Mom,
This time I’m really not sure where to start.
Perhaps it’s because I could never in some small tribute live up to the wonderfully odd poetry of your life. There are too many wild angles, too much technicolor dimensionality…to speak to Kel Thomas’ many facets is to boil the wild Pacific Ocean…
But you loved words, you loved talk, you loved people, and if I’ve realized anything, too late, it is how much you and I are one. Weirdo affiliates…loyal neighbor tenants of the kookiest house on Earth.
Thank you for everything, thank you for movies, for a worship of humor (you wisely knew that anything and everything could be laughed at - SHOULD be laughed at), for a personality that radiated miles, ‘cross land and sea, from Boston to little Kauai…
Thank you for endless years of inspiration and encouragement, for championing art, for the wild brilliant electricity of your mind.
Oh and of course, that impeccable style…that glam…Life was short, you knew, and you’d be damned if you didn’t look chic as all hell with whatever time God had allotted you!!!
You had a tenacity, a pride, a power that I will never forget. You could only allow yourself to be seen as lovely, because that’s what you were, and that’s the world you wanted to project around you, because it’s what you saw in others. You loved people, and you had a charisma that’d x-Ray right past the ribs and into the hearts. I’d meet strange passersby who’d speak of you as if you’d shared decades. You’d say “Oh you remember so and so from this place or that, friends of so and so and so” and I didn’t, I never did. But you did, genuinely, down to the obscure personal details of a life. A credit to the way you’d listen, and actually see and actually love. Never have I met someone with so many people in their joyously crooked orbit…All of us players in the lovely old Hollywood world of Kel Kel.
You are the trickster goddess, you are the bard, everything I write is for you.
I love you I love you I love you I love you
‘Til our next chat…
Give ‘em hell, make ‘em laugh!!!
Mary Kelan Barry Thomas
(1956-2025)
Stills from the first film I wrote at AFI "The Black Hole"
🥃 🇺🇸🚽🕳️ Directed by @adamfosterjacobs
Written by 🥸
Cinematography by @giuliana.lanzoni
Produced by @andrea.santander
Production Design by @alyssa.jones1151
Edited by @sincerelyronni
starring John Kahle, Patrick Randolph, VJ Kesh, Tracy Denise Tisino, Kevin Dulude
1st AC Charlie Flitton
2nd AC Brandon Tran
Handheld Op Wara Pornkulwat
Gaffer Jo Choi
Best Boy Electric Le Hoang Minh
Key Grip Scott Sweitzer
Best Boy Grip Rawyan Shayema
Company Grip Aris Lui, Angel Pineda
UPM Shikhar Kapadia
1st AD Anabelle Lemieux
1st AD (Mentee) Maria Mondragon
2nd AD Shar Steiman
Production Coord. Neta Shavitt
Office PA Alec Rosinski
PA Nicole Kong
Script Sup Harry Chiao
Asst Editor Yi Liu
Costume Des, MU Lucia Ledesma
Hairstylist Alexis Duran
Art Dir Purnima Bhuttoria
Sound Mixer Ethan Rhanielle
Boom Op Holly Fontanetta
Craft Service Neta Shavitt
Truck Captain Charlie Flitton
Pre Vis Editor Sharad Patel
Thank You Burgundy Room Bar Hollywood
WALK OF SHAME is on da internet!!
Congratulations @_daneray — a wonderful thing you made. And of course to @shannonplumb and all my friends @smogforever and @anarenefilms
Go watch me sing at link in bio 😎