Teaching Gandhi

Quoting one of my brilliant NYC high-school students, while watching Gandhi in film class:

"Boyfriend always be wearing beige!"

Yes, I need to repeat my parts of speech unit, judging by Robert's commentary above.(Last week: "Yes, class, technically "mad" is an adverb, as it usually replaces "very," as in, "This movie is not mad boring, turn off your Ipods and give it a chance.")

The good news? Teaching English at an alternative high-school in Manhattan is probably the best job I've ever had . . .

Open Call

(Excerpt from That’s Okay, I Didn’t Want That Job Anyway – A Memoir)
Woody Allen was holding an open call audition and I would do whatever it took short of tattooing “ANNIE HALL CHANGED MY LIFE AND THAT OF EVERY WOMAN WHO DESERVES TO WEAR PANTS TO WORK!” on my forehead.
Deconstructing Harry would start production that fall, which seemed light years away to those of us standing in 90 degree morning sun on East 63rd Street, willing victims of the oppressive urban heat that was Manhattan in August. An audition wasn’t guaranteed, nor was having your pride intact when it was all said and done and you would realize that anyone with a pulse and a social security number could be an extra in a movie, the pulse being negotiable.
I arrived at 6 AM only to overhear that the line had started to form at 9PM the night before. People lined the city sidewalk in sleeping bags, lawn chairs, and makeshift tents as if this were Woodstock. They, like me, were naïve and nostalgic saps, perhaps not unlike those summer-of-love groupies some thirty years prior; we all thought that by following our hearts and whims, if not the pages of the Backstage classified ads for unemployed actors, that redemption would follow, that this day would bring with it the break we’d waited for, that we deserved, the one that would signal the end of the rain and the illusion of the rainbow.
By 6:30 AM, the revolution had indeed begun. My first mistake was to inquire about the check-in procedure. I didn’t want to lose my place in line, as others were steadily adding to the crowd.
“You just have to wait in line to see if they’ll give you a ticket,” a stranger uttered. “I’ve been here since midnight and no-one’s come around yet.” Somehow I had a feeling that this person had been asked this same question one too many times today, due to the fact that he rolled his eyes at me. “The production crew starts giving out tickets at 10 AM. Later they scout the line and then decide who they want to stay,” he added.
“Then why show up early?” I asked. “Because they cut the line at 1,500” someone else piped in. “You’ll get a number when the crew makes the next round.”
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” the girl who rolled her eyes said. “You don’t have big boobs and you aren’t Asian.”
Ouch.
At that point, everyone in listening range started offering his or her two cents about the situation.
“This is a disgrace!" one woman wailed. "I’ve been here since 9:30 last night, and the production assistants won’t even tell me how many roles they’re casting.”
“I think they should tell you right away if you’re the type they’re looking for” another young actress whined.
I couldn’t help but notice that her boobs were bigger than mine, and wondered if I should just go home.
“The only reason they make you wait in line is because they can. It’s a big ego trip for these cats.”
I realized that the proverbial “they” were Woody Allen’s production crew, and “they” had become tantamount to God that morning. Though I adored Woody Allen’s movies from the first time I saw Annie Hall, it was true, those auditioning were being treated like swine. The production assistants inherently knew that they could hold over your head the fact that you as a “no-one” wanted something, and they as self-appointed “some-ones” were in a position to grant it or to deny. The only way they would have had any respect for you is if you hadn’t been there in the first place.
Yet, I was there, along with 900 other Woody-Allen wanna-be’s, waiting in line for a golden ticket as earnestly as Charlie Buckett before he finally found one in the resplendent Wonka Bar. The hope of getting that golden ticket was worth waiting for, whether or not it would ever come to me. While the rest of the world was waking up to a new day in Manhattan, I was named ‘Number 977’ in the faceless crowd, praying for a miracle that would get me in the door.
By 9AM, the overnight crowd was becoming diabolic.
“The least they could do is offer us some coffee and doughnuts.” Louis was a bit like a Hispanic version of Danny DeVito. He wore a navy-blue blazer over a Yankees T-Shirt paired with jeans and a Yankees hat, chain-smoked Camel lights, and seemed to epitomize New York impatience.
“I mean, he can spare the change, right man?” he said, elbowing the guy in front of him, an effeminate 6-foot tall David Bowie look-alike who kept his sunglasses and headphones on throughout the entire time.
“I mean, what’s a couple of boxes of Munchkins to Woody?” he continued. The dude’s a freakin’ millionaire! I mean, they should at least set up some coffee and juice, you even get that much at the DMV and the credit union. You know what I’m sayin,’ bro? This guy’s a powerful character, he could show some respect. Man, I called in sick to work for this!”
I looked around at some of the others standing in line. There were a significant amount of Woody Allen look-alikes, forty and fifty-something thin, nerdy academics wearing horn-rimmed glasses, jeans and Adidas sneakers, Knicks t-shirts. Some carried Nietzsche or Proust novels, and cups of coffee, more affected than Jay Gatsby in a pink suit at the Plaza Hotel. I noticed one of the pack reading from a hardcover copy of The Complete Prose of Woody Allen. I couldn’t help wondering 1.) If he actually thought Allen’s people would buy such abysmal ass kissing, and 2.) If he’d read “The Kugelmass Episode,” one of the funniest short stories I’d ever read, even though I found it nervy, even for Allen, to think that Madame Bovary would actually want to hook up with his alter ego Sidney Kugelmass.
The diverse range of auditioners included self-proclaimed NYU drama school dropouts, first-timers fresh off of Greyhound from Minnesota, Iowa, or Nebraska; teenagers, and senior citizens. Most annoying were the suburban soccer and stage moms, with freshly manicured nails and Fendi handbags, who were busy talking on cell-phones with their indifferent kids in tow, good teeth shining and headshots in hand.
Like New York itself, here was a melting pot of ethnicity, age, and personal histories. After three or four hours, I felt a sort of hazy “I’d like to buy the world a coke” sort of distance from the situation, and began to zone out, as if I wasn’t actually there, while random thoughts began to occupy my mind. I began to recall the names and faces of people I had gone to kindergarten with; I remembered the lyrics my favorite 1970’s song Wildfire by Michael Martin Murphey; I remembered the day in eighth grade when the space shuttle blew up and I stopped trusting science, and for a time, God; I thought of being told by a high-school drama teacher that the probability of making it as an actress was one in a trillion and that I would be better off studying something practical, like astronomy.
"HEY!"
I was brought back from the reverie of my self-inflicted stream of consciousness when I was handed a crimson-colored ticket. My golden ticket had arrived, and it was red- ah – glorious, fiery, blood-pumping, passionate red. The red ticket that signified promise, hope, a chance to audition for a Woody Allen film.
“Screw this,” Louis had said. “You can have my ticket, girly, I’m outta’ here.” After everything, he was giving away his ticket - to me. It would guarantee an audition, even though I would need to wait another four hours for it.
At 3:30 that afternoon, the line had diminished, and
someone who was asked back for a reading was so happy that he bought iced coffees for everyone still in line. I was brought in front of the panel of jurors, one of the whom was Woody Allen. He offered me a half-second once over, scribbled something on my headshot, and then one of five casting directors sitting next to him shouted, “NEXT!”
I felt flawed, inconsequential, and ashamed, standing before Mr. Allen Stewart Koningsberg like it was judgment day. It was what I imagined rushing for a sorority to be like; no matter how appropriate, able, or smart you might be, it would never be enough.
I would never know if one of Woody Allen’s production assistants would have chosen me for a role in the film that day or not. Somehow I doubted it. But in that moment of truth, our eyes met, and what I saw in Allen’s blank stare was exhaustion, and perhaps resignation. He had seen his fifteen minutes and was reluctant to let them go, churning out film after annual fall film. Whether or nor I would get a part ultimately didn’t matter. (Consequently, I did not, after spilling what was left of my iced coffee on the Italian loafers of one of the production assistants on my way out.)
How disappointing it had all been, realizing that movies and television could never provide the same solace as both had when growing up. I spent the majority of my 1980's adolescence living vicariously through a world of fictional people and plots, and yet they were more real to me than the people I interacted with every day. I depended on them. They were there for me. I could put them away and turn them on again whenever I wanted to. They would never disappoint, nor would they abandon. Back then, I’d yet to realize that there were as many visible flaws in my false -sense- of-security blanket, as there were contrived images of happiness on the screen. Television was really nothing more than a transient waste of time with a fair-weathered friend. In reality, Julie McCoy was on crack, Willis Drummond was a felon, Mike Brady died of Aids. These characters were just human beings, never asking to be another person’s role model, or hero.
I got off the train at 23rd Street and aimlessly walked around the city for hours upon hours, finally down West Houston Street until it became East, passing Norfolk, Rivington, Orchard, and Ludlow until the neon sign of the Gaseteria signaled to me like a lighthouse in the fog, that that I was almost home, or at least the place I lived.
It was 12:20 AM when I opened the front door of my apartment. My roommate was asleep and the bedroom windows were open to the street; the sounds of the city were as inviting as if they were those of Bali-High, the inner-city stench was suddenly welcoming, inviting even, and the view of the tenement housing in the near horizon might have been that of a Tuscan sunset. It was a rare New York moment when I thought to myself, “This is bliss, this is as good as it gets.”
Perhaps there is truth in beauty and beauty in truth, and maybe Kahlil Gibran wasn’t mistaken when he said,
“You must know pain for your heart to stand in the sun.” And standing there, looking out the window as the pale light of morning began to form on the Lower East Side, I cried.

Hypocrisy Valley

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” He should have added, “Especially if you’re a broke grad student living in the Hudson Valley during the largest national recession since the Great Depression.”
I had dropped out of the English Education program in grad school once before, thinking it a superfluous waste of time and money after realizing that I could learn just as much about literature via my library card and about education watching To Sir With Love. Yet, I couldn’t get a teaching credential without finishing the Master’s program, and I couldn’t move back to New York City without a teaching credential, as freelance comedy writing income right now isn't even enough to rent a storage unit in Manhattan. I had no choice but to finish the graduate program I had started a few years back at New Paltz.
I quickly learned that moving to the Hudson Valley in the dead of winter with a rescued dog and very little money was not going to be easy. I moved three times in six months, and along this journey, have learned one thing for certain - that perhaps a more suitable name for the bucolic Hudson Valley might possibly be that of “Hypocrisy Valley,” if for no other reason than the majority of the residents here have to struggle and sacrifice so that the trustafarian landlords can keep second homes and a place to eat organically, attend tantric yoga sessions, and reduce and recycle while bitching about the pitiful state of the economy over a bottle of Petite Syrah, minus the sulfites. “Welcome to Woodstock, something real may have happened here once, but now you’re going to have to pay for parking as well as for peace, a place where entitlement and enlightenment have become one in the same. Sorry old hippies, sorry Vietnam vets, sorry artists and writers and musicians and anyone else with a dream of living simply here, you should look elsewhere, because forty years later, you need a realtor, a trust fund, an an accupuncturist if you want to dance in the mud with the best of us!”

But I digress.

The house rental I took back in January was advertised as a “3BR house with all amenities on 5 wooded acres overlooking a pond in Gardiner” and “Shared with owner who lives in New Jersey and is only there five days a month.” The place, though isolated, was the nicest I had seen in the $800/mo. price range, and where I thought I could get some writing done and avoid the hassle of new roommates. Translation: $650 a month to live in the depths of despair in the middle of no-where, a 20 minute drive to anything that resembled civilization, in a log cabin with no television, radio, or landline, and where I often came home after night classes fearing that I would be eaten by a bear on my way to the house, which was pushed back about a half a mile from the driveway. The “pond,” when it wasn’t frozen, was a the color of feces; indeed this was a place where even the mailman refused to venture. I had lived there for over a month before realizing that I wasn’t living in Gardiner at all, but in rural Wallkill, a place I feared I would indeed die alone in, and it would be weeks, if not months, before anyone found me, save the neighborhood plowing guy, who advertised his plowing and other questionable services with a sprawling sign on his lawn that read “Chainsaws Sharpened Here!” I wondered how many victims called him to get plowed out of a typical upstate New York snowstorm, and had wound up in his trunk.

Is it so much to ask to want to live somewhere that mail and a pizza can be delivered?

After three months of this, I tried negotiating a lower rent with my landlord. She couldn't talk, as she was on her way to a "Divorce With Dignity" (and then get the bastard's life savings!) seminar, but did have time to say, "I can't lower the rent, because I like to keep two houses, and my other house is smaller than this one." did I mention that she had started charging me for “amenities” like electricity, hot water, and a sporadically working toilet? She soon changed all of the terms of our rental agreement, and began spending every weekend in Wallkill with her poodle “Moonshine” in tow, after signing up for Match.Com and bringing her various dates to the house, unannounced, after wicked nights of Contra and Salsa dancing, and so that her kids back in Jersey would have no idea that their Mom was leading this second existence in the depths of Wallkill, a place no man should dare walk alone. Three months of this and I was searching for new digs.

What could be better than sharing a 19th century farmhouse, and at two-hundred and fifty dollars less than what I was paying in Roadkill? I had a few hundred dollars to my name and two months of graduate school left; I was desperate. The farm was advertised as a “6 bedroom, 19th century farmhouse on working farm, original hardwood, washer and dryer, and Internet access - $400! 3 miles from town.” When I inquired about the other housemates, Sally, the farm manager insisted that managing the farm was a very serious operation, and that she was up daily at 5:30, and therefore, this would not be a party-house, but a community of adults who had busy and productive lives.
I soon realized that community life on the farm was a euphemism for “hippie commune.” A twenty-eight year old rock climber with a trust fund moved in the same day I did. Jasper had a British accent and appeared to be quite charming, offering me cups of P&G tea and relegating stories of his world travels. “Where are you from?” I asked. “New Jersey” he answered. He explained that he just returned from an “around the world” rock climbing trip, and had ended it by spending time in London. "How much time?" I asked, questioning the sketchy, self-inflicted accent. "A few months" he said. “I didn’t realize I would be living with the Great Gatsby,” I said. He began to lecture me about the importance of saving energy, as if I wasn't already aware of this. Within three days of living there, Jasper and Sally became a couple. I came home after a long night of waiting tables, and Jasper had accused me of “using too much water” in the tea kettle, which he had written on in black marker, “USE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED” AND “SAVE ENERGY.” When I went upstairs to talk to him about his passive-aggressive teapot tirade,(tea-rade, if you will) I found he and Sally doing some kind of half-naked, yoga together in the "common room," which reeked of pot. That was the final straw. I had to move, again. With approximately $2 in my checking account, I couldn’t wait to see what the Ulster Press classified ads had to offer.
Soon after, every twenty-something from here to New Jersey began to move into the farm, none of whom had jobs, all of whom had opinions on life and how it should be lived. Green living took on a whole new meaning, along the lines of, “My parents are paying my rent, so I can lecture you on the evils of sugar consumption and wearing deodorant!” Television and plastic bags weren’t allowed in the house; smoking marijuana in your pajamas all day was. A large poster placed on top of the dryer read, “WAIT! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH ENERGY IT TAKES TO USE ME? PLEASE CONSIDER USING THE CLOTHESLINE.” (Of course it said “Please.”) In an effort to “save water,” taking showers with your housemates was encouraged, smiled upon even.
How had this happened to me? I had gotten along fine living on very little money in both New York City and San Francisco, yet my life in the Hudson Valley was becoming unmanageable. I began seeking refuge in Malbec and the bible.I tried to be at the farm as little as possible. When I wasn’t in class or looking for a new place to live, I tried to write at cafes until as late as possible. The problem with that is the fact that there are only two cafes where one can go to write in Main Street in New Paltz, and as fate would have it, I don’t quite fit in at either one.

When I found out that the Muddy Cup offers free wireless as well as free refills AND allows dogs, it was the obvious choice. Until my second visit, that is, when a shaggy-haired, self-proclaimed “shaman” approached me to ask if I knew the wireless password. “Sure," I said, writing it down on a paper napkin and handing it to him. That was my first mistake. He stared at me with a look of unwarranted scorn, and instantly I knew that the password wasn’t all he wanted. “We’re all slaves, you know,” he said, before going on a conspiracy-theory diatribe that was longer than the movie Roots. I tried to cut him off; “Don’t you think that there’s more hope now that Obama’s in office?” I reasoned. That was mistake #2. My response to him was an indication that I actually wanted to stay in this conversation. “Do you have EZ Pass?” he continued. “Huh?” “Do you have EZ Pass, EZ PASS!” he demanded, severely annoyed that I was holding up his closing argument. “You know, you pre-pay for it and stick it inside your windshield so when you go through tolls you automatically pass.” “OH, E-Z Pass,” - yes,I do. I love it, actually.” “Well, the government uses it to control your life. It’s a sinister ploy invented so that they always know where you are and what you’re doing” he claimed, nodding his head with certainty and self-righteous scorn, as if I was clearly the dummy who had exchanged her very soul for the convenience of being able to travel without spare change.
I had to get the hell out of this somehow, yet looking around the dark room, I realized we were the only two people in the place, one of them smoking pot on the couch upstairs. “I really have to get back to my work,” I said as politely as possible. That’s when the rage began to surface. It was as if I had just broken up with him, even though he was a complete stranger who I’d known for all of 8 minutes. “WELL YOUR WORK’S GOING TO MEAN NOTHING WHEN THIS COUNTRY GOES DOWN IN FLAMES” he screamed, loud enough so that the guy who is always passed out on the front steps actually woke up.

The next day I went to Starbucks. After parting with close to ten bucks for a small (I MEANT TALL, REALLY, I DID! SORRY!) coffee and two hours of Internet access, I sat down and began working. I soon overheard the coversation next to me, between a guy with dreadlocks and an IPhone (Bipolar you ask, or just another resident of Hypocrisy Valley?) complaining over Venti whatevers to his friend that times were tough. "If I don't get enough backing for the "Chakra Cleansing business," I'm going to have to shut it down" he said, as his friend put her hand on top of his in sympathy.

I’ve always related to the phrase, “Live simply, so that others may simply live.” You might see that slogan here on a bumper sticker, but I believe you’re going to have to move elsewhere if you want it to be true. To the streets of New York City, I must say - I long for you desperately my first love, and am counting the days until we are re-united. I realize there is plenty of hypocrisy there too, but at least in the city I will have access to better bagels, views of the most ambitious skyline on earth, and hope . . .

Panic Disorder

What happens when you have to call in sick to work due to an unforseen, full-blown, paralyzing panic attack? "Um, hi, good morning, I'm not going to be able to come in today; I think I'm coming down with . . . an overhelming sense of impending doom."

This is not fiction, friends . . .

Stalking Steve Martin - A One-Sided Love Affair

February, 1982 - Albany, NY
It was twenty-seven years ago when my obsession began. The weather was partly to blame for my young neurosis, for it was during the dead of a typical upstate New York December that it all started. That tenth winter was one of unrelenting gray doom and below zero temperatures that served no purpose, except to insure a number of ‘SAD’ related suicides and a long line at the video store. I can think of no other explanation for what would become a life-long quest – to locate Steve Martin – than a lack of serotonin dating back to those dysthymic days; that, and the adamant belief that Mr. Martin was in fact my soul mate.

This belief had no basis in reality, but in my young mind, it seemed to justify the quest nevertheless, one that I deemed no less worthy than the epic journey of Beowulf, the search for spiritual salvation ala Dante, or the pilgrimage to Wally World, during National Lampoon’s Vacation. This mission would ultimately take me from New York City to California and back - all because my life was unalterably changed that winter’s night in February, 1982 –the first time I saw The Jerk.

Perhaps the best movie of all time before VHS, I first watched the movie on Beta, in my friend Charlene Wilcox’s finished basement. “Char” was a mature teenager who possessed an overactive imagination, HBO, and lingerie, while the only teddy I owned was the corduroy bear my grandmother hand-made the day I was born. Charlene’s mom and stepfather rode motorcycles, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, and allowed their kids to watch R-rated movies, which is the primary reason Char and I became fast friends.
It was fifth grade, in the Wilcox basement that I first lost it, falling into the depths of infatuation from the moment Mabel King frankly admitted, “Navin, you’re not our natural born child,” to which a devastated Navin naively objects, “You mean I’m going to STAY this color?” I was hooked. I watched the movie once, rewound it, and watched it again and then a subsequent twenty more times over winter break, when Char’s parents were away at Harbin Hot Springs in California. Navin’s signature birthday lunch of “a tuna fish sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off, a Twinkie, and a Tab!” immediately became my own brown-bagged favorite. I started quoting the movie like I was getting a check from Carl Reiner each time I did so, capriciously spouting statements like, “The new phone book’s here!” “I’m picking out a thermos for you!” and, “All I need is this paddle ball, this chair, and this remote control . . . ”

Who couldn’t adore Navin’s unabashed passion found in experiencing life on his own terms, from getting a job pumping gas to adopting a stray dog, to losing his virginity to a circus performer, to inventing a million-dollar pair of prescription glasses, the optograph? And who among us couldn’t benefit from the useful advice and practical wisdom to be found within: “Don’t trust Whitey.” “The Lord loves a working man.” “See a doctor and get rid of it!” To my ten year old self, Navin Johnson was the best character that could have ever graced the screen, second only to Mr. Kotter and Kermit. “He actually named his dog ‘Shithead,’ isn’t that hilarious?” I dutifully informed envious classmates, those unfortunate cats at Catholic school whose parents also hadn’t allowed them to see the film, and had to rely on hearsay.

And so began this insatiable quest to locate the man – no rather, the mystery – actor, author, director, stand-up comic, playwright, art collector, animal lover, screenwriter, humorist, and all around comic genius. The only thing larger than life about the multi-capable Steve Martin was my full-blown, diagnosed obsession with him.
***
August, 1991 - New York City
First real-life sighting of Steve Martin, born Stephen Glenn Martin on August 14, 1995, in Waco, Texas. It happened in a deli in Manhattan on 81st and Columbus, late weekday afternoon.
Him: white shirt casual summer-Manhattan, sunglasses, and khakis.
Me: Freaking out.

I casually follow him to the counter, where he is paying for a 16-ounce plastic cup of fresh squeezed orange juice, probably organic. I run into a nearby phone-booth, overwhelmed by a panic attack, and chicken out.

I put aside my course load in college to major in Martin’s movies, which I though irresponsible of the University to omit from the curriculum. If “Cinema and the American Experience” could be found worthy of those of us stupid enough to go for a degree in the increasingly vague field of Communications, why shouldn’t “The Masterpieces of Martin” be included? I designed the course myself and encouraged other students to join me in my room for watching everything from “All of Me” to “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” followed by cardboard boxed wine and a group discussion debating why Martin hadn’t won the best actor Oscar he so rightly deserved for ‘Roxanne’ in 1987.

I was obsessed.

“You’d have better luck playing pick--up sticks with your butt cheeks than getting out of this airport before daybreak!” - “Planes Trains and Automobiles


“Perhaps you’d like a little wine with your nose?”
-Roxanne

“We’re trying to make a movie here, not a film!”
-Bowfinger

“There are plenty of places I can go where people believe in me!” – The Jerk

These movie phrases and quotes became as familiar to my world as was eating, sleeping, or breathing. Nothing could end this self-inflicted heartache. Was it his comic genius, his literary wit, his looks? The fact that he collects animals as well as art and was in The Muppet Movie too? Because I certainly needed to have some rational explanation for the fact that I’m obsessed with a guy who happens to be older than my dad.

June 1999 - Santa Barbara, California
The Daily Grind Café in Montecito, where I’m awaiting the opening lecture of the writers conference I’m attending, ostensibly the reason I’m here, having sold my ovaries to pay for the tuition. Several months ago I read that Steve has in fact purchased a home in the nearby Santa Inez Mountains. The Santa Barbara Writers Conference is the perfect cover; the average age of participants is 91. Even Yoda is trying to publish a memoir here. I ditch the morning "craft" lecture, afternoon tea, and “Cocktails with Jack Canfield” in order to spend the entire week roaming the streets of Montecito searching for Steve. Sitting at the café waiting for a random Martin drive-by, I spot Michael Jackson with three masked children and a giraffe just happening to be out for a leisurely afternoon stroll. I could care less. I might be leaving in a straight jacket, but I’m not leaving without Navin.

April 2000 – Los Angeles, California

After a year of sleepless nights, group therapy, and the release of Bowfinger, my hope is renewed when I’m asked to go to the UCLA Times Book Fair with my boss, an ex-hippie turned left-wing politician from who is receiving an award for her latest published treatise on the medical miracles of marijuana use. I get to tag along, albeit Southwest Airlines and the West Hollywood Motel 6. It is rumored that HE will be here, signing copies of his award-winning novella Shopgirl, in which the main character, a philandering but charming has-been, has an affair with a 29- year-old artistic glove saleswoman.
In Westwood, we are greeted at the cocktail reception by Suzanne Somers, whose recent non-fiction best-seller, How To Be Bulimic Without Messing Up Your Hair, has just hit #1.
A
t the bar, I tell my boss that I’ve read Pure Drivel (one of Steve's essay collections) a total of 12 times and listen to the audio tapes daily because it’s cheaper, and more interesting, than therapy. I’m soon approached by a woman who is wearing a floor-length evening gown paired with red ruby slippers along with a red beret. She is one of those middle-aged, power-dressing thespians who was probably the lead in her high school production of West Side Story in Minnesota once and has quite possibly never gotten over it. “I’m Barbara Rosen-Rosenberger,” she says, and proceeds to tell me she is a book critic for the LA Times and once was a “professional actress,” (i.e., she slept with a director after a party once, though she could have been in soaps. “Steve is in my book club!” she cries, clenching the leash of her groomed Tibetan terrier and pulling a Santa Monica ‘Bikram Yoga Studio’ tote bag.

As she sips a seltzer while I’m shamelessly downing my second vodka gimlet, Ms. Oprah-worshipping, mind-body-spirit believing, decaf-drinking, Scientology-practicing drama queen informs me that she is living off alimony from her third husband in a “modest but coveted” two-bedroom beachfront duplex in Santa Monica, where the weekly writer’s group is held. “Steve faithfully attends weekly!” she adds with a smirk. How can this New Age nightmare be closer to Steve than me? And what kind of world allows this to happen?

May 2000 - San Francisco, California
The Art of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy, Ph.D. says, “If you think it, you can be it!” Note to self: must put it out to the Universe that I’m still searching for Steve; later consult with the “I Ching” for further cosmic advice, but can’t figure out the number scheme.

The Universe is ultimately no help, but the classifieds are. The Bazaar Café on 22nd and California is looking for new talent for live performances. What could be a better venue for holding a staged reading of “Picasso at the Lapin Agile?” and inviting Steve?
With much hope but no budget, I schedule an open call audition held on the streets of the Tenderloin, where a group of locals agree to do the show in exchange for free coffee and egg sandwiches. The set and costumes will be provided by me, with help from the dumpster behind the Haight Street Goodwill. I send press releases to the SF Chronicle, the LA Times, and Variety; FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: “HOMELESS VETS RE-ENACT STEVE MARTIN FARCE, HAILED AS “TRIUMPHANT” BY LOCAL CRITICS!” in hopes that Steve will show. Unfortunately, it is hailed the next day as “PATHETIC, SELF-REFERENTIAL NONSENSE” by the SF Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, Bay Area Theatre Critics, and my Dad.

March, 2003 – New York City
I’ve moved back to the East Coast in hope of securing some kind of low-paying, entry-level job at Hyperion, sole publisher of Martin’s literature. If nothing else, I will eventually gain access to a book-signing, a press release announcing his newest book, some sort of tangible proof that all is not lost and the search for Steve Martin is indeed a valid one. Hyperion, however, could care less. The only job I’m offered is as a barista at the Starbucks next door. After three days of trying to learn the language, conjugating Venti verbs, and getting a blank stare from the manager who can’t answer my most pressing question, “How can SMALL be TALL?” I quit, and am forced to move back upstate.

A twenty-one year quest reaches a severe halt, as I watch the Oscars regretfully from my parents’ basement, clutching a six-pack. I woefully recall reading somewhere that the idea of a soul mate is credited to the philosopher Plato, who theorized that a perfect human being was tragically split apart and that we are destined to spend our lives trying to find our missing other. Somehow I bet that Plato never went to these lengths.

Yesterday

“You’ve got serious problems, dude” my brother says over cigarettes and coffee. “This obsession is a waste of time. Let’s face it, this little pastime of yours only prevents you from having a relationship in reality. “I don’t want a relationship in reality,” I scream. “I want to be the next Mrs. Martin!” Maybe my brother is right. By clinging to the notion that I am saving myself for Steve, I am unconsciously sabotaging myself, along with the possibility of finding someone with whom I could someday settle for, and maybe even be happy with, though I doubt it. It was, and would always be Steven Glenn Martin who had me at hello.
To date, all it takes is a TNT re-run of The Spanish Prisoner, an Edward Hopper postcard, a dog named Roger – and suddenly, I remember the quest. Officially, clinically - I am no longer stalking Steven Glenn Martin. My subconscious however, is still searching for her missing other. His name, of course, is Navin . . .

Here's a Secret - Don't Work for Victoria's

Recently, I had dinner with one of my favorite former students - a brilliant International Journalism major who just finished her second year at BU. Back in our hometown of Albany, NY (otherwise known as "Smalbs,") Veronica expressed to me her dismay at the lack of summer jobs for college students. She dreaded going back to her high-school gig at Price Chopper, and was waiting to hear back from Barnes and Noble. There was a third job prospect, however, one which Veronica hesitated to tell me about at first. "Well, I'm afraid to tell you this" she said, looking down. "But it's for a sales job at Victoria's Secret. They want me to go to a group interview wearing all black next week."

"WHAT," I shrieked. Ronald (I can officially call her this since I'm no longer her teacher) "You're way too smart for that. There is no way I'm going to let you - my brilliant, brilliant Veronica - be eaten by the sharks who read Cosmo, require "group interviews" along the lines of a Miss America Pageant, and spend more money on underwear than I probably do on rent."

Can you imagine the question and answer session during the group interview? "So, Ashley, what are your life goals, besides selling overpriced underwear, that is?" "Well, my goals in life are to witness universal health care for all, an end to the problems in Darfur, and oh yeah, to own Miracle Bras in all twelve colors!"

You see, Veronica was the kind of student that a teacher and writer dreams of, a girl who I could discuss Brideshead Revisted and The Great Gatsby with, a girl who knew more about Journalism even when I was teaching the class, a girl who became my hero the day she compared her boss at Price Chopper to Mussolini in an editorial in the school newspaper and then fought with the administration when they refused to print it. (In Smalbs, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, and since one or another Price Chopper branch feeds most of the Capital Region of upstate New York, and Ronald had mentioned them by name, she was in significant trouble.)

But last week, I was given yet another reason to adulate and adore my Veronica, when she said, "The thing is, Miss Martone - I really don't see myself as a purveyor of panties."

"A purveyor of panties!" How I wish I had come up with that beautiful, beautiful statement of sweet alliteration for the underwearing masses, but it was Veronica who coined it.

That's right, Veronica, you do NOT want that job anyway. You also don't have to call me "Miss" anymore, either. How I love you Ronald!

Busted by Oprah - A Lament, Part II

- Assisi in Exile

Oprah, I am a dog. Hath not a dog eyes? Hath not a dog paws, organs, dimensions, fur, senses, affections, passions? . . . If you prick us (with Post-it paraphernalia) do we not bleed? . . . If you poison us (with propaganda) do we not die?"