Heroes

So I just recently discovered a rapper dude named Deadlee--he was highlighted on CNN as a gay man in the rap business. You've gotta love that. I mean, you can't get much more macho and homophobic than rap music, and I admire him for being out there--and I mean really Out there. I have to say, tho, I took a listen to him on itunes and was a little disturbed by some of the lyrics I was hearing. I don't know what I expected, but I really don't need to hear about someone putting their finger in a crack. I don't care who or what is doing it to whom.--that's just nasty! In a little movie clip he's talking about the 'kids' who listen to his music and need an alternative to gay bashing, yet he's rapping about butt-cracks. So even tho I admire his chutzpah, I guess I'm not all that thrilled with his role-modeling. Dang, Deadlee, you could have really been a good influence there!

Now the Dixie Chicks on the other hand, they are definitely my new heroes. Generous Barbara Kopple, the director who filmed Vivian's recent commercial spots and also the Chicks' documentary "Shut Up and Sing" recently sent us a copy of it. Now as you all know very well I am no fan of country music and so haven't been too interested in these ladies--although I do have to say I have often wished I did like them just because they seem cool. After watching this documentary I can say that they are indeed cool--in fact, they may play some twangy tunes, but they are down-right Metal!

It all started with a silly comment as the war started to really heat up. One of the Chicks said from stage, "We're embarrassed that Bush is from Texas," or something to that effect. It is quite unbelievable to watch the repercussions of that benign statement unfold throughout this movie. All of these country folk are banning them, all of the southern radio stations. A woman holding her 2 year old child on her hip and telling her to say that the Dixie Chicks Suck on camera, and then in the same breath say how ignorant the band is. HUH??!! It's embarrassing to be sharing a country with people of that mentality, that's all I can say. I could rant about it all day and night, but of course I won't. Through everything, the Chicks have stuck together and amazingly looked at the whole thing in a positive light, as giving them a chance to re-create themselves, if you will, and create the kind of music they really wanted to create. They still won't apologize about the actual statement or feel sorry about it, and I LOVE THAT!

So there it is. I may even go out and buy their latest CD, just in pure support. Then my husband can listen to it on his way to work...he is very scarily listening to the country station in his car all the time now...eeeek! What's worse, country or Alan Parsons?! (sorry, honey.)

DC and Back Again--Day Four

...and another day of commercial shooting for Viv. This time Cory went with her, so I don't have as many details about this day. I do know she did some 'man-on-the-street' interviews and was completely comfortable with the idea of approaching complete strangers and asking them questions. Amazing! They spent the second half of the day indoors at another location. (thank goodness, as it was another cold day!)

Sullivan and I had a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant, The Palette. I had to laugh as Sullivan scoffed out loud to the server about the five dollar glasses of juice. My beloved oatmeal was $7. Of course I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were at a fancy hotel, but overall food is very expensive in Washington DC. I suppose this is how they make their money, as most of the museums are free and amazingly enough the souveniers in the museum gift shops are surprisingly inexpensive as well.

After our meal we walked three blocks from the hotel to the nearest Metro station. I was quite proud of myself, I was determined to figure this out all by my little self. Hey, I used to be on my own here and in L.A., took the train from New Jersey into NYC all by myself without knowing where to go or what to do years ago....but that was years ago. It's funny how once you get older, and especially when you have children, you get more paranoid and afraid to do things. I guess you just pay more attention to all of the bad things that could happen to you along the way as you get one day closer to death and have someone else to watch out for. But! That was not going to stop me! We found the station and took the escalator down. I had no clue how to work the ticket system, luckily there was a group of people who had just figured it out and were very helpful. Before I knew it we were on the blue line making for the Smithsonian stop. Fun!

I have to say, it was not easy to tell which way to go once we got off the train. There aren't many signs marking the way, and the signs that are there are pretty vague. All of the museums are in a row, and they are not well marked from across the way--so it's hard to know what's what. Luckily being a woman I have no problem asking for directions, so I just stopped some passerby and they were very helpful. (everyone was very nice in that town, I will say.)

Knowing what a little scientist my son is and how he is fascinated with the solar system, Sullivan and I went right to the Air and Space Museum. What a cool place! He was definitely in his element with all of the airplanes, space shuttles and paraphernalia, models of the solar system. There were many 'hands on' things for kids to do. I have to say though, my personal favorite room was the one that had choice things from the American History Museum temporarily housed in it, as it was being renovated at the time. Dorothy's ruby slippers, Lincoln's top hat he wore the day he was shot, R2D2 and C3PO, even Carrie Bradshaw's laptop were among the many cool things displayed. I was pleasantly surprised at how cool it was to actually see those things in person.

After lunch at the in-house loft-style McDonald's which gave a great view of the area, we jumped back onto the Metro and headed back to the hotel. Mission Accomplished! At that point Sullivan and I just chilled at the hotel until Vivian and Cory got back. Once again we were pampered with room service as the celebrity and her dad came back right at dinner time, and once again an early night was called to get some sleep for the next busy day. Barbara stopped by the hotel room with a fruit basket to say her goodbyes as she was leaving the next day. She was so wonderful! Even though she was done with her part, it had been decided that the Fallon team would indeed shoot a couple more spots on their own--cameraman Josh stayed another day, which was great. The days had flown by, it was hard to believe we were approaching our last already!

DC and Back Again--Day Three

Up bright and early for a 6:30 call time on Vivian's first day of her commercial shootl! She and I started out by meeting everyone down in the lobby of the hotel. We soon crammed into a couple of vans and were taken to the first location which was in front of the Whitehouse. We went right into an RV outfitted solely for the purpose of film-making, complete withOUT a bed in the back for the perfect wardrobe fitting/changing room. It wasn't anything fancy, but I sure wasn't complaining. It was warm, cozy, and I had my breakfast brought to me from the nearby Craft Service catering truck parked down the street. I had asked for oatmeal if they had it, a bagel if they didn't....I got both. nice.

After hanging out a bit and chatting with driver Lee, studio teacher Lorena, and Tony, the other actor that would be in the first commercial shot, Vivian got bundled up and we all walked down to the location. It was still a couple of blocks down the street, as we weren't allowed to park any closer to the Whitehouse.

It was a jam-packed day, frought with all sorts of things that could have caused major trouble. Protests, noisy street workers just yards away, barking police dogs, cold temperatures and even colder winds. Thanks to Neel Lattimore, ex-Press Secretary for Hilary Clinton and now working on this project, a few phone calls to the Whitehouse at least took care of the workers for a while. As for everything else, the crew just soldiered on.

And let me add that my daughter soldiered on like a professional through it all as well. At one point I watched her on the monitors and just could scarcely believe she was mine. Not that I didn't think she could do it, but to the surprise of everyone she nailed her lines and her performance every time, almost always the first time. People passing by, all of the noises, the cold, even me standing right in front of her and watching, she ignored it all and was truly in the moment. Whether she chooses to do this as a career or not, I dare say she was made for it. And for a parent that is both an exciting and scary thing.

Everyone on the crew couldn't have been nicer. They were so attentive to Vivian's needs, even to my needs. Thank God for feet warmers, is all I can say. And broadcast producer Michaels snowpants, which he so graciously took off of his own self to let me wear the entire day. !! Barbara Kopple, the director, was amazing. She was so great with Vivian, made her feel totally at ease. You can tell she's worked with kids before, that's for sure. No Hollywood attitude there--she was so warm and down to earth.

After a catered lunch in a nearby church basement, we headed over to the second location--in front of the capitol. (sadly, my camera's battery power went out so I don't have any photos from there! :-( ) There snow was whipping by horizontally at some points, the wind even knocked an open umbrella into the tidal basin--which totally struck my funny bone. Through it all Vivian never complained and did an amazing job. We were all happy to wrap things up and head back to the hotel when they got everything they needed.

After such a long day of shooting for us and more museum-hopping and hotel staff schmoozing for Cory and Sullivan, room service was definitely on the menu for dinner. Actually, Cory and Vivian wanted some Subway so he went and got that for them and Sully and I enjoyed delicious chicken dinners from silver platters. An early night was called once again to get ready for the second day of shooting.

DC and Back Again--Day One

Hey there! Here I am, back from a whirlwind week out in Washington DC. We were living large, let me tell you. First the Upper East Side, and now this. Two high-falootin' trips within 6 months, how lucky am I?! This one was courtesy of my amazing daughter, who landed the role of spokesperson for a very important campaign and it involved 3 days of filming for some upcoming commercials. That my friends, is all I can tell you about it...but it could very well be a pretty big-time thing. It's very exciting! Since we really had 5 jam-packed days I won't try to cram it all into one post, but go day by day instead. (knowing how much I can blab I'm sure all of you are wiping your brows and saying, "whew!")

So! Let me start by saying that he flight into DC was uneventful...and that is wonderful news. As many of you know, we tried flying with Sullivan 2 or 3 years ago and it did not go so well. Let's just say we were on the plane maybe 10 minutes and had to convince the flight attendant to open the door back up and let us out. You can imagine that they frown upon that, so in turn you can imagine just how freaked out Sullivan must have been. I swear I could hear a silent cheer from the other passengers as we carried our screaming panicked toddler down the aisle and out the door. The poor guy. But that is all in the past now, as he flew like he'd flown all his little life. No problems at all-- in fact, he had a ball. He got his flight certificate, his wings, even a free bag of trail mix and the pilot's autograph to boot. I also had a great flight. I was a ball of nerves up until I got on the plane. Then upon sitting down I had the weirdest calm just come over me. I don't know what happened, but I'm not going to question it! It was great!!!!! We landed and I was feeling pretty spunky indeed.

We flew with Char, one of the many wonderful Fallon team members that went along on the trip. (Fallon is the advertisting agency) There was a van driver there to meet us and we got our luggage lickety-split. Before I knew it we were at the Madison Hotel, on 15th and M Street. We met up with more Fallon people in the lobby and then went up to check into our room. I have to say our room was quite small, especially for the 4 of us. But no matter, we weren't going to be in the room much anyway! Overall it was a very nice hotel, and the people there were fabulous.

After getting unpacked a bit and taking a peep at the production office, Vivian and I met the studio teacher down in the lobby. Vivian was required to have a certain bit of schooling each day, and the first order of business was to get over to some office building to get Vivian her work permit which I guess is required of any under- aged child about to do some kind of work. Teacher Lorena Bow was fabulous. I knew I liked her right away. A retired school teacher from right there in DC, she had never done anything like this before...but that didn't stop her from taking care of business and being right on top of things. She was amazing. We found our way around the building and it took a while to get the permit. Meanwhile Lorena's hugging just about everyone we passed by, she knew everyone! We got back to the hotel and by that time they only had a little time to get some studying in before Vivian's fitting. They went down to the lobby and got to work while the rest of us just hung out in our room.

We all went up to the 15th floor of the hotel for Vivian's fitting, which was basically in a hallway right outside of a meeting room! Vivian would dart into a nearby bathroom to try on different outfits for Ellen, the wardrobe person, and then she'd take her into the meeting room where everyone from the production was talking about the upcoming shoot. That was the first time I got a glimpse of Barbara Kopple, the acadamy award winning director that was working on the commercials! Very exciting!!! After they decided what would work best we went back up to the room and ordered room service for dinner. Nice! Nothing like sitting on your bed and eating delicious expensive food on silver platters. You gotta love it. We all tried to get to bed early, although sleeping was not easy. Not only were we in a new place, different beds and excited about the days to come, our gassy boy made sure we were all down-wind, so to speak. Never a dull minute in a hotel room with a family of four, that's for sure.

My next post will be Day #2! I will let you go with this revelation...for whatever reason I can honestly say that my Fear of Flying is completely gone. I don't know what happened, but I was not even nervous one bit before the flight home and it was the easiest thing ever. ?? I feel like a new person, FREE! It's the best feeling ever.