SANTA MONICA, Calif. — An online auction house is selling a 1967 letter that John Lennon wrote to a fan who had inquired about transcendental meditation. Nate D. Sanders Auctions of Santa Monica says the handwritten letter is expected to fetch $25,000 to $30,000. Bidding closes Oct. 11. In the letter, Lennon tells Jean Harrison she is “searching for something (truth) the same as everyone else.” He says the Beatles were lucky to have met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, but that other teachers could instruct her. And he gives her the address of a school in London. Last month, Sanders sold a contract for a Beatles concert for more than $23,000. The pact, for a 1965 concert in San Francisco, stated the group would not perform for a segregated audience. Excerpt from: FAR OUT: Read John Lennon’s Letter To A Fan About Meditation
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Helen Davey: Does This Mean I Don’t Have a Mommy Anymore?
As a writer, psychoanalyst and stewardess for Pan Am for twenty years, I’ve shared many personal feelings about my life in my blogs. My reason for doing this has never been so that you, the reader, will know about me. My goal has been to encourage you to think about your own life, in case what I have experienced and learned might be of some help to you. Today is a profoundly sad day for me — the day I’ve dreaded my whole life. My beloved mother died this morning, at the age of 96 years and 6 days, and she’s now at rest. I know that she’s been ready to die for some time, and for her, I’m relieved. For me, it’s a different story. I often ask my patients, when they accuse themselves of “feeling sorry” for themselves, that they change that shame-ridden phrase to one of “feeling sorrow ” for themselves. Feeling sorrow is about allowing ourselves to grieve. I know how important grieving is when we lose a loved one, but as a child, my family and I didn’t know how. My father was almost 30 years older than my mother, and when I was just six months old, he suffered a massive heart attack that nearly killed him. The doctors, unable at the time (1951) to help heart patients, predicted that my father would die with his next heart attack. Our lives became permeated with anticipatory anxiety surrounding the fear of his death, and my brother, sister and I savored each moment with him. When my father died when I was eight, our family life was completely shattered, and none of us, including my mother, had any idea how to mourn. We bottled up our feelings and rarely talked about him, concentrating instead on somehow surviving the loss of this man who was the idealized center of our world (See my blog, Counting My People .) My mother confided to me recently that she remembered nothing at all about my father as he lay dying in the hospital, or his funeral, or about the following years as we all floundered to find our way as a family through this very difficult time. She was obviously in a traumatized state. Her father had died when she was only three, and she had no memories of him. She did, however, remember one exchange with me, her youngest child. After days of being very quiet, trying to take in the magnitude of what had just happened, I came to her and said, “Does this mean I don’t have a Daddy anymore?” So, as a psychoanalyst who writes about trauma, I recognize that the death of my mother transports me back into that old, familiar, traumatized state, and I feel, once again, eight years old and bereft. My Mommy has died. She, after all, is the person who knows me best, my biggest fan who is incredibly proud of any little thing that I accomplish. I know, of course, how lucky I am that I had her for so long, but for much of my life, I worried about losing her. I was never able to develop the usual absolutisms of everyday life that human beings develop in order to flee from the uncertainties of life and to maintain a sense of continuity, predictability, and safety. These are unquestioned beliefs and assumptions that most people unconsciously live by. For example, when you say to a loved one, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” it is taken for granted that you and the other person are going to be around. However, emotional trauma shatters these absolutisms, and children who experience early trauma experience a loss of innocence, and know that anything can happen at any time. For us, it is essential that there be a place where painful feelings can be verbalized, understood, and held — a relational home. Without it, emotional pain can become a source of unbearable shame and self-loathing, and traumatized people can fall into the grip of an impossible requirement to “get over it.” There is no “getting over it,” but with understanding, a person can learn to integrate the experience. When a child only has one parent left, that parent becomes extraordinarily important. My fear about losing my father immediately transferred over to fear of losing my mother. I remember sitting at my desk at school, hearing sirens outside. I would sit, paralyzed, waiting for the knock on my class door that would confirm my panic that my mother had died, too. Moreover, every child just wants to be like every other child — to have a family like everyone else. At the beginning of the school year, each student would have to stand up and tell everybody what their father did for a living. I would have to stand up and say, “My father is dead.” All summer long I would dread that first day, feeling the shame that I felt about being different, and enduring the awkwardness that others would feel about not knowing what to say. But if I had to have only one parent, I can’t imagine having a better, more loving mother than mine. Of course, I’m not saying that she was perfect, but my mother took over the responsibility of raising three children and caring for her mother, and if anybody ever had the right to play the “martyr card,” it would have been my mother. She never did. She always said that my brother, sister and I were the bright spots in her life. She always put our needs ahead of her own, and never, ever complained about it. Her life was all about helping others in any way that she could, and she was greatly loved and admired. I have a lifetime of stored memories about my mother. One time, when I was a senior in high school, I had a very difficult English test coming up, with a lot of memorization. I studied and studied and was very worried. My mother had read an article that said that, if a student has to do a lot of memory work, if another person reads the assignment to the student while they are asleep, it will help the student to remember. So sure enough, on the night before the test, I woke up a little bit to see my mother with a flashlight, softly going over and over the material. I remember feeling very loved, as I went back to sleep. And what I am most proud of as a daughter is that after I became a Pan Am stewardess, I was able to take my mother on many different trips all over the world. Last week, I found a snapshot of my mother, all stretched out in three seats for a snooze on a Pan Am 707 Clipper, with the biggest smile on her face that you could possibly imagine! In the photograph, she is her vibrant, energetic, loving self — my mother whom I will miss every day for the rest of my life. And I can’t help but wonder what this will mean, now that I don’t have a Mommy in my world anymore. Read the rest here: Helen Davey: Does This Mean I Don’t Have a Mommy Anymore?
Woman Who Killed & Cooked Her Husband Asks For Parole
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A woman who killed her newlywed husband and chopped and cooked his body parts over Thanksgiving weekend in 1991 is seeking release from a California prison. Omaima Nelson, an Egyptian-born former nanny, is set to appear before parole commissioners Wednesday at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla where she has been serving a life sentence. Nelson was convicted of murdering her 56-year-old husband William Nelson in a grisly killing that authorities likened to the fictional slayings of Hannibal Lecter. Prosecutors said the then-23-year-old killed Nelson and likely plotted to steal from him as she had done with other middle-aged men she had seduced in the past. Authorities said she tied up her husband of less than a month, killed him and dismembered the body, churning his parts through a garbage disposal that neighbors said ran nonstop in the hours after the murder. Authorities found some of Nelson’s body parts stuffed in garbage bags and mixed with leftover Thanksgiving turkey. His hands had been fried in oil and his head boiled and stuffed in freezer, said Randy Pawloski, a senior deputy district attorney in Orange County who prosecuted the case and will argue against her release. “She’s tremendously dangerous,” said Pawloski, adding that Nelson sought help from two different boyfriends to try to remove her husband’s teeth and dispose of his remains to cover her tracks. During the highly publicized trial, Nelson took the stand and said she stabbed her husband – a former pilot and convicted drug smuggler – with scissors while he sexually assaulted her. A psychiatrist testified that she confessed to cooking her husband’s ribs barbecue-style and tasting them but later denied engaging in cannibalism. He said he believed she was psychotic when she killed Nelson. Defense attorney Thomas Mooney argued his client was circumcised as a child growing up in a squalid section of Cairo, which made sex extremely painful, and was repeatedly raped and abused by her husband in the weeks after the couple wed. Jurors found Nelson not guilty of first-degree murder, citing insufficient evidence of premeditation, but convicted her of second-degree murder. They also found Nelson guilty of assaulting a former boyfriend with a gun. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Nelson appealed but lost in 1995. In 2006, she sought parole claiming she had found salvation as a born-again Christian and married an older man, who has since died. But was denied by commissioners who found her unpredictable and a serious threat to public safety. Nelson told the parole board she had been living in the fast lane, hopping from man to man and drinking and using drugs. She told a prison-appointed psychologist that she had thought about killing Nelson before carrying out the murder. “I felt that I was doing the right thing by exercising this judgment as I was killing him,” she said during her 2006 parole hearing. “I’m not denying that I did what I did and I’m very sorry for the … family…” Terrence Scott, who represented Nelson on appeal, said he doubted she would be released except perhaps to a mental institution. He said she had chopped up her husband in an effort to avoid meeting him in the afterlife in accordance with Egyptian mythology. Mooney, who represented Nelson during her trial, said prisoners serving life sentences aren’t often released but hoped she might be. “It was a question not of whodunit but what is it,” Mooney said this week. “Based on the totality of the circumstances, the fact I think she was abused, and killed in response to that, she should get paroled.” Read the original post: Woman Who Killed & Cooked Her Husband Asks For Parole
James Scarborough: Snooty and the Beast, All American Melodrama Theatre & Music Hall/Screaming Mimi!, Act Out Mystery Theatre
Two current Long Beach productions present live theatre at its best. Each production amounts to a world premiere, the actors perform in our space, and we get to eat and be enchanted. The productions’ sense of audience, actor, and audience cum actor interaction is keen; it causes the Fourth Wall to crash down as, one way or another, we participate in the production. Snooty and the Beast, All American Melodrama Theatre & Music Hall Written and directed by Ken Parks, with music by Parks and Rick Illes, for the All American Melodrama Theater & Music Hall, Snooty and the Beast, represents the theatrical equivalent of “Goofus and Gallant,” the life lesson found in each issue of the Highlights for Children magazine. Legible and fun for children, it’s even funnier for adults. Our heroine, for instance, is named Belle or she’s called Beauty — never just one. Why? Because of the ever-present threat of legal action by Disney. Along with children, we also learn to deal with unpleasant people. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply boo and hiss office Machiavellis and bumptious bosses instead of plotting bottom line- and morale-sapping revenge? The story sets up quickly, the issue’s clear. Prince Edward Overheels (Ken White) vies with his evil stepmother Urika Garlic (Dawn Stahlak) for the fortune left by their recently-deceased King. The King leaves but one stipulation: If Edward falls in love within a prescribed amount of time, he inherits the kingdom; if he doesn’t, it reverts to Urika. Easy, right? Not only is Edward stalwart and handsome, sensitive and honest, his voice (White’s voice) is mesmerizing and captivating. Problem is, Urika, devious and shrew-like, has turned The Girl Most Likely to Marry Edward, Beauty or Belle (Amber Hubbard) into the most overbearing girl this side of the San Fernando Valley. Though we have no doubt who will triumph — in melodramas, we never do –it’s the unfolding of the struggle that makes the production so successful. The story is fall-down-the-stairs funny. Rousing and spirited, always over the top, it keeps us in stitches, beginning with the first song, “Legally Allowable Tale,” which explains why Beauty or Belle can’t consistently be called one or the other. The production is well-paced, metronomed by Jimmy Dunn’s saloon-style piano playing and punctuated by our boos, yays, and aws. Despite the predictable outcome, we’re happy when it occurs, for it confirms what we at least hope on stage if not in real life, that the good guys will win. The acting rocks. Stahlak’s Urika reeks with unpleasantness. Greedy, covetous, and jealous, she presents us with what we imagine to be the face behind horrible telephone customer service. She’s cranky, loud, and snarky, in short, she doesn’t have one redeeming quality. She’s self-conscious of her unpleasantness, proud, in fact: to make Beauty or Belle undesirable to Edward, she clones herself. When Hubbard’s Beauty or Belle is sweet, she’s either Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Shirley Temple: earnest, sincere, and squeaky clean, as if she’s been polished with Lemon Pledge. As the clone-of-Urika, though (the transformation’s magnificent), she’s whiny and pouty, with a voice that could make satellites fall out of the sky. White’s Edward makes us older folk think of Dudley Do-Right from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show . For those a few generations younger, think of Edward Cullen, from the Twilight series. He exudes humility and forthrightness, as befits a melodrama Hero. His manners seem to come from long, long ago. The little touches are memorable. Urika consults a Magic Mirror, set above the stage, as to how best thrwart the union of Edward and Beauty or Belle. Of course the Mirror resembles an iPad, of course it has an app to turn a girl next door into a b&*%h. Besides the requisite enchanted castle there’s a place called The Horse You Rode Inn, wherein dwells the Beast (White). And tweeting is conducted, yes, with a crow that drops from the ceiling ala The Groucho Marx Show . Performances are 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday, 4:30 pm Saturday and 7:00 pm Sunday. The play runs until November 6. Tickets are $14-20. The Theater is located at 429 Shoreline Village Drive, Long Beach. For more information call (562) 495-5900 or visit www.allamericanmelodrama.com. Screaming Mimi!, Act Out Mystery Theatre The Halloween-themed Screaming Mimi!, written and directed by Paul Vander Roest for Act Out Mystery Theatre and staged at the Reef Restaurant may offer the formulaic unpleasantness of a murder and its hilarious solution, but, oh, what a formula! Vander Roest presents a goody bag that brims with cinematic references. Peopled with an ungodly number of wacky characters played to perfection by a cast of four, the story, its enactment, and the setting offer a rollicking interlude of tricks and treats. Though it seems to fly by the seat of its pants, the story’s tightly constructed plot begins with the reading of the will of the recently deceased Miss Mimi, an action that brings out the worst in her eager-to-profit household staff. It carries through with the murder of attorney Barry Mason (Carson Gilmore), who’s going to execute the will, at which time the story turns into a homicide to be solved by Detective Boris Barlift (Gilmore). There’s the revelation that Mimi herself might have been murdered, which makes this a possible double homicide. And there are the various motives and alibis, plausible and im-, all of which lead to the eventual solving of the crime. Though you wonder afterwards how you could have just seen almost twenty characters packed into a 3-act play, it passes by so fast, is to perfectly paced and so outlandishly funny that the whole thing bristles with laughter and mirth, from salad, through the main course, to dessert. So well-defined are the theatrical personas of Rigores, Gilmore, and Vander Roest that the production feels more like goofing around in a living room than like acting on a stage. Rigores is chihuahua-hilarious, always in motion, always exaggerating to brilliant effect her voice, her gestures, and her movements. Gilmore ponders a lot and, if he’s not exactly reflective, then at least he’s the most pensive of the trio. He’s the exact opposite of Vander Roest who, Mardi Gras outrageous, is always larger than life. They play off each other perfectly, blend well with their other cohorts, and are stupendous — Rigores, especially — with the various audience members assigned walk-on roles. Whether she’s Mrs. Dithers, the melodramatic, semi-English housekeeper or Eeyore the Attention Deficit Disordered chauffeur, Lara Starr Rigores is funny even if she’s not the center of attention. Her delivery (high-pitched, lilting) carries a wallop. As Barry Mason, the paunchy attorney who’s never lost a case or as Detective Boris Barlift, a vampiric Columbo, Gilmore carries the story forward, lurching about at times, often sidetracked, but always forward. Vander Roest brings a sense of Mardi Gras outrageousness to both Glow, the huba-hubba Southern cook with a signature “Kiss my grits!” phrase or Morbid Mulch the ornery gardener. Finally, Melinda Parker makes her broom-wielding Witch Hazel, the cackling downstairs maid astringent and snarky and her Mae East, the upstairs maid ( Come up and see me sometime ), the epitome of va-va-voom. The cast flings the witty dialogue like a cafeteria food fight. The cherry that tops this luscious sundae splattered against the wall consists of a hilarious exchange reminiscent of Abbot and Costello’s iconic “Who’s on First?” that involves a play on “Werewolf/Where, wolf?” and “There, wolf.” Performances are 7:00 pm, Friday and Saturday, 1:30 pm Sunday. The show runs until November 5. Tickets are $49.95 (dinner and show). The Restaurant is located at 880 Harbor Scenic Drive, Long Beach. For more information call (562) 961-9862 or visit www.actoutmystery.com. View original post here: James Scarborough: Snooty and the Beast, All American Melodrama Theatre & Music Hall/Screaming Mimi!, Act Out Mystery Theatre
Tuesday Tidbit: Ellen Degeneres
Late last week Your Mama discussed the 26-acre equestrian extravaganza in Thousand Oaks, CA that chat show host Ellen Degeneres and her actress wife Portia de Rossi have on the market with an asking price of $16,500,000. Celebrity real estate gossips and watchers know the horsey spread in Thousand Oaks isn’t the only posh property in the Los Angeles area the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi own but want to unload from their property portfolio. Rumors started to slip and slide down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine in early 2011 that the couple desired to divest themselves of the deluxe Beverly Hills, CA compound they’ve spent many tens of millions of dollars amassing and customizing. In the fall of 2007 the property mad pair coughed up an almost unbelievable $29,000,000 for the main portion of the compound, which they bought from residuals rich Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick . A few months later the compound loving ladies shelled out an additional $8,500,000 for the property next door that they razed and replaced with a serene, watery garden with long views down the rugged, mansion-dotted canyons and over the twinkling lights of Lala Land. The following June the real estate flip-floppers spent $5,000,000 for an adjacent fixer upper and just a month later they shelled out another $5,500,000 for a hillside house with oblique views into the backyard of the main house. Altogether, according to our ever-present bejeweled abacus, the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi dumped an astonishing forty-eight million clams for the various properties that comprise the compound, not counting renovation and customization costs. In late May (2011), the swankety -swank Degenere – de Rossi compound finally hit the open market with an undisclosed price that several sources swear was $60,000,000 for the entire multi-parcel, multi-residence compound. A few weeks ago, amid rumors that Formula One Racing heiress Tamara Ecclestone rejected the compound as not grand enough for her grandiose real estate tastes, the property disappeared from the listing agent’s website. Lo and behold, yesterday the couple’s compound popped back up on the market with an official asking price of $49,000,000. New listing information shows the compound contains a total of 9 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms spread throughout a sprawling single-story a main house, a detached guest house tucked into the hillside at the front of the house and and guest/staff apartment, fitness facility and underground parking garage tucked discretely underneath the swimming pool with its adjacent pavilion. The compound includes an additional and separate 3 bedroom house for staff, security, extended family, or whatever. Listing information goes on to reveal there are more than half a dozen fireplaces on the property, lavishly landscaped grounds that include a meandering pond and grassy back yard with infinity-edged swimming pool and spa, and state-of-the-art security systems. Certainly the Missus D. and de R. sit high on a mountain of money that would make the knees of ordinary rich people turn to jelly with envy and Your Mama needs a god damn nerve pill to smooth out the bitter agita caused by the financial flabbergast that overwhelms us when we consider the the monetary resources it takes just to pay the taxes and upkeep costs for their high-maintenance Beverly Hills compound as well as their Thousand Oaks horse farm. It not known where Miz Degeneres and Miz de Rossi would like to reside next but Your Mama has heard–but can not confirm–from someone in a position to know such matters that the couple would like to simplify their real estate lives with the acquisition of an in-town estate/ ranchette where they can both live and house their horses. We shall see, puppies, we shall see. listing photos: Westside Estate Agency See the article here: Tuesday Tidbit: Ellen Degeneres
LA County Sued Over Bag Tax
The County of Los Angeles is being sued over a plastic bag ban and a paper bag tax, which furious L.A. taxpayers say is unconstitutional and illegal. Fed-up California consumers are joining Hilex Poly Co., LLC in filing legal action against L.A. County in response to the paper bag tax that county government officials are forcing retailers to impose on shoppers. The plaintiffs want the court to declare the so-called “charge” invalid.
Gilbert tears up over split
Actress Sara Gilbert arrives at the TCA Party for CBS, The CW and Showtime held at The Pagoda on August 3, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. Continued here: Gilbert tears up over split
Rapper T.I. released from halfway house
The popular hip-hop artist, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., wass serving an 11-month sentence for violating his parole on a gun conviction. Link: Rapper T.I. released from halfway house
Gilbert tears up over split
Actress Sara Gilbert arrives at the TCA Party for CBS, The CW and Showtime held at The Pagoda on August 3, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. Continued here: Gilbert tears up over split
Stare Down Bandit Sought in Robberies
A crook dubbed the “Stare Down Bandit”, who unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank in Huntington Beach today, later went to a bank in Irvine where he escaped with money. The rest is here: Stare Down Bandit Sought in Robberies
