After reading the end of John Lahr's book, I just wanted something simple and congratulatory to say, so here I found it:
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Guadalajara -
President Enrique Peña Nieto departed Mexico City this afternoon to attend next week's 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
President Enrique Peña Nieto departed Mexico City this afternoon to attend next week's 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Peña Nieto has been named the Appeal of Conscience Foundation's 2014 World Statesman of the Year, and will be honored in the week ahead.
The U.S. based Appeal of Conscience was founded in 1965 by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, and describes itself as an "interfaith partnership of corporate and spiritual leaders from all faiths who join to promote peace, tolerance and ethnic conflict resolution."
The president is being recognized for his "commitment to liberty, human rights, peace, and religious and ethnic freedom, and for advancing democratic values internationally," according to Mexican press accounts today. Peña Nieto: respect for human rights is Mexico's focus.
The U.S. based Appeal of Conscience was founded in 1965 by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, and describes itself as an "interfaith partnership of corporate and spiritual leaders from all faiths who join to promote peace, tolerance and ethnic conflict resolution."
The president is being recognized for his "commitment to liberty, human rights, peace, and religious and ethnic freedom, and for advancing democratic values internationally," according to Mexican press accounts today. Peña Nieto: respect for human rights is Mexico's focus.
Of course Barack Obama won the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE -- for reasons that escape me now . . .
>>> GOOD NEWS FOR JOHN LAHR (and even Thomas Keith)!!!
1. First, I have to say I LOVE reading TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: MAD PILGRIMAGE OF THE FLESH because it is so well written and the part I've read so far (which includes when I worked for Mr. Williams and got to know many people in Lahr's book), rings TOTALLY TRUE about Tennessee's creative work, his friends, and what happened up until I left his employ right after A HOUSE NOT MEANT TO STAND opened at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, late in April, 1982. After that is another story.
But Mr. Lahr seems to have gotten the "arts stuff" right -- and has shown I was WRONG on a couple of things -- other things we simply disagree on in public, if not in actual knowing.
2. The first two people mentioned that I knew fairly well, Dotson Rader and Robert Carroll, are perfectly described and reported about, actually making me MORE sympathetic to Robert than I was before I learned a lot more about him, here (turns out he was ALWAYS like he was when I met him). And Dotson Rader is quoted about Tennessee's having had a GREAT opportunity to have stepped in to prevent Rose's lobotomy -- which was the point Thomas Keith had put into my book in place of my quoting Tennessee's quite different words.
I think I simply have to accept that, now, and APOLOGIZE to Thomas for my words about this. Also, is the fact that the parents, not the brother, get the LEGAL say in any case.
3. Lahr states that the estate was worth $5,000,000.00 when Tennessee died, yet Tennessee showed me his accountants' annual statement of his net worth in early 1982, and it was between 10 and 11 million dollars. In the last year he could have spent it down that much -- or the accounting could have been different, but Lahr's going on to state the income to the estate in later years does NOT square at all with the Sewanee alumni, all lawyers from Birmingham, AL who contacted me in 2008 or 09 to say the estate was THEN worth nearly $1/3 billion -- my speculation that it has grown now to nearly a billion is just that -- speculation -- but they DID say Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander (former Archbishop of Atlanta, now head of Sewanee's Theology Department, was using it to COVER UP the fact that alumni donations had fallen SEVERELY when Sewanee retired their Symbol of Episcopal Church Power, the CONFEDERATE MACE, in 2005:
3. And readers are sure to recall that not only Donna Pierce (Sewanee's Head Legal Council), but Bishop Alexander and a couple of his subordinate Bishops all threatened to sue me for LIBEL in 2010, when I first began blogging about this and Sewanee's murder of Tennessee Williams and theft of his estate. They never DID directly sue me -- only LATER through Jamie Lee Sutherland via Daliah Saper, a Fox News minor TALKING HEAD and her law firm, Saper Law, LLC, Chicago -- and THAT only by NOT serving me legally, and then trying me IN ABSENTIA
This legal battle to be reversed, soon, now. You see, I was sued for claiming things that had NOTHING to do with Tennessee Williams (rather Jamie Sutherland and Barack Obama), but they were STILL awarded my copyright to my Williams memoir, ALL my blog posts, ever, and emails on related subjects until my death (plus half a million dollars from a person just coming off homelessness) -- STRANGE, no???
And BOTH Tennessee's Will and the Codicil stipulate that all the money proceeds from the estate are to be used to support struggling writers -- something Lahr doesn't mention at all!!! The closest thing to this that Sewanee does is the Sewanee Writers Conference, whose fees begin well over $1,000.00: http://sewaneewriters.org/apply
4. I was shocked to see that Lahr claims Williams' Will was written so many years before his death -- and the Codicil to it was signed in 1980 -- before I met Mr. Williams. In Tennessee's circle, it was said he had signed a whole new Will (to totally replace a former Will), a few years before I met Tennessee in 1981, and then in January of 1982, Jackie Kennedy Onassis URGED him, urgently, to draw up and sign a codicil that gave Harvard control over the rights and decisions over how to spend the proceeds -- leaving Sewanee with some benefit as well as actual ownership of much of it. She warned him that Sewanee, the Episcopal Church, and Republican Party planned to murder him before he changed his will -- or change it all to their favor if they had to.
Jane Smith and Vassilis Voglis, Tennessee's most trusted/visited friends in New York during that time, BOTH told me that Tennessee had delayed as usual, and never signed that Codicil until fall of 1982, which is when his condition HAD become deteriorated, making it easier to OVERTURN the Codicil -- and Nancy Armstrong, head admin in Harvard's Legal Department until she retired in summer 2012, CONFIRMED to me that that was ALSO Harvard's understanding at the time -- although ALL lawyers then working for Harvard had left by the time I spoke with Nancy -- and President Drew Griffin Faust is NOT interested in this AT ALL!!!
5. John Uecker told me a story of the chain of events the morning after Tennessee Williams died, that considerably conflicts with Lahr's reporting. John did not say what time he "found" Williams dead, but the impression I got was that it was early -- like 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. He claimed he first called Vassilis Voglis, who rushed over in his running suit, taking about half an hour to get there, and they conversed for about an hour before John called Police or others.
In fact, Vasillis told me that he decided to change into some of Tennessee's clothes to greet the press and law enforcement in better than a running outfit, but Uecker warned him not to, as Tennessee had crab lice.
6. John Uecker told me in 2009 that after Vasillis arrived they called "authorities" and John HIMSELF made up the strangle-on-a-bottle-top cause of death and the Coroner agreed to it, to keep the scandal press from seizing on drugs as the cause, and then six months later, that being proved impossible, the Coroner quietly changed the cause of death to "sudden intolerance to Seconal".
I was unaware of ANY report of Seconal showing up in toxicology reports -- I've NEVER seen this before, and if it is TRUE, John never murdered Tennessee. But complicating things (deliberately???), is that the samples of blood were sent to lab under a FALSE NAME of a DRUG ADDICT, and THAT is a CRIME in New York!!! Who KNOWS if the right results were attached to Mr. Williams blood samples. Of all these people actually there, only John Uecker survives.
7. But what John Lahr ALSO doesn't mention is that Uecker later became James Purdy's literary assistant who inherited Purdy's ENTIRE ESTATE in 2009, but Purdy's family, suspecting fowl play, tied Uecker up in lawsuits, although he now seems to have come into all of it.
And Lahr reports a little shrine to James Purdy (an author I only heard Tennessee mention once or twice), was found on Tennessee's night table when he was found dead -- how SELF-SERVING might that be???
8. But the BOTTOM LINE on this is Lahr's JOKE of trying to get away with calling the Last Will and Testament of 1980 the CODICIL -- and NOT recognizing the Codicil signed in 1982, as documented as real MANY places.
John Uecker claimed to me that Thomas Elliot Keith had told him they would keep Lahr to the Sewanee Line of Lies by blackmailing him since they had the proof of Lahr's gay life -- despite his long marriage to a woman -- and I guess that worked!!!
1. First, I have to say I LOVE reading TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: MAD PILGRIMAGE OF THE FLESH because it is so well written and the part I've read so far (which includes when I worked for Mr. Williams and got to know many people in Lahr's book), rings TOTALLY TRUE about Tennessee's creative work, his friends, and what happened up until I left his employ right after A HOUSE NOT MEANT TO STAND opened at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, late in April, 1982. After that is another story.
But Mr. Lahr seems to have gotten the "arts stuff" right -- and has shown I was WRONG on a couple of things -- other things we simply disagree on in public, if not in actual knowing.
2. The first two people mentioned that I knew fairly well, Dotson Rader and Robert Carroll, are perfectly described and reported about, actually making me MORE sympathetic to Robert than I was before I learned a lot more about him, here (turns out he was ALWAYS like he was when I met him). And Dotson Rader is quoted about Tennessee's having had a GREAT opportunity to have stepped in to prevent Rose's lobotomy -- which was the point Thomas Keith had put into my book in place of my quoting Tennessee's quite different words.
I think I simply have to accept that, now, and APOLOGIZE to Thomas for my words about this. Also, is the fact that the parents, not the brother, get the LEGAL say in any case.
3. Lahr states that the estate was worth $5,000,000.00 when Tennessee died, yet Tennessee showed me his accountants' annual statement of his net worth in early 1982, and it was between 10 and 11 million dollars. In the last year he could have spent it down that much -- or the accounting could have been different, but Lahr's going on to state the income to the estate in later years does NOT square at all with the Sewanee alumni, all lawyers from Birmingham, AL who contacted me in 2008 or 09 to say the estate was THEN worth nearly $1/3 billion -- my speculation that it has grown now to nearly a billion is just that -- speculation -- but they DID say Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander (former Archbishop of Atlanta, now head of Sewanee's Theology Department, was using it to COVER UP the fact that alumni donations had fallen SEVERELY when Sewanee retired their Symbol of Episcopal Church Power, the CONFEDERATE MACE, in 2005:
3. And readers are sure to recall that not only Donna Pierce (Sewanee's Head Legal Council), but Bishop Alexander and a couple of his subordinate Bishops all threatened to sue me for LIBEL in 2010, when I first began blogging about this and Sewanee's murder of Tennessee Williams and theft of his estate. They never DID directly sue me -- only LATER through Jamie Lee Sutherland via Daliah Saper, a Fox News minor TALKING HEAD and her law firm, Saper Law, LLC, Chicago -- and THAT only by NOT serving me legally, and then trying me IN ABSENTIA
This legal battle to be reversed, soon, now. You see, I was sued for claiming things that had NOTHING to do with Tennessee Williams (rather Jamie Sutherland and Barack Obama), but they were STILL awarded my copyright to my Williams memoir, ALL my blog posts, ever, and emails on related subjects until my death (plus half a million dollars from a person just coming off homelessness) -- STRANGE, no???
And BOTH Tennessee's Will and the Codicil stipulate that all the money proceeds from the estate are to be used to support struggling writers -- something Lahr doesn't mention at all!!! The closest thing to this that Sewanee does is the Sewanee Writers Conference, whose fees begin well over $1,000.00: http://sewaneewriters.org/apply
4. I was shocked to see that Lahr claims Williams' Will was written so many years before his death -- and the Codicil to it was signed in 1980 -- before I met Mr. Williams. In Tennessee's circle, it was said he had signed a whole new Will (to totally replace a former Will), a few years before I met Tennessee in 1981, and then in January of 1982, Jackie Kennedy Onassis URGED him, urgently, to draw up and sign a codicil that gave Harvard control over the rights and decisions over how to spend the proceeds -- leaving Sewanee with some benefit as well as actual ownership of much of it. She warned him that Sewanee, the Episcopal Church, and Republican Party planned to murder him before he changed his will -- or change it all to their favor if they had to.
Jane Smith and Vassilis Voglis, Tennessee's most trusted/visited friends in New York during that time, BOTH told me that Tennessee had delayed as usual, and never signed that Codicil until fall of 1982, which is when his condition HAD become deteriorated, making it easier to OVERTURN the Codicil -- and Nancy Armstrong, head admin in Harvard's Legal Department until she retired in summer 2012, CONFIRMED to me that that was ALSO Harvard's understanding at the time -- although ALL lawyers then working for Harvard had left by the time I spoke with Nancy -- and President Drew Griffin Faust is NOT interested in this AT ALL!!!
5. John Uecker told me a story of the chain of events the morning after Tennessee Williams died, that considerably conflicts with Lahr's reporting. John did not say what time he "found" Williams dead, but the impression I got was that it was early -- like 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. He claimed he first called Vassilis Voglis, who rushed over in his running suit, taking about half an hour to get there, and they conversed for about an hour before John called Police or others.
In fact, Vasillis told me that he decided to change into some of Tennessee's clothes to greet the press and law enforcement in better than a running outfit, but Uecker warned him not to, as Tennessee had crab lice.
I apologize, but this image is correctly oriented in my computer, but Google Chrome insists on ONLY inserting it sideways, here.
This is from a privately published (in mid-1980s), book by Mark Beard, who was Vasilis Voglis' "boyfriend" who put Mark through Art school. The last copy of this book to sell sold for $30,000.00 at Sotheby Auction. Mark is also known for develping Abercrombie & Fitch's mildly homoerotic theme -- and painting giant murals at several flagship stores in Asia and Europe, even holding the WORLD RECORD for largest ever oil-on-canvas painting.
Mark Beard is the great-grandson of one of the THREE that Joseph Smith dictated THE BOOK OF MORMON to, and today, his family owns the largest Mormon Bank. He knows a LOT about these times, and Vasillis told him all ABOUT the day Tennessee Died and what John Uecker was like then -- AND JOHN LAHR KNOWS THAT, but did NOT, apparently, interview him.
But additionally complicating things is that Mark Beard threw a book launch party in NOVEMBER of 2009 for SORDID TRUTHS by Aiden Shaw -- for his friend Don Weise, and Don was the Publisher at Alyson Books who CANCELLED my contract to publish WALKING ON GLASS: A MEMOIR OF THE LATER DAYS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, and at both of Mr. Beard's Christmas Parties (2009 and 2012), that I attended, Mark disappeared to bed long before the party ended -- due to his Xanax addiction.
6. John Uecker told me in 2009 that after Vasillis arrived they called "authorities" and John HIMSELF made up the strangle-on-a-bottle-top cause of death and the Coroner agreed to it, to keep the scandal press from seizing on drugs as the cause, and then six months later, that being proved impossible, the Coroner quietly changed the cause of death to "sudden intolerance to Seconal".
I was unaware of ANY report of Seconal showing up in toxicology reports -- I've NEVER seen this before, and if it is TRUE, John never murdered Tennessee. But complicating things (deliberately???), is that the samples of blood were sent to lab under a FALSE NAME of a DRUG ADDICT, and THAT is a CRIME in New York!!! Who KNOWS if the right results were attached to Mr. Williams blood samples. Of all these people actually there, only John Uecker survives.
7. But what John Lahr ALSO doesn't mention is that Uecker later became James Purdy's literary assistant who inherited Purdy's ENTIRE ESTATE in 2009, but Purdy's family, suspecting fowl play, tied Uecker up in lawsuits, although he now seems to have come into all of it.
And Lahr reports a little shrine to James Purdy (an author I only heard Tennessee mention once or twice), was found on Tennessee's night table when he was found dead -- how SELF-SERVING might that be???
8. But the BOTTOM LINE on this is Lahr's JOKE of trying to get away with calling the Last Will and Testament of 1980 the CODICIL -- and NOT recognizing the Codicil signed in 1982, as documented as real MANY places.
John Uecker claimed to me that Thomas Elliot Keith had told him they would keep Lahr to the Sewanee Line of Lies by blackmailing him since they had the proof of Lahr's gay life -- despite his long marriage to a woman -- and I guess that worked!!!
BULLY FOR THEM!!!
Scott
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