Stories

In the late 70's when I first started venturing from New York City to Los Angeles for screen tests and my sorry ass attempt at stand up, it was difficult to find community outside the wacky nightlife of the Improv Club. My appearances there, under Budd Friedman's generous aegis, were an evening out and conversation piece for my agents at William Morris, who were trying desperately to get me off that stage and into a nice little sitcom. Meantime, they used my appearances to lure Norman Wexler, the gifted screenwriter of "Saturday Night Fever" fame, severely manic-depressive, into signing with them.  When he wasn't locked up, Norman was my biggest fan.

I tried hard to fit into this world, but as the only ingenue comedienne in a world of compulsive male comics, or female comics who delivered jokes like compulsive male comics, I was a she-maverick by design.  When I wasn't onstage struggling not to slip in Robin Williams' sweat, or straining to milk laughs from Gary Shandling's exhausted audience, I'd be in the bar either waiting to go on, or to wind down and assess the disaster of my newest bits. 

After seeing their amazing performance of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” at the Country Music Awards my wife and I became hooked on the Zac Brown Band – a group we had never heard of before that moment. Seeing talented musicians who love what they do and have a huge appreciation of all music genre’s is refreshing in this age of studio wizardry and lip sync’d concerts. A quick YouTube search of the band found many videos of them mixing classic tunes with songs from their debut album, "The Foundation", and it converted me into a full-fledged fan club maniac. My wife and I had stopped going to concerts many years ago unless a friend was performing, but this band was different and I jumped at the chance to see them in person – even if it meant a 100 mile drive to Santa Barbara. Getting the opportunity to “Eat and Greet” with the band before the show sealed the deal.

A unique take on the pre-show meet and greet, they look at it as a way to treat their fans as family and sit down to dinner before they hit the stage. In that vein they ask guests to defer autograph or photo requests. (You wouldn’t sit down to dinner with your uncle and ask him to sign the napkin.) All the musicians want to do is mingle, talk music, and share stories.

It is the consummate, diet-related cliché: “you can stop drinking, or smoking, but you can’t just stop eating.” You can, of course, stop eating; Ghandi used that strategy to magnificent effect. As a method of reaching a healthy weight, however, it’s frowned upon. What you have to do to lose weight is not to stop eating, but to stop eating the way you used to eat. I’m doing it, and it’s working, but it complicates the hell out of my life as a cook.

I’ve struggled with weight all my life, losing and re-gaining the same 30+ pounds several times. I established a pathetic pattern worthy of a medieval tapestry: the large woman stops eating (anything, carbs, second helpings and fast food), exercises (incorrectly, so intensely that she gets shin splints, until she abhors the sight of her Nikes) and becomes smaller. She buys tinier clothes, and basks in the admiration of all of the people who want to know her “secret.” She gets busy, stressed, cocky and inattentive and starts to eat like she used to, she becomes larger again, and in the final tableau she is folding her smaller clothes and putting them in bags to donate to Goodwill, and then pulling the larger versions from the back of the closet where she saved them for the inevitable.

1. Check the college’s weather hotline and confirm that classes have been cancelled.

2. E-mail students with directions for the next class meeting. Reassure them that spring will come (this isn’t the first cancellation of the semester), and wish them a joyous day.

3. Survey the landscape and begin shoveling.

4. Take a break to visit with your neighbor, after wading to the middle of the street. Compliment each other’s regalia: she’s wearing a jaunty beret with a pompom; you’re wearing – for which you fervently thank your son – those ear warmers with the band that fits around the back of your head (no hat hair for you, even the morning after a blizzard). When ice crystals have completely lined the inside of the scarf you’ve pulled up over your face, it’s time to stop talking and go back to shoveling.