Men of Parts

There was a period of time in 2010 when I lived with Tyne Daly.
I know.
I know what that sentence sounds like and—just to anticipate all of your questions—yes, it was everything you thought and imagined and hoped it would be. There were late night musings, strong drinks, records of Olivier's Hamlet, trips down memory lane, chandeliers given by June Horvath, hours and hours (and hours) of shared poetry, and crucially: hot pink bed-sheets; all in an apartment that once belonged to Lotte Lenya. She’s both a classy broad and a true lady, an old soul who can play like a child with a sharp-as-cheddar mind and the sexiest legs I’ve ever seen.
I love her.
We’re family.
I’d give her a kidney.

Tyne does not have a television set, but someone, (I am thinking either the Emmy Voting committee or her television-loving friend Rosie O'Donnell?) bought her a small screen DVD-only player. I am not going to lie here, I really love television. In fact, I'm pretty passionate about it. I am not someone who casually watches or just has it on all the time, no. Televisual consumption is an active thing, I sit down with a box set and dive. in.

Having never had Sky Plus or Tivo, I have never been able to record TV, so I have been perhaaaaaps known to schedule stuff around programming. (Tuesday nights in Glasgow when I was in college and should have been partying or studying or doing something suitably youthful? I said this sentence more than once, "Tuesday? Ooo I can't I have plans so sorry." Which roughly translates to: "Sorry dude, back-to-back CSI is on. I have crime to fight.") So living in a flat/apartment without one was... a true test. So thank goodness for Emmy voting season and Tyne's ‘For Your Consideration’ box sets and my still-clinging on Region 1 DVD collection.

Tonight? I watched Shakespeare in Love.

And I have to say, I do not feel that I have ever truly watched this film. When it came out in 1998, I was 15-- already a great lover of the theatre, but unfamiliar with so many of the British actors who grace the screen (and many who would become my friends and colleagues), with so much of the factual nods, the inside jokes, the delightful word-play that peppers the incredible screenplay, nor was I as appreciative about the natures of both creativity and love itself as I would eventually grow to become. I was still a teenager. I enjoyed the film, it was about everything I enjoyed but I did not 'get' it.

I did not get it until tonight.

My Dad really loved this film, he watched it over and over again, sometimes all by himself. Dad was a certified genius and it took a lot to get him to focus on television for an extended period without his mind wandering to the thousands of calculations and ideas that constantly flooded his brilliant mind. But this film? He adored. And tonight I profoundly understood why. I don't want to go into the why too much, but I will say that it had a great deal to do with this quote:

"The Master of the Revels despises us all for vagrants and peddlers of bombast. But my father, James Burbage, had the first license to make a company of players from Her Majesty, and he drew from poets the literature of the age. We must show them that we are men of parts. Will Shakespeare has a play. I have a theatre. The Curtain is yours."

I think we all experience moments such as these, but how curious: adult Al profoundly connecting with adult Dad. And so absolute was the understanding, so acute was this moment of connection, I actually picked up the phone to call him and share...

... I know what you are thinking. But you know what? It wasn't sad. Rather, it felt that for a brief moment he was still here. In fact, this experience is proof that in so many ways, he still is. Alone in a beautiful apartment on the island of Manhattan I looked briefly out at the sky and put my phone down. I smiled.

Love keeps going.

Al & Dad - 1998