Worked as a security guard at a friend's jewelry store on the Upper East Side yesterday.
Basically it was just great to sit around for five hours or so and hang out with my dry-witted friend.
God forbid I had to restrain a diamond thief. "Stop!!! Else I smack you with this orchid!!!"
Had the pleasure of seeing my dear friend--and sometimes acting-partner, Gary Littman, go through The Santaland Diaries which he will be performing in Boston later this month. New Rep Theatre, 12/16 - 1/3.
David Sedaris is the author and it is the autobiographic experience of his time working as a corporate elf at Macy's when he first came to New York. From his book of essays, Holidays on Ice (if you get this, also read, Dinah, The Christmas Whore. Brilliant.) Gary will be hysterical, so if anyone is in Boston around this time, go see him. I'd watch him read the phone book.
Tickets are 30 bucks.
http://www.newrep.org/santaland.php
Had drinks at The Oak Room at The Plaza this week. I have not been back since it's renovation and while it was great to see that The Oak Room was left untouched, it was a little unsettling to see that two Martinis, two vodka sodas and a cheese plate came to around $115.00.
All this for a view of the park and the bar stool that Samantha Jones sat on during an episode of Sex & the City.
The Plaza was recently bought and converted into part hotel, part condominiums. It's buyer has left MOST of the original decor in place, but the scary pink chandeliers in The Mezzanine Bar had me thinking that I was looking for a happy hour in a Nice bordello. Who okay'ed THAT little expenditure at one of New York's Grand Dame sites, I'd like to know. More importantly why? Poor Eloise!
Oh yeah, one last thing. The Gate Crashers at The White House...
Prosecuting two people with extremely bad manners is enticing, but misses the mark.
It DID detract from The President's first State Dinner, but what it also did--and in a way that I prefer, is to expose a MAJOR hole in White House Security.
Yes, what they did was rude (at least they dressed for it), but imagine if this hole was exposed in a much more dangerous way? At worst, someone is embarassed and a job or six is lost. Could have been soooo much more ... memorable. Thank God it was not.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Someone's in the Kitchen WIth Juuuuuuuliaaaa...
Cheers to Chef JC.
Whipped up a Supreme a la Voillailes avec Champignons, Creme-- et sauce Port.
Okay... that's Breast of Chicken cooked in butter at 400 degrees for about twelve minutes in a covered casserole dish with an inexplicable piece of buttered wax paper on top of the chicken.
then a boiled and reduced mixture of heavy cream, butter, Port wine, mushroom, lemons, white pepper, sea salt and shallots later, we have heart attack on a plate. No. Wait. We have a lunch with a salad (tossed with JC's vinaigrette) that is sublime enough to make you weep and forget how much money you owe to whom and that in reality, you work for Visa.
I have also bought some active, dry yeast. Bread making is next on the agenda.
I did it once before for Rosh Hashannah... Butter, honey, apples in a Challah ring.
Okay, well.... Tim did most of the work. Kneading is donkey labour and I wasn't ready for it... So he pounded the holy hell out of the thing and we sat and watched it rise before diving into it like Survivor Cast B.
God, I love food.
Whipped up a Supreme a la Voillailes avec Champignons, Creme-- et sauce Port.
Okay... that's Breast of Chicken cooked in butter at 400 degrees for about twelve minutes in a covered casserole dish with an inexplicable piece of buttered wax paper on top of the chicken.
then a boiled and reduced mixture of heavy cream, butter, Port wine, mushroom, lemons, white pepper, sea salt and shallots later, we have heart attack on a plate. No. Wait. We have a lunch with a salad (tossed with JC's vinaigrette) that is sublime enough to make you weep and forget how much money you owe to whom and that in reality, you work for Visa.
I have also bought some active, dry yeast. Bread making is next on the agenda.
I did it once before for Rosh Hashannah... Butter, honey, apples in a Challah ring.
Okay, well.... Tim did most of the work. Kneading is donkey labour and I wasn't ready for it... So he pounded the holy hell out of the thing and we sat and watched it rise before diving into it like Survivor Cast B.
God, I love food.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Another Opening, Another Show.
Had the best time attending the opening night of Ragtime on Broadway and the final Broadway opening night party at Tavern on the Green (so I was told).
My friend is an investor in the show so we hit The Neil Simon a little before six and made our way to the Mezzanine. The show was amazing and ten years later, relevant in a whole new way.
Nancy Pelosi slipped out the stage door and into an armoured car. Waved at me. Amazing how I get star struck by journalists and heads of state, but couldn't care less about actors. Meeting Jack Nicholson would be fun and the man probably has amazing weed, but meeting Christiane Amanpour would render me useless. Oh yes. I have experience in this. I did a show once in Florida and the Green Room was star studded. I walked right up to Bill Cosby and said, "Dr. Cosby. My name is Preston and we have a mutual friend"... Blah, blah, blah. twenty minutes later and I'm still chatting with him. I turn around and Ted Koppel tells me that he liked the show. My jaw dropped and I turned into a fat, twelve year old girl... complete with braids, head gear and a hot pink unicorn sweatshirt. I don't think I managed a complete sentence.
I digress...
We cabbed it to Tavern on the Green and while my friend stalked Richard Kind I went looking for an old friend I toured with in The Mystery of Edwin Drood about a thousand years ago.
Found myself in the main room with Rosie Perez, Mario Cantone, Susan Anton. It was like the after party at The People's Second Choice Awards...
The show is wonderful and it was a lovely night, but I don't have the wherewithal or liver to continue being that much of a socialite.
My friend is an investor in the show so we hit The Neil Simon a little before six and made our way to the Mezzanine. The show was amazing and ten years later, relevant in a whole new way.
Nancy Pelosi slipped out the stage door and into an armoured car. Waved at me. Amazing how I get star struck by journalists and heads of state, but couldn't care less about actors. Meeting Jack Nicholson would be fun and the man probably has amazing weed, but meeting Christiane Amanpour would render me useless. Oh yes. I have experience in this. I did a show once in Florida and the Green Room was star studded. I walked right up to Bill Cosby and said, "Dr. Cosby. My name is Preston and we have a mutual friend"... Blah, blah, blah. twenty minutes later and I'm still chatting with him. I turn around and Ted Koppel tells me that he liked the show. My jaw dropped and I turned into a fat, twelve year old girl... complete with braids, head gear and a hot pink unicorn sweatshirt. I don't think I managed a complete sentence.
I digress...
We cabbed it to Tavern on the Green and while my friend stalked Richard Kind I went looking for an old friend I toured with in The Mystery of Edwin Drood about a thousand years ago.
Found myself in the main room with Rosie Perez, Mario Cantone, Susan Anton. It was like the after party at The People's Second Choice Awards...
The show is wonderful and it was a lovely night, but I don't have the wherewithal or liver to continue being that much of a socialite.
Silent Night, Sane Night
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house last night.
This immediately followed an argument... if you can call it that... with a family member.
A senseless disagreement that--like most arguments in my family, stem from a misunderstanding that ferments and bastes itself into a full blown donnybrook.
I have not been back to Florida for quite a while. My mother isn't getting any younger and I would love to see her again. Also there are a few others of my brood that I dearly love and would like to spend some one on one time with. But as I sat next to the host and raised my glass to "Framily" (Friends=Family--her word, not mine and I really wish I could take credit for it!!!), I realized that I was indeed home. Home being where I have chosen to live and in the company of those I choose to have in my life and am lucky enough to have them feel similarly.
There are deal breakers in every relationship. I think simply because of shared DNA, we forgive or look the other way when someone is really behaving like a complete moron. Terrible arguments over bottled, aged resentments and blow ups over misunderstandings have happened a few times in my family and the end result is sad as it culminates in the eventual absence of that person--due to their choice not mine, but once the storm clears and the detritus is removed... I realize that life gets a lot calmer. Do I miss them? Of course I do. I was a child around them and a large part of who I am is BECAUSE of them. But a larger part of who I am is not. And sadly I prefer my life to make sense, silly me, so I must wish them well and allow them to go their own way. Without me.
Vaya con Dios...
Having surrounded myself with drama queens for most of my life (I am in the Theatah, dahlings) seems to reflect my cowardice in dealing with that behavior from certain members of my own family.
No longer. You can love from a distance and it does not mean you really have to like all that much. It's just exhausting and you run out of cheeks to turn.
I suppose it sounds hateful to a degree, but in reality it is the absence of hate that allows me to no longer contact them. I don't want to fight, yell, misunderstand or sonorously disagree any longer and I wish you well. But kindly go away.
When you wake up and your thoughts are well wishes for your friends and "Framily" rather than terror of being misconstrued again, then chances are that you are keeping company with some rather stellar folk rather than just treading water in a genealogical mine field.
Home for holidays. Yes. I am.
This immediately followed an argument... if you can call it that... with a family member.
A senseless disagreement that--like most arguments in my family, stem from a misunderstanding that ferments and bastes itself into a full blown donnybrook.
I have not been back to Florida for quite a while. My mother isn't getting any younger and I would love to see her again. Also there are a few others of my brood that I dearly love and would like to spend some one on one time with. But as I sat next to the host and raised my glass to "Framily" (Friends=Family--her word, not mine and I really wish I could take credit for it!!!), I realized that I was indeed home. Home being where I have chosen to live and in the company of those I choose to have in my life and am lucky enough to have them feel similarly.
There are deal breakers in every relationship. I think simply because of shared DNA, we forgive or look the other way when someone is really behaving like a complete moron. Terrible arguments over bottled, aged resentments and blow ups over misunderstandings have happened a few times in my family and the end result is sad as it culminates in the eventual absence of that person--due to their choice not mine, but once the storm clears and the detritus is removed... I realize that life gets a lot calmer. Do I miss them? Of course I do. I was a child around them and a large part of who I am is BECAUSE of them. But a larger part of who I am is not. And sadly I prefer my life to make sense, silly me, so I must wish them well and allow them to go their own way. Without me.
Vaya con Dios...
Having surrounded myself with drama queens for most of my life (I am in the Theatah, dahlings) seems to reflect my cowardice in dealing with that behavior from certain members of my own family.
No longer. You can love from a distance and it does not mean you really have to like all that much. It's just exhausting and you run out of cheeks to turn.
I suppose it sounds hateful to a degree, but in reality it is the absence of hate that allows me to no longer contact them. I don't want to fight, yell, misunderstand or sonorously disagree any longer and I wish you well. But kindly go away.
When you wake up and your thoughts are well wishes for your friends and "Framily" rather than terror of being misconstrued again, then chances are that you are keeping company with some rather stellar folk rather than just treading water in a genealogical mine field.
Home for holidays. Yes. I am.
Stand Up, Speak Up, Wake Up.
I have been thinking about Jorge Steven Mercado's murder for a few days. To call it senseless, evil, ignorant, a waste and unsettling is redundant, but it's the language that surrounds the story that I want to examine.
I have been watching and reading the news, and all the articles say that "Jorge Steven Mercado was murdered because he was gay". See, I have to disagree. Jorge Steven Mercado was NOT murdered because he was gay, he was murdered because some ignorant, bigoted slab of protoplasm had a problem with the fact that he was gay.
And in this lies a big problem. To say that someone was murdered BECAUSE they were gay implies some form of complicity on behalf of the dead that simply didn't exist. He was gay. Full stop. The end. It is not a murderable offense. It is not even an offense.
It is this slippery semantic slope that leaves me uneasy.
"The country isn't ready for Marriage Equality". "The armed forces are not ready to end DADT". "The school systems are not ready for integration." Whoops... that's an old one, but it's the same tired old warhorse of an argument that no long holds water.
If someone or some group is not ready to welcome sweeping equality, then that is their problem and their issue that perhaps they should spend time working on. Why is it still up to the person who wants to serve in the military--who wants to marry the love of their life... etc... to pay the bill?
In this era--fresh though it is, of post Matthew Shepard Act, why is it that the the people bending over backwards are the ones that are discriminated against?
It's high time that the people dragging their feet over this issue, desist with their pose of moderation and either come out swinging or just shut the hell up. I aver, once again, that it is not up to the majority to decide the rights of the minority and that being so, just get out of the way of the inevitable. Eventually, we get it right. Generally, the country makes an international fool out of itself (the entire presidency of George Bush, for example) but after the posturing and braying, somehow we eventually--and usually quietly, get it right.
Saying that someone was murdered because they were gay seems to somehow let some of the pressure off of the murderer. "Oh, well, he had a reason". Clearly he did have a reason, but the reason was not the fault of Jorge Steven Mercado. The reason was that someone's personal evil won the battle for their soul. And directly under the sadness of Jorge Steven Mercado's murder is the sadness of that lurking evil in his murderer not being called out earlier, dealt with and/or exposed.
I used to keep very quiet about a lot of things. I always will because constantly braying is obnoxious and I think that there is still a place for dignity in the world, but when silence leads to wholesale discounting of the rights of individuals and those rights being run into the ground, I don't think that the reason for silence any longer is diginity. It is cowardice.
I have been guilty of it, but knowing how and more importantly WHEN to stand up for myself is a nice legacy left by this young man whom I have never met. So... thanks to Jorge Steven Mercado. I never knew you, but I will think of you the next time I weigh whether to be silent or to come out swinging myself.
I have been watching and reading the news, and all the articles say that "Jorge Steven Mercado was murdered because he was gay". See, I have to disagree. Jorge Steven Mercado was NOT murdered because he was gay, he was murdered because some ignorant, bigoted slab of protoplasm had a problem with the fact that he was gay.
And in this lies a big problem. To say that someone was murdered BECAUSE they were gay implies some form of complicity on behalf of the dead that simply didn't exist. He was gay. Full stop. The end. It is not a murderable offense. It is not even an offense.
It is this slippery semantic slope that leaves me uneasy.
"The country isn't ready for Marriage Equality". "The armed forces are not ready to end DADT". "The school systems are not ready for integration." Whoops... that's an old one, but it's the same tired old warhorse of an argument that no long holds water.
If someone or some group is not ready to welcome sweeping equality, then that is their problem and their issue that perhaps they should spend time working on. Why is it still up to the person who wants to serve in the military--who wants to marry the love of their life... etc... to pay the bill?
In this era--fresh though it is, of post Matthew Shepard Act, why is it that the the people bending over backwards are the ones that are discriminated against?
It's high time that the people dragging their feet over this issue, desist with their pose of moderation and either come out swinging or just shut the hell up. I aver, once again, that it is not up to the majority to decide the rights of the minority and that being so, just get out of the way of the inevitable. Eventually, we get it right. Generally, the country makes an international fool out of itself (the entire presidency of George Bush, for example) but after the posturing and braying, somehow we eventually--and usually quietly, get it right.
Saying that someone was murdered because they were gay seems to somehow let some of the pressure off of the murderer. "Oh, well, he had a reason". Clearly he did have a reason, but the reason was not the fault of Jorge Steven Mercado. The reason was that someone's personal evil won the battle for their soul. And directly under the sadness of Jorge Steven Mercado's murder is the sadness of that lurking evil in his murderer not being called out earlier, dealt with and/or exposed.
I used to keep very quiet about a lot of things. I always will because constantly braying is obnoxious and I think that there is still a place for dignity in the world, but when silence leads to wholesale discounting of the rights of individuals and those rights being run into the ground, I don't think that the reason for silence any longer is diginity. It is cowardice.
I have been guilty of it, but knowing how and more importantly WHEN to stand up for myself is a nice legacy left by this young man whom I have never met. So... thanks to Jorge Steven Mercado. I never knew you, but I will think of you the next time I weigh whether to be silent or to come out swinging myself.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Arts Activism Dinner
Worked an event this week for Arts Activism. Basically using the inspiration and power of the performing arts to effect positive changes in the world. Big words, but essentially, singin' purty and inspiring good thoughts. I loved it. Jane Fonda spoke (tiny little woman, but gigantic brain), Renee Fleming sat next to Martha Stewart. Dame Martha smiled at me and I nearly fell over backwards. Felt like a Domestic Benediction.
The organization is superb and it's deeply inspiring to see what inherent power lies in music to be harnessed for changes in everyone's life.
As Arts programs in schools diminish--using financial bind as an excuse while sports programs mysteriously flourish, I can't help but wonder what happens to all that creative energy that will not be channeled. If you are not an athlete, then do you matter any longer? And if your energy is more artistic than athletic, are you left to fend for yourself or join the smokers behind the bleachers and hope for the best... (Sorry, was just reliving a memory). Science proves that energy doesn't dissipate. So if creation isn't tended, does it then become destruction? From Kwan Yin to Kali in a few short semesters.
(Once again... a memory).
To see this program light up the lives of students in inner cities is humbling and a gigantic relief. I hope to see it move out of the metropoli and take effect in areas where budding artists are ignored... sometimes scoffed at and not encouraged.
Cheers to these people!
The organization is superb and it's deeply inspiring to see what inherent power lies in music to be harnessed for changes in everyone's life.
As Arts programs in schools diminish--using financial bind as an excuse while sports programs mysteriously flourish, I can't help but wonder what happens to all that creative energy that will not be channeled. If you are not an athlete, then do you matter any longer? And if your energy is more artistic than athletic, are you left to fend for yourself or join the smokers behind the bleachers and hope for the best... (Sorry, was just reliving a memory). Science proves that energy doesn't dissipate. So if creation isn't tended, does it then become destruction? From Kwan Yin to Kali in a few short semesters.
(Once again... a memory).
To see this program light up the lives of students in inner cities is humbling and a gigantic relief. I hope to see it move out of the metropoli and take effect in areas where budding artists are ignored... sometimes scoffed at and not encouraged.
Cheers to these people!
Friday, November 20, 2009
And Now, a Monologue from ZZZZzzzzzzzzz...
Worked a gala at one of NYC's museums. Noticed Bono sitting next to Christy Turlington.
Had Cindy Adams at my table and the woman was a blast.
Then went to an audition for a showcase this morning. It was a British play. I tried to go through the sides last night and for some reason, couldn't muster more than a Jersey Shore accent, I was so exhausted.
Strangely, this morning, some rogue spirit of the BBC possessed my soul and I had one of those soul validating auditions. Albeit, one in which I was so hallucinogenically tired, I'm surprised I didn't burst into "I Enjoy Being a Girl".
Off to re-une with college friends and then another catering gig tomorrow at yet another museum.
(How many of the damn things are in this town?!?!?)
I wonder if Marlo Thomas had this much contingent exahuastion in That Girl.
My show being, That Middle Aged Realist.
We should KILL in Sweeps...
Had Cindy Adams at my table and the woman was a blast.
Then went to an audition for a showcase this morning. It was a British play. I tried to go through the sides last night and for some reason, couldn't muster more than a Jersey Shore accent, I was so exhausted.
Strangely, this morning, some rogue spirit of the BBC possessed my soul and I had one of those soul validating auditions. Albeit, one in which I was so hallucinogenically tired, I'm surprised I didn't burst into "I Enjoy Being a Girl".
Off to re-une with college friends and then another catering gig tomorrow at yet another museum.
(How many of the damn things are in this town?!?!?)
I wonder if Marlo Thomas had this much contingent exahuastion in That Girl.
My show being, That Middle Aged Realist.
We should KILL in Sweeps...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Coffee, Tea or a Steaming Cup of Shut the Hell Up?
One of the necessities of life in Manhattan when you are an actor is the necessity of the Survival Job. I have four, but never mind.
An example is the rather nicely paying job of Cater Waiter. Many of the companies name themselves something semi-theatrical such as "Supporting Cast", "Great Performances", etc. in order to attract said theatre types to their ranks. Usually because our schedules allow us to work at night during the lean season of auditions, and also just because actors tend to be really good bullshit artists.
"Why I'll be right back with your regular coffee."
"Yes of course, I will put down this insanely hot plate of beef that I had to dance a ballet in order to perfectly situate the folded napkin around without sticking my thumb in the sauce to get you that Vodka Gimlet that you simply must have at this precise moment with 175 other waiters on my heels with the same plates in their hands". (I have always thought that the statue on the front of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was really a cater waiter instead of a birdbath).
There is something about these venues (in this case one of the armories of NYC built in 1865--truly the creepiest building in the world) that seem to bring out the self-entitled in many. Open bar + charity + tequila shots = VERY IRRITATED STAFF. Do I make myself clear?
Now, moneyed, Phlanthropic types... repeat after me:
1) I will sit down when dinner is being served and will not stand in the aisle.
2) I will NOT sneer at the waiter and sonorously demand a vegetarian meal at the precise moment that three hundred fifty other plates are coming out of the far away kitchen.
I will simply ask the waiter for said option with the addition of what seems to be the most archaic and underused word in the English language; "Please..."
3) I will NOT expect regular coffee. Here's a little secret. No matter how many times you ask for it, it will always... ALWAYS be decaffeinated. Why? Some folks have reactions to caffeine. Dramatic ones... and while we DO try to accommodate one and all, in this particular case we do not have time to run back to Argentina and grab another pot. If we say we will, trust me... WE WON'T. Drink the decaf, or decline, sweep up the scattered shards of your evening and move on.
The above being said, enjoy your evening.
No of COURSE we don't expect tips... (see? ACTING!!!!!)
An example is the rather nicely paying job of Cater Waiter. Many of the companies name themselves something semi-theatrical such as "Supporting Cast", "Great Performances", etc. in order to attract said theatre types to their ranks. Usually because our schedules allow us to work at night during the lean season of auditions, and also just because actors tend to be really good bullshit artists.
"Why I'll be right back with your regular coffee."
"Yes of course, I will put down this insanely hot plate of beef that I had to dance a ballet in order to perfectly situate the folded napkin around without sticking my thumb in the sauce to get you that Vodka Gimlet that you simply must have at this precise moment with 175 other waiters on my heels with the same plates in their hands". (I have always thought that the statue on the front of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was really a cater waiter instead of a birdbath).
There is something about these venues (in this case one of the armories of NYC built in 1865--truly the creepiest building in the world) that seem to bring out the self-entitled in many. Open bar + charity + tequila shots = VERY IRRITATED STAFF. Do I make myself clear?
Now, moneyed, Phlanthropic types... repeat after me:
1) I will sit down when dinner is being served and will not stand in the aisle.
2) I will NOT sneer at the waiter and sonorously demand a vegetarian meal at the precise moment that three hundred fifty other plates are coming out of the far away kitchen.
I will simply ask the waiter for said option with the addition of what seems to be the most archaic and underused word in the English language; "Please..."
3) I will NOT expect regular coffee. Here's a little secret. No matter how many times you ask for it, it will always... ALWAYS be decaffeinated. Why? Some folks have reactions to caffeine. Dramatic ones... and while we DO try to accommodate one and all, in this particular case we do not have time to run back to Argentina and grab another pot. If we say we will, trust me... WE WON'T. Drink the decaf, or decline, sweep up the scattered shards of your evening and move on.
The above being said, enjoy your evening.
No of COURSE we don't expect tips... (see? ACTING!!!!!)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Stereotype Lounge, 6, 7,8
A day of auditions began at 6:30 this AM in which I trudged down to Equity to stand in line for a chance to warble at an EPA (Equity Principal Audition (in other words, if you're wanting a big part,)), where you sit until 9 am when the monitors start to sign people up for a three minute slot in which you can do anything at all. The line snaked through the entire building and ended in a large studio. A large, resonant studio that quickly began to fill to capacity.
Lucky me, I was sandwiched between two theatah types that are the reason the Apple gods created iPods.
One; the scarf-wearing, tea-drinking HUMMER who feels the need to warm up in front of all the other jaded hopefuls and two; the loud-talking, regional theatre socialite who--in the guise of a salutation, always steers the banter back to him/her (in this case him)-self with a few quick, unsuspected fishtails that generally involve the verbal opening gambit, "How ARE yooooooou?!?!?!? OOOooooohMyGoshIHaven'tSeenYouInSoLOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!! (insert chirpy jumps and hand clapping or (if you're across the room) the toddler wave) OhMyGOOOOD, you look GREAAAAAT! OhMyGod!!!! Your BUTT is sooooooo CUUUUUUTE in those JEANS!!!!! So--Are you working??? Well, IIIIII'm doing a showcase that's me I perfect Casting for a film, me. I just think that I am SO right for the me I perfect aaaaand you KNOW... me perfect high b flat me, that I just perfect soooo me me me me"... ad nauseum.
All this delight in a room in which Helen Keller can hear you change your mind.
I just sat there feeling forty. Forty... FOUR OH... Okay... Four THREE in this case... but I rounded down.
Forty. It's the new black.
Or as my friend calls it, "the age when you don't have to do what you don't want to do and you don't have to offer an explanation".
I'll drink to that.
At any rate, the line began it's slow, inexorable wind through the Family Reunion of everyone you have ever loved/hated/screwed/been screwed over by/dodged/adored/despised/obsessed over/stalked/been stalked by and are now fatter/thinner/older than (okaaaaaaaaay, The Equity Lounge) herded and shushed by a nice, but slightly stressed-out monitor, to the table where I was told at long last that... all the times were taken and there were only alternate positions left. Lovely...
Couldn't do that, because I had a commercial (I, me) audition across town. Thankfully, that seemed to go extremely well... But it's mornings such as these that make me consistently reassure myself that I should not chuck it all and move to Saugerties to grow vegetables and become a hippie.
... Again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking that life. I love it up there, but it still feels as if there are a few things left to do. Here.
Like buy really powerful earphones...
Lucky me, I was sandwiched between two theatah types that are the reason the Apple gods created iPods.
One; the scarf-wearing, tea-drinking HUMMER who feels the need to warm up in front of all the other jaded hopefuls and two; the loud-talking, regional theatre socialite who--in the guise of a salutation, always steers the banter back to him/her (in this case him)-self with a few quick, unsuspected fishtails that generally involve the verbal opening gambit, "How ARE yooooooou?!?!?!? OOOooooohMyGoshIHaven'tSeenYouInSoLOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!! (insert chirpy jumps and hand clapping or (if you're across the room) the toddler wave) OhMyGOOOOD, you look GREAAAAAT! OhMyGod!!!! Your BUTT is sooooooo CUUUUUUTE in those JEANS!!!!! So--Are you working??? Well, IIIIII'm doing a showcase that's me I perfect Casting for a film, me. I just think that I am SO right for the me I perfect aaaaand you KNOW... me perfect high b flat me, that I just perfect soooo me me me me"... ad nauseum.
All this delight in a room in which Helen Keller can hear you change your mind.
I just sat there feeling forty. Forty... FOUR OH... Okay... Four THREE in this case... but I rounded down.
Forty. It's the new black.
Or as my friend calls it, "the age when you don't have to do what you don't want to do and you don't have to offer an explanation".
I'll drink to that.
At any rate, the line began it's slow, inexorable wind through the Family Reunion of everyone you have ever loved/hated/screwed/been screwed over by/dodged/adored/despised/obsessed over/stalked/been stalked by and are now fatter/thinner/older than (okaaaaaaaaay, The Equity Lounge) herded and shushed by a nice, but slightly stressed-out monitor, to the table where I was told at long last that... all the times were taken and there were only alternate positions left. Lovely...
Couldn't do that, because I had a commercial (I, me) audition across town. Thankfully, that seemed to go extremely well... But it's mornings such as these that make me consistently reassure myself that I should not chuck it all and move to Saugerties to grow vegetables and become a hippie.
... Again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking that life. I love it up there, but it still feels as if there are a few things left to do. Here.
Like buy really powerful earphones...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Addendum and Requiem
Just so as not to seem like an abject snob (I am, I just don't want to SEEM like one),
my "cultural void" and "dumbed down New York" comments from the previous blog are due to the fact that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs/Broadway Bound revival at The Nederlander closed after only six days.
Shock.
A New York where shows like Rock of Ages stretch on "Now and Forever", but where Neil Simon cannot keep a show open for more than a week confounds me. I have nothing specifically against Rock of Ages, mind you, but the zeitgeist seems to have distilled.
I cannot help but be despondent and nostalgic for Dorothys Parker and Kilgallen, Dick Cavett, Eric Sevaried, The Round Table... hell, even Prohibition had some things to write about. I worked an event at a museum recently where the main act was someone I had never heard of, singing (sort of) songs about anger, instant gratification and self-aggrandizement all while in a ball cap that covered her face and painted into a shiny, gold bustier so far up her butt, it looked more like traction than a corset and speakers spitting out distorted sound to a room full of hipster doofuses... that I was cleaning up after.
Okay...
I realize that simply keeping an online blog is a form of self-aggrandizement, and being anyone's Hazel is demanding at best, but I also remembered an event at Lincoln Center where Barbara Cook had to stop singing to tell her audience to stop talking.
I still love New York with my whole heart, but I wonder where we're all going... those of us who still love theatre and the alchemy it completes in the human spirit, when it works. (Thank god for Jude Law's current sold out Hamlet)
Is art imitating life, or is it simply marketing?
my "cultural void" and "dumbed down New York" comments from the previous blog are due to the fact that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs/Broadway Bound revival at The Nederlander closed after only six days.
Shock.
A New York where shows like Rock of Ages stretch on "Now and Forever", but where Neil Simon cannot keep a show open for more than a week confounds me. I have nothing specifically against Rock of Ages, mind you, but the zeitgeist seems to have distilled.
I cannot help but be despondent and nostalgic for Dorothys Parker and Kilgallen, Dick Cavett, Eric Sevaried, The Round Table... hell, even Prohibition had some things to write about. I worked an event at a museum recently where the main act was someone I had never heard of, singing (sort of) songs about anger, instant gratification and self-aggrandizement all while in a ball cap that covered her face and painted into a shiny, gold bustier so far up her butt, it looked more like traction than a corset and speakers spitting out distorted sound to a room full of hipster doofuses... that I was cleaning up after.
Okay...
I realize that simply keeping an online blog is a form of self-aggrandizement, and being anyone's Hazel is demanding at best, but I also remembered an event at Lincoln Center where Barbara Cook had to stop singing to tell her audience to stop talking.
I still love New York with my whole heart, but I wonder where we're all going... those of us who still love theatre and the alchemy it completes in the human spirit, when it works. (Thank god for Jude Law's current sold out Hamlet)
Is art imitating life, or is it simply marketing?
Logistics, Mayhem, Mussels, Curtain Up, Light the Lights
Took the car last night to retrieve the roommate from his month-long trip to Hawaii and Napa... No, not a bit jealous... anyway, couldn't find the entrance to the Van Wyck Expressway and ended up well past Jamaica and heading out to Long Island... In the dark... In the rain, clutching the steering wheel like a life raft and nose to windscreen with demented stress.
For those who know me, ever since I got back from extended stays in Australia and South Africa, I can't for the life of me seem to remember how to drive in the US. I mean I know how a car operates and all, but it's the left hand drive thing that gets me now. I had my own car in Oz and was distinctly proud of myself for figuring out how to drive on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road in about five to ten minutes without much drama.
This hubris was of course repaid manifold by my current and complete inability to remember how it works on this side of the pond--compounded with a trip to the Poconos last May where, I swear to almighty God, I plowed straight into a very large dead deer in the very-visible center of the highway (current roommate didn't warn me because he thought it would be stressful--the man has a level of calm about some things that approach Zen) and ripped off the rear fender of his car... also in the night... also in the rain... While this led to a conversation party piece that refuses to die, said roommate still had me handle his parking while he was away and also had no problem with me volunteering to come and fetch him from JFK. That's either extreme trust, or a willingness to gamble that might need a support group.
At any rate, got him and his lost luggage home and--as Hawaii-to-East Coast jet lag is the kind that will not die (despite a week in Wine Country), I had made a dinner that I could marinate and prep the hell out of in order to just get it on the table: Moules a la Marinieres, Pear Salad with Julia's phenomenal vinaigrette and a Salmon marinated with soy sauce, fresh squeezed orange juice (still had 'em from last weeks excursion down Juilienne Lane with that Duck), ginger, honey, garlic, tomato, salt, pepper, etc., and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
...and a Flexeril.
Tonight, I put on the Armani tux that has been gathering dust since August and head out to the Broadway Premiere of Ragtime and the subsequent and apparently final opening night party at Tavern on the Green.
Nero fiddles his last here in the Big Apple for that grand old tradition. Glad to have at least made it to two. As Old New York fades into less attractive, dumbed-down New York for the cultural void who think Rodgers and Hart is a department store, I can at least fuel my Kitty Carlisle Hart fantasy of being part of the Old/Aulde version if only for a wee while.
Even though Armani on the F train is more than a little sad.
For those who know me, ever since I got back from extended stays in Australia and South Africa, I can't for the life of me seem to remember how to drive in the US. I mean I know how a car operates and all, but it's the left hand drive thing that gets me now. I had my own car in Oz and was distinctly proud of myself for figuring out how to drive on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road in about five to ten minutes without much drama.
This hubris was of course repaid manifold by my current and complete inability to remember how it works on this side of the pond--compounded with a trip to the Poconos last May where, I swear to almighty God, I plowed straight into a very large dead deer in the very-visible center of the highway (current roommate didn't warn me because he thought it would be stressful--the man has a level of calm about some things that approach Zen) and ripped off the rear fender of his car... also in the night... also in the rain... While this led to a conversation party piece that refuses to die, said roommate still had me handle his parking while he was away and also had no problem with me volunteering to come and fetch him from JFK. That's either extreme trust, or a willingness to gamble that might need a support group.
At any rate, got him and his lost luggage home and--as Hawaii-to-East Coast jet lag is the kind that will not die (despite a week in Wine Country), I had made a dinner that I could marinate and prep the hell out of in order to just get it on the table: Moules a la Marinieres, Pear Salad with Julia's phenomenal vinaigrette and a Salmon marinated with soy sauce, fresh squeezed orange juice (still had 'em from last weeks excursion down Juilienne Lane with that Duck), ginger, honey, garlic, tomato, salt, pepper, etc., and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
...and a Flexeril.
Tonight, I put on the Armani tux that has been gathering dust since August and head out to the Broadway Premiere of Ragtime and the subsequent and apparently final opening night party at Tavern on the Green.
Nero fiddles his last here in the Big Apple for that grand old tradition. Glad to have at least made it to two. As Old New York fades into less attractive, dumbed-down New York for the cultural void who think Rodgers and Hart is a department store, I can at least fuel my Kitty Carlisle Hart fantasy of being part of the Old/Aulde version if only for a wee while.
Even though Armani on the F train is more than a little sad.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Another grey, November day here in Gotham. Every time this weather that I love so much hits, Joni Mitchell's "Urge For Going" plays on endless reel in my brain.
Worked an event last night for The Margaret Meade Film Festival at The Natural History Museum.
Margaret Meade??? Film Festival??? That's like... The Jane Fonda Salute to Okra...
I couldn't help but wonder exactly what films were being shown. I was surprised to see that there is a theatre within the museum that is the size of a small Broadway house. I've been coming to this museum for 26 years and I still find rooms within rooms. Weird. I used to have a recurring dream that I would find some secret corridor in my Grandmother's house and they would lead to rooms that no one ever uses or knows about. Slightly sinister, but that's the nature of the recurring dream.
Love the old museum... even though last night 8 different kinds of cheeses were crushed and mashed into the carpets. Enough to put you off your dairy.
Worked an event last night for The Margaret Meade Film Festival at The Natural History Museum.
Margaret Meade??? Film Festival??? That's like... The Jane Fonda Salute to Okra...
I couldn't help but wonder exactly what films were being shown. I was surprised to see that there is a theatre within the museum that is the size of a small Broadway house. I've been coming to this museum for 26 years and I still find rooms within rooms. Weird. I used to have a recurring dream that I would find some secret corridor in my Grandmother's house and they would lead to rooms that no one ever uses or knows about. Slightly sinister, but that's the nature of the recurring dream.
Love the old museum... even though last night 8 different kinds of cheeses were crushed and mashed into the carpets. Enough to put you off your dairy.
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Mean Reds, Flour, Butter, Sugar and a Dash of Salt
Truman Capote's main character in Breakfast at Tiffany's complained of the Mean Reds--which are the exact opposite of the Blues... Leave it to those mean little Southern writers... they sure knew how to turn a phrase.
The dinner is paid for, cooked and put away and with nothing on the horizon but a farewell to friends and the temp, gym, audition, lather, rinse, repeat grind stretching endlessly through the holidays... It's nice to have a kitchen (such as it is) stocked with staples.
I may not be able, at the moment, to do what I came back to this town for, but hell... I can FEED people! Strangely enough, it's food for the soul as well to watch someone put something you've added egg yolks, sugar, butter, semi-sweet chocolate, strawberries and a currant glaze to into their mouths and for a split instant, see something pre-empt the nicety they were going to utter and watch them be transported. It may only be for an instant, but it's gratification of a very deep kind to know that you have not only provided sustenance for someone, but taken them--if only for a nanosecond, somewhere memorable.
God made butter and sugar, combined them... and saw that it was GOOD.
A-MEN!
The dinner is paid for, cooked and put away and with nothing on the horizon but a farewell to friends and the temp, gym, audition, lather, rinse, repeat grind stretching endlessly through the holidays... It's nice to have a kitchen (such as it is) stocked with staples.
I may not be able, at the moment, to do what I came back to this town for, but hell... I can FEED people! Strangely enough, it's food for the soul as well to watch someone put something you've added egg yolks, sugar, butter, semi-sweet chocolate, strawberries and a currant glaze to into their mouths and for a split instant, see something pre-empt the nicety they were going to utter and watch them be transported. It may only be for an instant, but it's gratification of a very deep kind to know that you have not only provided sustenance for someone, but taken them--if only for a nanosecond, somewhere memorable.
God made butter and sugar, combined them... and saw that it was GOOD.
A-MEN!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Dinner is Served
Last night I had the final dinner party before Thanksgiving. God love Mastering the Art of French Cooking because three of the four courses were on the table, even though La Julia suggests only serving one per party. Moules a la Marinieres (Mussels steamed with butter, vermouth and shallots), Caneton a l'Orange (Duck with Orange Sauce) which, may I say, is an involved little bitch to make--served with Petits Pois a la Francaise (Little Peas, French Style) and Tarte Fraise with five artery blocking egg yolks and semi sweet chocolate as the base for the Strawberries.
Great company, lovely wine and I think I sat down for about twenty minutes total. The problem with gourmet food is that without a sous chef, you are rarely present at your own dinner party. Up, down, deal with the overflowing honey in the oven that is smoking the living room up worse than Custer's Last Stand, smile, gracefully move about so as not to cause panic while you put out the fire caused by alcohol burn off and hope to Christ that you are not serving a half cooked duck since you are trying to build a bit of a chef's rep with your nearest and dearest and not a trip down Botulism Lane.
Luckily, things seemed to go smoothly-- if not a trifle slow, down to the last served Espresso...
God love patient friends and two wheels of baked Brie with honey, almonds and apples rather than only one.
On to Thanksiving/Christmas/Hannukah...
Fa la la la laaaaaaaaa la la la oy...
Great company, lovely wine and I think I sat down for about twenty minutes total. The problem with gourmet food is that without a sous chef, you are rarely present at your own dinner party. Up, down, deal with the overflowing honey in the oven that is smoking the living room up worse than Custer's Last Stand, smile, gracefully move about so as not to cause panic while you put out the fire caused by alcohol burn off and hope to Christ that you are not serving a half cooked duck since you are trying to build a bit of a chef's rep with your nearest and dearest and not a trip down Botulism Lane.
Luckily, things seemed to go smoothly-- if not a trifle slow, down to the last served Espresso...
God love patient friends and two wheels of baked Brie with honey, almonds and apples rather than only one.
On to Thanksiving/Christmas/Hannukah...
Fa la la la laaaaaaaaa la la la oy...
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Maine Event... and Other Opinions.
Well... I'm not a political person, but in lieu of the latest electoral events in Maine, California, my native state of Florida (as opposed to state of mind--which is anything BUT Floridian), Arkansas, etc... it's time to drop my two cents into the offering plate. Read on if you like.
What on earth gives voting people the right to think that they can legislate someone's personal relationships second tier by not granting them the same rights as any other couple--and to do it based on something as biologically random as gender. In a world where the discovery of lasting love is becoming more endangered than the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, to narrow-mindedly decree from a self-proscribed perch that YOUR love is superior and somehow more legitimate than another's and to use the law to crowbar your bigotry strikes me as the newest and and by far the lowest level of organized bigotry and stupidity. And certainly fear.
From my point of view to argue that same sex marriage "is one more step on the ladder to child abuse" is inane.
We are talking about consenting grownups here, folks... Not "See Jimmy's baby sitter touch him inappropriately".
And while we're on the subject--if you are going to use the Christian religion that these voters always use to back up their lunacy:
New Testament:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."--1 Tim. 2:11-14
................................................................................................
I cite these quotes rather than come up with new ones as people who have denied rights to others consistently use both The Bible and the founding fathers as a bully pulpit from which to spew some of the most ignorant, misinformed and fear based rhetoric I have ever heard and have now lost my patience with hearing
For me this DEBATE is over. It is no longer on the table for discussion. It is something to be fought for and won. Not earned. It was earned simply because we exist.
Act Up used some ways to get attention that I didn't agree with, but they also shouted the following, "We're here, we're Queer, get USED to it" and guess what folks... we ain't goin' anywhere... except the front pages as this wages on. When it works, you'll find that America is a very loud nation. Lots of constitutionally protected free speech going on out there.
I don't believe in violence to get the gig. Ghandi, Dr. King, etc... I fervently believe that this was the right idea. Perhaps a bit slower in coming to fruition, but certainly more wholesome and with less residual anger.
My fervent hope is that one day--in the hopefully not too distant future, whom one loves is as much a non-issue to one's fellow man/woman as the weather.
When the time comes that the parades, the PRIDE weeks, etc. become nostalgia rather than controversy--that is when we will yet again have another amazing example of The American Experiment moving along.
Grace and Peace,
Preston
What on earth gives voting people the right to think that they can legislate someone's personal relationships second tier by not granting them the same rights as any other couple--and to do it based on something as biologically random as gender. In a world where the discovery of lasting love is becoming more endangered than the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, to narrow-mindedly decree from a self-proscribed perch that YOUR love is superior and somehow more legitimate than another's and to use the law to crowbar your bigotry strikes me as the newest and and by far the lowest level of organized bigotry and stupidity. And certainly fear.
From my point of view to argue that same sex marriage "is one more step on the ladder to child abuse" is inane.
We are talking about consenting grownups here, folks... Not "See Jimmy's baby sitter touch him inappropriately".
And while we're on the subject--if you are going to use the Christian religion that these voters always use to back up their lunacy:
New Testament:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."--1 Tim. 2:11-14
| I Corinthians | 11:3-15 | Man is head of woman; only man in God's image |
| 14:34-35 | Women keep in silence, learn only from husbands |
| Ephesians | 5:22-33 | "Wives, submit . . ." |
| Colossians | 3:18 | More "wives submit" |
| I Timothy | 2:9 | Women adorn selves in shamefacedness |
| 2:11-14 | Women learn in silence in all subjection; Eve was sinful, Adam blameless |
Church writer Tertullian said "each of you women is an Eve . . . You are the gate of Hell, you are the temptress of the forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law."
Martin Luther decreed: "If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing, she is there to do it."
And, as I recall, Y'shua ben Joseph (AKA Jesus) had NOTHING to say on same sex realtionships at ALL, but he had PLENTY to say about divorce and god knows THAT is legal and even accepted now.
3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, F428 testing Him and asking, "Is R690 it lawful for a man to divorce F429 his wife for any reason at all?" 4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that R691 He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, `FOR R692 THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE R693 TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'? 6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." 7 They said to Him, "Why R694 then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?" 8 He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce F430 your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 "And I say to you, whoever R695 divorces F431 his wife, except for immorality, F432 and marries another woman commits F433 adultery." F434
So--there go female Governors (Sorry, Sarah Palin--your chomosomes prohibit you from having dominion over men--WHAT? It's in The BIBLE!!! I'm just sayin'!)
Women fought for and WON their emancipation. Part of the reason for it being so overdue in its arrival were the views of the people who held to the above biblical strictures.
All I'm saying here is that if you are going to use The Christian Bible to prescribe the national laws, I don't really think that cherry picking through your most sacred writings is going to win any points with The Guy you are ultimately trying to impress.
What I see, when I look between the lines, is that to allow same-sex marriage would bring a new definition into the national paradigm and Americans have always had a very difficult time with allowing for difference and tolerance-especially where race and sexuality are concerned (we were initially settled by Puritans--despite their T-type make up)
In a nation later formed by Deists (and yes folks, that's what the founding fathers were), adhering so strongly to CERTAIN aspects of a religion in order to shape that nation's laws goes completely AGAINST what they were trying to accomplish.
While the concept of homosexuality may have been something totally unknown, perverse or foreign (I find that hard to believe considering it's been around as long as Adam & Steve met at that very first Tea Dance) to founders of this country, laws of oppression were NOT. A new nation conceived in liberty--not the archaic laws of The Middle East thousands of years ago, is a nation in which the majority does not get to decide the inalienable rights of the minority.
And speaking of the above; for my FINAL quote of the day -
l, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Thomas Jefferson - who also wrote HIS translation of The Bible said the above.................................................................................................
I cite these quotes rather than come up with new ones as people who have denied rights to others consistently use both The Bible and the founding fathers as a bully pulpit from which to spew some of the most ignorant, misinformed and fear based rhetoric I have ever heard and have now lost my patience with hearing
For me this DEBATE is over. It is no longer on the table for discussion. It is something to be fought for and won. Not earned. It was earned simply because we exist.
Act Up used some ways to get attention that I didn't agree with, but they also shouted the following, "We're here, we're Queer, get USED to it" and guess what folks... we ain't goin' anywhere... except the front pages as this wages on. When it works, you'll find that America is a very loud nation. Lots of constitutionally protected free speech going on out there.
I don't believe in violence to get the gig. Ghandi, Dr. King, etc... I fervently believe that this was the right idea. Perhaps a bit slower in coming to fruition, but certainly more wholesome and with less residual anger.
My fervent hope is that one day--in the hopefully not too distant future, whom one loves is as much a non-issue to one's fellow man/woman as the weather.
When the time comes that the parades, the PRIDE weeks, etc. become nostalgia rather than controversy--that is when we will yet again have another amazing example of The American Experiment moving along.
Grace and Peace,
Preston
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