IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER * CELEBRITIES GONE WILD

IN LOVING MEMORY OF PAUL

One day a couple of years after my brother's death, I was looking at a picture of him as a little boy, the age of 4, playing the piano. In the photo, his hands were on the keyboard, but his head was turned, smiling back at me as the flash went off. He wore a little bowtie and vest, his legs, unable to reach the floor, were dangling from the piano bench. A certain Jackson Browne played through my mind.

My heart was broken all over again staring at the picture. It’s one thing to lose a grown-up brother, and another to see a picture of that brother as a child, with all the potential there – a moment captured when we didn’t know his fragile life would end in tragedy. It’s a strange feeling to see a photograph of a deceased loved one as a child — in his innocence, before life got the best of him, before he lost his way. His life was over way too soon. In a weird way, he’s gone on and found out what none of us here can ever really know.

Everyday in the news I am astounded at how cavalierly the media reports mass shootings, murders and forensic files. Even the show CSI is too casual about it. So much death everywhere. We hardly stop to imagine the pain the families are going through. Until you’ve seen death up close, you cannot imagine it.

That day I left the room and left the picture on my desk as I went looking for some Kleenex to wipe my tears. As I reentered the room, I caught my own 3-year old son Jack picking up this picture off the floor. He didn’t know I was watching him, but I heard him say, “Poor little angel, poor little angel.” This was so eerie I still cannot believe it. Three days after Paul’s death, the toddler pointed at a photo of his uncle and said “Paul happy!”

Paul was always the fragile broken child in our family. I heard a therapist once say that in every family there is the broken person – the “designated problem.” We all seemed stronger than he was. When my brother was 8-years-old, his one and only friend, Carl, from another school — was taken out in the desert and shot to death by his father, who then turned the gun on himself and his youngest son as well. In those days, these kinds of killings were rare.

CELEBRITIES GONE WILD
Through the years, whenever I hear about celebrities-gone-wild like Britney Spears, Danny Devito, Paris Hilton, Michael Richards, Courtney Love, Robert Downey Jr. — I always thank God that I never had to go through such a public humiliation, and especially that I have never lost custody of my child. My crash and burn was a private one. Or at least I thought so at the time. It turns out I publicly embarrassed myself in quiet neighborhoods all over New York, Beirut, Monte Carlo, Milwaukee —okay the whole world — in those wild animal days. There was that time with Tom Hanks on tour to promote our ABC shows Bosom Buddies and Too Close For Comfort .... oops, not here, nevermind.. Then there was the trip to London when Princess Di's billionaire, Dodi Fayed, locked me in a bank vault that doubled as a hideaway above Harrod’s. All I remember was guzzling champagne while screaming “Let me out! I have an audition for Dance Fever tomorrow!”

The only place I may have been remotely dignified was in Beirut, when I visited the Marines on a USO tour to the Middle East. If you call losing your high heel out of a helicopter over the Dead Sea as dignified. Or screaming in the Athens airport thinking a bomb was going off, when in fact people were just just ducking to pick up their luggage.

My fall from grace was not as civilized as I remember it. I wasn’t breaking windows or wandering into houses and sleeping in stranger’s beds ... but I did just about everything else. EXCEPT WHAT BRITNEY SPEARS DID YESTERDAY!
Sheesh...!! What kind of role model is this for young mothers?

Now I know that great accomplishments are often the quieter moments of overcoming self, and not always broadcast on the news.

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." Harriet Beecher Stowe

From 2010:  A rather revealing article just came out SHOT GUN LYDIA CORNELL written by Michael Sutton, an amazing journalist (one who doesn't twist or sensationalize the truth. This is Part One of a 3-part story that will be a feature in a larger magazine on the stands. This was a little scary, as I've never revealed the whole wretched story before, but I guess now it's time... Part 2 deals with the trilogy of books I have coming out. Thanks.

Sunday, December 3 at 3 p.m. PST I'll be on  BARRY GORDON FROM LEFT FIELD one of the BEST live-call-in talk shows on radio! From the website: "On December 3, Barry and Ellen's guests will be several extraordinary American women: congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, former ambassador Swanee Hunt, daughter of legendary oil magnate H. L. Hunt, Arianna Huffington and actress/writer/activist Lydia Cornell."

All that plus your chance to call in and join in the conversation, at 1-800-809-0802. "Barry Gordon From Left Field" ... it's a whole new ballgame!

I have an article in the upcoming issue of PERSPECTIVE on LABOR (Dec. 6) and will have a monthly column in the Kokomo Perspective staring in January.

Let's support the men and women who are giving and sacrificing so much by contributing a little of our time to give them a nice surprise. Most of us have day jobs, but perhaps you are between projects. Scroll down for details.

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