as Judy Garland

In April this year, Jan Glazier organized a "Judy in Hollywood" event and one of the entertainers was Peter Mac; whose claim to fame is that he manages to recreate Judy on stage doing one of her shows.  One might call him an impersonator, but he is really more than that. He manages to convince the die hard Judy fans that he really is Judy! It is a very peculiar experience for those of us who love Judy; because very often we would prefer not to see one of these shows.

Anyway Peter Mac is on the agenda. Jon Perdue, wondered if he should buy a ticket and asks if I am going. Long time fan Wayne Lawless, who probably saw Judy as many times as I did, had assured me that Peter was good and had seen him several times. "Go ahead and get a ticket, it will be fun" I tell Jon.

It is the first evening reception when we all meet up again or find new friends.  A knock on the door and in bursts Peter Mac as Judy wearing the blue jacket and black straight dress. He grabs the mike and immediately starts chattering to us as Judy, finishing leading us into a sing-a-long.  I observe his manager, Dj, keeping an eye on him from the door way.

Afterward he passes among us chatting, as Judy, and we are enchanted with him. He compliments me on my jacket, rather as Judy might have done - being the expert she was on jackets!!

  
Later in the weekend we go to the little night club, the Oil Can, where Peter is performing and watch his two part concert. Garland Overture started, it was just like waiting for Judy to come out and sing. Peter sang all the usual opening songs, "I feel a song coming on", "Zing," Trolley Song," "Palace Melody" etc., but the thing which enchanted me so much was his chatter between songs. Peter and Dj had obviously done their reading and homework. They knew Judy life; her ups and downs and saw Judy very much in the same way I did. 

 

 

We have an interval and then "Just in Time," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "I'd like to Hate Myself in the Morning," "Maybe I'll come back" among others and finishing with "Rainbow" and "Get Happy."  Again, for me, it was not the songs which enchanted me but rather the life history which Peter manages to transmit to us in-between songs.

Sam Irwin (author of the book, "Kay Thompson") and Peter Mac

 

Afterwards, Peter removes his make-up and runs up to me as himself and I finally see his true self. 

Peter Mac and Wayne Lawless

Later we are all together at the final dinner. Thank you Peter for bringing Judy back for a few hours.

Peter Mac and his manager, Dj. Schaefer

Americanah, a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie-or how to survive as an immigrant!!

"Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly."

This is the first sentence of the above book and I am hooked. How delicious from one who always gets carried away with long sentences and the grammar correct tell me how wrong I am. I found the book in my son's house and he commented that I may like to read it. It is a book I should have written years ago about how an immigrant adjusts to life in this country, which on the surface speaks the same language as the English people, but is actually quite different, particularly the expressions.  The author is from Nigeria, well educated and was brought up with the King's English.

They say that to write a novel one should write about what you know and the author certainly has done so using her experiences and those of her friends.

Our main character, Ifemelu, comes to the States to further her education, struggles to find work to support herself and try to fit in to the society. As she signs up for classes the administrator says to her, "You are all set."  She wonders what this means. I felt the same way when some new friends we had met in California, said upon leaving, "See you later."  Did I miss something? I remember thinking. I didn't remember us making arrangements to see a movie or anything specific.  When they continued to say this upon I realized it meant, "So Long," or "Cheerio," as the Brits say. My worse experience was reply to a question about the time and responding that the time was "half past four." The men who had asked this question nearly fell over laughing. I suppose they enjoyed teasing me and hoping to hear something strange from my mouth. Finally my boss, Joe Delaney, a Canadian (I wonder what happened to him?) told me, "You mustn't let them do this to you-give them back as good as they give you!" "But how can I?" I asked. "I am the foreigner here."  I did learn though and became stronger. Another phrase Ifemelu comments on is instead of saying, "ask somebody upstairs," Americans say, "you might want to see somebody upstairs." Another observation; in answer to the question, "How are you?" Americans reply in a sing-song voice, "Good, how are you?"  At one point Ifemelu, who has been faking an American accent to fit in decides to revert to formal English and says. "I'm well, thank you." She had made an effort to blur the "t" and roll the "r."  I never was able to do this and still say, "can't" with my strong "a."  Upon observation I noticed as the earlier you come to the States the easier one acquires an American accent. Upon returning to the States after living in England for three years I listened as my six and eight year old children changed their vowel  sounds in one month.

Our main character, Ifemelu, is an African and struggles with controlling her hair. We learn of the problems of braiding (and how long it takes) or relaxing or straightening the hair.  So different from my problems of having my straight hair permed.   All this was fascinating to me.

But the most important aspect of this book are Ifemelu's experiences and comments on race in America. Until she came to the States, she didn't know or use the word "black." In Africa you were Nigerian, or South African. She writes blogs with the titles of "To My Fellow Non-American Blacks, In America you are black, Baby!" to explain to fellow immigrants from other parts of the world how it is here. As a social commentary this book is magnificent and well worth reading.

      

A Sentimental Journey - Part II

 

In as much as the first part of this blog was about my friend, Inger, this second part focuses on her daughter, Marika and her life. When we parted in San Francisco, the three grandsons went to the airport to meet two more friends from Sweden, Eric and Sara, rent their own car and set off for adventures in Oakland and eventually Los Angeles. Inger, Marika and Brit-Marie travel inland to Vicki’s home and visit her mother, who had been very kind to Inger years ago.

Then they made their way to Huntington Beach for ten days. These three days in San Francisco had not been enough for me with the family so I decide to fly down spent another six days with them. John Wayne Airport seems nearest to them so off I go.
Inger and Brit-Marie are waiting in airport while Marika circles the airport. We find the car and I see this bright-eyed friendly face from the back of the red SUV–it is Tracy; Marika’s long lost sister from Washington State. She had flown down the day before. So much, I must discover about them. The next few days I feel like an investigative journalist or detective, continually asking questions about how and why.  

The first question I ask is why are we in Huntington Beach?  I learn that Marika’s father Derek, had immigrated to California from England in 1951 when he was fourteen year old ago with his parents and sisters. When Inger’s children, Kenneth, Marika and Marcus were in their teens, they spent six months visiting their grandparents; so this was home. This was very interesting to me as an anthropologist: a complete reversal of my experience. My home is England and my adopted home the USA. Marika’s home is California and her adopted home is Sweden.

Next question, how did Marika and Tracy find each other? Tracy was a daughter from Derek’s first marriage and never saw her father from about the age of two years. Around the year 2000, Tracy decided to look for her father and family and she traced them to the Los Angeles area and found her father was living in Seattle. This led to her finding Marika and her brothers in Sweden. I had known from Inger that Marika had found a sister in Washington. It was such a joy to see these two sisters interact with each other and find so much pleasure in sharing notes and catching up with their lives.

Time for lunch, the girls have picked out a charming place and so we record this moment 

Then it is time to explore and shop at Balboa and Newport Beach and finally to the charming house on Newland Road.

 

 

The next day is Marika’s birthday and so we are off to I Hop on Beach Blvd. to meet the young people for breakfast. This particular I HOP had been Marika’s a favorite haunt of her grandfather. We are a big group now, five young people and five ladies. I meet Eric and Sara, who are friends with of Michael since childhood.

  Then to Venice Beach; such a lot of interesting characters, it is a long time since I visited this beach. The young people love it. Inger and I met a young student from Boston who tells us about her experience coming to California a year ago and attending college.

We pass this information to Dennis. On the 405 freeway at 4:30 pm-it takes 2 hours to get home. Big rush as we are meeting Marka’s cousin Michelle for dinner at the Cheese Factory. Now we are a party of eleven. Michelle’s mother, Sandy is the sister of Derek. Another new friend!  It is beautiful warm evening with a gentle breeze and we eat outside.

It is Saturday and we are taking it quietly. A trip down to Huntington Beach and we walk on the pier. Marika has been talking to Markus, her brother in Sweden, she learns there is web cam set up transmitting to Sweden, and so we all wave frantically at the camera so Markus can share in our lovely day. Have lunch at Sandys  

 

 

Go shopping at Kohls

Sunday and we are all going to Universal studios  We enjoy the tour around the sets and the young people go on all the rides.

Monday. The young people and Brit-Marie are off to Las Vegas for the day and returning the next day. Dennis, who is only twenty has to hang out with two grandmothers and two aunts. He is very patient.  We drive to Long Beach, San Pedro where Inger and the children had lived in two different houses.

 Then we drive up to Santa Monica and have lunch on the pier at 

Have a charming walk around this gracious city.

Dennis found an apartment and new friends and so he is off in his new life. Marika met up with the rest of Michelle’s family and shopped till they dropped. They flew home........

 

Enough of my Swedish interlude.  Peter Mac, as Judy, next week.  

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

A Sentimental Journey

My friend Inger 

This blog is not exactly about my Judy book, but is concerning a woman’s life and as women’s lives are my interest, I had to write about my recent trip.

My Swedish friend, Inger is coming back for a trip forty years after returning to her home country in 1971. She is bringing her daughter, Marika and three of her grandsons and a friend, Brit-Marie. They will be in San Francisco for three days – do I want to join them? I am so excited, we had been friends since we met in the late 1960s when our husbands had played cricket together in Los Angeles and then later when we all moved to the Bay area. We spent many long Sundays during the summers sitting in various cricket fields watching out for our small children. Inger had three children, Kenneth, Marika and Marcus, while I had Carolyn and Adrian. After my children were grown, I often flew to Sweden when visiting my mother in England and I had met her grown-up children and their children.

Initially we were going to stay in a hotel but one of the sisters who were helping organize the trip found a lovely big house we could rent in the city. Vicki and Marie had been neighbors of Inger during the five years she lived in San Francisco; Marie and Marika being first best friends. When Vicki finished high school, she followed Inger to Sweden, and stayed with the family for six months before continuing her adventures in Paris, Turkey and eventually finding and marrying her husband from Lebanon. Exotic is a great word to describe Vicki! All these details of our relationship with Inger came out during the days we spent together.

Marie and Vicki, were brought up in San Francisco and used to driving and exploring the beauty spots and so were the guides. Both had wandered into the hinterland of California but their hearts were still in the city.

Marika, being the super mother she was, probably organized the trip. Not only was she bringing her mother, Inger, two sons, Michael and David, and nephew, Dennis, but a lovely new friend to me, Brit-Marie. They flew into Seattle, where they had relatives and started the journey south and I watched their journey on Facebook, stopping at  Spokane,  Pilot Butte, Bend, Crater Lake, Oregon, Grants Pass, Folsom State Prison before arriving in San Francisco.

Marie, a merry soul, lives in Folsom and so they stopped there and convey begins again collecting me from Vacaville. This means people will come to my house – I am writing a book and the place is covered with papers, I throw them into a bedroom. 

They all pile into my little house – three ladies and three young men - overlooking the golf course and the geese. Marika, with the sparkling dark eyes of her father: same as when she was a little girl. the eyes don’t change. She introduces me to three young men standing before me observing me with their calm Scandinavian eyes and good angle-saxon names, Michael and David her sons and Dennis, Marcus’s son. My goodness how will I tell them apart-I worry I will get their names wrong? We drive into San Francisco on route 37 and enter over the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a glorious Sunday and there are cars everywhere, we pause and Marika, David and Brit-Marie walk the bridge. We will meet outside the gift store, (yes a gift store for the bridge) and Dennis is with Inger.  He is Marcus’s son and has a flock of hair–Ha!–I can see him as a six year old “Dennis the menace”  “You are cute,” I say; he winces. Good I have identified one of the boys!

Dennis, Inger and Michael

We make our way into the city and find our house on 23 Street on Noe Valley, near Castro.  Yes, it does have 57 steps up to the front door and Inger and I scramble up them as best we can.

The plan was for us to go out to dinner when Vicki arrives but Marie announces that we will have dinner in tonight. “Thank Goodness,” I say. One climb up the steps a day is enough for me. We explore the house-there are three big bedrooms upstairs and the master bedroom in the basement. The boys opt for the master and the ladies take the upstairs. The house has been completely refurnished, new floors, doors, kitchen and bathrooms – with a hot tub in the back garden which the boys appreciated one evening.

David, Dennis & Michael

The only thing was it must have been remodeled by giants, all the kitchen cupboards and micro wave were too high – luckily they had supplied a step ladder. AND there was not kettle for tea and one had to use a saucepan.  Not a very good quality one either and poor Brit-Marie received a very bad hand burn. Never mind she recovered.

Vicki burst in like a dynamo, elegantly dressed with long flowing red hair and the party began.

The refrigerator is full of food; Marie has brought basics with her. She and Marika go out for food from Castro Street and we have the first of our many meals together. I get to talk with Dennis, and he tells me about his childhood and how Inger, his grandmother, was the constant thing in his life after his parents separated. What does he want to do I ask, always the university counselor. He doesn’t know.  He has spent time in Norway and one senses the restlessness in his soul. He is a US citizen from his father and wants to try his luck in the States. I can see he has his grandmother in him. After all, she immigrated to New York years ago to seek her fortune. Vicki is sitting between us telling her stories of all her adventures in Europe and at one point, I comment that she is gregarious. Dennis doesn’t know this word and he puts it into his memory.  

Marika’s two sons are on the other hand, are settled in their work. Michael is a carpenter, like his brother, Patrick not on the trip. There is lots of work in Sweden remodeling houses. The younger son, David, is an electrician and loves his work. I tell David I am amazed that they can take a month’s vacation all at one time, but he tells me it is expected that everyone HAS to take their vacation. I talk with both of them often in the morning while we are waking up. I wondered how I would deal with people in the morning, I don’t wake up feeling very jolly.  Luckily everyone seems to feel the same way. Marika, Inger and Brit-Marie were usually up first making tea or coffee. Then me, the two sisters and finally the three boys would drift up into the living area. Michael likes Jon Stewart and plays games on his ipad. Everyone has their phone and keep up to date with their friends. Samsung is the phone of choice and seems efficient. 

Inger, Marika, Marie and me

A city tour is planned for the next day. We pile into cars; Inger, Brit-Marie and I are with Vicki, with the long hair. Marie is driving her best friend, Marika, and the three boys. Up on hill and down the other-all these iconic, well known avenues and streets, Golden Gate, Van Ness, Lombard into Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower.

The last time I had been to Coit Tower was 50 years ago.

We head southeast toward Filbert, into Lombard, Columbus, Bay, Franklin, Lombard, Lyon to the Palace of Fine Arts. It is beautiful there, I want a house overlooking the lake. Then lunch at Garibaldis on Presidio. Next we head off for Twin Peaks. An absolutely, beautiful clear day with spectacular views of the city and sea beyond.  The final stop of the day is the home Inger lived in for five years. Vicki and Marie had lived around the corner and they remember routes to school and the adventures they had in the neighborhood.  Glen Park School.  

I have been to SF many times and it often seemed to have a charming, if shabby perhaps seedy quality, but all that is gone. All the beautiful Victorian houses, built since 1909 have been restored and looked sparkling in their splendor. I was told that the dot-com millionaires of Silicon Valley have bought many.

We return home and Marie has found another friend, Carol and she joins us for dinner. Inger had baby-sat her son many years ago.  

Marika is fascinated with prisons and jails and wants to go to Alcatraz, but all the boat trips are full. The town is full of computer science people and sailing people, the Yacht races have just finished. So we drove down to Fisherman’s Wharf and caught a cable car up through the city to Market Street and Nordstrom- up the escalator to the top floor.  Time to eat again at the Brisco Café. The boys, Marika and Brit-Marie go off to shop while Vicki, Inger and I have a cocktail.

Inger with her 3 grandsons and daughter

We gather together again and catch a bus along Market to the Ferry Bldg. and up to Pier 39.  Inger, Vicki and I walk along the Embarcadero while the others check out Pier 39. There is Stephen Dreyfuss, a sax player at the top of Pier 39 and I bought his CD. It is now 6 pm and the temperature is 70 degrees with no wind-a most perfect day.

 Next were West Indian drummers, then 1970s music and finally we found a bar with a jazz quartet, Charlie McCarthy and his group (my son remembers seeing them years ago in Bay area). Vicki should be my public relations person, she tells everyone about my Judy book and invites a blonde cyclist to join us. He wants to take photographs of me, we decide he is a little odd and I dump him to talk to the musicians.

Last stop is Ghirardelli for a desert.By this time I have decided to adopt Dennis as a grandson and Inger is happy to share this honor with me.

No one wants to trip to end but Vicki must get back to her business, Marie to her family and work and Inger and family ever onward.  They are going on to Huntington Beach for ten days.  "Huntington Beach!" I say. "Come and join us" they say and this will be the next blog.