I have no animosity toward anybody because the truth is, I wrecked my own career.”

Tommy Kirk was a star at Disney Studios in the early 1960s but there were issues "I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings," he said " I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy. I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people, and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn't until the early '60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated. The lifestyle was not recognized, and I was very, very lonely. Oh, I had some brief, very passionate encounters and as a teenager I had some affairs, but they were always stolen, back alley kind of things. They were desperate and miserable. When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going to change. I didn't know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. It was all going to come to an end.”

He added that “It was very hard to meet people, and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn't until the early '60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated."

While filming The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, in 1964, Kirk started seeing a 15-year-old boy he had met at a local swimming pool in Burbank. Tommy was 22 years old. The boy’s mother found out and reported the affair to Disney Studios “the boy's mother went to Walt," he said "I was quickly fired."

Disney didn’t renew Tommy’s contract  "Even more than MGM, Disney was the most conservative studio in town.... The studio executives were beginning to suspect my homosexuality. Certain people were growing less and less friendly. In 1963, Disney let me go. But Walt asked me to return for the final Merlin Jones movie, The Monkey's Uncle, because the Jones films had been moneymakers for the studio." (The film earned earning $4 million in rentals in North America alone, an astounding sum at the time)

Tommy made a few more film outside of Disney. But on Christmas Eve 1964, he was arrested for suspicion of possession of marijuana, a hefty crime at the time, especially for a movie star. The DA dropped the grass charges but since officer also found barbiturates (in what was probably an illegal search and seizure) he was charged with possession of illegal drugs, which wasn’t true. The actor produced proof that the drugs had been prescribed by a physician. But it really didn’t matter. The 1960s were far more conservative than they are portrayed, and he was fired from several film in the making. He bounced back but fell victim to drug addiction and gave up acting in the mid-1970s. “I was drinking, taking pills and smoking grass. In fact, I was pretty wild. I came into a whole lot of money, but I threw a lot of parties and spent it all. I wound up completely broke. I had no self-discipline and I almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times. It's a miracle that I'm still around. All of that didn't help the situation. Nobody would touch me; I was considered box office poison”

The days when he earned more than $1,000 a week were over. (That would be roughly $6,000 a week today) To get by he worked as a waiter, a chauffeur and a carpet cleaner in the San Fernando “I made a lot of money and I spent it all.” He said “No bitterness. No regrets. I did what I did... I wasn't the boy next door anymore. I could pretend to be for a few hours a day in front of the camera. But I couldn't live it. I'm human. I'm not Francis of Assisi. I don’t blame anybody but myself and my drug abuse for my career going haywire. I’m not ashamed of being gay, never have been, and never will be. For that I make no apologies. I have no animosity toward anybody because the truth is, I wrecked my own career.”

 

 

 

Kennedy's Call Girl

 

Judy Campbell was born to an upper-middle-class family in New York and settled in California while in her childhood.  In 1952, she married actor Bill Campbell but divorced him in 1959. (The couple had been separated since 1955) Campbell claimed to have been working as an actress when Frank Sinatra introduced her to US Senator and Presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy on February 7, 1960, in Palm Springs California. She denied allegations and rumors from local law enforcement that prior to the Kennedy meeting she was working as a professional escort. 

 According to her statements before the 1975 U.S. Senate intelligence committee, Campbell said she had an 18-month affair with Kennedy before and after he entered the White House, and that she later had an affair with Sam Giancana while Giancana was boss of the Chicago Outfit. She also claimed to have been involved with Johnny Roselli, Giancana’s man on the West Coast.  

In 1959 Campbell met singer Frank Sinatra, and they engaged in a brief affair.

A year later, on February 7, 1960, Sinatra introduced Campbell to Kennedy and shortly before that, to Sam Giancana. She swore under oath that there was no connection between Kennedy and Giancana, that her relationship with Kennedy was personal and not business and that she had no knowledge of any relationship between Giancana and Kennedy.  Later, in her December 1975 press conference and again in her autobiography, she made the same denials and repeatedly accused the media of "wild-eyed speculation" for suggesting that she was an intermediary between Kennedy and Giancana.

 In 1997, 20 years after the publication of My Story, Campbell changed her story. She unveiled new sensational allegations including a story that she was a conduit between the President of the United States and the Chicago Mob.

She claimed that for 18 months, in 1960 and 1961, that she was the president's link with the Chicago Outfit and that she zipped across the country carrying envelopes between the president and Giancana, (concerning the Mafia-White-CIA plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.) and arranged about 10 meetings between the two, one of which, she thought, took place inside the White House.Campbell, a long troubled woman with deep emotional instability, (Depression and paranoia) changed her story several times in a decade. It appears that virtually all of what Campbell wrote was concocted in order to sell a book and by the time she completed her autobiography in 1977, Kennedy, Giancana, and Roselli were safely dead. In 1988 People magazine interview Campbell said   "I lied when I said I was not a conduit between President Kennedy and the Mafia. I lied when I said that President Kennedy was unaware of my friendships with mobsters. He knew everything about my dealings with Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli because I was seeing them for him. I wouldn't have been seeing them otherwise."

When pressed to explain why she had lied before the United States Senate she replied that she feared for her life if she told the truth "If I'd told the truth, I'd have been killed. I kept my secret out of fear." In fairness, it’s not a completely groundless defense. Giancana was killed just before he was set to testify before the Senate committee and Roselli was kidnapped and killed right after he testified. However, it makes almost no sense for Kennedy to have chosen Campbell as his conduit to Giancana especially considering the vast numbers of more capable persons he could have chosen for the job including several mob-controlled US Congressmen.

What makes her claims so outrageous is that the wily Kennedy chose Campbell to act as her Mafia contact after having known her for less than two weeks. Conversely, she had known the paranoid Sam Giancana for less than a month before he supposedly agreed to accept White House messages from her. The strangest thing about Campbell’s take is that Murray Humphreys, the Chicago Mob political contact and corruption expert, appears nowhere on the landscape.   

Campbell said that her first assignment as courier was suggested by Kennedy at the dinner in his Georgetown townhouse on April 6, 1960. During the conversation Kennedy turned to her and said, "Could you quietly arrange a meeting with Sam [Giancana] for me?"  

Campbell said that the she called Giancana the next morning and arranged a meeting “I arrived at 8:30 a.m. on April 8th and talked to Sam at a Chicago club," said Exner. "I told Sam that Jack wanted to meet with him because he needed his help in the campaign." Giancana agreed, and the meeting was set four days later at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. "I called Jack to tell him, and then I flew to Miami because Kennedy wanted me to be there."

On April 12 Kennedy met with Giancana at the Fontainebleau. "I was not present," Exner said, "but Jack came to my suite afterward, and I asked him how the meeting had gone. He seemed very happy about it and thanked me for making the arrangements." Kennedy, a notorious skinflint, then paid Campbell $2,000 in cash. Writer Kitty Kelley, who assisted Campbell in writing her stories about Kenney and Giancana, speculated that the April 12 meeting concerned the West Virginia primary.

 After Kennedy entered the White House, Campbell said, Kennedy continued to use her as a courier. A few days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, Kennedy called her in California and asked her to fly to Las Vegas, pick up an envelope from Roselli and deliver it to Giancana in Chicago. Then she was to arrange a meeting between the President and the Mafia boss, one that took place in her suite at the Ambassador East on April 28, 1961.

Describing her role in arranging contacts between Kennedy and Giancana, she said "As a rule I would just call Sam. I learned to almost speak in a kind of code. I would usually say, `Have him call the girl from the West.' And if something was happening in Florida, it was, `Can you meet him in the South?' Sam always knew that `him' was Jack. I really became very adept. I think that I was having a little bit of fun with this also."

Campbell claimed that FBI Director Hoover had agents tailing her so he could blackmail Kennedy with the evidence. However, according to Joe Pignatello, a Las Vegas restaurateur, mob insider and close personnel friend of Sam Giancana, the agents were assigned to follow Campbell only because of her involvement with Giancana and Sinatra and that agents had confirmed to Giancana Robert Kennedy had asked the Director to place a lock step on Campbell as part of his scheme to blackball Sinatra.

 Pignatello claimed that Campbell had worked as a paid escort on the Los Angeles-Las Vegas circuit and was hired by Sinatra to entertain Kennedy during their first meeting in Palm Springs on February 7, 1960 while Kennedy was a presidential candidate.   It was Pignatelo’s contention that Giancana had paid hush money to Campbell to protect Sinatra’s career and not Kennedy’s. “Sam” said Pignatello “Wouldn’t have pissed in the sink to help Kennedy. Why would help Kennedy with anything?” 

 According to Pignatello, after the Kennedy’s had cut themselves lose from Sinatra they attempted to distance themselves from him. According to Pignatello, the hush money used to bribe Campbell was taped to the inside casing of an old and no longer used oven in his restaurant in Vegas.  Campbell died of breast cancer (some reports called it lung cancer) in 1999 at age 65.

 

 

My guess

 

My guess is that the new mayor of New York, Eric Leroy Adams, is in way over his 

head and will be under indictment or in jail before his term is up. 

The guys

 

My birthday cake

 

2022

 

I enjoyed this tremendously

 

If

 

The best old guy

 

How could she get it so wrong? She has the best legal clerks in the world....literally, the best in the world .

 

I haven't seen it but it seems to be right up our alley....

 

This fits....

 

Bad news

 

Look at how stunning this young woman is…

 

Silent film actress Esther Ralston was absolutely stunning as well as gifted. She was a major silent film star but her film career diminished overnight. The studios said that she wanted Paramount Studios to up her price on her contract to $100,000 when talkies came in, which they refused to do. But in her autobiography Some Day We'll Laugh, she wrote that  her career was sabotaged by Louis B. Mayer when she refused to sleep with him at the height of her contract talks with the studio. Although she earned her fortune from investments, she lost it all in the stock market crash of 1929. Forced to find work, she was occasionally made TV appearances  in the 1950s and early 1960s but in later years she had to work as department store salesperson and talent agent.

Good words to use

 

Finesse originally referred to refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture; that sense is based on French fin, meaning "fine." In time, the noun was applied to the "delicate" handling of a situation. The related verb finesse had its start at gaming tables: if you finesse in a game like bridge or whist, you withhold your highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played. Similar uses of the verb implying skill and cleverness followed.

 

The spelling of sully has shifted several times since it was sylian in Old English, but its meaning has remained essentially the same: "to soil." In case you are wondering whether sullen (meaning "gloomy or morose") is a relative, the answer is "no." Sullen comes from Latin solus, meaning "alone."

 

Writers Joke

 

True crime at its best

 

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

  

 

 

 great weather for MEDIA seeks flash fiction, short stories, dramatic monologues, and creative nonfiction for our annual print anthology.

Our focus is on edgy, fearless, and experimental subject matter and styles.

 

***

 

Veterans Repertory Theater (VetRep) is launching a 10-minute audio play competition for playwrights who meet one of the following criteria:

 - current or former US military, law enforcement, fire, EMS, foreign service, or intelligence service veteran

 - immediate family member of a current or former military, law enforcement, fire, EMS, foreign service or intelligence service veteran (“immediate family member” means: parents, siblings, children and spouse.)

 

***

 

Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights 2022

Six plays are chosen from the submissions to be given public readings by Barter’s company.

The playwrights are given travel, housing, and a stipend for the week.

Plays must be written by an Appalachian playwright (currently living in a state that contains the Appalachian Mountain Range— which, for our purposes, run from New York to Alabama.)

 

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***

 

 

*** GOOD VIBES FOR WRITERS ***

 

Welcome to Coffitivity!

Coffitivity recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better. Proven and peer reviewed, see the research to learn more.

Free options:

 ~ Morning Murmur

 ~ Lunchtime Lounge

 ~ University Undertones

 

More...

https://coffitivity.com

 

 

***

There’s no shortage of coffee-obsessed writers. Tom Wolfe, for instance, would drink “awesome quantities” of coffee at midnight before launching into long stretches of late-night writing, while L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz and dozens of other fantasy books, would drink four or five coffees with breakfast (all of this according to Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals). So when we started looking for the best coffee beans, we figured writers and authors would be some of the most qualified people to make recommendations — and we were not disappointed by their picks.

 

Here, nine writers and authors on their must-have, all-time-favorite coffee beans, ranging from readily-available, grocery store beans to seasonal roasts that are hoarded for later.

 

More...

https://nymag.com/strategist/article/coffee-beans-writers-favorites.html

 

 

***

I will never say I hate a book (ever). Here’s why.

 

As aspiring authors, “constructive criticism” is something that we get a lot of. We get it from parents and mentors, peers, and anyone else who’s ever heard you say “I want to write books for a living” or held a piece of your work in their hands. We get this “constructive” brand of judgement under a lot of pretenses: we need outside sources to help us find flaws in our work that we can fix (true); we need a dose of reality (false); it’s good to evaluate your work for flaws (true); your book isn’t good until it’s perfect (false false false); your book is already good and doesn’t need help (also false), and…you get the idea.

 

More...

https://clearwaterpress.com/oneyearnovel/blog/good-vibes-art-appreciating-writing/

 

 

***

Best Low-Cost Cities for Writers

 

While there's something romantic about the “starving artist,” you don't have to put yourself in a precarious position. Just check out one of these low-cost cities!

 

Iowa City, Iowa

Along with Seattle, Iowa City is the only other UNESCO “City of Literature” in the United States. This city has a rich history centered around creative writing. In fact, the University of Iowa was the first school to offer a creative writing graduate program in the country, which became the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

 

Iowa City is also home to several other writing festivals and workshops, making this low-cost city a great place for budding or seasoned writers to live.

 

Livingston, Montana

This mountain town is the biggest little literary place you've never heard of. It has a rich history of writers that continues today, as the town still attracts writers — especially those that love the outdoors.

 

The writing scene in this small town revolves around Elk River Books and the community of creatives that gather there. It has been said that the Livingston area has more writers per capita than places like NYC and L.A.

 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Believe it or not, Pittsburgh has a rich literary community and a relatively low cost of living (12% lower, on average!). It's home to many indie bookstores and there are plenty of fellow writers to be found at the Pittsburgh Writers Project and Littsburgh.

 

Plus, it's close enough to New York, Boston, and other major east coast cities that you can take some road trips to these more expensive cities without spending a fortune on rent!

 

More...

https://kindlepreneur.com/best-cities-for-writers/

 

 

***

I want to stop for just a moment, to take a second out of my life to put some positive out into the world today.

 

So many times we get up to our eyebrows in the mess and chaos of the day without stopping to breath. We want change. We want it so bad that we can taste it. We want success, recognition, acceptance. We fight and claw our way to the top of whatever we are trying to gain mastery over. We run and we never look back. Terrified that the past and all its mistakes might catch up to us.

 

Everyone of us has insecurities. I think that we forget that. We see others. We compare ourselves. We push ourselves. We try to insert ourselves into someone else’s life, when what we should be doing is looking at our own life. Having a mental image of what we would like to become firmly placed in our hearts, we should be looking at the steps we must take to achieve that goal.

 

More...

https://writersblock17.com/2020/01/12/positive-vibes-woo/

 

 

***

Many of us have waxed poetic while puffing a joint, but probably not as much as Charles Baudelaire.

 

That’s right – France’s poetic genius loved hash, and there’s a sprawling list of literary greats who also liked to “weed” and write. After all, in the words of E.B. White: “The first duty of a writer is to ascend.”

 

We rounded up the top eight authors, poets, and screenplay writers known to have mixed cannabis into the creative process.

 

1. Maya Angelou

 

In her autobiography “Gather Together in My Name” (the second autobiography in a seven-part series, the first of which is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”) the late poet described her experience smoking cannabis for the first time.

 

“Walking on the streets became high adventure, eating my mother’s huge dinners an opulent entertainment, and playing with my son was side cracking hilarity,” she said. “For the first time, life amused me.”

 

Angelou later credited marijuana with helping her overcome the sexual and physical abuse she suffered early in life, and used it weekly as a kind of creativity-generating therapy for a time. So, you can thank weed, in part, for the Maya Angelou we know and revere today.

 

2. Stephen King

 

If you’ve ever gotten a distinctly trippy feeling while reading a Stephen King novel (who hasn’t?,) it may interest you to know that King was actually tripping while writing some of his novels.

 

The world-famous author of “It,” “The Shining,” and other iconic horror novels admitted to using a lot of cannabis in the 80’s in his biography, “Haunted Heart,” describing himself as “addicted” to weed, alcohol, and cocaine. King’s additions became so consuming that he says he barely remembers writing the pieces he produced in those years, such as “The Tommyknockers.

 

More...

https://www.greenstate.com/culture/lit-literaries-from-stephen-king-to-victor-hugo-these-8-cannabis-loving-writers-may-surprise-you/

 

 

***

A Tea for a Writer’s Every Mood

If you’re a writer, why not follow in the masters’ footsteps, and discover the magic of tea? Even if you’re not a writer—or you’re already a tea lover—you may be missing out on some of the benefits this versatile beverage has in store for you.

 

Turns out that for just about every occasion in a writer’s life, there’s a tea that fits right in—in many cases, a tea that makes everything feel just a little bit better.

 

I Just Got Another Rejection: You definitely need something to chase away the blues. Try saffron tea. It was used even in traditional times to boost mood, and modern science has supported its effectiveness. A 2004 study, for example, found that saffron tea lifted mood just as well as antidepressants (without the side effects).

 

I Have Brain Fog/Can’t Create: It’s morning and you have 30 minutes to work on your masterpiece, but your brain isn’t cooperating. It’s time for a cup of stimulating, brain-clearing tea. I love yerba mate tea for this purpose. It’s got some caffeine that wakes me up, plus I just enjoy the taste. Turns out I’m not the only one—author Tim Ferris (The Four Hour Workweek) credits yerba mate with giving him the focus he needed to write his book. Even Charles Darwin called it the “perfect stimulant.” If you don’t want the caffeine, you can try rosemary. A 2012 study found that it helped participants perform better on speed and accuracy tests—you’ll be typing like a mad person!

 

I Can’t Sleep: Sleep is super important for a writer. We have so many things we have to keep up with—the writing, the marketing, the social media—that we can’t afford to be sleepwalking through our days. If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, try passionflower tea. A 2011 study found that participants who drank a cup before bed reported significantly improved sleep quality. There’s also quite a bit of evidence that valerian tea helps people fall asleep faster and report more restful sleep periods. Lavender is another good one to try.

 

More...

https://writingandwellness.com/2015/05/05/the-surprising-ways-tea-can-make-you-a-better-writer/

 

 

***

VICTORIAN AMBIENCE l Writer's Room with Classic Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGHACeh-gc8

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The murders that inspired the flim “Scream”

 

The murders that inspired the flim “Scream” were based on the Kings River killings, in Gainesville FL in 1990, conducted over the course of three days. The murderer sexually assaulted, tortured and killed 5 University students within a 2-mile radius of each other. The first murder was of students Sonya Larson and Christina Powell, both starting their freshman year. They were duct-taped and stabbed to death. The following day the killer broke into the home of a single woman, stabbed her death without reason and slashed off the victim's nipple as a sort of trophy, leaving her decapitated head on a bookshelf. The next day he broke into the home of a young couple, Tracy Pauls and Manuel Taboada both 23 years old. He killed Manuel before sexually assaulting and killing Tracy. Two weeks later, 36-year-old Danny Rolling was caught in a high-speed chase after a botched robbery. DNA proved he was responsible for three other killings in Louisiana in 1989 and was eventually connected, again by DNA to the Gainesville killings.

 

Who was Jack the Ripper?

 

No one knows but here are the five primary suspects.

1) H.H. Holmes (pictured below) was an American serial killer and physician who had the medical know-how to dissect bodies as the Ripper did. He was in London at some point and later confessed to a number of murders in the US where he was later executed.

2) Aaron Kosminski was a Polish Barber who lived in Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders. He had homicidal tendencies he was sent to a mental institution in 1891 as a suspect in the murders.

3) Prince Albert Edward Victor was Queen Victoria's grandson. A major suspect in some quarters but Royal record show wasn't even in London at the time of the murders.

 

I don't know how Barbara Streisand can say we have no class in West Virginia, why juts look at this, matching bear pillars...

 

Saw this when I was driving around town (Shepherdstown West Virginia)

 

The best thing to do is to not get involved

 

 In 1986, pretty Jane Prichard, 28, of Clarksburg, Md. was a graduate student at the University of Maryland. As part of her program, she was to conduct botany experiments in the field. On September 19, a Saturday, she drove up to the Blackbird Forest State Park, in Delaware, 115 miles from her home, to conduct her work. She arrived at around 7 a.m.

She had been to the park many times and had spent many hours there in past.

A squirrel hunter named Michael P. Lloyd recalled seeing her at 10 AM.

At 5:30 p.m, an elderly New Jersey couple who were camping in the forest went for a walk and found Prichard’s body sprawled near her truck, a 1980 Chevy Blazer. She was partially disrobed, with a gunshot to her back. The body was about 20 feet from her equipment, and the shot to the back would indicate that she had gotten away from her attacker and ran for the truck when she was shot with a shotgun. There was no sign of a struggle.

Detectives figured that Jane’s murder was a crime of opportunity and the suspect was one of the 25 to 50 hunters that were at the park that day, as it was the start of squirrel hunting season. She worked undisturbed for a while because she had an opportunity to set up her equipment. Then the intruder arrived. She was sexually assaulted or in the process of being sexually assaulted when she ran for her car.

Michael P. Lloyd, the squirrel hunter was home watching the news when he learned about the murder. He had been there that day and recalled seeing Jane Prichard. He phoned the police and gave them a description of a man he had seen there. "I thought it was my civic duty." He said later. When the police asked him to come down to the scene of the crime, he did. He said he saw Prichard talking to another hunter at around 10 AM and that the man was a white male, around 5'9" with a medium build and wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans. He helped them to create a drawing. But instead of thanking him, the police made him their number one suspect.

Remarkably he was charged with first-degree murder and weapon possession. Mike Lloyd, a janitor, was released from prison after ten months after his bail was reduced to $10,000. The next day the state announced it would drop the charges for lack of evidence. What actually happened was that the cop's case fell apart when DNA testing of a hair found at the scene proved conclusively that he could not be the killer.

"I would never make that mistake again" (Trying to help the police) Mike Lloyd said when he was released from prison. "My advice is, 'Don't get involved. When I first got out I had to pinch myself," he said. "It wasn't till Sunday when I drove my truck that it finally dawned on me. Yeah. I'm out."

Exit

 

...and some of us just follow at our own dam pace (Along the Potomac River in West Virgina)