I was trying to think if I had ever seen a Hollywood actor in person and I finally remembered having seen John Malkovich in a play in Chicago a few years ago. The solo American movie star who I had seen in flesh and blood.
That was then ... my pre-New York days!
Things have changed in the past couple of weeks when I’ve had a windfall of movie star sightings! Most of them as a result of shelling out the greens on Broadway and worth every penny that was spent.
Laura Linney, of Love Actually, Primal Fear, The Truman Show, Mystic River etc etc and one of my most favorite actresses in the raunchy production of Dangerous Liaisons.
Lawrence Fishburne of The Matrix series of films, Mystic River, Bad Company, Mission Impossible III and many more in the one man act in and as Thurgood (Marshall), the first black Supreme Court Justice of the United States.
Frances McDormand, Best Actress, Oscar winner for Fargo AS the country girl IN The Country Girl directed by the hugely talented Mike Nichols!
Peter Gallagher of American Beauty, While you were sleeping, Sex Lies and Videotape as the director who brings a has-been, deeply troubled actor back into the limelight in The Country Girl.
and saving the best for the last
Morgan Freeman who needs no introduction, as the alcoholic actor who’s getting a chance to make a major comeback in The Country Girl!
Do I sound like I’m bragging? That’s because I am. And why shouldn’t I? All you film buffs are probably green with envy. And you’re going to get even more jealous when I tell you that I got Lawrence Fishburne’s autograph and was backstage just inches away from Morgan Freeman.
I was completely overwhelmed at the end of each of these plays. I'm not sure if it was because the plays were outstanding or the fact that I was seeing these actors, who I had watched in a number of movies, performing live in front of me. What is it about seeing a celebrity in person that gets us so wired? I'm guessing its the fact that a larger than life character we’re so used to seeing behind a screen turns out to be a real person, just like one of us. This person really does exist and is not unreachable. Plus of course the fact that we can brag about it!
That’s not all. Chris Rock was in my neighborhood. One solitary block from where I live. I didn’t even have to pay to see him. I was walking back home after my workout and saw a small but starry eyed crowd standing outside this restaurant that spans almost the entire block. Upon inquiry I found out that the Rock man was about to come out of the limo that had just made its way outside the eatery and within seconds Mr. Rock was waving to the crowds amidst much cheering and whistling. One more celebrity sighting under my belt!
I went to the New York Knicks last home game of the season, playing the Boston Celtics. No big stars playing that game since competitively it didn’t matter who won or lost. It was still exciting to be there. Jack Nicholson was in the same stadium! The half time and time-out entertainment was definitely more enjoyable than the game but that too wasn’t the best part. The best part was all the free food and drink you could have! Free coke, free hot dogs, free popcorn, free ice-cream, free candy, free pizza. Nothing like a good deal in “the land of the free”! Sure gave us a lot of
k(n)icks. I know I know, I’m starting to kill you with my lame jokes.
I’ve now got used to hobnobbing with the stars. I don’t know if I can handle being among mere mortals any longer. Or at least not for an extended period. I feel like I have to change my social circle. Walk the red carpet. Shun the paparazzi. Give interviews with inside information about my celebrity friends. Designer suits. Tall fenced in homes. Weekends at the French Riviera. Yeah yeah yeah. Shut up already .....
Tso Moriri, Ladakh
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
My New York Stories - Part I of many
Oftentimes I wonder what it’s all about. What is it that we’re supposed to be doing? Are we here for a reason? Is there someone that has real answers to these questions?
I knew very early in life that I couldn’t lead the ‘expected' life. Get an education, make a career, get married, have children, feed them, educate them, etc. etc. Obviously I have nothing against it, but I couldn’t see myself doing it. As a result I’m not highly educated, have never been ambitious, no wife, no kids! People always ask me “don’t you want to settle down”? And I think to myself “do I really seem unsettled?”
Of course my definition of being settled is quite different from the standard one.
In fact anytime I begin to feel 'settled' I want to do something unsettling! I’ve realized that I don’t like routine. I like surprises as long as they’re not the kind with people jumping out from behind the couch on my birthday. I want something unexpected (in a good way) to happen. Something that separates today from yesterday. And the day before. I also know that this is not going to happen unless I MAKE it happen.
As many of you know, I threw away a perfectly good job that paid me more than a fair amount, was close to home and did not require me to work long or weird hours – something most people would give their left arm for! I wasn’t sure what I was going to be doing next but checking out New York was in my radar. I was a little nervous about the move. It isn’t easy giving up a life of leisure and moving to a city that was completely unfamiliar and maybe a little intimidating. And THAT was precisely what made it exciting. Then there were the questions. Was I going to find a job that would allow me to live in the city? Was I going to be able to live in a tiny apartment after being in a more-than-modest-sized-one for a number of years? How was all the housework going to get done? Dinner would not be waiting for me at the table. My clothes would not magically get washed and more importantly, ironed. I couldn’t just be in the mood to eat something and it would get cooked. And in all probability I would have to actually work in my new job – something I had alienated myself from in the recent past!
Well, it’s all worked out so far. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be living the life I was so curious about. It’s said that ‘everyone should live in New York at some point of their lives’ and I couldn’t agree more. It truly is a unique city. The energy that this city exuberates cannot be replicated anyplace else. New York is almost its own country, a true cosmopolitan city that has brought together all the cultures of the world. It’s almost hard to believe that New York is a part of the US – it’s as different from the rest of the country as chalk and cheese.
Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here. And other times I wonder if I’ve always been familiar with this life. I met someone at a dinner party recently who grew up in Connecticut and said that after living in New York for 6 years was finally beginning to feel like a ‘New Yorker’. I, on the other hand, felt like a New Yorker the day I moved in. There was something about this city that grabbed me instantly. It made me feel like this was also home. It was almost unreal, how comfortable I felt here. There wasn’t a 'settling in' (there we go again!) period, no 'getting used' to my new surroundings. It almost seemed like I had lived here in a previous life.
I eat out a lot. It definitely beats cooking although I do go through it a couple of times a week. I get my laundry done. I had a cleaning lady come clean once but it seemed like an awful amount of money for a miniscule apartment. So I clean. I hate mundane tasks. I miss all the help I had in Bangalore. But I don’t dwell on it because I have no idea how long I’m going to live here. I certainly don’t want to waste time feeling bad when I have so much to feel good about.
The other day someone I ran into (in small town America) said she was in New York a couple of weeks ago. She made a face and said "I hated it. It’s so dirty and crowded". This, coming from someone who has lived in Chennai all her life, not the cleanest and most sparsely populated city in the world. I almost wanted to slap her when she said that. How dare she say something derogatory about my city? Crowded yes – but dirty? Where was THAT coming from? I surprised myself because instead of just ignoring a comment (made by someone who completely overlooked everything that the city has to offer and only saw the superficial aspect), about a city that has more character than Meryl Streep in all her various movies, her remark made my blood boil.
More importantly it made me realize how close this city is to my heart. And how I will always be thankful that I’ve chosen to spend a portion of my life here. I have no idea what life is all about and what it is that I’m supposed to be doing here. I do however, know that at this moment, where I am feels SO right. Amen.
I knew very early in life that I couldn’t lead the ‘expected' life. Get an education, make a career, get married, have children, feed them, educate them, etc. etc. Obviously I have nothing against it, but I couldn’t see myself doing it. As a result I’m not highly educated, have never been ambitious, no wife, no kids! People always ask me “don’t you want to settle down”? And I think to myself “do I really seem unsettled?”
Of course my definition of being settled is quite different from the standard one.
In fact anytime I begin to feel 'settled' I want to do something unsettling! I’ve realized that I don’t like routine. I like surprises as long as they’re not the kind with people jumping out from behind the couch on my birthday. I want something unexpected (in a good way) to happen. Something that separates today from yesterday. And the day before. I also know that this is not going to happen unless I MAKE it happen.
As many of you know, I threw away a perfectly good job that paid me more than a fair amount, was close to home and did not require me to work long or weird hours – something most people would give their left arm for! I wasn’t sure what I was going to be doing next but checking out New York was in my radar. I was a little nervous about the move. It isn’t easy giving up a life of leisure and moving to a city that was completely unfamiliar and maybe a little intimidating. And THAT was precisely what made it exciting. Then there were the questions. Was I going to find a job that would allow me to live in the city? Was I going to be able to live in a tiny apartment after being in a more-than-modest-sized-one for a number of years? How was all the housework going to get done? Dinner would not be waiting for me at the table. My clothes would not magically get washed and more importantly, ironed. I couldn’t just be in the mood to eat something and it would get cooked. And in all probability I would have to actually work in my new job – something I had alienated myself from in the recent past!
Well, it’s all worked out so far. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be living the life I was so curious about. It’s said that ‘everyone should live in New York at some point of their lives’ and I couldn’t agree more. It truly is a unique city. The energy that this city exuberates cannot be replicated anyplace else. New York is almost its own country, a true cosmopolitan city that has brought together all the cultures of the world. It’s almost hard to believe that New York is a part of the US – it’s as different from the rest of the country as chalk and cheese.
Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here. And other times I wonder if I’ve always been familiar with this life. I met someone at a dinner party recently who grew up in Connecticut and said that after living in New York for 6 years was finally beginning to feel like a ‘New Yorker’. I, on the other hand, felt like a New Yorker the day I moved in. There was something about this city that grabbed me instantly. It made me feel like this was also home. It was almost unreal, how comfortable I felt here. There wasn’t a 'settling in' (there we go again!) period, no 'getting used' to my new surroundings. It almost seemed like I had lived here in a previous life.
I eat out a lot. It definitely beats cooking although I do go through it a couple of times a week. I get my laundry done. I had a cleaning lady come clean once but it seemed like an awful amount of money for a miniscule apartment. So I clean. I hate mundane tasks. I miss all the help I had in Bangalore. But I don’t dwell on it because I have no idea how long I’m going to live here. I certainly don’t want to waste time feeling bad when I have so much to feel good about.
The other day someone I ran into (in small town America) said she was in New York a couple of weeks ago. She made a face and said "I hated it. It’s so dirty and crowded". This, coming from someone who has lived in Chennai all her life, not the cleanest and most sparsely populated city in the world. I almost wanted to slap her when she said that. How dare she say something derogatory about my city? Crowded yes – but dirty? Where was THAT coming from? I surprised myself because instead of just ignoring a comment (made by someone who completely overlooked everything that the city has to offer and only saw the superficial aspect), about a city that has more character than Meryl Streep in all her various movies, her remark made my blood boil.
More importantly it made me realize how close this city is to my heart. And how I will always be thankful that I’ve chosen to spend a portion of my life here. I have no idea what life is all about and what it is that I’m supposed to be doing here. I do however, know that at this moment, where I am feels SO right. Amen.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Spilling Culture
Lately I’ve been spilling coffee on myself more often than not. Every morning I walk over to Starbucks to get my ‘bold’ Columbian cup of caffeine that will jolt me out of my sleepy existence. Unfortunately it also ends up leaving stains on my shirt. Sometimes the lid isn’t shut tight. Sometimes I’m not paying attention and the entire slit on the lid doesn’t make it into my mouth (of course it doesn’t help that I have a small sized big mouth). And then sometimes I just bump into someone and the spill happens. Of course, like clockwork every Friday when I go to the cleaners, Mr. Chung (which by the way isn’t his real name) will look at my shirts and go “more coffee stains!!” and I’ll laugh out loud in an attempt to look less foolish and even lesser of a slob. I’m sure he thinks I’m an idiot.
I’ve been considering giving up my morning cuppa and sleeping through the day. I wonder if my client will notice. It'll shrink my dry cleaning bill for sure.
Speaking of liquids that are consumed, I’ve cut down on my alcohol intake. Not that I need to worry about being in AA or anything but my Friday and Saturday nights were becoming wilder than my weekends in college. Sometimes I would have no recollection of what time and how I made it home from the last bar that my friends and I were at. No idea if I took the subway or a cab. No clue if I paid the cab driver an obscene amount of money. How I got into my apartment building, changed into my pajamas etc. etc. The only thing I remembered was everything spinning around me.
So two weekends ago I decided to not hit the bars and enhance my cultural side instead. It began with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art on Friday evening with my cousin and a buddy of his. I put on my cool glasses and walked around feeling like an intellectual. The exhibits did not appeal to me in the slightest but I didn't display how I really felt. After a while I couldn’t keep up the pretext - I took my glasses off and began passing inane comments. The three of us would try to make sense out of nonsense, giggling like schoolgirls. It isn’t easy going through five floors of bad art and pretending that it’s working for you. On the other hand making fun of bad art can be quite entertaining. The best part of the entire experience was the café where I had a cup of really rich hot chocolate and didn’t spill any.
Chocolate schmocolate … we were exhausted and decided that we needed a drink. So we walked into the closest Irish bar and loaded up on Guinness. Now THAT felt really good!
That same weekend I went to the Opera. The production that we had tickets for was called Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, a comedy no less! I was told by some of my more frequent Opera going friends that this was a good one to break into.
The dress code was a big topic of conversation. Some people said that a “suit was the bare minimum but a tux would be the most appropriate” (while I rolled my eyes). “Jeans and blazer”, “Definitely wear a tie”, “Things are very different now – people dress very casual”. Anyway, I went with a button down shirt, dress pants and a blazer. And fit right in thank you very much.
I was always skeptical about the Opera. I’m not a big fan of Broadway musicals and I somehow never thought that I would get a kick out of fat people singing falsetto in a language that I didn’t understand. But was I in for a surprise! It’s hard to explain what I specifically enjoyed but I had a blast. I realize that people don’t have a ‘blast’ at the Opera but I did. I loved the grandeur theatre, the dramatic acting and singing, the subtitles (!) and the sets were amazing! The fat people were really fat and very entertaining. I felt completely enriched with the entire experience. The only thing I missed was seeing people watch it through those little binoculars. Do they not do that anymore?
We wanted to follow up the Opera performance with high tea at the Four Seasons or the Astoria Waldorf (did I neglect to mention that we went to a matinee performance?). Unfortunately we couldn’t get into either place as they were packed with people who wanted the same thing – tea in silver pots, little scones and crumpets, finger sandwiches and British accents. I was all set with mine but didn’t have anyplace to use it at.
All in all it was an entertaining weekend and I only consumed alcohol once. I’m going to ignore the part about watching a Bollywood film ‘Race’ in the theatre the same weekend. Just pretend that it never happened. It would completely be against my whole two days of being a culture vulture and we can’t have that, can we?
I’ve been considering giving up my morning cuppa and sleeping through the day. I wonder if my client will notice. It'll shrink my dry cleaning bill for sure.
Speaking of liquids that are consumed, I’ve cut down on my alcohol intake. Not that I need to worry about being in AA or anything but my Friday and Saturday nights were becoming wilder than my weekends in college. Sometimes I would have no recollection of what time and how I made it home from the last bar that my friends and I were at. No idea if I took the subway or a cab. No clue if I paid the cab driver an obscene amount of money. How I got into my apartment building, changed into my pajamas etc. etc. The only thing I remembered was everything spinning around me.
So two weekends ago I decided to not hit the bars and enhance my cultural side instead. It began with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art on Friday evening with my cousin and a buddy of his. I put on my cool glasses and walked around feeling like an intellectual. The exhibits did not appeal to me in the slightest but I didn't display how I really felt. After a while I couldn’t keep up the pretext - I took my glasses off and began passing inane comments. The three of us would try to make sense out of nonsense, giggling like schoolgirls. It isn’t easy going through five floors of bad art and pretending that it’s working for you. On the other hand making fun of bad art can be quite entertaining. The best part of the entire experience was the café where I had a cup of really rich hot chocolate and didn’t spill any.
Chocolate schmocolate … we were exhausted and decided that we needed a drink. So we walked into the closest Irish bar and loaded up on Guinness. Now THAT felt really good!
That same weekend I went to the Opera. The production that we had tickets for was called Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, a comedy no less! I was told by some of my more frequent Opera going friends that this was a good one to break into.
The dress code was a big topic of conversation. Some people said that a “suit was the bare minimum but a tux would be the most appropriate” (while I rolled my eyes). “Jeans and blazer”, “Definitely wear a tie”, “Things are very different now – people dress very casual”. Anyway, I went with a button down shirt, dress pants and a blazer. And fit right in thank you very much.
I was always skeptical about the Opera. I’m not a big fan of Broadway musicals and I somehow never thought that I would get a kick out of fat people singing falsetto in a language that I didn’t understand. But was I in for a surprise! It’s hard to explain what I specifically enjoyed but I had a blast. I realize that people don’t have a ‘blast’ at the Opera but I did. I loved the grandeur theatre, the dramatic acting and singing, the subtitles (!) and the sets were amazing! The fat people were really fat and very entertaining. I felt completely enriched with the entire experience. The only thing I missed was seeing people watch it through those little binoculars. Do they not do that anymore?
We wanted to follow up the Opera performance with high tea at the Four Seasons or the Astoria Waldorf (did I neglect to mention that we went to a matinee performance?). Unfortunately we couldn’t get into either place as they were packed with people who wanted the same thing – tea in silver pots, little scones and crumpets, finger sandwiches and British accents. I was all set with mine but didn’t have anyplace to use it at.
All in all it was an entertaining weekend and I only consumed alcohol once. I’m going to ignore the part about watching a Bollywood film ‘Race’ in the theatre the same weekend. Just pretend that it never happened. It would completely be against my whole two days of being a culture vulture and we can’t have that, can we?
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