WORLD PREMIERE THIS WEEKEND!: Peri Lyons is "Famous In France"

Peri Lyons' new neo-cabaret show, "Famous In France", is an insane meditation on our culture's obsession with celebrity and includes "An Explanation", a song written from the point of view of the wife of the Marquis de Sade, and the cult hit "I Google You", written by NY Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman ("American Gods", "Good Omens", "Stardust").



Saturday, August 30 @ 7:30

Sunday, August 31 @ 7:00

Tuesday, September 2 @ 7:00

Wednesday, September 3 @ 9:45
Cover charge- $15

IMPORTANT: CALL FOR RESERVATIONS ASAP! 212 206 0440!

The Metropolitan Room

34 west 22 Street

NYC, NY. 10010

For more information

4:42 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

lots

Came back from a week in provincetown, where I had the interesting experience of being the only heterosexual in a supermarket that was the size of a small town. It was Carnivale week, and same-sex couples were pushing carts and chasing their kids and bickering over ice cream choices, just like couples of every kind everywhere. I'll never understand the opposition to gay marriage: nothing could be less threatening than two guys with awesome arm developement, arguing over the transfat levels in different potato chip brands, which is, essentially, marriage in a nutshell.
Provincetown was great, although the situation was a bit daunting. If your new fella invites you to meet his family, I'm going to say it doesn't necessarily occur to one that there will be TWENTY FIVE of them. Eight half-siblings, all intense and smart and interesting, and thier assorted spouses, kids, and character quirks. One gorgeous and slightly beleaguered stepmom, a little like Cyd Charisse stepping into the Florence Henderson role in "The Brady Bunch"--although this episode was written by Kaufman and Hart, with a script edit by Eugene O'Neill.-But it all worked out, and by the end of the week all of us were as loving and mildly contemptouos of each other as any other family. I missed my own family something fierce...but that's another story, for another, and slightly sadder, day.

the Carnivale parade was very sweet. It was exactly like any other small town summer parade, except that, in this case, the mayor just happened to have his bum hanging out of his leather chaps, and the pretty girls waving from the floats had started life as boys. The marchers threw candy and bead necklaces, and one two-story float featured bordello life in the Old West, complete with naked cowpoke in bathtub and suspiciously heavyset dancehall girls. Some of the bead necklaces were promotional tools, and I will always treasure my "KY Lube" medallion necklace, although it's hard to think of an occasion to wear it to. -Oh, dear, now it's hard to STOP picturing an occasion to wear it to.Help. I think I might have to go back into therapy.

On my return, found an apartment filled with my two elderly and extremely angry cats, who had made their displeasure known in very direct and extremely smelly ways. I had to spend hours petting them and telling them stories [mostly ones in which various dogs met very unhappy endings] and they finally forgave me, but I think if i stay away any more, they will construct an effigy of John and burn it in the town square.

And that's that. Rehearsed the show today for six hours: we open at the Metropolitan room on Sat Aug 30, 7:30; then it's Aug 31 at 7, Sept 2 at 7, and Sept 3 at 9:45.
The Met Room is the best cabaret venue in the city, and one of the best in the world: it's at 34 West 22nd, between 5th and 6th,www. metropolitanroom.com. The show's shaping up to be both funny and pretty moving: it's a meditation on celebrity, called "Famous In France." 212 206 0440 for reservations, and let me know if you wanna be comped.

big love
Per

6:36 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

some corrections

Since the whole point of this exercise is to write first and think later [if ever], got some corrections to make to the last entry. First: actually, the night WAS fun beforehand, because I saw some great music with some treasured friends.-But including that happy note would have interfered with the whole "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" theme of the last entry, so somehow...didn't mention it. -Funny how that works.

Second, many of John's and my friends ARE happy for us, they just worry that it's all going a bit fast. I mean, we only met a month ago, and already we have two point four children (the oldest is in college now) and a mortgage.-Okay, actually, no we don't, but we ARE radiating high-intensity smugness rays, and I'm going to guess that's irritating.

Third: I'm just going to keep writing here, because, in actual fact, I am using this as a way of putting off doing the dishes. The dishes, which now reach the ceiling in a Dr. Seuss-like-trembling-stack-of-imminent-catastophe. And yet I will do them, because that is a way of putting off vacuuming. It is important to have a "procrastination-priority-plan." -However, writing SEEMS productive. Perhaps it's time to simply type in the text to "Moby Dick" here. -Yes!! -no, the dishes are now calling me by actual name. This is not good. We do not want out utensils becoming sentient. Damn.

Okay, fine.

love
p

5:59 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Back On The Air Now

The Marco Polo restuarant is a classic, truly mobbed-up Ritzy 50's Italian joint in Brooklyn: red carpet, flocked wallpaper, gold filigree trim everywhere--and the it's also last place in the world I ever expected to be accused of being a golddigger.
"Peri," a very toasted Walter said, leaning into me in confiding yet hostile way, "there's no trust fund, you know. I mean, I think you should know that. In case."
John hadn't returned from the restroom yet, and I guess Walter thought he'd better get things straight. I think he was defending his friend, but it was odd.
"Um, trust me, Walter. This is not about money." [Note:.I decided not to mention my recent phone call with The Prince, where he invited me to stay on his yacht and I told him I had met someone. He then asked me to come stay in his castle-y type place in the hills outside Florence, and I repeated that I had met someone. there was a pause. I think the Prince always liked me because: 1) I always said "No, I do NOT want to go on a shopping trip to Gucci, thanks,", 2) "No, I do NOT want to go back to your hotel with you," and 3) "On the other hand, I WILL go out for coffee and talk about botany and the history of science with you." -If i was a golddigger, I would be digging in Gucci and Florence right about now. But probably not Brooklyn.]

A month ago, I walked into a bar I didn't want to go to, for a party I didn't feel like attending, on a night I wasn't really enjoying up to that pont, quite frankly. I had just had the slightly surreal experience of hearing that a woman I'd never met, had been telling folks I'd been mildly stalking her, something that would have been much easier for me to do if I'd known her name, workplace, or, say, borough of residence. Or perhaps, more importantly, cared. I was pondering why people take the time and energy to do stuff like that, when they could use the same time and energy to write a book, or learn Texas Hold Em, or do volunteer work, when I bumped into her consort at the concert. Much non-hilarity ensued.- So by the time I strode into the party, I was a wee bit of a Grumpy Gus.-Admittedly, a Grumpy Gus with a tan, red lipstick, and the white Marilyn dress, so when I was stopped in my tracks by the need to stare at a golden eyed James Dean standing by the bar, he actually took a moment to look back at me.

And that was that.

I've been grazed by Cupid's arrow before, and once or twice hit squarely by the little flying bastard, but he'd always used a conventional bow and arrow, not this enormous industrial strength sized crossbow with some sort of psychic curare on the tip. The last month has been spent catching up, talking about books, ideas, art; laughing, and coming to terms with the recognition that we seem to have found something more elusive than a glimpse of an aye-aye: actual, nonfictional True Love.

It's not all sunbeams and roses. There is someone I care about a lot, and the idea of giving up that fantasy has been a little rough. And there has been a strange outbreak of bonedeep jealousy and hostilty among some of our most loved friends...the "golddigger" accusation was just one of the manifestations of that. But I think I'd react the same way, in their position. I didn't trust that men like this existed: enormously emotionally forthcoming and brave, utterly trustworthy, chivalrous, successful, handsome as hell. -Or, if I did, I knew them as the men who were husbands to my women friends, and therefore they existed but were, of course, offlimits to the point of being a separate species.

Finding this kind of thing is traumatic. Terry Pratchett pointed out that there couldbe bad miracles as well as good ones: when a tornado swings out of its way to randomly matchstick a farmhouse, it's a BAD miracle. In the same way, we think of trauma as always being negative...but having to get used to something so outside of one's realm of possibility, can be traumatic in a good way.

I remember once, at a photo shoot, I had found a tiny stray kitten on the way to the photographer's: when I arrived, he was just finishing a shoot with a sushi chef. The sushi chef, a kindly man, took an enormous slab of raw tuna [useless for human eating because it had been under hot lights) and set it in front of the kitten. "For you!" he said.
She took one look at the slab of toro, three times bigger than she was, and promptly ran and hid for five hours. She'd been living out of trashcans: she couldn't adjust to her sudden wild good fortune.

I'm trying not to hide. But I'll tell you: this is one big slab of tuna. I know just how that kitten felt.

much love
a gobsmacked
Peri

* my guy's late and much beloved father was a legendary novelist, who sold (luckily for the Universe) a LOT of books, but whose infinite appetite for life included, eventually, 6 exwives and nine children. This does not bode well for a trust fund hunter, frankly. But since it never occurred to me anyway, who cares?

6:08 PM - 4 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

mobius strip

1) The screen on your Macbook dies. You can only check email in public places until you get: an external monitor.
2) You can pretty much only FIND a good cheap external monitor on Craig's List.
3) You can't BUY it off Craig's List, because public computers, for some reason, DON'T WORK with Craig's List.--No, really- trust me on this. They don't.
4)SO- You need to access Craig's List from your own macbook. So you can buy an external monitor. But you can't SEE Craig's List from your macbook.Because you don't HAVE an external monitor. Because you need to GET one off of Crai-...oh, never mind.

At this point, you feel a migraine coming on, and go lie down.

*****************************************

Stopping smoking. It has NEVER EVER been this difficult. I have a free counselor at the NYC Stop Smoking program (dial 311) , and he was trying to help.
"Hi, this is Mark. What is the problem?"
"Mark", I said, "I love smoking. I just do. Smoking is great. And all the cool kids do it."
"Terry", he said, as everyone always has, and always will,.."It is very very unhealthy.Terry, smoking is bad for you. Smoking kills."
"Yes, Mark. I think I heard that somewhere. But what do you DO?When you feel you want a cigarettte more than you CARE about that remaining 40 years you'd have otheriwse?
Mark breathed in and out stentoriously. I suddenly thought, "Oh my God! He's smoking!!"
He wasn't though. He was thinking of new ways to make me unhappy.
"Kerry..." "Kerry, did you get the Help Booklet, that had all the drawings of cigaretts on it? The Quit Book. With the, like, the drawing of a pack on it."
"Yes Mark."
"Well, did it help?"
I paused. "Well, Mark, to be honest...not."
Mark: "Mary, why not?"
Peri: "Because, Mark. I smoked it."

He wasn't sure I was kidding. Frankly, neither was I. Mark sounded like, if he'd ever smoked, it was because all the other kids were doing it. Not becuse it was cool and made you look French and outrageous. He sounded like...well, he sounded like a quitter to me, pal. Nobody likes a quitter. "I don't CARE if these Newports are making you ill. You get in there and inhale, young man!"

Anyway, as my ol'Southern pal Cracka used to say about this great aunt, a former burly-Q dancer and singer who always wore a beehive, a caftan and purple eyeliner: "My Aun' Selma, she dint smoke fa nicotine. She smoke fa ........styyyyyle."

Well, don't smoke, kids, and don't do drugs. You'll have a long, insanely boring life,but I'm sure you'll prove a point or two. Self-righteous little bastards.

snooze
love
p

7:06 PM - 6 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

wallflower at the orgy

The title is from Nora Ephron.
***************************************************************************************
William Blake said:.."if a star should doubt/ it would immediat'ly go out."

I have always loved Blake's insanely committed stance on the importance of experiencing transcendance just as hard and as irrationally as you can. But let's face it: he's dead. -Not saying the "Ecstasy or Bust!" stance killed him--the fact that he'd now be about 198 years old probably did--but....actually, have no idea what I'm saying. Help.--What I'm saying is that Blake's binary, "it's either off or it's on", approach is admirable, but not practical.-Although, since Blake didn't exactly present himself as a self-help guru, I don't know why I'm criticizing the man for not being practical.

There are people who are natural romantics, and then there are the people who, if they see a tidal wave of emotion sweeping towards them, grab for a flotation device just in case. Neither is better. The latter is probably more cowardly, but having seen a few tidal waves in my time, and still being here to describe them, I can attest to its efficacy.

Maybe the natural human reaction to any piece of unexpected, great good fortune is to step back and say, "okay, what's REALLY going on here?What's the catch?"' Back when we were cavepeople, we had to train ourselves to constantly scan a peaceful beautiful landscepe for sabertooth tigers....our systems are still wired to look for the danger, rather than to relax and enjoy the peaceful, beautiful landscape. Because we are all the descendants of the people who did NOT say "Gosh, look how delicate a pink the savannah looks in this twiligh----ERGH" [SFX: sudden silence, then sound of sabertooth tiger chewing happily.]

Oh well. I keep remembering a line from a poem:
"In Fool's Paradise, admission's free/
The price is in the leaving."

Maybe reflexive skepticism IS simply a defense mechanism.

And maybe it's time to go home and feed my non-blake reading, intensely skeptical cats.

10:37 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

better than Clive Owen.-No. Really.

Yup. The words I thought could not be said. But this gentleman is, in fact, better than Clive Owen.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0537545/resume

He is also the reason I will never laugh at a Harlequin Romance Novel again. Who knew that stuff actually HAPPENED? -I just SANG love songs: I didn't actually BELIEVE them. -But suddenly they sound like sworn affidavits.

I wish this for you.-Well, not with this same guy. That would kinda suck for me. But with someone else?

Yes.


xxx
peri

who finally figured it out. and not a damn moment too soon,thanks.

Trivia: Selected as one of "People Magazine's 50 Sexiest men Alive". 2004.-I don't know why that cracks me up so much. But it does. -Although it's certainly true. But SO not the point. Dude is a very, very good writer. (Also actor: coming up in Oliver Stone's "W".)

And yet, I mention it.

hee hee

1:03 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

nighthawks

The cozy, 24 hour cafe next door is (as I write this at 3 a.m., because my Macbook is down) is filled with the hopeless and the hopefuls. And who is to say which is which? Some evenings, it's very much like a sober
version of "Iceman Cometh"...some evenings its like the green room for purgatory; and during the day, it's packed with obviously Not From Here people holding maps of New York and wearing puzzled but optimistic expressions.

This evening, there is Jamal, the gorgeous young street
musician who believes his ability to dress and look like Jimi Hendrix is the same
thing as actually having talent...sadly, this is not the case. There's Nick, the street prophet who commutes here fromQueens as he has for twenty years, to sit in a lawnchair outside and (until recently) tell people about the one million spiritual practyices he has made a habit of memorizing the rules of...and who has completely ceased speaking this year
unless it's to read a Bible quote,.He has the sweet smile of those who live
in the certainty that is madness.Nick always kisses my hand "hello" and then disappears for minute,
always to return with a gift of a chocolate covered cherry for me, which i've
never told him I dislike. There's Jimmae, the Irishman whose swagger and braggadocio match his bantam rooster demeanor, and make him tough to take--until he shows you the website with his photographs, and they're heartbreakingly sensitive, and you are forced to acknowledge that, once again, you've been fooled by what should be an easy-to-see-through-mask.There's Shmuely, the handsome, native Israeli who owns the place, who always has a stunning woman with him, and in a year and 4 months, I have never seen the same woman more than once.... and here I am as well.(But not, I hasten to add, with Schmuely.) Unable to sleep because I don't quite know how to process the extraodinary luck that's falling in my lap lately.

Receiving real good fortune in a short period of time can be as mildly traumatic as receiving bad luck...good luck is harder, perhaps, because one has to wrestle the "do i deserve this?" demons, whereas nobody (no one I know, anyway) truly feels they deserve their bad luck moments. Having Big Good Luck makes one feel like Wile E Coyote when he goes off a cliff in pursuit of Road runner and miraculously, keeps going, never falls...until he looks down .

I'm scared to look down, right now. Of course, everything will be fine, but I never underestimate my own ability (or anyone else's) to shoot myself in the stilletto-clad foot. Constant vigilance is the only way.. Yikes.

That's all. Good night, and good luck.
love
p

12:16 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Metropolitan Room Dates for my cabaret show

I'll be doing my new show, "Famous In France:" at the Metropolitan Room in a month!

Here's the photo and info:

http://metropolitanroom.com/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=99999999&extmode=view&extid=775

More actual details (and incentives!) later. My Macbook's been down for two weeks, and living without the internet is odd. And my phone died. And I threw out my TV. I'm an involuntary Luddite.

On the plus side, NOT having the life-eater that is the Internet, is incredibly productive.
I have used the time to solve many timeless mysteries: like, were there REALLY ancient astronauts from space who gave us technology? [Answer: No. There WERE ancient astronauts from space, but the only technology they gave our caveman ancestors was the toaster and an iPod. Since bread hadn't been invented yet, nor had sound recording, the toaster wound up being used as a blunt instrument in a dispute between Caveman Ogg and caveman Thag (Thag, and the toaster, won.). And the iPod was worshipped until Thag realized it didn't actually seem to be a god OF anything, so it was then crushed between two big rocks.

Please come see my new show.(Note: it was SUPPOSED to be called "I Google You" and have a different picture, but, well, things happen.)

love
Peri

8:13 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Greatest Hits: "What I’ve Learned"

(Author's note: this is far and away the most popular thing I've ever written. It's gained an unexpected currency: there are life coaches and therapists, friends I sent it to, who give it to their clients. (Will someone please explain to me how to make actual money off that?) At the time, I was just trying to figure some stuff out by writing it down, but there was a weird sensation, which I'm very reluctant to describe...it felt like someone else was writing it through me. Very odd feeling. The genius/lovegod/singer/songwriter Nick Lowe said, later that week, "Oh, yeah, of course, I've had that feeling LOADS of times. Happened when I wrote "Peace Love And Understanding." Doesn't mean you're mad, though, of course, you are. Just means you got plugged into something bigger. Not to worry, my dear." -- (We've known each other in one way or the other for a decade. Simply put? I worship him..)
Anyway, I don't always live this list, but it's a good feeling to try. : )


'what i've learned'

running out the door to yoga school, am suddenly consumed with desire to share what i've learned in the last two years of intense change and, well, growth:

1)Appreciate people for who they are. Don't try and change 'em, or want something they can't give. They're giving what they can give. Enjoy it for what it is.

2) Trust your gut. If your head is saying "no, he wouldn't do that" and your gut is saying "but this is what I'm feeling", trust your gut. If a new job seems perfect but your gut is saying "NOOOOO!!!!", listen. Etc etc. Mostly, what you feel is happening? It's actually happening. Yup.

3) EVERYthing is there to learn from. How did you contribute to a situation in which you seem to be the pure and unadulterated victim? Okay, cop to it and then don't do that anymore.

4) Have a spiritual practice. I don't care if you worship Kermit the Frog, do SOMEthing.

5) Don't lie. Just don't. It hurts you and everyone around you, even if you think you're doing it to be nice. Being nice is respecting people enough to be honest. Not lying seems hard at first, but then your life gets exponentially better. Besides, you will always get caught, and you'll wonder why you feel subtextually awful even if you do get away with it.

6) Don't cheat. If you are with someone and meet someone else, be honest about it, and/or end the other thing first, before acting on a romantic impulse.

7) Share your strengths, not your weaknesses. No one wants to hear it, not really. Maybe for a bit, but NOT all the time.

8) Don't overshare. Especially in a romantic context.

9) Learn to forgive. But don't pretend to forgive before you have. If you're nice to someone when you actually are still hurt, it just muddies the waters. Retreat until you've processed it. Or talk it through. If you can't forgive for a while, dont talk to em. You'll forgive AND forget eventually, then you can reach out. Or not.

10) Don't make up stuff to torture yourself with. You can't know what's really going on in someone else's head or heart. If your girlfriend is now with someone else, and you are picturing their life together as one long feast of milk and honey, you may be right--but you are probably not. No one goes dancing down the flower laden path hand in hand singing show tunes together forever. -Unless there are drugs involved. -Get on with what makes YOU happy. Guessing about what's going on with HER, is a waste of time, because you just can't know. Besides, everyone turns into a human being (rather than an idealized Other) eventually, in a romantic relationship. She might be gazing at Prince Charming right now and saying "That whole crown thing? Really bugs me."

11) Get some exercise, eat good stuff, dont drink too much. Your mom was right. You'll feel better.

12) Look outward. Reach out to a friend or do some volunteer work. Amazing how good it feels to help.

13) Support your friends. lean on them too --but not too much.

14) Go to every party you're invited to.

15) Say YES. If someone says "Do you wan to go to East Harlem for a pastrami sandwich?", say yes, not "nooo, it's laaate.' Take reasonable precautions, but say yes to adventures. Fun is good..

16) Keep an open mind. Not so open that things fall out of it, but open enough that you can change your thinking if new evidence presents itself.

17) Fall in love. If it doesn't work out, it hurts, but it's always better to love than not to love.

18) People tell you everything you need to know about them on the first date. Listen.

19) Always have fresh flowers and perfume.

20) Tell me what YOU've learned.

love
p

10:27 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

a helpful household hint

Okay. Say you have bags of BirdsEye frozen berries in the freezer. Say that you have them because you throw em in the blender in the morning, with protein powder and yogurt and wheat germ. Say you do all this with your eyes closed, because whatever a morning person is, you are the opposite of that. In fact, it takes two cups of coffee for you to evolve into a homo sapiens--the first cup, your vestigial gills disappear and yourforehead gets higher, the second cup, you begin to walk upright and use primitive tools. Like a blender, for instance.

Now, taking all these factors into consideration--the closed-eye freezer foraging,the complete lack of consciousness--and here is my household hint:
Do NOT store the BirdsEye Frozen Brussel Sprouts, where you expect the berries to be.

All I'm saying.

That was one interesting green smoothie.

Next week: how to make a loft bed without moving the cat.
Cheerio!

10:34 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

but at least I have my health

Thunderstorms grounded all flights today, including the one to Florida that as supposed to be taking me to ahotel where the indoor pool is surrounded by a lush tropical garden filled with brightly colored parrots.
Instead, I spent six hours at the fabulous celebrity hangout known as "Gate 5, LaGuardia, The One With the Ratty Blue Carpet". After the first five ours, I and my fellow passengers had banded together to form a small citystate, building rudimentary huts out of Dorito wrappers and burning back issues of "Us Magazine" for warmth. I was voted Empress for Life, and had just decided that, when we ran out of food, we would eat the small boy sitting next to me who was amusing himself by rhythmically banging his Tonka truck against my metal chair support, when it was announced that the flight was canceled. I was shattered, because I'd just devised a form of currency for us, made from old ATM receipts, but my subjects drifted away, some deciding to stay together and build a KonTiki Raft out of Diet Pepsi bottles and navigate back up the Hudson to home.
There were no more flights. Apparently, ever. The next flight on ANY carrier to FL was not till late Monday, and for various reasons that was just not going to work. Sadly, I headed home, removing my crown (woven cunningly of swizzle sticks from the Admiral Club bar) and trying to re-adjust to life as a non-semi-deified nonEmpress. Also, adjusting to the fact that I was not going to be telling sweels what their lives held in store, or getting taken to a posh old resort in the Keys, but was instead going to be sitting on the F Train listelessly ignoring the other passengers' remarks about my fabulously large straw hat.

Texted many friends demanding they entertain me. (It's what Semi-Deified-Empresses like to do. Okay?) One, an amateur astrologer, looked at my chart over the phone and gave a long, low whistle. "Girl," she announced portentously, "ou shoulda stayed in bed. This is the worst day of the year for you."
Great. NOW you tell me. While packing, I kept thinking "Why do I think I'm not going?", but true to form when it comes to self-prediction, I gritted my teerh and defiantly threw in yet another bikini, as though into the teeth of very Fate herself. -Well, I have news for you: Fate does not like the taste of neon yellow string bikinis. From now on I shall keep this in very definite mind.


This is a situation for which the only cures are: 1) going to bed instantly, pulling covers over head and bidding the Bad day At Black Rock, farewell; 2) having a stiff shot of single malt; 3) calling up various handsome men of one's acquaintance and getting them to take you to dinner. (One at a time, is prob'ly best.)

I don't keep alcohol in the house, I'm not sleepy, so that sound you hear is a woman in a very big hat looking for her phone.

Hope your day was better. Well, it would have to have been, wouldn't it? Short of an incident involving your best friend, your romantic interest, a catcher's mitt, a Filipino dwarf contortionist named "Bongo", and some peanut butter, pretty much any day would profit by comparison.

farewell.
p

6:52 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Tragedy of Pageant Hair

Let me begin by saying that, if you're planning to go out to see your friends' rock band and Be Social, it probably isn't tha BEST idea to do it after lying in a darkened room with a cold compress on your head, for 24 hours, trying to distract yourself from a migraine by listening to " A Brilliant Madness: A History of Regency England, 1790-1822" on tape. Because: 1) You forget how to talk to people, unless they are up for a lively debate about the physiological origins of George the Third's mental illness (was it porphyria?or just nuttiness?); and 2) See 1.

It's amazing how hard it is to shout the words "In some ways, the Regency was a time when women had an opportunity to transcend their normally rigid class structures, by using unconventional and usually psycho-sexual means!" to your friend, over really loud rock music.

So I didn't try.

Some background here:

WEnt to see "Little Death" tonight, with the fantastically good Laura Dawn on vocals and my beloved peeps Aaron Brooks on drums, Daron Murphy on guitar, Luci Butler and Sherrie on backup vox, and the suddenly mustacio'd Moby on bass. It would have been great even if if Laura hadn't dedicated a song to me, but that was really nice, even if the song WAS about having your husband be with another woman while still having a strong bond with, um, you. Me. Whoever. But the song ("I Know You") was truly great. She wrote it after we hung out one afternoon and I gave her Reiki, and
Ad's ubelievably brilliant show had just gone up, and I had just enjoyed/survived the opening and party afterwrads...and apparently talked about it a little more than I was aware of. The HC stuff had also just happened, and I was still puzzled and a bit hurt, and quite confused about love in all it's guises. Laura took my ramblings and turned them into a great song, so there IS a silver lining to heartache: just maybe not always where you expect it to be.

Went with a brilliant musician friend, but found I felt uncharacteristically shy. Still not sure why. But couldn't find my conversational feet.You know that feeling? -Ergh!

I didn't LOOK shy, having found a set of hot rollers on the "gift shelf" in my building, and used them to create really big fluffy blonde Pageant Hair. As my roomate at the Cabaret Symposium (who was from Rabbit Hash, Kentucky) used to say, "The higher the hair, the closer to God". I looked like the Sugar Beet Queen on a parade float from 1987, and had to forcibly stop myself from addressing people as "y'all" and "sweetiepie". Also wore a red tube dress that I last wore (on a very dreamysweet vacation)in a casino in the Dominican Republic, where it fit right in and also caused a busboy to propose to me. (At least, I THINK he was proposing, but my Spanish is not that good....)

So had the whole Glamourpuss Simalacrum up and running, but the smalltalk thing...not so much. Oh well. As Chief Eagle Feather said to Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man"...."Sometimes the magic works. And sometimes the magic doesn't work."

But the band was awesome, and it's so fun to hang out with other musicians.

So go see "The Little Death", and cheer for Laura, and stay away from hot rollers, and if you feel shy...that's okay. Because sometimes the magic works. And sometimes....

love
p

10:02 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

happy,lucky,too important to talk to you.

Big believer in gratitude. BIG.
Had an awesomely good meeting with a very good television agent for the "psychic" stuff today. Scheduled two more meetings to followup on, well, neat stuff. And I got to answer my phone during the meeting and bark, self-importantly, "Can't talk now! Am taking a meeting!" -The agent didn't have to know it was a 1800 number sales call. And the sales call agent got all confused and hung up. THAT's what I call a win-win situation.

So? Grateful.

Visiting awesomely adorable parents this weekend. Faxed mom my new requiremnets, now that I am an important star. I went to "Smoking Gun" and cribbed from other Important Star's requirements, usually spelled out i riders to their contracts:(Special thanks to J.Lo, whose size of demands for her personal comfort are in exact inverse proportion the the size of her talent!)(If you're still trying to figure that sentence out, the nswer is: she has a HUGE amount of demands.)
Okay, Mom:
1) Guest bedroom is to be painted white: all furnishings must be re-upholstered in white silk; white lilies in white porcelain vase must be on nightstand; white freesia candles lit at all times. (-Mom, I know you alread have a white dog, so that's a BIG savings right there.)
2) Am now a South Indian Kosher Macrobiotic Vegan. Also? Refuse to eat foods with the letter "r" in them. Refuse to eat foods that might SOUND ike the have the letter "R in them, if pronounced by someone from Staten Island. Rfuse to eat anything from staten island.
3) Will require separate housing for my entourage. -Will also require entourage.
4) Mom, do we have stuff for a meth lab? I'm trying to watch my weight.
5) Please- no eye contact with The Peri unless specifically requsted. And even then--watch it, Buster.

Many of these stipulations are true. I especially loved the "no eye contact" one in J.Lo's rider. Awesome.
I faxed these demands to my Mom. Unfortunately, she doesn't have an agent, and doesn't understand "This Biz Called Show", and so now has apparently grounded me without TV privileges until my AARP subscriptions kicks in. -Oh, and it's meatloaf for dinner. -Oh, well.
And I believe she thought I said "MATH Lab", NOT "Meth Lab", so I guess it's algebra drill Sunday, for Baby here. -Damn it!

******************

At dinner the other night, musician nondate asked what the next show was about, and I said, absentmindedly, "Oh, you know...cocktails and abandonment issues", and now he really really wants me to name it that. Whatchoo think, folks: that or I Google You" or "Famous In France"? Your Vote Counts. Help make me so famous that I won't make eye contact with you. (hee hee.)
********************************

off o do stuff. thank you for reading this silliness. please let me know YOUR rider requirements...no green M and Ms? All food must be guranteed free of molecules? o paisley within 60 yards? Talk to me.
xxx love p

8:44 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

la la la

random notes:

1) Ed the cat is a very directive guy. In the morning, if I don't go to the icebox to get his meds, he walks from me, to the icebox, to me, to the icebox, yelling his fool head off, until I get and administer his medicine. Then it's time for me to do my Buddhist meditation, and if I don't, he walks from me, to my altar, to me, to my altar,looking behind to see if I'm following. If I don't, he sits down and starts yowling until I get with the program. Kitty nagging: sort of an odd problem to have.

2) Did a phone reading, by Skype, for an art dealer who's traveling. It's an odd feeling, being able to accurately describe the house in Istambul where she's staying,from the comfort of my bohemian pad in the Village. It was nice to be able to "be" someplace so exotic without actually having to spend money on airfare, though.

3) Having next door neighbor problems. My neighbor is an enormously gifted actor and composer in his 60's- I've known him for twenty years, and he halped me get this apartment. I also was in amusical he wrote.So theres some histpry there, and he really is gisfted. But- he chainsmokes handrooled cigs that seem to be made out of twigs and roofing tar, from the smell (which premeates the building), and who has the true alcoholic's inability to understand anyone else's lack of romantic enthusiasm for drinking. "I found a great open mike in Brooklyn, Toots! The BEST thing is, there's a fantastic dive bar next door, and for five bucks, they give you five cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a bucket filled with ice! Isn't that great? You wanna come tonight? We'll get hammered!"
I say, "Erik, I don't LIKE getting hammered. I'll come sing, but it makes me feel uncomfortable when you're plastered. I like you fine the regualr way. You know. Undrunk."
He looks at me, and then continues as though I haven't spoken. " Well, you wanna come to where my friend's bartending tonight? We can get hammered for free!"

The problem is, our doors are six inches apart, and everytime I open my door, he opens his. "Did you knock, Toots?"
"No, just opened my door. You know. Like I always do."
"Well, I have steaks, what are you doing tonight? You want to come eat dead cow with me?"
I feel weird about this. For one thing, I do like and care about him, but for another, in the 410 days I've lived here, he has asked me over 410 times. And asked if I've knocked, 925 times. I sometimes say yes to dinner (even though I no longer eat dead cow), maybe ten times, but the smell of burning roofing tar and twigs, along with someone extolling the virtues of a new beer he's found because it has double the alcohol content of regular beer, is draining.Also, he is a seriously rightwing guy, and I had to make an agreement with him not to talk politics, because I walked out of dinner when he started talking about what a great guy Dick Cheney is.
I took him to AA once (Erik, not Dick Cheney), but it didn't take, and I want to be compassionate, but it's a little like living in close proximity to a human surveillance camera. I really don't know what to do about this. I guess "moving" would be the answer. We'll see how things go with the BigOpportunities this week.

How does one manage to be a good person, be polite, have compassion and still have boundaries? Any suggestions, y'all?

It's a gorgeous day, so I'm off to Williamsburg to go Do Stuff....have a lovely Sunday, and sorry about the slightly depressing story there!

Big week ahead. Please send good luck vibes, and have an absolutely lovely week filled with creative expression, romantic surprises (unless yyou're someone I have a crush on, in which case maybe a week in a monastery might be fun, ever considered that?) and lots of found moments of joy. Oh, and money is nice, too, so receive lots of dosh unexpectedly.
love
p

8:22 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment