time to blog about joan

I thought that by the third week of the joan rivers theatre project workshop I would have hours worth of juicy, dirty stories about miss rivers. as it turns out, I have nothing but admiration for the woman. this is no "moving right along". she's always full of gracious words and praise, never missing a chance to joke, and the jokes are always good. mean, crude, dirty and delicious. she shares old school femme tricks with me and has about a hundred pairs of fake lashes in her dressing room. a woman of my own heart.

she gets off stage after a 90 minute show, I rip her out of the rigged costume I just shimmied her into a few moments before and she jets over to another venue to do standup. two shows a night. it's rather unbelievable. I'm exhausted when we have mere two show days, much less two different venues in one night. we are all going to watch her standup at the plush room on friday, I'm excited. she's running the NY marathon and she's stronger than me (there's a gag where I hold a door shut so it appears as if she's locked in the dressing room set on stage and it takes every once of my strength to keep the door shut while she pulls it open from the other side.) her team of handlers are all dolls and we've had a blast drinking lava bowls and dancing at the tonga room.

I am to the point as a stage manager where I'm not learning anything more backstage and this is one of the easiest productions I've run at the magic theatre. still, they all think I'm working very hard and making the magic happen. really, it is just an honor to watch this woman and her supporting characters from behind the curtains as the play gets rewritten on a daily basis, growing into a full blown production and not just the staged workshop it was scheduled to be. I cry with laughter every night at the same jokes I have now heard a hundred times. I chain-smoked with Melissa on our fire escape balcony and listened to her talk about cooper, the grandbaby, and thought to myself, wow, joan looks better than her own daughter. I've seen precious pictures of the two of them together when melissa was a baby and joan had a nose. I don't need a signature, these are memories I will not forget. truly old school hollywood at its finest.

I won't be going union right away next week. the show I booked got moved to next spring so I will be waiting until mid-december to fulfill my AEA dreams. in the meantime, I miss the lusty and will need all the free time I can afford to pursue dreams in a more southerly direction. I am content and excited and life feels good.

letter from my mother from jerusalem

the following is an email from my mama who is back in palestine, where she and her pastor/best friend, Bonnie, lead tours every summer. this year they went alone to attend the Annual International Conference at the International Center of Bethlehem (ICB), where our friend Mitri is pastor/founder. I was there just over a year ago and so much has changed. The local winery, Cremisen, has closed it's gardens because the wall is cutting straight through it, the settlements are spreading visciously, there is still no resolution between the Abbas vs. Fatah Palestinian government debate that nearly tears families apart. It sounds like things will soon be coming to a head, whether that means more war and worsened conditions or further & resolutionary peace talks. She said a man spoke yesterday at the conference who envisioned a middle-eastern union, not unlike the EU, that could bring together all of the small, resource wealthy but war-ridden countries of the fertile cresent, building a super power that could overthrow the "western" occupation and take those countries into a new economic age. This is one of the few solutions I have heard over 5 years of study that makes some sense. Ok, on to the wisdom of my mother:

Hi,
It's been another full day. We went into the old city (snuck in 2 Palestinians on our bus) - visited just the Wailing Wall and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in different ways. We spent over an hour at each of the sites with one of the conference leaders as guides. We had lunch in the old city. Then one of the church elders took us to a friend's house in the old city, owner of CocaCola Israel- you guessed it- a magnificent house with a magnificent view from his rooftop. This guy is also on the ICB board of directors. Our bus then took us to Sabeel [a christian organization working against housing destruction/rehabilitation] where we had an excellent presentation by the UN office. This is the info that we know a lot about- but these theological people are not up to date on this. They have a website with some excellent maps. Driving between Bethlehem and Jerusalem- the settlements have grown so much even since last year- and it won't be long before Harhoma and Gilo connect. When Tony Blair saw the same UN presentation, he was shocked at the settlement growth. When our bus got to the Bethlehem checkpoint [what Isreal now calls a super-terminal], a man and his son were facing guns. It was scary and very new for most of the other people on the bus. It was lucky we were there to witness- things cooled, though I'm sure one or both is arrested- for what, nothing. We will be meeting Nina [a Jewish woman who tours around the world speaking against the occupation] on Saturday for dinner- and Kathy Nichols on Sunday for lunch (from Sabeel), but I absolutely can't wait to get home. I'm missing you so much. I love you, xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoooooooooooooooo love, Mom

the rathskeller

after bitching about madison on this blog for a few weeks, nothing makes me happier than meeting someone who knows about the red union mugs that you used to be able to go get refilled at the wisconsin union (where I am STILL a member! and I never even schooled there!) with beer or coffee or whatever you so pleased nearly anytime of day. anyone who knows me knows I'm rarely without my red, gross, coffee-stained brown mug circa 1991 and how desperately I search to find something as good, as perfect, as suitable for my beverage of choice. And now the lid is busted, what to do?

a good night at chez, ready to count some paper and pretend like it's a lot, but I love to take my clothes off for money and there was a fabulous bachlorette party there for most of the night that I think annoyed everyone, but they paid me well, and I just can't get enough of 80's prom dresses.

my bed is covered in ho gear and I am tempted to just crawl in alongside the piles of bikinis and stilletos and condoms and lube just to lay down my pretty curls and sleep. exhaustion in the purest form.