Oak Rooms, Diamonds, White House Gate Crashers and One Man Shows

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...