Back to the Future

These next three posts will span 4 decades and include high fashion - a dance party, a premiere party, and a fashion show, or - one helluva crazy weekend in the city.

We'll start this adventure with the dance party.

The 80's dance party...

Oh yeah, that's my hair.  And believe it or not: a) it did that without the weapon of choice in the 80's, Aqua Net, and b) I think my hair remembered how to do it and liked going back to it.

You can take the girl out of the 80's but the hair remembers when...

My friend Jamie had a pal from business school coming into the city for the weekend and she wanted to go to the 80's dance party at the Canal Room with performances by the very special band, Rubix Kube.

Pause to enjoy the pithy 80's reference to the most frustrating toy ever made.

Incidentally, I chucked more cubes than I will admit across the room in utter disgust at how dumb the thing was - which was just an unhealthy projection of my own puzzle-solving inadequacies and a sign of my growing lack of patience in things I don't get the first or second time around, but since this is not a therapy session and frankly, there are more important issues to solve before we get to this one, I'll move on.

About 8 of us pulled out some retro duds, including florescent Ray-Ban sunglasses (specifically for Corey Hart's "I wear my sunglasses at night" - which of course came on, of course we wore them on the dance floor, and of course we screamed like we were 14 at a Bon Jovi concert).  We got out the hairspray that is now reserved to hold the slick straight style in place and created the sky high cascading hair mountain we perfected in our youth.

In a nutshell, this dance party was almost more fun than the 80's itself.  Especially because I spent the back half of the 80's in high school.  High school was great, don't get me wrong.  But all of that growing up, persistently renegotiating a curfew, needing to get that first job at McDonald's, and getting grounded (a lot) pretty much ruined what could've been a perfectly good era.

In fact, when seeing this outfit I pulled together for the event my sister commented, "Mom would've never let you out of the house dressed like that!"

Yeah, that pretty much sums up 1986-1990.  Maybe the next decade too.  Despite the fact that at that point I was out of the house, the dress code really didn't change much.

So back to the party - the DJ absolutely rocked.  The mix was incredible.  Michael Jackson's PYT segueing into Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.  Whitney's "I wanna dance with somebody" (during which we all nodded our heads in mutual sadness) backed by Toni Basil's "Mickey".  Just like we did when we were pimple-fighting teenagers, we muddled through the words of "99 Luft Balloons" feeling both cool and very uncool at the same time.  

Next was "You Spin Me Right Round", now slightly tainted by it's scrape with stardom in The Wedding Singer.  Then The Cutting Crew's "I Just Died in your Arms"...ahhh, the melodramatic life-changing relationship in high school when you thought you might die because you had to say goodnight to your boyfriend (with his dad in the front seat dropping you off at home this was a swift, abrupt "See you at school Monday" moment.)

Of course, at this dance party we were drinking alcohol which also didn't happen to me in high school. Yes, I am absolutely telling the truth.  My best friend and I embarked on that journey together at 18...a story for another day.

  

Here's Jamie, looking fashionable and chic in the neon yellow sunglasses.  They glowed in the dark.  With "yay! we are old enough alcoholic bevie"

The band finally came on at 11:30 and I wish I had pictures.  I only have the pre-stage setup below.  Just imagine the absolute worst of the 80's attire.  Then imagine multiple wardrobe changes that continued to descend further down the rabbit hole.  In a fun way of course, but wow - really?  We actually thought shimmer pants on boys and Flock of Seagulls hair was hot?  Parachute pants?  Scrunchies?  Leg warmers?

Some of the young ones at the club thought it was oldies night.  I have nothing to say about that.

Alas, I leave you with a parting shot of THE HAIR.  It only took 4 washes the next day to get the hair spray out.  And about 3 decades to be able to love the 80's like we innocently did the first time around.

The Audition

In my unrelenting quest for fame and fortune, I decided to take myself to an audition yesterday.

OK, so the first part of that statement is not true.  But the last part is.  

Early in the week I was passing time as I usually do in the late evenings during the week...mindlessly wandering around the internet with a glass of wine and the constant background noise of the drunken revelry of McGee's bar (right next door to my apartment).

McGee's is the "How I met your mother" bar.  It was apparently (very loosely) the inspiration for McClaren's.  It's not a bad bar at all and it was great fun on St. Patty's Day.  But since I am neither a regular nor in my early 20's - I am not there most nights when the cheering crowds are.  

Yet I can see it (and hear it) from my living room.  It's the 3 floors of fun in the red brick building.

Back to the point of this post.  I was on craigslist looking for interesting freelance writing gigs when I stumbled upon a listing for HBO extras.  No experience necessary.  Small speaking roles available.  Auditions Friday at Pearl Studios on 35th and 8th.  

I was intrigued.  

This year I made a pact to be less afraid of making a fool out of myself and more brave when it comes to trying new things.  Now, I don't have any acting experience and I don't possess any deluded fantasies about being a famous actor. Oh - I did have the lead in a play in the 6th grade and I'm pretty sure I rocked it. But fame so early is hard to sustain.  So after having reached the ultimate peak of the craft at age 12 I retired my thespian talents and moved on to other things like softball, band camp, and Diet Coke Big Gulps.   

Still - I thought, why not?  It can be my something new on Friday.  Hell, it could pass for my something new for the week.

So I went.  

I read that it's important to show you are responsible so punctuality is important.  I arrived at 12:20 for the 12:30 start.  I was escorted into a room with about 8 people already sitting around the perimeter on metal folding chairs.  I was sized up immediately as I walked in the room before everyone returned to looking painfully bored to be there.  I'm positive I was deemed a non-threat.  

Around 12:45 about 25 or so additional people started rolling in.  So much for punctuality. There must be an unwritten code about these things.

Finally at 1:10, a woman walked in, stood behind a table at the front and greeted us with "Good afternoon!  Sorry it's hot in here.  Let's get started.  If you could come up to the..."

I've never seen people literally launch out of their seats so fast and form a single file line.

"...table in the order you arrived and sign in, then I'll hand you a monologue."

I was slow, and a lot of cheaters who arrived after me were already in line.  Lesson learned.

She ran out of monologues 2 people before me, but said not to worry - we didn't have to memorize them and she would recycle them for us as people finished their audition.  For a first-timer like me, with no idea what to expect, this was not comforting.

Around 1:30 my name was called in a list of others and we formed another line outside the holding room.  She handed me a recycled monologue.  She confirmed our names and order again then lead the way to another part of the building where we waited (in line) to enter a small room where the casting director was.  

Nervousness crept in.

I have a career in marketing.  A full time job.  I don't need this like some of the other folks in line with head shots and resumes.  I'm just doing this for fun.  For the experience.  And yet, I was nervous.  The monologue was 5 sentences long.  It read like some sort of questioning, maybe for a cop show.  It would've been a piece of cake to memorize it but between the butterflies in my stomach and the heat - I couldn't risk trying it then forgetting it.  

As we waited, some people before me were in the room for 5 minutes, others for about 60 seconds.  Hard to know what the difference was.  Were some of them asked to do more if the casting director liked them?  Did they screw up the monologue and need to start over?  

I was next.  

I walked in and a woman around 30 was sitting at a short white table on one side of the room.  I set my bag down, we exchanged greetings and she asked my name and age.  Then she asked me to read the monologue as if I were being questioned by the cops (suspicion confirmed)

I did it in a somewhat defensive tone with a hint of trying really hard to also look innocent and concerned about what happened to my friend in the script...

She thanked me, told me callbacks were Wednesday and she'd let me know.  On my way out she said - by the way, you look really young for your age.

Wow.  Not only did I get a new experience out of the day but a compliment as well.  Good day.

I don't expect a callback.  I'm sure everyone there had much more talent than me.  I will say though - it was fun and exhilarating.

I just might do it again.  

It's a new era

I am in a brilliant, wonderful, happy place in life.

Finally.

For the first time in over a year, I fully feel like me again.  A new me, even.  I have encountered a strange place of peace.  This whole healing process has been incredibly interesting...it's so cliche but it takes time. Days and hours of thinking and feeling and hurting then not hurting, then thinking some more.  It gets to the point where you start to think you'll never be ok again then it interrupts that with glimpses of hope.

Man, that process sucked.

I've mentioned it before, but the reality is, I don't have any suitable closure from the complete and utter implosion of a central relationship in my life a little over a year ago.  And now, I have come into this new state of being where I accept that.  And I no longer need it.

I am getting out - trying new things.  I am running, a lot.  I am hanging out with friends, and writing, and exploring NYC, and kicking butt at work.

I am...happy.

It's both scary and exhilarating to say that out loud.

I am happy.