It’s here!
It’s all around You!
Fresh Basil!
Fresh Cherries!
Fresh Raspberries!
Melons!
Peaches!
Fresh Figs!
It won’t be for much Longer!
Have Some! (more…)
All posts by Arnold J. Mungioli
‘Tis the Season (…Presto! PESTO!)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on August 10, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/08/10/tis-the-season-presto-pesto/
Miracles in the Tapestry
My weathered copy of HENRIK IBSEN’s A DOLL’S HOUSE
As a Casting Director, I have to see pretty much Everything.
Knowing Actors’ performances & capabilities beyond what they might do in the Audition Room is essential.
It enables me to speak up for them!
It is Important, and a responsibility which I take very seriously.
I know to those not in Show Business, this might seem terribly glamorous —
What a Great Job!
Imagine if seeing Shows all the time were your Work!
Well, YES!
I Love my Work!
But as it happens, Producers do not provide Casting Directors with free tickets. (These are the same Producers who expect me to have seen everything when they hire me!)
So, I do a lot of Rush Tickets.
Having been away for a few weeks,
And with a heavy Travel Schedule over this past little while,
I had some shows to catch up on.
It was my plan (more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on August 1, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/08/01/miracles-in-the-tapestry/
Provincetown VII: This Summer Just Begun
In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, this is the Seventh and Final Post concluding this weeklong series about PTown. This is the Story of my experiences there up through the present day — and I am Happy to share it with You. Happy Pride!
Provincetown
PTown This Summer Just Begun
Last Week’s Gay Pride Parade in New York
The Pride Parade is held in New York City on the Last Sunday in June.
It is quite a popular Parade, made up mostly of Advertisers.
Last Sunday it lasted for over eight hours.
For Dancing,
For Hyatt,
For New York Life,
For Delta Airlines,
For Diet Coke
SUSI VILLA’s Float in Last Week’s Gay Pride Parade in New York
A comfortable three hours north on the Acela Express, followed by a 90-minute Fast Ferry Ride — The fare is somewhere around five hundred dollars, round trip; Seems like a big investment for a Weekend Away…
A middle-aged husband-and-wife, are walking along the shore at Herring Cove Beach.
An older man, remarkably fit for his age, emerges naked from the Ocean, having just enjoyed a fine swim, and crosses in front of them heading back to his towel.
The Wife seems mildly startled by the unexpected site.
The Husband explains, “There used to be a Gay Beach here.”
It does not occur to the Wife to ask how he knew that.
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on July 2, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/07/02/provincetown-vii-this-summer-just-begun/
Provincetown VI: Summer 2015-Today
In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. This is the Sixth Post in a weeklong series about my experiences there. A reminder that this is intended to be a Celebration of Pride and Gay Culture from my Perspective, over some three decades. It is my story — the Story of My Experiences — and I am Happy to share it with You. Happy Pride!
Provincetown
Summer 2015- Today
STEVE KATZ is a PTown artist who does this Lithograph/Photograph With Quotes kind of thing.
I have a piece of his on the wall of my New York apartment–– It’s a picture of the HAT SISTERS with the EMILE ZOLA quote, “I came to Live Out Loud!”
Do you know the HAT SISTERS?
They are a PTown Legend!
Two guys — big burly men with big burly mustaches who come to PTown every summer and dress in the most Fabulous drag outfits you could ever imagine with their big hairy arms, hairy chests, and these Hats — they defy description!
They create these Magnificent HeadDresses — Enormous things with Wires and Birds and trains of toile —
Hats that would make CARMEN MIRANDA green with envy!
And they’re always Well Coordinated to one another!
And for no particular reason on any given afternoon or evening of Summer,
you see them walking down Commercial Street in PTown…
often with a Regatta of Drag Queens trailing behind them!
They are so Fabulous!
They bring Joy!
Even the most conservative of straight folk now seem Enchanted by them!
Most of us always have been!
I saw them a few weeks ago (more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on July 1, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/07/01/provincetown-vi-summer-2015-today/
Provincetown V: Summer 2010-2015
In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. This is the Fifth Post in a weeklong series about my experiences there. A reminder that this is intended to be a Celebration of Pride and Gay Culture from my Perspective, over some three decades. It is my story — the Story of My Experiences — and I am Happy to share it with You. Happy Pride!
Provincetown
Summer 2010-2015
Me pointing to my Favorite Beach, Back in the Day…
Performance Artist PENNY ARCADE says, “I can’t stand these young overprivileged people who say, ‘We’re Queer!’ I want to say to them, ‘You’re not Queer! Because to be Queer means that you have been so judged and so marginalized and so wrongly treated in this society that you could never judge or marginalize or mistreat another Human Being!’”
It occurs to me that Young people arriving in PTown today would not find
the Healing that I found (and continue to find) here.
Perhaps they do not need the same kind of Healing (though I doubt that’s True!)
Provincetown has changed so much!
The World has too, of course!
It has gotten so expensive to live here.
One is forced to wonder if the Utopia I discovered in my twenties is to be a thing of the past!
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 30, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/30/provincetown-v-summer-2010-2015/
Provincetown IV: Summer 2005-2010
Provincetown
Summer 2005-2010
Province Lands Road
STUARD and I are walking through the Center of Town and he says, quite casually, “Notice anything missing?”
I look over at the Crown and Anchor, rebuilt after the fire some years earlier; I look left toward Galadriel’s, the Provincetown BookShop, Adams Pharmacy…
I haven’t spotted anything different. And STUARD answers his own question, prodding me to awareness:
“NO GAY PEOPLE!!!” elongating the phrase into eight syllables for emphasis on the obviousness of it.
I look around me.
And for the first time since we’ve been walking, I notice the crowd on Commercial Street is almost entirely composed of Heterosexual Couples with 2.2 children and 2.5 cars in their garage back home — the kind of people from Red States who for as long as I could remember were a shadowed minority here and only passed through this place for the express sole purpose of purchasing those exact items of Salt Water Taffy and Fudge.
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 29, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/29/provincetown-iv-summer-2005-2010/
Provincetown III: Summer 2000 – 2005
Provincetown
Summer 2000- 2005
Randomly running into STUARD & THE WENDY’s on Commercial Street… Community!
New York is hosting the Pride Parade on the Last Sunday in June.
It isn’t called a March anymore.
It is a Parade.
A New Generation is Coming of Age.
For them, Gay is not so much an identity.
They have sex with a variety of Genders, and they do not think of themselves as “Gay” or “Straight,” particularly.
When they engage in Oral Sex, they do not count it as Sex.
Never underestimate what the President of the United States says,
and how it can affect a New Generation of Americans.
Young.
Impressionable.
We must be very careful about whom we Vote into the Office of President,
if only for the Power and Influence of their Words,
And the Effect those Words have on our Children!
Thank Heavens that America has learned that Lesson now in the year 2000,
So that we shall not have to repeat it.
Heading to PTown
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 29, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/29/provincetown-iii-summer-2000-2005/
Provincetown II: Summer 1990’s
In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. And so Today is the second in a weeklong series about my experiences there. Happy Pride!
Provincetown
Summer 1990’s
I asked THE HAT SISTERS if they would pose for a picture…
Here, in my Twenties, I have discovered this incredibly Diverse World:
Hippies of the 60s, Living their Dream,
A bucolic Portuguese Fishing Village,
Artists — painting their canvases on every roadside — since it is so far out in the middle of the ocean, the Sun Shines Brightly and the Light doesn’t change for hours; thus, it is an ideal place to paint, so Artists flock here, as I imagine they have for centuries,
Art Galleries whose works are sought after,
Japanese Businessmen in their limos on the peer, waiting to bid on Tuna and airship them immediately back to Japan for sushi,
The Lobster Fishermen putting out their lobster traps which they would shoot you for stealing, as it is understood that that is about Livelihood, and at this moment in America’s history, everyone respects one another’s Livelihood,
The Farmer Cakes at CONNIE’s Bakery at The Lobster Pot…
And So Many Beautiful Gay Boys–– Dancing!
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 27, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/27/provincetown-ii-summer-1990s/
Provincetown I: Summer 1980’s
In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. And so Today begins a weeklong series about my experiences there. Happy Pride!
Provincetown
Summer 1980’s
Commercial Street 1980’s
The Pride March is held in New York City on the Last Sunday in June.
It isn’t called a Parade, then.
It is a March
For Rights,
For Freedom,
For Equality,
For Our Lives!
My friends MICHELE and WENDY invite me to come for a weekend to this place they are staying for the summer.
The three buses from New York take some 13 hours, door to door.
The fare is somewhere around twenty-seven dollars, round trip —
Seems like a big investment for a Weekend Away.
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 26, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/26/provincetown-i-summer-1980s/
The Work that We Do
Today I celebrate the work that I do!
I know.
There is a special Day set aside the first Monday in September to Celebrate our Labor!
And that’s Great!
But I Love the Work that I do, and to Celebrate That only one day a year seems like hardly enough!
Oh, and it’s not just because I work in Show Business,
And that’s’ Fun (most days!)
It’s really just because I work!
I Love Work!
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 18, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/06/18/the-work-that-we-do/
Live The Questions Now 