________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once upon a time,
contact with other people
required speaking
into a thing
that required you
to sit or stand
directly in front of it
[unless you trusted the post office]
[or remember the art of eye-to-eye contact]
If you were lucky,
this thing was attached
to an insulated cord
longer than than any room
in your home—
and you talked into it
while comfortably relaxing
on a couch or a cozy chair
The longer you talked
into that thing,
the greater the profits
for a company called
American Telephone and Telegraph
***
Moving 3,000 miles
from east coast
to west coast
in 1981,
writing letters
to friends and family
back home
was my preference
to telephoning
I couldn't afford to make
American Telephone &Telegraph
wealthier than words can describe
I didn't trust the Post Office
but I trusted
the Xerox Company
Each letter was photocopied
and addressed
to as many as
twenty people
I am grateful
only three legal actions
were taken against me
as a result of those letters
However,
I am more grateful
that this prelude
to another Braugher page
has ended
***
Forty-two years
of being a transplanted
New Yorker,
I still have a dozen
friends and family members
with whom I regularly
correspond via text,
e-mail, blog page
or phone call
But with
one and only one friend
was all of the correspondence
about
one and only one subject
That friend is
and the one subject was
Somewhere around the turn
of the century,
I became the proud owner
of a twenty-five dollar book
itemizing and detailing
every episode
of HOMICIDE
from 1993 through 1999
Andre Brougher
was an original cast member
of Homicide,
along with twenty other
extraordinarily talented
actors
But he was the only one
who sounded like
William Shakespeare
was his kith and kin
Braugher's detective character
was named
I don't recall
which episode
from which season
but it resulted in a
three-hour
phone call
with me quoting extensively
from my $25 guide book
Louthan quoted
Tom Shales
and John Donne
was a well-respected
Washington Post
columnist
was a British poet
good enough
to have given
Shakespeare
"a run for the money"
A scholarly text
about John Donne
was written by
of Mr. Louthan
Oh crap:
ninety minutes was
—more times than not—
the minimum length
of chatter and analysis
between
Louthan and Oliverio
The latter of whom
—of course—
gets the last words
on this page:
This Andre Braugher
obituary page
is dedicated to
his widow,
The next Braugher page
is here
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Honoring Braugher (or anyone from HOMICIDE) is most worthy
ReplyDeletebut I wish somewhere you acknowledged the significant
contribution of Robin Williams to the series.
I think the BOP GUN episode is one of the finest examples
Deleteof the brilliance of Robin Williams
and here is a link to that episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzhL_p_yTkU
-Oliverio