Profile
Photos
Comments
I started writing when I was 10 years
old after receiving a diary, and told to write something in it every day, and have kept diaries the next 64
years, only 6 years ago I started blogging and write a blog every day.
My first
'published works' were letters to the editor--there were many papers and
magazines at that time in New York and I averaged a letter a month
eventually being in every paper including the New York Times. The first
time I got 'paid' for my writing was when I entered a "Why I Like Bing
Crosby" contest (I didn't like him so I guess you can call it fiction)
and I won a 'Bing Crosby' shirt--don't laugh--I wore it.
During my teen years I did start to sell articles
to magazines but received more rejections than I did money. At 17 I
wrote my first play and through very odd circumstances--that's another blog--it was produced off-off-off
Broadway. During my 20s I wrote a few books eventually getting one
published but it was in my 30s and 40s that my writing really took off not only in connection with my work but with my life.
After returning
to Florida I wrote a bi-monthly column for a local newspaper The Weekly
News and restaurant reviews for a weekly entertainment magazine. Over
the few years I would have three more books published and in the past 5
years I had the following two books published.
I am currently writing a book about
Miami Beach in the days when it was wide open and people saved 50 weeks
of the year to come down for 2 weeks and be pretend millionaire and
another one about getting/being old in today's society.
AN AUTHOR IS NOT SUPPOSE TO HAVE A 'FAVORITE' AMONG HIS BOOKS BUT
i DO AND THAT IS "THE FREE PRISONER"
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Come on and join Jack, a gay, New York boy/man teenager,
in his journey. Join him in a world that doesn’t exist anymore but the
emotional journeys are still taken today.
Welcome to the gay
world of the 1940s and 1950s.
It was a
time before Stonewall was even heard of and when the worse disease you
could catch was syphilis. It was a time when gay men identified each
other by wearing loafers with tassels or a red tie and/or
a pinky ring.
The
‘hot’ spots for cruising were the 8th floor bathroom of the NBC
building or the one across the street in the parking garage not to
forget the popular ones on the IRT subway stops. There was the path
behind the 42nd Street library separating it from Bryant Park.
While
there were the popular ‘bird circuit’ bars where men couldn’t hold
hands, let alone dance together at the same time, there were many
dinners given in Manhattan’s private homes, which were just excuses for
orgies. Bars were raided on the flimsiest excuses if any were given at
all. There was always the Astor Bar, in the hotel of the same name,
where the straight men drank on one side of the oval bar and the gay men
on the other, sometimes meeting, and getting together, in the restroom.
School
teachers were fired for being gay just as service personal were given
dishonorable discharges for the same reason. (Guess some things still
haven’t changed!)
Forty Second Street was bawdy, and gaudy, while
the stretch from 42nd Street to 57th Street was where anything went.
Third Avenue, in the Fifties, was the place the better class hustlers
worked their trade.
This was the world that Jack was about to
discover, and explore, on his way to becoming a man, not sure whether he
was succeeding or not.
*****************************************************
IT ALL HANG OUT: COMMENTARIES, MUSINGS AND ESSAYS FROM AN OLD(ER),
POOR, GAY MAN "
I didn't
realize it at the time but this was my version of blogging though I didn't think of
it in that way.
EXCERPTS FROM "LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT"
“To
you, the reader, I hope my journey through life will help you, even if
it is to learn what paths not to follow.” (Acknowledgements)
“There
are a lot of ‘con men’ aspects to my ‘characteristics’ such as lawyer,
real estate and life insurance salesman. Still haven’t figured out how
pharmacist and mortician got in there!” (What do you want to be when you
grow up?)
“He was handsome, successful, well respected
in the business community and led, it appeared to me, a great life away
from the family.” (The family not chosen—Part 1)
“Giving
credit where credit is due most of the good things in my life have come
about because of people who were/are older than me. They advised,
talked, guided, showed me and just set an example by the way they lived
day to day.” (Born at the right time, place and on the right day)
“I
don’t know why it took me so long, about thirty minutes, to finally
realize that Paula was Paul!” (Full, part and sometime lovers—Part 1)
“A
Southerner living in The Big Apple had warned me, that I already had
three strikes against me: being Jewish, being Gay and being a Yankee.”
(Memphis—Part 1)
“Money, or the lack of thereof, and I
have finally become friends.” (The lack of a financial gene—Part 1)
“In those days, (and if you know any couple together
for more than thirty years you know this was the way), a gay couple
consisted of a husband and a ’wife’. Joe did become the
wife, staying home doing the cleaning, cooking, ironing and other household duties while Albyn went out and earned the ‘bacon’, which he
was to be very successful doing.” (The chosen family—Part 1)
About
the Author (from the inside back cover with pictures)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
started life on February 29, 1936 (which means I am currently 17!). I
have been a Marine, waiter, writer and, through my on-going weight
battle, a member of Weight Watchers. In 1967, I became Director Of
Operations of Weight Watchers of Greater Memphis, Eastern Arkansas and
Chattanooga. After five years, I opened my own organization, Our Weigh,
Inc.
In 1979, I moved back to South Florida (I lived here from
1955-1965) where I continued writing, waiting tables and fighting
weight. In 2002, I retired as a waiter to concentrate on writing and
fighting weight.
Also by the author
“Five-Sided
View of a Man” – a play in two acts
“The Looks of Love” – a novel
“For
What We Had” – a novel
“The Gay Pariahs” – a novel
“And
the Oscar Goes to…” – a novel
“Got Paid the First Time and
Haven’t Been Paid Since” – anthology
“My First Time” – edited by Jack
Hart, published by Alyson Publications, Inc.
Four cookbooks
Two
motivational books one regarding losing weight and another how to lead a
positive life.
A column for TWN, a local gay newspaper (two
years); restaurant reviews in various papers and magazines, and a feature article in Travel
Magazine.
