Seeing John Malkovich

Living in New York you see a lot of famous people around. Not that you ever get used to it ... there's always a little thrill when you see a celebrity in a place you're not expecting them to be. But, you know, this IS New York. You're bound to run into a star as you go about your own fabulous day.

Wednesday morning on my way to the subway I passed a row of movie trailers parked along the street and thought nothing of it. All very bla bla bla until I looked to the right and saw John Malkovich speaking very intently to a girl who was either a 19 year old PA or a 19 year old fan. Either way, he was being very intense. And this, only a week after running into Chloe Sevigny!

I happen to live in a very filmable area so it's normal to see those long trailers parked along my block. It's sometimes nice but mostly annoying -- like when you're trying to have a romantic baloney sandwich with your Boo on the promenade in the moonlight and get shushed off your bench because it's a "closed set".

I once kept a list of every celebrity I ever bumped into but it was on some hard drive that crashed and I never tried to re-create it. Until now.

A short list of the celebrity encounters (which I can remember) in no particular order and by no means all inclusive:

• Seeing Maria Shriver in the ladies room when I worked at Time Magazine


• Seeing James Earl Jones pass by my desk (again at Time) asking the executive assistant for coffee with "fake milk and fake sugar"


• Having Charles Durning hold the door for me on my way into work at Petersen Publishing
  


• Being in the elevator (at Time again) with Isabella Rosellini
  


• Seeing Rodney Dangerfield walking along a beach in Bel Air with a girl 1/4th his age


• Passing Mike Meyers as he contemplated going into Balthazar


• Seeing Kate Capshaw and Stephen Spielberg at Nobu the night I splurged and had a hugely expensive dinner with friends


• Seeing Buddy Hackett walking through the Noguchi Museum one afternoon


• Seeing Nipsey Russell coming out of a restaurant in midtown


• Seeing a very bony, totally scary looking Melanie Griffith sitting in the window of Thalia


• Having Captian Jean-Luc Picard (okay … Patrick Stewart) sit at the table behind me in a Mexican restaurant on the Upper East Side and trying not to hang on every word coming out of his mouth in that gorgeous voice of his
  


• Bumping into Caroline Rhea near Rockefeller Center


• Seeing a tiny tiny Joan Rivers come out of The American Airlines Theatre


• Watching Geraldo Rivera strut so comically down the street in front of the ICP that I thought he was doing it to be funny. Turns out he's just cocky.


• Attending an all star (Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Christopher Walken, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marcia Gay Harden, John Goodman) performance of The Seagull at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and spotting Alec Baldwin and Candice Bergen in the audience while I sat right behind Christoper and Dana Reeves


• Seeing Alec Baldwin again later in the park after the performance (I'm not kidding) shouting at someone on his cell phone. (Too long ago to be his daughter, but maybe it was Kim).


• Being introduced to Gloria Steinem by a mutual friend at an event and having her graciously say "hello" and then ask "Do you know where my coat is?"


• Years later, seeing Alec Baldwin (again!) come out of a Union Square movie trying to ignore the crowd calling out to him
  


• Seeing Brooke Shields on the subway
  


• Catching Al Sharpton's eye as he was making a speech to the cameras and have him stutter when I winked flirtatiously (back when I was a cute 19 year old PA for an investigative news show)


• Watching Mikhail Baryshnikov during practice rehearsal at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center
  


• Seeing Paul Giamatti just hanging out in front of a store around the corner from my house soon after Sideways came out
  


• Seeing John Gotti having a nice sit-down in Little Italy and hearing the guy in front of me say "You know, I’m not gay, but that John Gotti is one good looking guy!"


• Standing behind Robert Klein in a crowd scene (when I was an extra) during the filming of Next Stop Wonderland
  


• Seeing Ed Koch in front of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center
  

• Seeing Eric Bogosian brooding on the subway
  


• Being alone with Mario Bosquez in the elevator … and watching him close his eyes so he wouldn’t have to speak with me when I turned to smile at him
  


• Being introduced to Richard Metzger after he gave a presentation at a Howard Bloom event I was involved with

• Seeing Boy George who, after hours of performing at a record store and signing autographs, STILL had a better makeup job than me


• Seeing Pope John Paul address the crowd from his summer home, Castel Gandolfo, in Italy


• Getting my picture taken with Rudy Giuliani during Sport Magazine's Christmas party (we were sharing the venue with the Fire Department's Christmas Party. He'd come to celebrate with them, but got us too).


• Having Charles Shaughnessy come up and ask me and some friends "What's this line for?" as we were going into The Town Hall. Richard Avedon was in the audience with us listening as Woody Allen and Steve Martin read pieces they'd written for the New Yorker

• Seeing José Eber in the reception area of Sassy Magazine
  

• Seeing Michael Badalucco on the R train in Brooklyn graciously smile as a guy came up to him and said "My wife makes me watch The Practice ... so I know you're famous from that ... otherwise I wouldn't know who you are ..."
  

• Sitting in the same row as Andrew Lloyd Webber at a performance of Bombay Dreams


• Taking meetings with an out-of-drag Lady Bunny in my short-lived stint as a comedy writer for her sketch comedy show that never got off the ground


• Trailing behind Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman at a street fair a few days after Cheers aired their last episode


• Seeing Tom Hulce milling around the audience the night I went to see a screening of Amadeus at a Monday Nights with Oscar event
  


• Seeing Margaret Cho come to a screening of her film, Notorious C.H.O. at Time Inc's joint GLBT/Asian Society (or as my friend called it, the Gaysian Society) event


• Having John Waters sign my copy of Hairspray and ignore me during my sycophantic gushing ... even though I was the only one on line


• Meeting Lidia Bastianich at her restaurant Felidia two of the three times I was there

• Getting an interview with former SNL producer (and ex Woody Allen friend) Jean Doumanian and blowing my chance at working for her by telling her I'd read all about her in a book that painted her as an evil witch
  

Well, that's all I can remember for now. But if you're someone famous and want to get on my list ... contact me! We'll arrange an obscure place to bump into each other. Then, voila! You're on my list. And congratulations to you on that.

Dueling Evitas ~OR~ Shut up, Patti LuPone!

There's an episode of Will & Grace where Jack tries to ignore Patti LuPone as she chatters, crawls around on the floor, and just generally makes herself un-ingnorable. At one point he screams "Shut up Patti LuPone! Shut your brassy, magnificent trap!!!"

She turns around and deadpans … "They either love me or they hate me." I laughed. I laughed because I ... hate her. Those are HER WORDS ... (though they're mine too).

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate her personally ... I just can't stand the way she sings. I'm sure if I had to sit next to her at a gala dinner she'd be pleasant enough company. (Note to the committee planning any gala dinner party to which I am invited: Please don't seat me next to Patti LuPone despite what I just said.)

I remember complaining to a co-worker about how I couldn't stomach her strident braying which evaporated every drop of sensitivity that moistened the sappy I Dreamed a Dream (which, I admit, is my most favorite song from Les Miz because I, myself, am sappy and dripping with syrup). In fact, before I read the liner notes and found out it was her I remember complaining loudly (and often) "Whoever sings that song does that annoying Patti LuPone thing". Leave it to Patti LuPone to do that annoying Patti LuPone thing.

Sure, she starts off making you feel all sorry for her with her plaintive "There was a time … it all went wrong." But by the time she gets to "I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living" I'm always left clutching my ears and thinking how much less her life would be hell if she could only learn to speak softly and not FORCE every note from her "brassy trap", in that manner that makes her sound like a senior citizen at the early bird special in Boca Raton demanding that the staff put out more croutons and Roquefort dressing in the all-you-can-eat salad bar ... because they've run out AGAIN.

I still love the song. I still hate Patti LuPone.

This co-worker thought he would deflate me by (after my rant) declaring "Patti's a friend of the family" (I think he delivered the line with an arched brow). Sure, I mentally stumbled a bit and the starf*cker inside me shouted "Oooooh boy! Can I meet her!!!! Can I got to a gala dinner with her!!!" But I actually stood my ground and held fast to my opinion and declared, with a toss of my head, "I still don't like her so I don't apologize".

Later that year I went with this friend and some others to see Sweeney Todd in concert. The lead was sung by George Hearn (love love LOVE) and Neil Patrick Harris was there, singing his little heart out too. (Who could resist him as he cooed "Nothin's gonna harm you ... not while I'm around"?) Of course Patti "couldn't pick a worse choice for Mrs. Lovitt if you tried" LuPone was also there, pushing her voice through the notes so hard that I though she was trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with her singing alone. It almost ruined the whole experience for me except 1) I got to see George Hearn reprise the role I'd taped off of PBS when I was a teen and 2) Stephen Sondheim made a surprise appearance at the curtain call and I just about fainted and clapped so much it was as if I were trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with clapping alone. Small aside ... I could never be sure but I was almost CERTAIN that one Ms. Monica (dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers ... wait ... I mean NOT-dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers) Lewinsky was in attendance that evening as well. What she was doing there I don't know. Possibly waiting around to flirt with Doogie Howser. See, she's like that -- always picking the wrong guy.

That was also the night I found out that when my co-worker said that Patti was a "friend of the family" he actually meant a "friend of a FRIEND". And Patti was not so much a "friend of" a friend so much as a "person being stalked by" a friend. So.

When Evita came out in the late 70s the commercials were blasted at me every afternoon during Texas, a short-lived but memorable (at least to me) spin off of Another World. It starred Beverlee McKinsey as Iris Carrington in all her blond dameness ("dame" as in "what's a dame like you doing in a gin joint like this?" ... not "Dame" as in Dame any-British-actress-name-here) along with a bunch of other people who I don't remember because they weren't dames ... which is what I wanted to become when I was a child. A gum chewin' street talkin' dame. (I think I just about made it to 'broad' some time around 5 years ago ... then slid back into 'ma'am'.) So obsessed was I with Iris Carrington that my incessant chatter about her influenced my friend Ookanuba to use the name "Iris" in her very frightening one-page stage play "A Terror for Iris". (Admittedly part of Ookanuba's Juvenilia Canon but nonetheless BRILLIANT.)

There was another character, Kurt Laverty, who my mother and I subsequently saw one year in the late 70s at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. We promptly followed him around all afternoon watching him and his wife and children. On the way back we bumped into Stiller & Meara. (If you make me qualify that by adding "You know ... Ben Stiller's parents" I will have to take you to school.) New York was like that in those days, with random celebrities popping up during the normal course of a day. (Though truth be told it's like that today too ... I just bumped into Chloe Sevigny yesterday on West 4th and Perry Street ... but I was jabbering on my cell and trying to navigate to Charles Street so I was not that interested in Ms. Sevigny in all her downtown glory.) Point being, I know what it's like to stalk someone for an afternoon. A little boring. Very much. Very boring.

Anyway, I watched Texas every afternoon and the Evita commercial played every afternoon and so my childhood was impressed with this image of Patti stretching out her arm and beseeching Mandy Patinkin to "not keep his distance" and braying "just a little touch of Star Quality" so unintelligibly that for years I had no idea what she was saying. The commercial fascinated me. Her voice distracted me. The whole thing disturbed me. I was hooked on hating her.

So of course you have to understand my complete dismissal of EVITA until many many years later when, in the zenith of my Madonna Worship I lived the story of her journey to play Evita on the big screen. I knew of her seven page entreaty to Alan Parker. I saw her "Take a Bow" video which was shot as such a period piece that there was no mistaking that she was auditioning for the role to the whole wide world. Of course there's also the sub-plot ... Madonna's jump-the-gun ("I'll probably never get married, so I might as well keep this baby since I'm not getting any younger") pregnancy which was kept a secret from Alan Parker until there was no more denying it ... leaving Mr. Parker to cleverly try and disguise her tummy with purses and a children's chorus during the shooting.

The movie (and it's very long lead-in) coincided with me being downsized from a job that was too small for me anyway so I had nothing better to do than spend 6 months rehearsing in my apartment, memorizing the EVITA album and ultimately getting so good at my living room performance that I was able to bring myself to tears EVERY TIME I sang the grand death scene. EVERY TIME. This is a skill shared by me and only one other actress. Yes, Meryl Streep. Just the two of us can cry so convincingly take after take. That's right. JUST US.

At some point, just because the Madonna soundtrack was on a never ending loop I broke down and bought the Patti LuPone version in order to do some field research ... to better round out my nightly living room performances. I think I managed to listen to the Patti version once.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't consider Madonna the better Evita. Or the better singer, really. Or even the more interesting personality. Not by a long shot. And while I find her softer take on Evita more palatable it is NOT a better interpretation and really only speaks to the limited range of Madonna's acting ability which was only as good as it was because she didn't have to speak. (This is how Holly Hunter won her best actress award for The Piano, you know.) Despite my obsession, I always saw this for what it was: Madonna wanting to be considered a credible actress and refusing to admit that that ship had sailed. To Shanghai, I think. What a surprise.

So ... my vote for best Evita? It's obvious. Elaine Paige.

Get Offa My Street

There was nothing like being in Madison Square Garden during Madonna's Confessions Tour when, during I Love New York, thousands of New Yorkers pumped their first in solidarity screaming over and over Get Offa My Street ... GET OFFA MY STREET!

You'd have to be a born and bred New Yorker to truly understand.

Half of the joy of living in New York is having the city to yourself while everyone rushes off to East Hampton or Montauk or wherever they go for the last-shebang-long-weekend-before-the-kids- go-back-to-school. Me, I like to stay in town and spin down the middle of Times Square with my arms wide open and relish the solitude. HA! Come on! New York is never THAT empty, and besides -- the tourists are flooding the traps like crazed maniacs (Looky here, Shirley, a real live Broadway Show poster! Right outside the real subway! Getcher camera out! Take a pitcher!) but the other places, the places WE go ... those are blissfully empty.

On Friday my Boo Quibbit and I met up with Quimica (the lil gal responsible for putting us together almost two years ago) and Ookanuba (my oldest love-her-like-a-sister gal pal) and hit the MoMA where we touched the Richard Serra exhibit (inside) and got corrected by a museum guard (but could run our hands along it outside in the garden to our hearts content). Quibbit had a great time making "oooooh!" noises to hear the resonance in certain spots. Had we been the only four people there I'd have suggested a little impromptu doo-wop but we were creating a bottle neck so we moved on. Also, despite my ability to get us all in for free with an old ID from a past job it was also one of those Target sponsored Free Nights so we could barely get close enough to other paintings to get yelled at again.

Afterwards, since Quimica is a vegetarian and Ookanuba leans towards it much of the time, we all went to Zenith where I was able to have sushi and share an order of scallion pancakes with veggie ham. The four of us haven't been together in a long time and conversation was fast, jumbled and exploded in streams of consciousness. We discussed In The Bedroom and its themes of vengeance and loyalty, we spoke about Goethe's Faust, and the very disturbing version that Ookanuba has on VHS that scared the bejesus out of me even though we watched it in the middle of the day in a well lit room. (No, I never wish to see it again.)

We spoke about the probability of artificial intelligence becoming self correcting/assembling enough to take over the world. We allowed for the possibility and dissected the need for humans to make correlations based on emotional reactions which computers can't mimic. We spoke about the periodic table and my three dinnermates got very excited about a bookmark Ookanuba owns that includes the actinides and the lanthanides which are usually left off though I don't know why ... I'm not quite as scientific as they are but I'm an enthusiastic nodder.

Ookanuba and I recounted stories of when we were little girls and spent summers on the stoop making up plays and dances and treating our rehearsal time very seriously ("Luvvie! Get out here! We're losing the light!!!"). We spoke for so long that we didn't even realize the restaurant had emptied. But not because we closed the joint down ... because it was a long weekend and no one was in town!

We continued the conversation at Thalia (equally dead) where talk turned to riddles. (Ookanuba's contribution: what's long brown and sticky? A stick. Quimica's contribution from Gollum: Alive without breath, as cold as death; never thirsty ever drinking, all in mail never clinking. Answer: A fish.) Ookanuba and I ordered vodka and grapefruit juice remembering that they were called Greyhounds -- and already a little buzzed thus amused at the notion of being 1950s housewives entertaining on the weekends in our backyard cabanas, serving up a tray of Greyhounds to Millicent and Bud and Mildred and Ace while the kids played in the kiddie pool. Things are funny when you're buzzed. Quibbit stuck with tonic water.

Other highlights of the weekend include long brunches with Quibbit (a beef brisket sandwich beyond compare served up at Chicory Brooklyn), movies, reading, walking along the promenade to take in the view and enjoy the beautiful weather, and a very enlightening episode of Daisy Cooks! which included a recipe for Ropa Vieja that was so mouthwatering that it made me cry. Not figuratively, LITERALLY cry ... as if my salivary glands were so over-worked that they had to borrow some tear ducts in order to convey to my face just how much I wished I could be eating this amazing dish of beef, tomato sauce and heaven. Thank God I'm no cook or I'd have been holed up in the kitchen for the rest of the weekend freezing individual portions of sofrito to add to my next batch of Ropa Vieja. (My one attempt at pancakes one morning was fine, except that when I flipped one over somehow I got a damn spatter of grease above my right eyebrow that immediately blistered).

All in all, a totally blissful three day New York weekend. Stay tuned tomorrow when, in the middle of Union Square you'll find me screaming at tourists to get offa my street. Or at least mumbling at them under my breath ...