Getting Up To Date

But first, the capper to my yapping about lunatics/Obama's speech to the schoolchildren.

The day after the speech, the following turned up on the Letters to the Editor page in the NY Daily News...I quote, in part:

"...I and other Americans believed that the Socialist who was elected President should not speak to our children. I advised my children to get up and leave the classroom when this pathetic person began his lead-the-sheep-to-the-slaughter speech."

His WHAT speech? Good Lord. I've met these people here and there (usually only once because after that one time I make sure to avoid them if at all possible). They are the ones who say, "Yes, sirree, that's what I think and nobody's gonna change MY mind!" And they usually have pathetic little washed-out wives who pipe up with, "Oh, Bob's just so strong-minded! He NEVER changes his mind about anything!" For some reason, these women seem to be pleased about this. Yeeks.

So on Thursday I hopped the van out to Staten Island, taking an interesting route which dragged us out to Newark Airport, because the driver missed a turn or something, and spent a large amount of time in something called the Romance Bar and Lounge, which is billed as a catering facility. God save me from EVER eating anything from this joint. It was tastefully decorated with a lot of Formica-topped tables (and for some reason, a large statue of St. Joseph behind the bar...I think it was St. Joseph), each one of which had a menu under a see-through layer on top. Evidently this was a Hispanic neighborhood (from what I saw of the area and people, it was actually mostly Hispanic and black...but nice and neat, somehow, with little houses and carefully tended gardens), because the menu was in Spanish/English - I mean a dish would be listed in Spanish followed by English...like Arroz con Pollo/Chicken with Rice.

Talk about trying to cover all bases. The menu had a long list of appetizers, primarily of the chicken fingers and mozzarella sticks variety, the salads, then main courses (chicken, meatloaf, steak). Following all of that, it had a list of Greek dishes. Following that, a list of Italian dishes. And following THAT, a long list of Mexican food. Personally, I have always steered clear of restaurants with that many things on their menus because I invariably feel (and have been proven correct) that A. if you're trying to do that much stuff, you're probably not doing any of it well, and B. since there isn't room in most restaurant kitchens to store all the ingredients for all that food, it's highly likely that it all comes frozen in plastic bags and is dumped into boiling water when you order it. Yes, yes, I know all about the new craze for sous vide food, but we're not talking about that here...these people are doing good old supermarket boil-in-bag veggies.

Anyway, we sat around from about 4 pm (after our nice tour of New Jersey and finally finding Staten Island) to around 6, when we had dinner (yes, an outside location caterer, thank God), after which we sat around some more, and we finally got over to the set about 11 at night. We got filmed listening to Susan Sarandon (who's adorable) telling us about the Hemlock Society, got a look at Al Pacino all made up as Jack Kevorkian, watched Barry Levinson direct Miss Sarandon, and got wrapped about 1 am and went home.

So I slept late Friday, and did nothing in particular, ditto Saturday, and on Sunday I got up early because there was supposed to be a flotilla of ships or boats coming up the Hudson in honor of its 400th anniversary, and I wanted to see the replica of Sir Francis Drake's Half Moon. Well, I sat out there for three hours and nothing appeared except a whole bunch of little cigarette boats (which were very noisy) and a few helicopters (also noisy). Also I watched a two-hour yoga class, which made me feel terribly guilty about the fact that my mat is currently rather dusty. However, the actual ships never turned up and I never learned why.

I went home and Vicky came home with Shai in tow and we all sat around on the porch getting blasted and ordered some food (and, by the way, they'd been on the High Line and had seen the damn Half Moon from there...growl).

The result of this debauchery was, of course, a roaring hangover today, which I had to take over to 19th Street for a SAG cold reading for an agent event, which was quite fun, actually. Of course, I have a problem with these things because I go to them, do my reading, am lavishly praised by the agent...and the phone never rings. If you think I'm that goddamn wonderful, why aren't you casting me, fool? Today the bit I read was a PSA (public service announcement), which I picked out of the pile because it suited the outfit I was wearing...one of my new suits (a pants suit) which just screams, "Look! Look! I look JUST like a lawyer on Law & Order! CAST ME!"

Also I got a peculiar invitation from a guy I did a show with a while back to a party at Scores, which seems to have had a Western theme and was advertised as having "Sexy Cowgirls!" Why he thought this might be something I'd enjoy is completely beyond me. I can't imagine myself ever going to Scores for anything, much less to look at sexy cowgirls. One of life's little mysteries, I guess.

No calls for tomorrow from anybody, casting agencies or temp agencies, so I think I'll slop around and do nothing (gee, what a surprise). Wednesday I'm going to go see Phantom of the Opera, of all things, which I've never seen because I have a terrible prejudice against Andrew Lloyd Weber (except for Cats). But an old pal called with free tickets, so what the hell.

And so to bed...

Love, Wendy (with thanks to Samuel Pepys)