Tag Archives: new york

July 10, 2011

but did i get the job on jerseylicious!?

By arlynnpresser

the train from boston to new york was meant to be a four hour haul but it was five and it deposited me into the hell that is owned by satan.  oh, whoops, michael bloomberg.  new york at six o’clock rush hour, one hundred degrees, rain with a brisk wind of brimstone and sulfur.  the boy scouts benjamin and brandon trailing behind me with their cameras and cases and tripod.  i met up with my son joseph and the quintet found a quiet spot at a QUIET italian restaurant on 55th and 9th avenue to await the arrival of f2fb friend #169 steve ware.

by quiet, i mean the volume was set at eleven.  new yorkers are loud people, pushy people, excitable people.  they crowd up against each other and there’s little time for extended conversational openers like “excuse me” or “sorry i stepped on your foot”. . .  i spent three minutes being polite and figured it wasn’t getting me anywhere.  none of these people would last five minutes in kearney, missouri or cedar rapids, iowa or even morgantown, west virginia–places i’ve logged on this new years resolution.

i first met steve ware at a movie shoot that my younger son eastman was part of.  eastman was just ten and steve watched out for him on the set when i wasn’t available.  we have kept up over the years through emails and facebook but not so much in person.

steve and a young friend. he calls the picture "when former self meets future self" i think it's the coolest profile picture ever!

the waitress asked me if we were doing a movie because of all the equipment the boy scouts, brandon and ben, were hauling.  i allowed as how i was sort of gonna being doing a, well, a “reality thang” which isn’t a bad way to describe two guys following me around making a documentary about my new years resolution.  i mentioned that steve ware is working on the show jerseylicious, the scorching hot series about a beauty salon in new jersey.  (i should put in a plug here for the show if i expect to be invited to be part of the cast, shouldn’t i?)

i didn’t put up any objection when she asked if she might seat us in the v.i.p. area.  which was a good 3% quieter.

RECIPE FOR GETTING YOURSELF A VIP TREATMENT:

1.  RENT FRIENDS IN CASUAL DRESS WITH LOADS OF CAMERA GEAR.  THEY MUST WEAR CARGO SHORTS AND I WOULD SHOOT THEM UP WITH FRAPPUCINOS BEFOREHAND.  JUST FOR THAT VIBE.  (a clipboard isn’t a bad add-on)

2.  HAVE THEM PUT THAT CAMERA LENS ON YOU.  IGNORE THEM.  TRY TO ORDER.  PUSH THE CAMERA LENS AWAY.  WAVE YOUR HANDS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.  LOOK POUTY.

3.  ****GUARANTEED*** WAITRESS WILL ASK “UH, ARE YOU WITH . . . ?”  THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MOMENT:

4.  BE VAGUE.  VERY VAGUE.  DREDGE UP EVERY REALITY SHOW YOU KNOW (GLAM FAIRIES?  SISTER WIVES?  JERSEY SHORE IN ITALY????) AND PEOPLE (SPIELBERG, FOR EXAMPLE, YOUR COUSIN’S LAST NAME ENDS WITH BERG.  THAT’S PRETTY GOOD)

5.  AGREE (RELUCTANTLY–WATCH THAT CHAMPAGNE TABLE STUFF) TO GO TO THE VIP TABLE AND WORK ON YOUR POSTURE:  NOSE SLIGHTLY TILTED UPWARD.  THIS IS KEY BUT I DON’T THINK I’M AS GOOD AS ALL THAT.

steve ware has a particular gift of getting himself into car accidents–and i asked him about that:

steve has battled back from an incredible health crisis and yet he’s managed it with grace, patience and good humor.  and yes, he’s now working on jerseylicious.

i think steve and i agree that everybody should be the stars of their own reality series.  maybe it’s not filmed.  maybe it’s not on a cable channel.  but it’s you.  you are the central character of your own life!!!!!  you are not just watching baseball, you play it.  you are not wanting to be glam, you get it.  you take adventures, you are the star of your  own life,

however, i’m sorry because this is advice from someone who isn’t there yet.  we left the cafe and the rain had become a gentle sweet smelling cloak.  the commuters had scurried off, the tourists were in their hotel beds with visions of fifth avenue bargains dancing through their heads.  the moon was just one of the twinkling lights overhead.  i smiled in what i hoped was a most charming way and asked f2fb friend #169 if i had a shot at getting on jerseylicious.

he said i don’t have big enough hair.

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March 2, 2011

new york new year f2fb stats and . . .

By arlynnpresser

i thought i couldn’t do it–getting to new york, visiting friends, even making a side trip to new jersey–and you know what? i didn’t do it! not at all. sure, it was me on the plane and in the sex museum and at the algonquin and the faculty club of princeton university, sitting with baba at ted baker and almost going to a party of celebrities with vince p.

but it wouldn’t have happened without friends. friends who called me the morning i left for new york and said you can do this. you can get on that plane. friends who texted me, messaged me, emailed me, posted encouraging words on my wall or even the friends i met in new york who said “get out of your damn shell and let’s go see the city!” friends i’ve known forever, friends i’ve only recently met, friends i haven’t even met at all! the experience has made me think i will remember next time i have a friend who needs some bucking up that i will do it. i’ll be the one to call, to text, to message, to give hugs.

now, i have a video to share with you of f2fb #61 my son joseph but wordpress isn’t cooperating so i thought i’d share the news that on friday i’ll signing books at the book stall in winnetka at six o’clock. the book stall is on the 700 block of elm street in winnetka.

 

northfield cover

and here’s the early spring tally on my new years resolution:

61: the day of the year, 304 remaining
61: the number of facebook friends i have met, 274 remaining
1698: the number of facebook friends i now have
1363: the number of facebook friends i will try to meet outside of this project (viva brasil! viva japan!)
9: the number of friends i met in new york city
2: the number of facebook friends in new york city who did not respond to emails, messages, or wall posts (gillbert gottfried and glen thater)
3: the number of friends who deactivated their accounts while i was in new york (explanation in future post)

so i have to ask you

i leave for a michigan excursion at the end of the week and then i have a few small trips before the first international trip to mexico city. viva mexico!!!!

and p.s. this problem with uploading videos is driving me nuts!

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February 28, 2011

a shakespeare, an oscar, new york is full of surprises!

By arlynnpresser

i believe that every city that i visit in this year long tour will have treasures of incomparable worth. for instance yesterday i saw what’s called a first folio. it is one of the earliest complete sets of shakespeare’s works.

it is housed at the j. pierpont morgan museum, which is basically the former home of the donald trump of his time. he liked to collect books, although with as many as i saw, i highly doubt he read every one of them. and he had this first folio. which is probably worth about seven million dollars. i reminded the staff that one should never display works of this antiquity (1601, so that makes it four hundred and ten years old give or take a few months) on an angle. doing so causes the paper to ever so slowly pull away from the binding. the staff said if it was such a problem for me, i could take the damn thing home with me. i said i’d have to check it in my baggage and i would prefer them to mail it to me. besides, i couldn’t lug it across town for the oscars presentation. yes, yes, most oscars were handed out in los angeles. but in grand central station in new york, a very special one was reserved for me.

i thanked the academy, of course, but i reserved my special thanks for my facebook friends.

a real new yorker is somebody who knows stuff that’s not in the guidebooks. like the fact that the granite lions outside the public library are called patience and fortitude. (something i could use this year) like the fact that there’s a spot in grand central station where you can stand forty five feet from each other and through a quirk in acoustics, you can hear each other’s whisper. like the fact that the algonquin hotel is where all the greatest writers of the first part of the twentieth century dined.

f2fb friend #58 john r. douglas is a real new yorker. he works for richard curtis and he had a lot to talk about with me. it was the first time we had met in person. we spent a delightful four hours touring the city.

he had a lot to say about america and how it is corrupt and occasionally a mess. but he can say that, in part because he’s canadian.

today, i leave new york and head for princeton new jersey where i will meet two facebook friends, one of them alive and one of them very very dead. i wonder how the meeting with the dead friend will work out? tomorrow i will wake up on the 60th day of the year i will know i have met with 60 facebook friends. which is good because there’s three hundred and thirty five. if there’s three hundred and thirty six, that means i have some time left over to meet brazilians, japanese, and a host of other friends i never expected to have!

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February 26, 2011

gilbert gottfried, we’re supposed to be friends!

By arlynnpresser

gilbert gottfried you’re supposed to be my friend. we bonded on facebook, didn’t we? well, i’m in new york and you’re in new york and for some reason we ain’t connecting. i think it’s because you’re a celebrity. you too, glen thater. but i did discover something about one of my celebrity friends, the rap artist inda loop. . . . it was while i was with mop after viewing the museum of sex–


people play with facebook and play with gadgets in order to express themselves. and it’s changed lots of people’s lives in unexpected ways. i used to write books, mostly romance novels, and now i’m not sure what i do because books are different. one of the first to see that books would be different is my friend richard curtis. he’s an agent in new york and continues to sell my grandfather’s works even though my grandfather fritz has been dead for almost twenty years. when i first met richard he told me about books that wouldn’t be printed on paper. i thought he was really crazy.

i walked from one end of manhattan to the other yesterday because i didn’t realize just how big of a place it was. i wish that richard curtis could create books that communicate smell–you’re walking down the street and the most expensive perfume mixes with rotting garbage and exhaust. i met one man and bought his grocery cart and all his glass and cans. then i gave them back to him because i ain’t never getting on a plane with ’em.

and i talked with some dudes from nigeria who were protesting in front of the consulate. i really hope the naija boys are not involved in this stuff because i do love their music.

i saw a lot of hair salons, like every third store–if everybody in new york were like me the place would go broke. i haven’t gotten my hair cut in four years. at the end of the day i went to ted baker just a mere forty four blocks from the hotel where i’m staying. i wanted to see baba. baba (f2fb#56) used to be in winnetka, he’s originally from japan, and he has a job in retail and is finishing up a stint at starbucks. i was a little tired. . . .

i find new york overwhelming. it’s about as organized as a city can be if it was originally created by handing a kindergarten classroom a book on urban planning and a box of crayons. i am hoping to see my favorite facebook friend and one of the five great loves of my life joseph presser later today. it’s about the only thing that can get me to leave my hotel room which i have now decided is “safe”.

in the meantime, gilbert gottfried, would you please get in touch?

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