LIZA in VEGAS!

The other night I was channel surfing and there was Liza Minnelli doing a Vegas show singing her heart out. The last I had really heard about her was when I was playing violin in the pit of "Victor Victoria" and Liza took over for Julie Andrews after she left the show. (Liza was then followed by Rachel Welch...um wait. Rachel was going to try to pass for a MAN? With HER bazongas? Sheesh. P.S. The show closed two weeks later but that's another story).

When Liza was singing in "Victor/Victoria" you could hear the vocal challenge of it in her voice. One night her voice just quit. It was gone and she couldn't sing another note. There's a scene where the Julie Andrews character (then Liza) would lie on the stage at the end of one scene. Liza was shaking. There is back story here, however, on the many things she's put her body through over the years (see Studio 54) so that would explain the shaking I guess. Anyway flash forward I was glad to see her in her element givin' 'em all she's got in Vegas! She's back, world! LOOK OUT! The audience was eating it up. She had male dancers backing her up, costume changes (of course!) and a great band. It reminded me of the words that are so true. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Judy Garland seemed like she was most at home on stage. The audience, her public, was her true family and gave her the greatest sense of well-being. I have her two record famous Carnegie Hall concert which went down in history. I don't think there was a gay man in NY who wasn't there or who didn't wish he could have been there. Listening to it I can understand. That lady had been through a lot. She understood life's pain.

Liza kind of followed right in step with what her mother did and how she lived. Judy Garland never had a chance in the substance department. As a little girl I was so upset hearing how the studio would have her taking uppers in the morning so she'd be up and ready to film and then downers at night to sleep from such a young age. How would she ever know anything else? How would Liza ever know any other way to live? Her mother was her role model. She has really turned it around though and had tremendous stamina in her Vegas show all from natural resources if that makes sense rather than chemical. Anyway! Just call me lady from the sidelines givin' my 2 cents!

I just love seeing people who crave the stage. There was one TV show from the 60's I saw with Judy Garland and two other personalities and they had been doing a trio on stage. As they took their bows each one kept running back onstage to take another bow. It started to be hilarious because this was where they wanted to be. None of them wanted to give up the stage and the warmth from the audience and the glitz and the glamor of it all. As soon as they'd leave the stage it would be back to humdrum life again. Who wants that?!

Well I don't know where I'm going with all of this. I have a love/hate thing with showbiz where I love the stage and seeing people loving being on stage and all the shtick that Liza did in her show so well. The hate part is what a tough and fickle biz it is. It's like you have to keep thinking of ways to capture the easily distracted public's attention. (see Madonna) There was a poignant moment when Lucille Ball was introducing herself year's later after she had retired from television and she said, "I'm Lucille Ball. I used to be in television." Like we'd ever forget her! She was a legend without peer and gave the world so much enjoyment and laughter from her shows. I guess if the blazing lights aren't on you for a while you think, "They've forgotten me." I love it when one of my sister's says about the stage, "Every time I think I'm out, it PULLS me back again!"

My mom used to introduce me to an empty kitchen as she spoke into the end of a jump rope. I would wait expectantly off stage while she did her introduction (which was about ME!) and I'd come out and perform on my broken guitar with no back on it. Where does that impulse come from? That URGE to be on stage? I don't know. I have a basement full of wigs, costumes, funny glasses and I don't understand any of it except I'm more at home in a thrift shop than in a department store. I'd spend my last farthing on a funny wig or terrible pantsuit before buying a new coat. It gives me something! I get a lot of use out of those costumes. When I was putting together my one-woman show I didn't even need to buy anything. It was all downstairs WAITING to be put to use!

This is probably something for another day but thinking about showbiz and how artificial it can be I have been fascinated by the phenomenon of Lady Gaga. She is so manufactured and artificial that she can weather the spotlight even more easily than someone standing next to her who is put together and being glam but still being something resembling themselves. Lady Gaga is a total creation and you can't compete with that in being eye catching...the REALLY blond hair and the ultra-glam costumes, etc. I saw her standing near Britney Spears and I thought Britney hasn't gone far enough by a LONG SHOT to compete with this Lady Gaga media creation. Do you know what I mean? It's like what if you gave the public exactly what they want (assuming they have a short attention span and we may assume this, right? Right? With me? Cool?) So my point was if you gave the public exactly what they want you'd be Lady Gaga so I say hat's off and hooray for how she's done it. She seems to be having a lot of fun keeping herself in the public eye and wearing some fabulous fashions in the process. Oh and she sings too!

INNOCENCE OF YOUTH

I want to tell you a little story...there once was a little girl in 1st grade who tried to do everything right. Her teacher would ask the class every morning, "Who brushed their teeth?" The girl raised her hand. "Who went to bed at 8 o'clock?" The girl raised her hand. Then one night it was 8:20(!) and the little girl had STILL not gone to bed. She cried as she sat on her bed. Her dad looked at her puzzled and asked, "Why are you crying? What's wrong?" The little girl said, "Mrs. Neville asks us every morning if we went to bed at 8 o'clock and it's 8:20!" The girl's father had nothing to add to that.

Do you see the level of obedience and sense of order in that 1st grader? Yikes! And you guessed it. That little girl....(drumroll)... was ME! What a little rule follower. What a nerd. That's not the end of it. The teacher,Mrs. Neville, told our class we could never say the words 'shut up'. Fine. One day, though, Mrs. Neville blew her stack and yelled at our class, "SHUT UP!!!!" Understandable. Not to Little Miss Rule Follower.com, however. I went up to Mrs. Neville after school and started to cry (crying AGAIN?!)asking her why she told us to shut up when she said never to say those words. (Can you believe this kid? God. Get a LIFE!) Anyway back to the story, Mrs. Neville took me on her lap and said very deftly, "I didn't tell you to shut up. I told you that you don't know HOW to shut up." That's kind of like the moment when the Grinch says to Cindy Lu Hoo that he's taking the Christmas tree to fix the one light which won't light. Well her explanation worked for me. My nicely ordered world was restored.

Why am I writing all this? Maybe it was lucky to be such an innocent 1st grader. Maybe there's a comfort in such an ordered life and the innocence in thinking people will always mean what they say. I obviously had no problem stepping right in line with authority. Flash forward to 6th grade when I did a really dumb thing after school with a pack of bad girls who weren't usually that bad. Anyway we egged the gym teacher's car after school. I don't even remember what we were mad about. I think we just plain didn't like her. Well it was really dumb and terrible and all that. The point is I went home and told my mom about it. She was shocked and disappointed in me of course but this wasn't my usual thing so she didn't freak. Plus I had just told her about it so when the phone rang and it was the principal saying I had egged the gym teacher's car with these other girls my mom said, "I know." The principal said, "You DO?!" "Yeah," my mom replied. "Britt told me." That was nice that the shock value the principal was counting on just wasn't there. I had been rotten but at least I was honest about it.

I guess we all have to make our peace with authority. It never occurred to me that I didn't have to run all 8 laps in 7th grade gym class, that maybe I could have walked a few of them. It was like, show me the task and I'll do it! Maybe I'm the one who should be going to boot camp. NO!!!!! Snap out of it! Go to the movies! Have some candy! Be rotten! Whatever.

My reverence for authority has definitely calmed down,however. The authority of a conductor of an orchestra you don't respect, for instance. There was one conductor who shouted during rehearsal, "NO PHOTOGRAPHS!!!" I guess there was someone from the local paper there. The conductor proceeded to pose dramatically during the rehearsal like he was Herbert effin' von Karajan. This same conductor always told us we weren't as good as other orchestras he'd worked with. Charming! Just the way to get us motivated...to KILL YOU, IDIOT CONDUCTOR!!! The more worked up someone like that gets, the more low energy I get.

I can't fake it when I don't like someone. It shows in my eyes. I got these terrible headshots taken by this photographer with REALLY LIMITED social skills and he looked at my clothes that I was going to wear for the photo shoot and he asked, "Is this all you have?" I proceeded to glare at him through a smile, which is tricky, for the whole session. What a waste of time. Hated it. Why was I getting these photos taken by this guy? Well, thanks for asking. I had been seeing a career coach who had recommended him.

This same career coach was the one who said I had to change the way I spoke. I could no longer say, "I think" or "I feel". I had to now say, "I NOTICE the thought" or "I NOTICE the feeling". This was going to be a hard little spell for me with this career coach. It wasn't the right fit shall we say. In one session I talked about something in the past and he stopped me and said, "Look behind you." I turned around and stared at the wall and then looked back. He asked, "What do you see?" I replied, "Nothing." "EXACTLY!" he said. I have a pretty high bullshit meter and this was one of those moments when I thought, "Really? Does this song and dance work for your other clients?" Hated it. Hope you enjoyed yourself though. I wonder if he's still transforming lives in NY. He certainly provided me with some lovely comedy and you know what?! I had grown up! I was no longer the obedient little 1st grader who couldn't discern between which rules I needed to follow and which rules were, pardon my French, pure bullshit.

DARN THAT PLASTIC SURGERY :(

After yesterday's post talking about Dyan Cannon and her plastic surgery I felt bad that I said she was dressing like a teenager in her 60's. God bless ya whatever you want to do I say. I guess I'm writing again because if you consider plastic surgery it's one of these modern everyday evils that women face or especially Hollywood celebs. I just think it's a shame. I understand why women(and men) get plastic surgery to stay young looking and viable to keep working in the very fickle entertainment industry but can we just stop for a minute and say it's sad? I miss Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Holly Hunter, Meg Ryan, Jessica Lange, etc. etc. etc! They get DONE and they disappear forever! OK So I'm being a drama queen again. They are all pressured to get plastic surgery and I get it. Really. It IS scary though because in an eerie way they still look their age just more like a taut mask or clown version of who they were. Their expression for utter terror and sheer delight look kind of the same. WEIRD! Perhaps I exaggerate but I'm trying to make a point!

True not everyone can be Meryl Streep as she glides through life receiving countless Oscars and nominations and great roles and she hasn't had anything done. She becomes the exception and certainly not the rule in the world of cosmetic surgery. We're all like lemmings to the sea getting used to things being a certain way and we just accept it. Look at the Aspen magazines with the cavalcade of plastic surgery believers. All these women look at each other and have to follow suit. How dare you look your age? Your husband will LEAVE you! Well he might leave you anyway. I don't have any answers. I just write this stuff.

I just miss seeing people as they could be if they just left themselves alone. I'm not knocking Hollywood but I'm kind of knocking the part of Hollywood that says you're only interesting if you're young or young-looking or skinny as a rail or whatever! Oh no. Now I'm crying! (kidding) It's like you need to have a deep dissatisfaction with yourself or you ain't in the game, sistah. (I've noticed I've put 'sistah' in about every one of my blog entries. Thanks for hangin' in there with me:) So that's my 2 cents for today. Hope you have a good one! Catch ya on the flip side...Peace. Out.

BOOT CAMP

You know, I know NOBODY wants to hear about anybody else's fat ass but their own. That said I finally took myself over to my neighborhood rec center to pump some iron and to kick some ass...my ass. Call it a New Year's resolution or trying to recapture how disciplined I once was when I lived in LA and was tryin' to keep up with the young folk. Not that I'm old folk but I'm off-the-radar folk now so it's hard to motivate shall we say. (But when I was ON the radar did I even know it?! What IS the radar?)

I realized how bad I've been when I couldn't even find the card to get me in the rec center. They looked up my account and said, "It's expired." It's kind of like saying, "YOU'VE expired. You're a melon and honey, you've gone bad." "Crap," I thought. "This is JUST what I need." The lady then said, however, "You have a punch card that has 30 punches left on it." This meant that I had gone to the gym 10 times in 2 YEARS!!! OK? YEARS!!!! Ugh...
She then went on to say, "I can credit those toward a new card or you can use them up in 2 months." I thought for a moment and was like, "Sistah, it's on." In other words I have to use that rec center 30 times before the end of March when I couldn't seem to use it 10 times, that's not even once a month, in 2 solid years.

I love the denial about myself like I'm actually going to do this but I'm doing it! It's happening! I'm telling you! I've CHANGED!! I've been to the gym TWICE already! It's like one of those commercials, "I lost 3 pounds in 3 years and I KEPT it off!" "I'm going to have the body I've always dreamed of!" This woman advertised a diet once that just involved breathing. Did anyone else see this? She almost had me convinced. There was a talk that was given to these ladies about fraudulent claims and products and one example was these vacuum pants which you hooked to a vacuum cleaner and they supposedly sucked the fat right out of your body! After the presenter had explained that these magic sucking pants didn't work and that people shouldn't be fooled, a woman asked for the company's phone number I guess so she could order a pair. Dearie me!

I can't point fingers or say anything though because I've ordered aerobic eye training glasses which supposedly would improve my eye sight. (Doesn't 'aerobic' mean heart? Never mind!) The glasses were plastic with tiny pin holes all over the lenses so you looked through a kind of honey comb effect. The instructions actually said to not drive a car while wearing them. Good to know. Flash forward. Next thing I know they're featured on a "Shame On You" report on TV. My sister looked on the bright and said I now had a nice bee costume for Halloween. That girl is sassy.

On the subject of denial or blind spots, I'm one of those people who will take a pair of jeans off the rack to try on and I can't even get my leg in them. This is like a major disconnect with what I actually look like. Plus I find this subject so boring and here I go prattling on about gym this and jeans that and weight gain and being called ma'am. That's a real road sign of life when you just ARE ma'am now. You've got the look, the dead eyes, the sagging breasts, the washed-up demeanor. I'm kidding. Really! It's just amusing thank god because I don't live in LA anymore. I'd much rather be an eccentric older woman in NY wearing funny glasses and going to classical music concerts than an LA plastic surgery creation who still dresses like a teenager in her 60's. (see Dyan Cannon)

So where was I? Oh yes. I can put myself through a regimen of scales, etudes, and concertos every day for years so a gym schedule is a picnic, darling. I'm wary though of putting myself through the wringer so to speak. I mean those gym machines are so treacherous and the people grunting and groaning and sweating, uh! What are we doing?! I have this friend who is actually going to boot camp. She's joining the military. She's married, has two kids, and is doing this so she can have a job playing in an orchestra. Wait a minute. To get that job in an orchestra you've already PUT yourself through boot camp just learning how to play the violin well enough to GET the job and now you're going to have to fling your body over one of those big walls with a rope and then run through tires and then run 10 miles in horrible boots? Am I missing something? Don't get me wrong I'm glad she got the job and I'm all for this "be all you can be" thing but still! It's like if you work it right you can make your whole life like boot camp.

You don't have to be in the army to do boot camp or "boot camp" (but the fake one is still grueling I've heard). A musician I know hurt her shoulder really badly doing fake boot camp and found it painful to play. Why do it? You can feel pain just playing your instrument without the gravy of really punishing yourself.

I wonder if someone doesn't seek out a boot camp or marathon, decathalon, triathalon goal when they somehow have missed out on this level of intensity in their profession or their lives. Then again some people just like to run around a lot and that's nice. My point is though and there is a point and here it comes! If you've done classical music or if you've gone to Juilliard or any music school you've BEEN to boot camp. The kind of boot camp where they REALLY f*** with your mind! If you've achieved the level of excellence it takes to get a job in music or be a soloist or get a job in an orchestra you've already got 'em beat in the boot camp department. You deserve a break today at McDonald's. Get a McRib!