Ditched by a Golden Girl

       

So, I started coaching Cross Country for fourth grade girls at an Upper East Side school.  The girls are beautiful, charming, and exuberant - so much so that after that first day I lay exhausted on my couch.  I asked them what they wanted their team to be called and it was unanimous – Golden Girls.  With a chuckle I declared, so be it.  They seem unaware of the hilarity.

Yesterday, on the way to the field, one of the girls Emily (not her real name) had me laughing as she explained why she calls her new Uncle  - Turkey Butt. It was a different experience on the way back.  Emily’s best friend told her she was ditching her.  Emily cried and cried.  The other girls told me that they too had been ditched.  One girl four times, another three times.  And so on.  I was shocked, when had this become a thing?  

Yes, I had seen Mean Girls, but even in that cautionary tale, it wasn’t repetitive ditching.  This is apparently a right of passage for these very young girls.  Suddenly I remembered an incident from high school that still has me unnerved – and IT DIDN’T EVEN HAPPEN TO ME.  I WAS JUST AN OBSERVER!

Elyse and Lynn were best friends for a very long time. Although I was accepted into the triangle, I wasn’t awarded equal footing.  However, they were fun and creative and I felt more at home with them than most others in the school.  From the age of 13-16 we attended theatre school together.  Lynn and I would choreograph every bit of music we could find for hours and hours after school and Elyse and I would rehearse scripts.
   

Our junior year, Elyse and I were cast in the musical.  The very popular seniors were also cast.  And we all became friends.  For some reason they didn’t like Lynn.  They made derogatory remarks, laughed about her and so on.  Elyse ditched Lynn.  I don’t even know how it happened. 

I remained friends with Lynn and Elyse and the popular seniors.  I guess I had a different status then Elyse in High School.  I was friendly with a lot more people. And it didn't hurt that I stopped the show with a dance number in the musical.

Lynn was bereft.  I didn’t know what to say or why Elyse did it. In retrospect, I realize Elyse was a bitch.  Not in the get things done way, but in the insecure way.  She put people down to make herself feel better. I was the recipient of many of those putdowns. Perhaps Lynn was better off. 

On the way home from the track last night I told Emily she was brilliant and wonderful and tomorrow she will feel better.  I know kids grow up faster, I hadn't realized that all the crazy high school junk is now in elementary school.  When did people become disposable? 

I told the girls that it’s always better to be nice.  That nice always wins out. I hope they hear me.  It will save them many tears, for karma always wins.

Attention

By Air Force photo by Rudy Purificato [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

After reading my story about David DeFrances, a friend told me he lived next door to an older gentleman for many years.  The older gentleman was a holocaust survivor.  He had a number tattooed on his left forearm.  He showed my friend the tattoo and spoke about the horrors of the concentration camps.  He apparently had been transferred to a few different camps and spoke about the abominations of each camp.

This older gentleman became very sick and passed away.  It was then that my friend learned that the gentleman was born and raised in Ohio.  He was not in the holocaust and may have had just a smattering of Jewish blood.   The first indication his story was fraud is that the vast majority of holocaust survivors never speak about their experiences. Not even to their own families.  It’s only in their very old age that they feel they can even begin to mention it.  Some have thankfully written their memoirs, and the Shoah Project gives survivors an opportunity to come forth with their histories.

Why would anyone make up such a terrible story about himself?  The need for attention and sympathy must be so great.  How sad. 

Let’s state the truth - we are all okay, just as we are.  Always were, always will be.

David DeFrances

So, I met David De Frances at my local Starbucks.  He seemed trustworthy so I asked him to watch my laptop.  We struck up a conversation and soon we had a friendship a la Starbucks. This friendship expanded to include several other Bux regulars, one of whom was Carol, someone I had seen in the neighborhood for a long time. 

I went to Starbucks to write but David was very chatty.  And soon I knew everything about his life, in great detail. He’s an actor and went to Brown.  He was in a soap opera - The Guiding Light for several years, though it ended in September 2009.  He owns a brownstone next to Sarah Jessica Parker and they are friends.  He knows Mathew Broderick and was in several plays with him.  He went to theatre school in London and still owns an apartment there.  This is where he met his good friend Edie Redmayne.  

David was in Spring Awakening with Lea Michelle and flew to LA to console her after Corey Monteith's passing.  He went frequently to LA to audition.  And would get parts, just not the ones he wanted.  David just broke up with his boyfriend, an attorney.  Together they had two dogs that David was keeping because David loved them so much, though the ex insisted on visitation rights.

David was very concerned with his hair. He had thick black hair that he checked over and over again. It was so shellacked that nothing could happen to it, even during the humid days of summer. He was kicked out of the local Rite Aid because he would frequently check his hair in their mirrors, that they thought he was casing the joint.  He was very upset, and couldn’t see the humor in it.

One time, David mentioned he just had lunch with SJP at Café Cluny because he had to inform her that while she was on vacation, her staff partied on the steps of her town house.

David grew up Catholic in South Dakota, his father was a sheriff and he played ice hockey.  He had two sisters, one in London with two kids and one sister who was a doctor and married to a doctor.  They lived in Boston with their twin boys.  He would describe in minute detail everything that he sent them for birthdays and holidays.  In fact I knew more about David’s life than I know of some of my closest friends.

My schedule changed and I didn’t see the Starbucks crowd for a while.   It was many months later when I ran into Carol one late afternoon.  She’d been looking for me, she had some news about David.

David committed suicide.  And everything he told us had been a lie.  

David's brother-in-law found David's phone and wanted to inform his friends.  The only friend he could find was Carol.  So he called her to let her know about David's passing.  It was the moment that Carol asked about the family, that she learned that everything he told us had been a lie.  

Everything - a fabrication.  David wasn't an actor, didn't live next to SJP, didn't go to Brown, and didn't know Edie and Lea.  He didn't have an ex and he didn't have dogs. There was little that David said that he hadn't made up, including what he said about his family.

It's been a year and I'm still so sad.  For the senseless loss of life. And to think about the pain he must have been in.  He must have felt so bad about himself that he felt the need to invent an alternative existence.  I'm a writer and I make money doing it, however, when I knew David I was working 3 jobs to make ends meet.  Carol is retired from the NY Times.  Why us, we ask ourselves.

There were red flags.  And in retrospect they were huge.  I looked up the Spring Awakening cast and he wasn't listed.  Carol didn't find his name in the Guiding Light.  I told myself actors are story tellers - they embellish, subtract, add, change the retell all the time.  All artists are, all people are for the most part.  

I know and have been involved with very famous people.  Unless I know you for a very long time, I don't name names and I may or may not in this platform, depending on the story.  That's my decision, and not necessarily holds for everyone. So David knowing all these stars was never out the realm of possibility.  

Apparently, he was a dog walker and we think he may have walked dogs on the same block as SJP.  The house of cards came tumbling down when David's landlady in Brooklyn decided to sell the house and he didn't have the money to move.  He was in great despair and thought he had no one to turn to.

He could have turned to me or Carol.  He could have found help from the lovely people at Church of St Luke in the Fields across the street. He hid so much.  

I do know that he was fun, clever and bright.  If only he knew - he was just fine the way he was.  We all are.  

Stuck in the Elevator at the New World Trade Center - Yesterday

So I was stuck in the elevator for an hour and half at the brand new Westfield World Trade Center Mall.  I had a long workout and thought I would take a walk over to Eataly and get something yummy to eat.  I had a  bad feeling about going.  I was thinking perhaps it was related to the upcoming 9/11 anniversary.  So clearly I didn't listen to my intuition. Never good.

A security guard told me I had to take the elevator (AE22) to the third floor to get to Eataly. The elevator has windows on three sides.   A family with little children got off on the next floor and a couple got in and pressed a button for the second floor.  The doors didn't open on two and didn't open on three.  We pressed the button for all of the floors, the door still wouldn't open.  Then the elevator started to go up and down on constant repeat on it's own. 

I pressed the alarm button. No response.  I pressed the alarm button and held it down.  It took several minutes before a human contacted us.  I told them we were stuck in the elevator the doors were not opening on the floor.  He said to hold on he would contact the mechanic.

And we were still going up and down!  I pressed the alarm button again.  The voice said the mechanic was on his way. From where I wondered?  This was a brand new building, on a very busy Saturday afternoon.  Shouldn't there be many mechanics in every corner?

I asked the voice at the end of box that surely there must be some way they could stop the elevator from going up and down. After a while, we landed on CIM, which seemed to be the main floor.  Finally, the mechanic(s) arrived because we could hear voices on the other side of the door.  In fact they were cursing, because nothing they were doing was working. This did not instill confidence in us.  Clearly, the mechanics were flying by the seat of their pants and didn't know how to rectify the situation.

The couple was from Montreal and very nice.  The man valiantly tried to open the door, but was told to stay away.   We could see security guards and policeman all over.  Suddenly we were the entertainment, and people were taking photos of us, pointing and commenting.

They reboot the computer associated with the elevator, as seen on the screen. And low and behold once again, we go up and down again.  I consider calling the FDNY.  I ask the voice in the box, who informs me they were there.  

It looked like the rescue would be a long time coming, so I sat down and breathe deeply.  It was at this time that the couple started to panic.  We hear continual cursing from the other side of the door. Nothing the mechanics were doing worked.  

Finally an hour and half later the doors open up.  The elevator was about 3 feet off the floor, so we were helped out.  The couple and I hug and they off go.  

It took me a while before my heart rate lowered.  I had chicken soup to calm me down.

This incident is disgraceful on so many levels.  Not only is this a brand new building but it's on a space with a particular history.  Elevators figure strongly in the history.  Didn't someone think to drill all the possible scenarios of elevators breaking down?  

The building should have been alerted the second the doors wouldn't open.  Why did it take me to notify management that there was something wrong?  I did not see FDNY at the scene.

The 9/11 anniversary is approaching.  Don't you think the mechanics and security should be on top of their game, not scrambling around for solutions.

Apparently, this is not the first issue with the elevators.  The elevators were having problems within days of the space opening.  A friend told me she took her children in a stroller and thad to search for an elevator that worked.  

Does the safety of the public take second place to making money?  It certainly seems so. 

It Was A Very Good Year

So, on a brutally cold winter night  in NYC,  I force myself out of my warm apartment and go to a party. The setting was humble, but the attendees were glamorous. The type you study in High School English.  I met one of my idols, a ground breaking, innovative writer – he wasn't very nice.  Disappointing. So maybe he was having a bad day, or maybe as my friend, Jean Caffeine says, never meet your idols.  Fortunately, things perked up from there.  

I have a basic guideline when I go to a party, which has served me well.  I’ll either talk to someone no one is talking to, or the oldest people in the room.  Often they are one and the same. 

I saw an older gentleman and his wife.  She was dressed in all white – white pants, white boots and the largest white fur hat in existence.  Fabulous.  So I go and introduce myself.  Ervin Drake and his wife Edith.  

They are charming, fun and clearly have a zest for life.  We make our chit chat and then ask the inevitable question – what do you do? Since it was a party of writers, the basic was a given, but not the particulars.  Playwright I tell them, and invite them to  a reading of my play the next weekend. 

Ervin’s a songwriter.  Popular songs and he also wrote musicals. His most successful song is - It Was A Very  Good Year recorded by Frank Sinatra.  Frank said, Ervin I’ll record anything you got. What Ervin didn’t tell me was that he also wrote one of my favorite songs, Good Morning Heartache sung by Billie Holiday, which was one of Billie’s favorite as well.

They ask if I know Stephen?  Of him, of course, but not personally, so they introduce me to Stephen Schwartz, who is kind and gracious, and so talented, as evidenced by his many Broadway hits.

Edith describes what it was like in the early 60s.  She was gorgeous now but must have been quite striking then.  Men were grabby and they chased her.  Literally.  At parties around a table. It seems Mad Men had it right.  

Edith and Ervin tell me they are going to a charity event, but they didn’t write down where it was.  Don’t worry, said I, someone with a smart phone can look it up.   “Smart phone?  What’s that?”   My phone at the time, wasn’t so smart.   So we found one.  Evidently, the charity event was the day before!   Phased, they were not.

We continued to have more laughs, and then they caught a cab to the train station for the ride home.  On a frigid cold night, they exuded great warmth.  What a great treat to have met them.

I was sorry to hear that Ervin passed away last year.  What a bright light.   He clearly had many Very Good Years.

Message In A Bottle

So, a friend of mine, Greg, came home late one night, to find a letter in his mailbox.  It was addressed to:

Any Boys and Girls
123 Broadway Street
United States of America
 

He read the letter and laughed and laughed for hours.  Greg, a fine artist, lives in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  As all New Yorkers know, Broadway is just Broadway without a “Street”.  However, the Post Master General decided Greg’s loft was the right place. He couldn’t have made a better choice, as you will see.

The letter was written by Sergei and Natasha, two young Russian children.   It began:  Hello New Friends!  They were studying English, they were ages 9 and 10.   They talked about their lives, what their home life was like and how they hoped their new friends would write back to them.

He showed me the letter and we laughed and laughed.  I happened to mention this letter to a friend, a teacher of third graders, at a private school in the West Village.  Her eyes lit up.   I said, do you want the letter?  Indeed she did.
 

The class wrote a reply letter to their new friends Sergei and Natasha.  They responded.  They spent the entire school year writing back and forth to each other.  It became a special class project.  At one point Natasha asked, “what is this doll called Barbie?”

The next day every girl brought in Barbies hoping to send them to Natasha.  They chose a cross section of Barbies and shipped them off to Natasha.  Unfortunately, what they didn’t do is pay off the corrupt Russian civil servants because Natasha never received the Barbies.

This happened several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It truly was a message in a bottle.  These two clever Russian children with sense of adventure, reached across the ocean.  Knowing we are all the same, and with a deep sense of humanity - they took a chance.

They are young adults now.  I like to think that a few have maintained contact.  That lasting friendships were made.  Perhaps even a few visits.  That the world is a tad more amicable. 

Ye Olde Antique Shoppe

So, I spent a summer in Scotland when a play of mine  ran in the Edinburgh Festival.  It was received really well and was a big success.  In the cast was an actor who is now a huge star, I won't name names but he now has a hit tv show and is in the Wolverine series.  We had triumphs, trials, victories, laughs and worked hard.  Finally we had a day off, and a few of us decided to rent a car and toodle about the Scottish country side.

The landscape, like the Scotts themselves, is lovely.  We saw ancient castles, lochs, mountains and shades of green I never knew existed before.

So we discover this lovely Scottish town, and on the High Street we find a parking spot in front of Ye Olde Antique Shoppe..  And low and behold we discover we have a flat.  The owner of Ye Olde Antique Shoppe comes out to see what happened.  He asks us where we are from – all 4 of us are New Yorkers.  He tell us he’s been to New York and went to a Bar Mitzvah on Long Island, and that he’s Jewish and Gay.  Three of us were Jewish and Ben is Gay, and all of us have been involved with theatre our whole lives.  The homing pigeon found it’s own kind.  What were the chances!  It was as if a huge cosmic magnet pulled us to this very location.  We chatted, laughed and then our new friend had customers he had to attend to.

It was time to get to the matter at hand.   None of us had ever changed a flat before.  Tom and Ben were valiant, found the spare, the tools and a book on how to change a flat.  One of them grabs the tool, as the other reads the instructions out.  A man sees this and walks by shaking his head in disbelief.

Our new friend from the Shoppe comes out to see how the progress is going. Slowly, we tell him.  We ask if he knows how to change a tire.  He said, not really.  I tell him, you don’t want to get greasy anyway.  Our new friend, slaps his thighs, lifts his hands up in the air and said in his Scottish brogue, “You can grease me right up!”  With that he pivots and returns to his store to attend to new customers.

The man who shook his head came back.  Let me help, he said.  Within 5 minutes he changed the tire. We thanked him profusely.  I never saw anyone read the book, he said in his Scottish brogue.  He might have repeated this several times.  And then he went on his merry way.

We said our fond farewells to our friend in Ye Olde Antique Shoppe, he promised he would visit us in NY and we reconvened our toodling.

Sometimes you luck out, make new friends and rely on the kindness of strangers.