Martha Frankel's Blog

The Waterman Contest

2011-12-21T13:03:00.003-05:00

During the Woodstock Film Festival this past September, my pal, the great photographer Catherine Sebastian, had a solo show at Oriole9 in Woodstock. These were new images that she had been working on for the last few years, and it was the first time they had been all in one spot. I was very excited for her.

During the BMI dinner, put on by our pal Doreen Ringer-Ross, Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and Geri and Leon Gast (also an Academy Award winner!) called us over to their table and pointed to the image Catherine calls WATERMAN.

“We’ve been sitting under this photo and we’re so fascinated. Tell us what’s going on in this image,” Barbara said.

And, in a rare moment of just shutting up and getting out of the way, Catherine said “Why don’t you guys tell me what’s going on?”

Barbara and Geri got really animated. They both started talking at once. “Okay, in the right corner, that’s a red velvet jewelry box. He’s got a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He’s tossed the box on the shore because he asked her to marry him and she said no. He’s walking off into the ocean to kill himself.”

Barbara Kopple said, “okay, now you tell us.”

Catherine said, “Well, my son calls it the one where I’m shooting up through the water.”

Over coffee the next day, Catherine and I realized this would make a great contest and we put it out on Facebook. We asked people to send us a 250 word story, telling us what they thought was going on in this photo. The winner would win the 12” x 15” Artist Proof of Waterman!

We got some great, mystical, funny, and fabulous stories. Two of the stories especially spoke to both Catherine and me.

In the end, I chose this one by someone called Inky Girl. And then it turned out that Inky Girl was Woodstock superstar Monique Paturel!

In Yellow

She always loved him in yellow. In Venice, when he stood up and took off his jacket and sang an aria from Rigoletto. That jacket, handloomed tweed of wool and silk, sitting at the bottom of the boat with the moon pulling yellow from its weave, that same jacket they would spread on the grass in a secluded patch of Parco delle Rimembranze and make love. In his kitchen in Cambridge, equipped with minimal tools, where, in his yellow floral apron that he claimed once belonged to Julia Child, he turned out a meal of such delicacy that no future meal could ever measure close.

That was the yellow she loved him in. Before she knew he could sing, and cook; before she knew he could kill.

The piano wire is still hanging from his hand. His shirt lustrous through the numbing water of the pool, her consciousness vague after the garotting, she looks up and sees, finally, that yellow makes his ass look fat.

TEDx TALK

2011-05-04T12:28:00.011-04:00

I've done some really cool things in my life--- traveled to Thailand for a cooking tour with master chef Tommy Tang ; taught Leonardo Di Caprio how to spit really, really far; out-ran the papparazzi with Sean Penn. But NOTHING prepared me for the thrill of making an audience laugh so hard I could hear them panting for breath. As a lover of TED talks, I was thrilled to be asked by Megan Leigh at Lalita Healing Collective in Chichester NY to be part of a TEDx talk, which is a regional TED talk. (For those who don't know, TED TALKS are under 18 minute talks by all kinds of people, and carry the tagline IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. Check them out.) Now all I dream about is being a stand up comedian!

Here's a youtube link to my talk, the power of words

RIP to the great Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-23T15:51:00.005-04:00

(Originally published at Huffington Post 3/23/11 )

Fall 1989

The publicist was adamant-- no looking at Ms. Taylor. No talking to Ms. Taylor. No getting in Ms. Taylor's sight line. But most important, no calling Ms. Taylor "Liz". "She absolutely hates that," the publicist whispered. I wondered how I might call Ms. Taylor anything, what with the staying away and the averting of eyes.

I had been sent to LA by the original DETAILS magazine to do a story on Nic Roeg, the brilliant director of Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bad Timing. Roeg was shooting Sweet Bird of Youth with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon for NBC. That publicist wanted to make sure that I kept my focus on Roeg, and not on his legendary star.

But Roeg had other ideas. He likes the people he enjoys to like each other too. He was married to Theresa Russell, and every night he would insist that I have dinner with them and their 2 young sons. He wanted me and Taylor to become pals.

But the star was elusive. She came out when she was in a scene, but hurried back to her trailer as soon as Roeg yelled "Cut". It was blindingly sunny, and she had a man who walked behind her, carrying an umbrella. He didn't seem to have any other job. Taylor was short and overweight, not at all the movie star I had expected. The publicist watched me like a hawk. For three days, I had absolutely no contact with Taylor.

On the fourth morning, I went to get a cup of coffee at the crafts service table at the same moment Taylor arrived. She was surrounded by the gaggle of women who were her constant companions. Stopping at the table she ran her hand precariously close to the muffins and pastries. "Have some fruit," one of the women urged. A grip said, "She's a big girl, she can have whatever she wants." Everyone froze, unclear where to look.

"Big, and getting bigger every day," Taylor said, reaching for a piece of cantaloupe. She winked at the grip. Everyone laughed. I was so nervous that I laughed loudest.

Taylor turned to me. "So who are you?" she asked, sounding like a Brit with a Yiddish accent. I was momentarily confused. Before I could answer, that wicked publicist came and whisked her away.

Later that day I was standing in what passed as the hotel lobby on the Sweet Bird set. I picked up a Life Magazine that had on its cover the story about the homewrecking Elizabeth Taylor stealing Eddie Fisher from America's sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds. I felt someone looking over my shoulder and turned. There she was. She pointed to the magazine. "What a bitch," she said. My eyes got huge. "Me," she continued, "not Debbie." I said nothing. "Ok, who are you, and are you a mute?" Taylor asked.

I started talking, fast, afraid it would be my last chance. I told her about what the publicist had told me. Taylor grabbed my arm and pulled me into a dark corner. "Don't worry about her. That's her job. Tell me about you."

And so I did. I told her about my boyfriend and the problems we were having. I told her about my family, my writing, everything. She kept nodding and making a soothing clucking sound. Roeg joined us and we gossiped about everyone on the set. With each passing minute, she got taller. And prettier.

When she was called to the set, she said, "I'm having the wrap party at my house this Saturday. You should come."

"Damn it. My plane leaves Friday night," I whined.

Taylor arched her eyebrows. "I'm sure if you tell your editor that I invited you to my house, she'll let you stay longer."

Of course she was right. My editor shrieked with delight when I told her.

When I walked into Taylor's Beverly Hills house, I was surprised that it looked so ordinary. There were the same kinds of paintings that you see at every motel in America. There was a man grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. There were rocks on the coffee tables.

Ho hum. And then it hit me. That was the real Monet's "Water Lilies" on the walls. The man behind the grill was Larry Fortensky, Taylor's husband. And the rocks were amethysts, the same violet as Taylor's eyes.

Taylor saw me and came over. "I want to show you something," she said and led me into a small bathroom. There were tons of pictures of Taylor and Richard Burton, with another couple and a lot of dogs. "The Duke and The Duchess of Windsor," she told me. "Those pugs could be such a pain in the ass."

She led me around and pointed out pictures of Rock Hudson. "He was my best friend, and what this town did, making him hide and lie, was inexcusable," she said.

She had her butler go fetch the Oscar she won for Butterfield 8. "Go ahead," she urged, obviously enjoying herself. "Give me your best Oscar speech." I held the Oscar up high above my head and said, "I did this all myself. I have no one to thank!" Taylor laughed deeply. "If I ever win another one, I'm going to say exactly that."

The party was wonderful and when I went to say goodbye to Roeg at 10PM, he whispered, "Don't leave. Stay around."

When the room had emptied, Taylor reclined on the couch while Roeg and Russell and I sat at her feet. For three hours she regaled us with stories of her life; the insanity of her marriage to Burton, the drinking, the paparazzi, the fun. Mostly the fun.

When my story came out I had the magazine messengered to her house, with a note gushing about how much I had enjoyed meeting her. A few days later a box arrived. It had no return address. In it were a tiny white ceramic bird and a small amethyst.

Rest in peace, Elizabeth Taylor. There will never be another one like you.

LOSING BARBIE

2010-11-13T12:48:00.002-05:00

How different would this story be if I said “Barbie died.”? Or if I said “Barbie killed herself.”? Or if I said “Barbie shot herself in the head with what she used to call her ladies gun”?

In the end, Barbie would still be dead.

Barbie. Anyone who’s read my memoir, Hats & Eyeglasses, knows exactly who she was--- Keith’s sassy wife. The poker dealer. The one who stood by her man through all kinds of crazy shit--- and did it while wearing mules and high heels so extreme that her calf muscles were forever flexed.

Barbie, who thought cigarettes, chocolate cake, and a Coke covered all the food groups.

Barbie, whose name was so fitting.

Barbie, who could out-drink even the biggest guys we knew, and still not have to go to sleep.

Barbie, who could stop you dead with one of her withering looks, and then call to say that she had her church group put your neighbor on their prayer list.

Barbie, who loved her man so much that when he dropped dead 2 years ago she began unraveling in earnest.

Barbie, who looked like a hooker but wore demure little aprons to prepare dinner.

Barbie.

JOYOUS LAKE

2010-10-29T09:52:00.004-04:00

Last night in Woodstock the great independent bookstore, The Golden Notebook, reopened. They asked some writers to read stories about Woodstock. This is the story I read.

Joyous Lake

By the time I got to Woodstock, the music festival was five years in the past, entirely too many people had taken the brown acid, and everyone in the gorgeous little country hamlet seemed to be under thirty. Everyone who mattered, that is. Almost all the business owners, chefs, bartenders, and town officials seemed to be play-acting at being adults, and yet there they were, out front and in charge. It was as if the parents had evacuated and the children had taken over the ship. And, boy, that ship was sailing.
I was a college dropout who didn’t know how to do much, but gambling was in my blood. I started taking bets on baseball and football games. Local plumbers and electricians thought it was adorable that a girl knew so much about sports. Some days I made over two hundred dollars which was great money in 1974, but I started spending too much time looking over my shoulder, wondering if the cops were going to arrest me for the illegal betting or for the half-pound of pot I kept stashed in a pair of purple cowboy boots in my closet. When I was offered the job as the cashier at The Joyous Lake, I gladly turned away from my illicit life.
The Lake was the center of Woodstock life in the early and mid-seventies, a bar/restaurant where Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt played regular gigs, Paul Butterfield and Tim Hardin held court at the bar, Rick Danko and other members of The Band often had to be driven home, John Hall made his merry music, and Timothy Leary stopped in for the homemade sangria. It didn’t seem so annoying to explain to tourists that Woodstock the festival took place over fifty miles away in Bethel New York, while Woodstock the town got the burned-out, tie-dye-wearing kids who spent their time spare-changing each other and generally getting on everyone’s nerves.
The Lake was owned by a charismatic couple named Ron and Valma Merians. Ron was a handsome, somewhat overweight ex-podiatrist who was a terrific cook and knew how to bring diverse people together and make them all feel as if he was their best friend. Valma was a stunning ex-model, born in Spain, who could dazzle just by being in the room. They had a young baby they named Three (as in “Baby makes three”). Often I would hold Three for hours, and every time the old-fashioned cash register would make its Beep-Beep-Beep sound, Three would throw her head back and laugh, and so would all the customers.
The Lake boasted one of the first open kitchens, with a fantastic salad bar at one end and quick sautéed dishes and perfectly grilled steaks at the other. Most of the waitresses at The Joyous Lake wore tiny little short-shorts and bandanas tied strategically around their breasts. When they went missing for fifteen minutes, you knew they were either getting high in the walk-in or giving blow-jobs in the bathroom.
When the crowds got thick, the waitresses pushed their way through with their trays held high above their heads. “Coming through,” they would yell, and men would let their hands roam along their bodies. Nobody bitched or talked about sexual harassment. Nobody cared.
As soon as you got off your shift you’d head right out onto the dance floor. Everyone would be pressed together--- male and female, young and old, straight and gay. I would bump and grind next to a stranger for a few hours, and then, with nothing more than a nod, decide to go home with him. The sex was friendly and dangerous, all at the same time. In the morning, I’d kiss them and hold on to their scent, and then head back into town, sometimes not even knowing their names.
First thing in the morning my best friend, a brunette named Alice, who wore tiny white T-shirts and short skirts with stiff crinolines underneath, would call to wake me. Alice was a waitress at The Lake and was divorced with two kids. She was the only person we knew who had to be up at a regular hour.
“Alone?” she would ask.
If I said ‘No,” she would whisper, “Call me, call me, call me,” and hang up.
One morning I called back and told her that the guy I had been with was deformed. “Deformed how?” she wanted to know.
I couldn’t explain it on the phone, so I went to her house and drew a picture that resembled a deflated Ku Klux Klan headpiece. Alice and I stared at it for a long time. We called her friend Richard, a well-known authority on penises. "Uncircumsized,” he said when he saw the drawing, rolling his eyes at us.
I couldn’t wait to tell the waitresses that night.
Being a waitress at The Lake was as good as it got in Woodstock, and being the cashier was all that, times ten. I didn’t have to be on my feet all night. I got paid great and didn’t have to worry about squirrelly tippers. I got to go upstairs to the private apartment above the kitchen and do coke with the musicians who were waiting to go on stage. I got to fuck Dave Masons drummer.
And the amazing food was free.
I didn’t have a car when I first moved to Woodstock, so I hitchhiked everywhere. I would walk out of The Lake at four in the morning and stick out my thumb. I lived in a small house less than a mile away, but hardly ever had to wait more than a few minutes for someone to drive by and pick me up.
Oftentimes I had all the money we had taken in that night at the Lake, thousands of dollars, tucked into the back pocket of my jeans. Only once did I have a problem, with a local guy I had seen on the dance floor many times. When he started driving that night I remembered that he had told a mutual friend that he finger-fucked me at a party. I was about to remind him of his lie when I realized he wasn’t taking me to my house, he was taking me to his. I was surprisingly calm, just quietly urging him to turn around and drop me off. He kept me pinned back in my seat with his beefy arm while he navigated the hairpin turns. When I realized he was serious I started yelling, tried to wriggle free, made an attempt to bite his hand. But he was a bear of a guy. He didn’t say a word, and I starting thinking he had rape instead of robbery on his mind.
As soon as he stopped the pickup truck, I jumped out and started running. There was a potent moon shining, and I could see piles of plywood and firewood stacked up around his cabin. He was slower than I was, but I had no idea where I was or how I could get out of there. Finally I felt him right behind me, and I picked up a 2-by-4, turned around and started swinging. The first blow hit him on the upper arm, and he screamed in pain. He stopped, so I ran behind him and swung hard, bringing the piece of wood down on his shoulder with a sickening thud. He went to his knees. “You crazy bitch,” he yelled, trying to regain his bearings. “You’re fucking nuts!”
“Who’s nuts now?” I shouted as I jumped in his truck and gunned the engine. I tore out of there, drove the truck to the center of town, parked it in the NO PARKING zone, tossed the keys behind a tall hedge, and sat on the curb til my breathing was normal and my body had stopped shaking. Then I stood up and stuck out my thumb.
When a car stopped right away, I stepped in without a care.

WEDDING OF THE YEAR

2010-08-02T09:27:00.002-04:00

From Deb Amlen's CAN'T YOU GET ALONG WITH ANYBODY? blog

Guest Blogger Martha Frankel Reporting LIVE From The Wedding Of The Year!
August 1, 2010

by Deb Amlen

Some journalistic scoops are just too good to pass up. When a big story comes your way, the best thing to do is to grab your artfully hidden-from-the-Secret-Service Blackberry and tell it like it is. That’s what the fabulous Martha Frankel did, and we couldn’t be more grateful that she sent her observations straight to us here at CYGAWA without any thought to her personal safety and security or, for that matter, her reputation as a journalist. Thank you, Martha, for helping us stay current and for revealing things about OMG FRICKING CHELSEA AND MARC’S WEDDING that probably went uncovered by other, nameless sources who were left to weep outside the door. Pfft. And they call themselves journalists. Kudos also to ace reporters Kitty Sheehan and Mark Cuddy for getting Martha into the wedding of the year in the first place.

Martha Frankel, breaking the news as only she can

Martha, of course, is the author of “Hats and Eyeglasses” (Tarcher/Penguin, 2009), an intriguing memoir about her childhood spent learning the game of poker from her father and her uncle, and more recently, “Brazilian Sexy” (Perigree/Penguin, 2010), co-written with one of the founders of the J Salon in NYC and which reveals the secrets to living a “gorgeous and confident life.” She’s wonderful, and I know you’ll love her and be just as grateful to her reporting skills as we are.

So here, without further ado, is a live report from the wedding of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky:

Ssshhh. They’ll take my crackberry away if they know I have it. But Chelsea looks gorg. And it’s a very cool wedding.

They just threw out Ruth Bader Ginsburg for having a potty mouth! I’m hiding in the bushes so they don’t hear mine.

Omigod, Bill is fucking rocking out!

Better not be any crisis tomorrow — Hillary is druuunk!

Just danced with Henry Kissinger. Turns out he’s hawt…

Headed into an hour and a half of these fucking fireworks. Who knew even this could be boring? zzzzzzzzz….

A skunk just walked right through the crowd! Everyone went running.

Omigod, I think Chelsea's hiding a baby bump behind that bouquet! Stay tuned.

What the fuck? At 11 it turned into a cash bar 11!!! I’m gonna have to ask Oprah to buy me a drink. No, no, Gayle will do it.

Hillary got locked in the Port-A-Potty, and Bill is doing the Hokey Pokey.

First puker spotted — turns out to be one of the Bush twins! Who invited them?

Barbra Streisand and Kid Rock doing duet of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore” w/Bill on sax! Who knew Hil is a flautist? Best. Wedding. Ever.

Right in the middle of “The Electric Slide” they flicked the lights on and off. Last call!

Blackhawks waiting to ferry guests back to Rhinebeck. Will wait to get on the one w/Tom Hanks. Private party after at the Beek.

Forgot to tell you about the food — Chelsea fooled everyone. It was a total Woodstock thing; Joshua’s did the appetizers (delish!) And Yum Yum Noodle Bar did the dinner.

And the cake, which was to die for, was from Jabelli’s bakery (at Lori’s Creative cafe.) A pineapple and whipped cream thing. Wowza!

OK, off to the post-wedding, pre-brunch breakfast.

This is a room full of the most hung-over people I ever been with. Since yesterday. Thank god for mimosas.

OK, finally going to the brunch. Am so over this Chelsea-Marc thing. Just wanna go home to sleep it off.

Well, Chelsea and Marc LOVED my wedding gift (a cherry picture frame with the date and 2 birds carved in from Fabulous Furniture). Going home to sleep it off. Sorry, that should be file my report.

Might have to skip Weight Watchers this week because the wedding was a 2-day pig fest. Bill told me he’s already gained back 8 pounds.

Thanks again, Martha. This one will win us that Pulitzer for sure. Everyone else, head on over to Amazon.com and pick up Martha’s books. You will really love them.

A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT WORD

2010-07-04T16:00:00.003-04:00

Last year's Horse 'n' Around Saugerties included the work of 40 or so artist's, and at the auction (the horses spend the summer in saugerties, which is the town next to woodstock, and then get auctioned in september) i started dreaming of designing one of my own. i have never done 3D artwork, but i wondered if there was a medium where words and art could meld together and make sense. This year i talked with my husband, the artist steve heller and the guy who works with him, mike karpf , and they assured me that if i designed something they could make it a reality. i have been working on this new memoir called I KID YOU NOT, about my decision to have my tubes tied when i was 30, and what Woodstock was like in that great little window between the Pill and AIDS. I thought it would look great to decoupage some of the pages onto the fiberglass horse that they supply to artists. so i did design one, it was sponsored by my great friend daisy kramer bolle at as well as cafe tomayo and the partition street wine shop. i was so excited and mike e and i talked it through endlessly. i first printed out some sections in 18 point type, then 16, then 12, and eventually in 7 point. we decided that the words should be very very small, so it was more about style than substance. i vetted it to take out the explicit sex, and mike went to work on it.

Brazilian Sexy makes Vanity Fair!

2010-05-29T14:16:00.003-04:00

Bringing a Bit of Brazil to the Heart of New York
by Vanity Fair
May 28, 2010, 3:59 PM
BRAZILIAN-SEXY.
Ladies (and, of course, you few gentleman), if you’ve ever waxed it all, then, by extension, you’ve been graced by the wisdom of Janea Padilha, founder of what’s popularly known as a Brazilian. Last month marked the debut of Brazilian Sexy, Janea Padilha’s humorous chronicle of the Brazilian bikini wax, a beauty treatment that, depending on your sense of modesty, is either famous or infamous. The setting for all this waxing is the J. Sisters Salon, an old-school New York beauty hot spot that Janea Padilha and her six sisters founded in 1987. Having moved from Brazil to the Land of the Free, the sisters soon found out that Americans were much less liberated than they seemed—at least when it came to waxing. The cosmetic procedure now considered beauty’s greatest breakthrough since, well, razors, wasn’t always so popular. Once the J. Sisters salon opened, it took Janea one full year to finally convince a very hesitant client to let her wax everything. The immediately converted client brought five of her friends to the salon that same afternoon. One of them was a writer for Elle, and the rest is history. Now, more than 20 years later, J. Sisters caters to an A-list clientele, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Campbell, and Vanessa Williams, who is such a fan of Janea and her vision that she wrote the forward to Brazilian Sexy.

And so, in honor of Janea’s new book, V.F.’s roving beauty reporters (two waxing virgins), decided to check out this much hyped and, as Janea puts it, “liberating” experience.

The salon is situated on the top three floors of an elegant, century-old town house, squeezed in between bustling shops, office buildings, and restaurants. The procedure itself was quick, and, we kid you not, relatively painless. But be prepared—unlike most salons, technicians here don’t wear gloves, which, we’re told, can impede the accuracy and speed of hair removal.

If you aren’t comfortable with your body, then, we can assure you, after a humbling few sessions with Janea, you will be. Legs swing upward—one hitched across her shoulder and the other planted on the table. Rule No. 1: You have to relax. If you tense your muscles, pain is intensified. Rule No. 2: Talk to Janea—about friends, relationships, work, anything really—since it will help you relax. What makes J. Sisters so different from the hundreds of salons throughout the city isn’t so much the Victorian décor, fantastic waxing (which, we assure you, really is fantastic), or spiral staircases that run from floor to floor, but the people. During the 45 minutes we spent at the 57th Street oasis, we felt as if we had a sneak peak into a special club—of bubbly, happy, and wise Brazilian liberators. As the old saying goes: Once you go Brazilian, you don’t go back to anything else.

J. Sisters salon, 35 West 57th Street, third floor, New York City, 212-750-2485. The Brazilian Bikini Wax is $75.

I'm Naked in My Local Paper, The Daily Freeman!!!

2010-04-22T09:11:00.006-04:00

Brazilians, local author redefine sexy
Thursday, April 22, 2010

By ANN GIBBONS
Freeman staff

Sexiness, an American obsession, truly has less to do with showing acres of skin and a lot more to do with exuding sheer attitude with a capital “A.” That is the assured premise of “Brazilian Sexy - How to Live a Gorgeous and Confident Life” by Janea Padilha, written with local author Martha Frankel.

Padilha (whose first name is pronounced “Johnny”) is a member of the renowned J Sisters, who developed the Brazilian wax at their salon on 57th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City. Frankel, an entertainment and humor writer living in West Shokan, is the filter through which Padilha’s voice emerges.

“I met Janea through my agent in New York. And, I have to say, I’ve never known anyone like her,” Frankel said in a recent candid, but laugher-infused interview in her Boiceville office. “Smiling, self-confident, magnanimous, generous in spirit. And — always — perfectly put together.”

“She was just lovely and I fell in love with her. I knew there was a book there,” she said of the meeting.

The 120-page book, published by the Penguin Group and in bookstores now, is the result of months of conversation between the author and the beauty entrepreneur. “The voice is hers. I’m the filter,” Frankel said.

That confidence, Frankel discovered, is the Brazilian secret to life. “Brazilians are confident in a way we don’t feel,” Frankel said. “We’re always comparing - who’s prettier, richer, thinner, doing better - or not - than me.”

She said Brazilians think, believe, and act the opposite. “Their self confidence is a very elusive thing to explain. It’s not about comparing yourself. It’s about feeling good with what you’ve got.” As Padilha says in one chapter: “No one else can make you feel bad about yourself - you are the only one who can do that.”

As one of 14 children, seven girls and seven boys, the book’s introduction is most telling as Padilha talks about growing up - one day rich, the next day poor as dirt - and what lessons she learned, particularly about the latter.

Her father suddenly lost his wealth, so the family left a beautiful home and piled into a tiny, dilapidated house in town with just three bedrooms, no stove and no hot water. Padilha remembers her mother’s words, “Yes, every meal we will cook on a wood stove in the yard. What an adventure that will be. … Oh, this will be so much fun.” Never, Padilha said, did her mother’s face reveal any fear or resentment at how her life abruptly changed, instead she remembers her mother’s laughter ringing through that little house.

The J Sisters Salon, Frankel said, attracts the rich, the famous, corporate executives, working women and just ordinary types, all sitting, gossiping, laughing, sharing their lives. They come to be made beautiful, but they also come for Padilha’s wisdom and advice.

When asked what she learned from Padilha that she did not put in the book, Frankel laughed and said, “I was born for this age. I love all the information — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — that’s out there that I can get. But, not everyone is like that and it has made me impatient my whole life.”

Frankel said she has always, since a child, been able to do 15 things at once. “I was always tapping my foot, waiting for people to catch up. Janea taught me to be happy that I can do 15 things at once and to stop wasting time comparing myself to what others can’t do, or don’t want to do, even if they could.”

An important lesson that Frankel does write about is Padilha’s “cry therapy.” Her clients tell her they’re sad or they’re feeling blue and Padilha tells them to go home and cry for one hour, then get dressed up and go out. Do this every day for one week.

“So, they do, because Janea tells them to do it. And, after about five days, they’re crying for 10 minutes and going out. By the end of the week, the tears are over, and they’re going out,” Frankel said, adding that Padilha tells clients they need to give in to their feelings, stop pretending everything is great — and cry.

Frankel said, from her conversations with Padilha, she got the message that it’s possible to feel good no matter what’s going on. “Whether you’re heartbroken or dead, flat, broke, you need to figure out what makes you happy.”

Padilha dispenses advice as she makes her clients gorgeous. She’s asked about appearance, relationships and finances. “She’s told clients they’re wasting time with so and so. She never second guesses herself and she’s always right,” Frankel said.

Frankel said Amazon has the book listed under health and beauty, but she believes it’s closer to a self-help book.

“We have to learn to trust our instincts. That’s so easy to forget,” she said.

She said the book went together quickly, because it was so much fun to work with Padilha.

“Our families are very much alike,” she said. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t talk to my sister, Helene, who also transcribes the tapes of my interviews.”

She said, at first, she read portions of what she had written to Padilha over the phone. “Finally, Janea told me: ‘You’re smart. You’re a writer. Do what you think you should do.’”

Frankel said a variety of factors in her life had converged to make her unhappy about her appearance and she and Padilha had a book signing coming up in New York City. Naturally, she wanted to look great.

“Facebook is a new opportunity to talk with strangers. People I didn’t know before, I know now.” She said she complained on Facebook about how she looked and got a surprising response — and an offer.

She said Daisy Kramer Bolle, who owns DIG in Saugerties, told her on Facebook to come in to the shop and she would dress her for the book signing. She said Kramer Bolle completely changed how she looked — tight jeans and tops — and offered tips on dressing well.

“I walked in (to DIG) dragging and a snappy, fashion plate walked out,” Frankel said. “I looked, and felt, like a million bucks.”

At the book signing and party, Frankel said, about 200 smiling, gracious Brazilians turned out, every one of them elegant and confident.

“And, I looked great and felt great. Like I owned the city,” she said.

For more information, visit http://www.marthafrankel.com.

Blog I did with the great Cherie Rohn on mobspeak.com

2010-04-22T09:10:00.003-04:00

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

http://mobwriter.blogspot.com/

Q & A with Martha Frankel

Martha Frankel—celebrity journalist, author, Woodstock Film Festival moderator, winner of a NYFFA Award in creative fiction…and former poker addict—does everything with a passion. To pigeonhole Martha as another in-your-face, heartless Paparazzi type in her role as celebrity journalist would totally miss the mark. On her website http://www.marthafrankel.com, the legendary arms of Bruce Willis, Katie Couric, Roman Polanski, Liam Neeson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Andy Garcia and Lindsey Lohan drape themselves affectionately over the shoulder of their blond interviewer. It’s clearly the genuine warmth and magic of Martha Frankel that makes even the super-wary let down their guard.

But who is this neat, funny woman? The following was taken directly from her website:

I know what you're thinking--- oh no, not her again. But yes, Martha Frankel here. Writer of books, interviewer of celebrities, recovering internet poker addict, lover of ethnic cooking, collector of beach glass.

I'm not quite as smart as you might think, but I am a lot smarter than I look. I'm a worrier and a procrastinator, a potentially lethal combo. Whatever I'm doing, I'd prefer to be doing it in my pajamas.

I dream of driving the Zamboni for the New Jersey Devils or coaching third base for the New York Yankees. I'm a part time radio host and full time bon vivant. I now know more about hair removal than most barbers.

I have zipped Jennifer Lopez into her wedding gown, gone CD shopping with Jeff Bridges, out-run the paparazzi with Sean Penn. I've traveled around the world, interviewing some of the greatest actors of our time. When I say "I have to go to work," I often mean that I have to lie on the couch and watch movies. I love my job.

***

Several years ago during her pinch-me-I must-be-dreaming life as a celebrity journalist, Martha spiraled downward into the black pit of online poker addiction. Sparing no details, she shared both the poignant and horrific events that led to her obsession in her autobiographical book, Hats & Eyeglasses. Those expecting a melodramatic foray into self-pity will be sorely disappointed. It’s one of the funniest, soul-baring books this interviewer has ever read.

After I reviewed Hats & Eyeglasses for The New York Post, Martha sent me an autographed canvass bag displaying her book’s cover. The bag now has that “lived-in” look and remains one of my most cherished possessions.

Martha Frankel received a phone call from Sir Anthony Hopkins two hours after receiving his Academy Award for best actor during which he said that her prediction of his winning the Oscar was right. I wondered what would cause a person to risk such an enviable life plus the love of family and friends?

I decided to find out.

Mob Speak: Let’s start right off with your autobiographical book, Hats & Eyeglasses. What possessed you to write the book Martha?

MF: I’d like to say that I wrote it because I was tired of hiding my secret, that I wanted to help others, that writing it would make me a better person. But that’s bullshit. I had been writing a story about my family and its penchant for gambling for years, but then when I became addicted to online poker I stopped writing it. I was mortified by my own behavior. It was one thing to write about them---quite another to write about me. I always thought I was above that kind of addiction. Plus, in order to write about it I’d have to shut the computer down and not play multiple hands of poker for 12 hours straight. Years after I had stopped playing online I met a new agent, and she asked me if I had any ideas for a book. I went through a bunch of things that I thought would make good stories, but none of the ideas seemed to really grab her. And then I said, “well, I played internet poker for a couple of years and lost tens of thousands of dollars, and not a soul in the world knows.” That got her attention. So I wrote a proposal, and within weeks she sold it. I really wrote the book because once they gave me the advance, there was no way I was giving it back! But the really funny thing is that it did help me when I exposed my secrets, and it helped other people, and it made me a much better person. So you never know.

Mob Speak: When you were in the throes of your poker addiction, how did you manage to meet assignment deadlines?

MF: In the beginning I played poker all day and then wrote furiously all night long to meet my deadlines. Then I started taking the people I was interviewing to the casinos with me. Then I started turning stories down. I told editors that I had to go to be with my aging mother (that made them feel really bad), or that I had this endless flu. I’m surprised that no one thought I had a coke addiction.

Mob Speak: For the record: No coke addiction. Okay…we all get the up side of being a celebrity interviewer. Is there a down side?

MF: I live in a small town near Woodstock NY. My stories are in magazines that sell in my local supermarket. Sometimes my neighbors think that my job is my life, that I am surrounded by glamorous people and that I would rather be at a big movie premiere than at a local softball game. But once they get over that, there really is no down side of being a celebrity interviewer! It’s a great job. And when I say I have to go to work, I often mean that I have to lie on the couch and watch movies. And they pay me for this. I’m still shaking my head in wonder.

Mob Speak: It took a lot of guts to come clean about your gambling problem. How difficult was it? Do you still have the urge to play online poker?

MF: Coming clean about it was hard, but nothing compared to how hard it was to stop playing online. Or how lousy my life was during that time. I can play live poker and have no problem, but as soon as I started to play online, I fell into a rabbit hole of hell. I rarely think about it any more. And when I do, I punch myself in my fucking head and go for a long long walk.

Mob Speak: Did writing your book help you in any way?

MF: Writing Hats & Eyeglasses was the most thrilling, frightening, wondrous experience. It changed me and helped me in ways I never could have predicted. When it came out and I started hearing from people who loved the book and felt like I was speaking right to them, that was so fabulous. People wrote to talk with me about gambling, which I expected. But the depth of their pain was a surprise. And people often write to talk about my mother, which is this little delight that never loses its power to thrill me.

Mob Speak: Moving on to another topic, here’s an excerpt from Martha’s new book Brazilian Sexy: Secrets to Living a Gorgeous and Confident Life:

“You know exactly who she is: the woman with the nowhere-near-perfect figure who walks into the party as if she owns it … and within seconds, she does. The rhythm-less girl next to you in dance class who is having more fun than anyone else in the room. That gal whose megawatt smile blinds you so you don’t even notice her two-inch roots. What these women have in common is that they’ve learned how to be Brazilian Sexy — which has nothing to do with a great tan or a perfect body, and everything to do with being at ease in your own skin. Here’s how to capture that spirit in a bottle:”

Sounds just like me…lol. Please tell us more about the book, Martha? For starters, where did the idea originate?

MF: That same fabulous agent, Lynn Johnston. She called one day and said, “You have to come to Manhattan and meet this amazing woman.” So I went in the next day and had lunch with Janea Padilha, who invented the Brazilian wax and is one of the co-owners of the J sisters Salon, which is world famous. Their clients are actresses, models, housewives, and regular people. People go in to the salon to get a manicure or a waxing, and they leave with Janea’s advice. She is the most self confident woman I have ever been around, and her way of being should be bottled. She has been around women her whole life, and she knows everything. Working on this book was pure joy.

Mob Speak: So what’s on the horizon for Martha? Any new projects?

MF: Oh yeah. I am writing a very dirty novel, about a middle aged couple and their wild sex life. I think it will shock some people. And another memoir, about Woodstock in the 70’s. Lots of sex, drugs, and attitude in that one too. Also working on two screenplays and a TV show idea. And trying to keep up with my own life.

Mob Speak: Sounds like a lot of projects on the table, Martha. I’ll tell you what. Let me know when the dirty novel is fait accompli and we’ll do a second interview, okay?

Congratulations on your new book, Brazilian Sexy, available at Amazon and brick-and-mortar stores, of course. Can’t wait to read it. May the gods smile on you, Martha Frankel!

WowOwow

2010-04-09T12:11:00.003-04:00

A Blog I wrote for WowOwow

Fashion + Beauty
5 Ways to Channel Gisele Bundchen And Be Brazilian Sexy
Wed Apr 7, 2010 7:29am PDT

by Martha Frankel with J Sister Janea Padilha

You know exactly who she is: the woman with the nowhere-near-perfect figure who walks into the party as if she owns it … and within seconds, she does. The rhythm-less girl next to you in dance class who is having more fun than anyone else in the room. That gal whose megawatt smile blinds you so you don’t even notice her two-inch roots. What these women have in common is that they’ve learned how to be Brazilian Sexy — which has nothing to do with a great tan or a perfect body, and everything to do with being at ease in your own skin. Here’s how to capture that spirit in a bottle:

1. Remember that you’re perfect, just the way you are. Some people look in the mirror and see every flaw, every imperfection. They can’t get past the dark circles under their eyes, or those wrinkles that they’ve worked so hard for. Instead, look in the mirror and see the good person you are, remember how loved you are, how people enjoy your company. Stop putting yourself down. There are enough people out there who are ready to do that job for you.

2. Close your eyes to the whole world. Everyone has those days — the ones where no amount of self-confidence can make you feel good. No problem. Walk out in the morning and pretend that everyone in the world is blind. Stare them right in the face, but know that they can’t see you. Laugh at your own jokes; skip when you get close to the corner. You’ll see — no one will notice. And as soon as you don’t need their approval, you’ll get it.

3. Go with the flow. In Brazil, there’s a saying: "You cannot dance rock ‘n’ roll to a samba song." That means that if you dance to the right song, your life will be easier. Instead of fighting the current, go with it. Everyone has problems, from the president to the man who cleans his garage. But if you fight those problems, you lose. Instead, you have to embrace them, eat them for breakfast, gnaw on them like they’re the most delicious things you ever tasted. You’ll figure it out. And when you get out of this problem, you’ll take a look back and be so proud of how far you’ve come and how much you’ve accomplished.

4. Cry yourself an Amazon river. When you’re feeling sad, don’t whimper and whine. No — cry yourself into a stupor. Set aside an hour, put on some sad music or a movie that makes you miserable, pour yourself a stiff drink, take out the favorite shirt of the boyfriend who left you or the husband who died, look through some pictures of your favorite vacation … and cry until your eyes are swollen shut. When the hour is up, wash your face and go on with your day. Rinse. Repeat every day until you’re not sad anymore. (You will be surprised at how quickly that happens.)

5. Just say yes, yes, yes! There’s a Brazilian expression: "You don’t know you’re hungry till you start to eat." Meaning that sometimes you don’t know what’s good for you, what it is you really need. Let’s talk about sex. Men can have sex anywhere, any time and pretty much with anyone. Women need to be wooed, enticed. But often what they need is to say "yes" instead of "no." So for a month or two, have sex with your man every time he wants it. And, of course, speak up and tell him what makes you happy. No excuses, no "maybe later." No, if he initiates it, you go with it. You embrace it. You shut off all those voices in your head and just let yourself go. What most women find is that they start looking forward to sex again, and that it gets better and better. They didn’t know they were hungry until they started to eat!

Healthy You Now

2010-04-09T12:08:00.002-04:00

A Blog I Wrote for Healthy You Now

Lighten Up on Yourself
By Martha Frankel and Janea Padilha

Excerpt from BRAZILIAN SEXY: Secrets to Living a Gorgeous and Confident Life

It seems that we women are always killing ourselves over something. Is there one woman who doesn’t say, “My life will start to be good as soon as I…”? And then we have a dozen things that fit right in to complete that sentence. As soon as I lose ten pounds; as soon as I make some more money; as soon as I find the right man; as soon as I finish remodeling the kitchen; as soon as I start working out every day. As soon as… As soon as… As soon as… We give ourselves no leeway, no avenue to feel that everything is good just the way it is, right now. We seldom look around and think, Now is a good time in my life. Maybe not perfect, but pretty close.

If our kids don’t do well in first grade, we are already talking about the difficulty he or she will have getting accepted into a good college. If we sleep in, we feel like we have wasted the whole day. We are so rigid that sometimes it seems like we might just snap. And the truth is that all that stress does add up-that’s why women are so at risk for high blood pressure and stroke.
Image: Brazilian Sexy Book Cover

I had a client who came in one day in baggy pants and a huge shirt. I could see that she was feeling very bad about something. We started to talk and she finally told me that she couldn’t stand herself because she had gained a lot of weight after she stopped smoking. She told me that she didn’t want to buy any clothes in her new size because then she would be committing to being fat, that maybe she wasn’t going to lose the weight and she would always be that heavy. She could barely meet my eyes, and her diminished self confidence turned into tears and she was crying so hard. I told her that she had to stand up straight, not to hide her face, and embrace this great thing she had done. Although her physical appearance did not match the image she wanted, to stop smoking is a huge accomplishment. There are people who try for years and years and fail, but she had done it! I told her to be proud of her accomplishment, not ashamed of one of the effects; besides, her determination and discipline was her real beauty. The extra weight? It will go away.

I made her promise that she would go out and buy some pants that really fit her, some blouses that were not so big that two other people could be in there with her. Because oversized clothes do not make you look smaller, despite what a lot of women think. I wasn’t saying that she should wear skintight clothes, but she should wear something that really fit, that flattered her. Buying clothes in her size would only make her feel better, not worse.

When she walked into the salon a month later, she looked like she had lost half the weight. When I asked her how she did it, she admitted that she hadn’t lost one pound. Her clothes fit her properly and looked so much better on her that it made her seem as though she had slimmed down. And because she made the choice to focus on her accomplishment, she was standing straighter and no longer had big circles under her eyes. She looked like all the weight of the world had been lifted. She was finally able to see herself for the dynamic, wonderful woman she was. She stopped apologizing for being overweight, and she realized that when people saw her, they liked what they saw. No one was judging her the way she was judging herself. Isn’t that always the case?

If you are always uncomfortable in your own body, if you are spending all your time wishing you looked different or had different hair or a different body, well, that all comes through. Having faith in yourself, recognizing that you aren’t perfect but you are the best you can be for now will change the way you stand, the way you move, and the way you carry yourself. Believing in yourself is the foundation of real beauty.

Martha Frankel has interviewed actors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts), writers (Richard Ford, T.C. Boyle), directors (Spike Lee, Nicolas Roeg), musicians (Branford Marsalis, Mariah Carey), gods (Elizabeth Taylor, Robert De Niro), and supposed monsters (Lee Atwater, Mike Tyson), for magazines and newspapers all around the world. Her memoir, Hats & Eyeglasses, was called "Intimate and exuberant" by O, The Oprah Magazine. Visit her website: www.marthafrankel.com

READING THE RINGS Chapter 2

2010-01-16T15:12:00.007-05:00

READING THE RINGS/ Chapter 2
She knows every inch of his skin, every crease in his face. Once, on the phone, Jake mentioned that his doctor wanted to biopsy a mole he had just discovered on Jake’s leg. “Left leg?” she had asked. “Yes,” Jake answered. “Mid-calf, inside?” she went on. He laughed. “Yes...” “Well, you can let him do the biopsy, of course you should, but that mole isn’t new and it hasn’t changed shape or color. It’s exactly the way it was the day I met you.” “Okay, Doctor Lang,” he had kidded, but she heard the edge of fear leave his voice, and of course the biopsy turned out negative.
She knows what every little sound he makes means. She knows, from the next room, when he’s finished a book, because he’ll let out a long sigh. “Good?” she’ll ask, although that sigh usually signals his disappointment. “Could have been,” he’ll say.
She likes thrillers and medical mysteries, books that all hinge on plot, not character. He likes books by women, books about the interior life. In the mornings, while she’s drinking her coffee, he’ll ask her what’s going on in hers. She will take an hour or so, telling him in delicious detail about the killer’s lair and how the detective is being thrown off, going after the wrong man. She describes the locale and the food, the way the detective deals with his loneliness, whether or not she believes the red herrings. “What’s going on in yours?” she’ll ask. “Well,” he’ll say, thinking back to the hours he spent reading the night before, “Adrianna went to have lunch with her brother.” “And?” “They haven’t ordered yet,” he’ll say, and they’ll both laugh. He’ll reach for her book and start skimming. After two or three days he gives up on the books he’s brought and reads the ones she’s just finished. He starts predicting who the killer is on the third page, and looks deep in her eyes to see if he’s right. She never tells. And he’s always wrong. He doesn’t have enough practice with books that are really about nothing, the kind you read just to pass the time. But his excitement always makes those books seem better than they are.
She can tell when he’s having an orgasm, even if there’s no fluid. This happens quite frequently, and the way she knows is that a sound deep in his throat, guttural and animal-like, will reach her ears. “Did you come?” is a question she asks him often. It’s a question he has never had to ask her.
________
So now, when the enormous mahogany doors are swung open and Jake has an almost imperceptible intake of breath, Julia’s heart starts to race. He is the king of understatement, so this must be good. But she doesn’t look up, just continues to look at the ground as Jake leads her inside, and then up five concrete steps. She likes seeing things through his eyes, with him, and she knows he’ll take her to a good spot to get her first glimpse. Finally he squeezes her arm and she knows it’s her signal to look up.
She has never seen anything quite like this house. It doesn't so much sit near the ocean as hover right above it. She grabs Jake's arm and squeezes tight. This, she thinks, is going to be their best vacation yet.

READING THE RINGS Chapter 1

2009-12-28T10:58:00.033-05:00

I love the beach house, Las Piedras, in Vieques, Puerto Rico, so much that I had to write a book that was set there! I will be posting more and more of READING THE RINGS within the next few months.

READING THE RINGS Chapter 1

On the plane from Miami to Puerto Rico, Julia takes a small package from her purse. It’s wrapped tightly in the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times Science Section, scotch-tape criss-crossing each of the corners. She scans the words--- something about how ducks imprint on their mothers--- and then peels back the newsprint to uncover a black, leather-bound journal. Jake’s head has just fallen toward her, his long brown-grey hair shading his face from view. She can hear his even, sleeping breath, and knows he won’t wake until the stewardess makes the landing announcement. She runs her fingers along the cover of the book, traces her initials, JAL, and the number, 21. Twenty-one years. She remembers the first journal Jake gave her, also on a plane, and the thrill that had gone though her. He remembered. She had opened it, handed him a pen and said, “Write down what you think it’ll be like there.” Jake groaned, No, No please, he had said, but she was smiling— she loved this exercise and made her students do it all the time, whenever they were embarking on any new experience. She’d ask them to imagine what the air would feel like, the people they would meet, the color of the sky. The students fought her, just like Jake, but she knew that when they were deeper into it, whatever it was, they loved coming back and realizing how different their presumptions were from the reality.

That first journal was black leather, too, but not as fine as this, with it’s beautiful red stitching. Jake had given her back the pen that time. “You first,” he’d said. “Okay.” She held the pen above the open page, and then wrote, in her tight little lefty’s script, Too many people close by. House small and dark. But outside, no place to get out of the sun. Nervous to be with Jake for all that time. Will he get tired of me and want to leave early? What if we don’t know how to work together, to make this vacation fun for both of us? What will it be like to have all that time on our hands, and no plans? She thought of tearing out the page and stuffing it in her purse, but decided to leave it be.

“No peeking,” she’d said, turning the page and handing Jake the pen. He didn’t write anything for a long time. Then he picked up her hand, kissed each of her fingers. Hot, sunny, perfect weather, he wrote. Gorgeous house. Plenty of privacy. Sex everywhere. Heaven.

She has them all, books 1 through 20, lined up on Woody’s curly maple sideboard in her dining room. Woody left her all the good furniture, the silver, the gold-plated dinnerware. Julia has carted her grandmother’s possessions around the country, first to Buffalo, then a mirror or a table to one boarding school or another, one teaching job or the next, until she finally settled at Simon’s Rock ten years ago. Each piece now has a home, and Julia never gets tired of any of them.

She moves the journals into the bedroom on the rare occasions when one of her colleagues or a student comes over for dinner or a conference. She realizes how nutty this is— why doesn’t she just leave them in the bedroom and be done with it? But she loves the way the leather and the wood look together, soft and hard, and when Jake comes to spend the night, she wants them visible, where he can pick one up at random. “Listen to this,” Jake will say. “'Rainy, humid, unfriendly locals. Bad food.' You wrote that. Guess where we were going.” Julia tries not to look at the number on the front of the book, because that would be a dead giveaway. Number 4— Hilton Head; Naples, Florida; Montreal. Number 19— Thailand; Paris; San Francisco. But she doesn’t need to see the number to remember writing that entry. It was Book 2, and they were headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico. That turned out to be a glorious trip, a lazy, funny, sunny vacation that made them fall in love with all of Puerto Rico. They have been back many times— to Vieques (Book 3), Culebra (Book 7), Rincon (Book 11), Vieques again (Book 15), Humacao (Book 17).

Now, twenty years after they first discovered Puerto Rico’s charms, they are heading to Vieques again, to a beach house they have never seen, Las Piedras, The House of Rocks. Julia takes out her pen and writes, Wonderful house. Great breezes. Big deck with lots of spaces to read or sleep. Morning shade. Evening star-watching. Long lazy strolls on a beach that’s all but deserted. Locals on horseback smiling at us. Best of all, Jake within reach every minute of the day and the night.

Without even realizing it, Jake's optimism has worn off on her.

And then she turns to the last page and starts making little hash marks. She marks off four of them, frowns, and then adds two more. Six, she thinks, and smiles. Six. And the vacation hasn’t really even started.

Woodstock Writers Festival

2009-12-07T11:46:00.022-05:00

Lots of amazing and fabulous things have happened in my life, but putting together the Woodstock Writers Festival has been one of the highlights. Along with my partners--- Abigail Thomas (A Three Dog Life), Susan Richards (Chosen by a Horse), and Barry Samuels (co-owner of Woodstock's indie bookshop, The Golden Notebook --- we have put together a lineup of writers that literally reads like a who's who of memoir (this year the festival is Celebrating the Memoir). Everyone we called signed on, including Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief), Julie Powell (Julie and Julia), Ruth Reichl (Tender to the Bone), Dani Shapiro (Slow Motion), Marion Winik (First Comes Love), , Shalom Auslander (Foreskin's Lament)... the list goes on and on! Check out the website and pass it on to all writers and readers in your life. WoodstockWritersFestival.com

THE DREADED HEAD SHOT

2009-10-24T15:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, this is so embarrassing, but I've been using a twelve-year-old photo for publicity these past few years. It wasn't that I wanted people to think I was younger than I am (ok, I didn't care if they thought I was thinner!), but I hate being in front of the camera. I always feel so self-conscious and nervous and every picture makes me feel worse and worse. But in gearing up for this winter's Woodstock Writers Festival (lots more info will be coming soon), the great writer Susan Richards (Chosen by a Horse, Chosen Forever) offered up her husband, the amazing photographer, Dennis Stock, to take my portrait. Okay, Dennis is best known for having taken those iconic shots of James Dean and dozens of other Hollywood luminaries and I was plenty nervous. But Dennis took exactly ten minutes, snapped off a dozen shots, and produced something I not only can live with, but one I actually like.

Woodstock Now and Then

2009-10-13T11:36:00.001-04:00

This Sunday night at 7 (Oct 18th), Michael Lang, Barbara Kopple and I will be presenting Barbara's film, Woodstock Now and Then, at the Linda in Albany as a benefit for WAMC. We will be doing a Q&A afterwards. Truthfully, I was entralled by both Michael and Barbara long before I ever met them, and becoming friends with them has been one of the thrills of my life. The film is one of the best rock n roll movies ever. There are still some tix left. Call the Linda box office (518-465-5233 ext 4) or get them online at www.thelinda.org Tickets are only $20. Hope to see you there.

FALL

2009-10-12T09:52:00.002-04:00

I love this time of year, when the nights and mornings are cool, when Mums and peaches and apples are begging to be picked and planted, when the playoffs are happening and the Yankees are heading to a pennant series.

I hate this time of year, when leaves are falling and frost is on the car in the morning, when baseball only happens every other day and you know that it will be over in two weeks, or three, but no more 100 games to go.

All this to say, I am so thrilled to be a lifelong Yankee fan.

GREAT COVER FOR NEW BOOK

2009-10-11T14:12:00.006-04:00

I don't think anyone would argue with me when I say that my hardcover for Hats & Eyeglasses was a serious miss. Dark and intimidating, it looked like the Titanic, and turned readers off. On the up side, my paperback cover is delicious and everyone loves it. But I worried when we were deciding on a cover for my new book, BRAZILIAN SEXY (SECRETS TO LIVING A GORGEOUS AND CONFIDENT LIFE), which I wrote with Janea Padilha, waxer to the stars. As soon as I saw it, though, I knew we had the exact right image--- sexy, funny, something that both men and women would want to pick up. Here's your first look. (And not sure why it looks blue-ish in this blog. It's really all skin tones and beige, very classy)

On Turning In My New Book

2009-07-23T11:19:00.002-04:00

I just got the letter that all writers dream about--- my editor at Perigee/Penguin loves my new book and is putting it into production. Cue up the Hallelujah chorus. Light candles. Bow down and kiss the ground. That's how happy I am right now.

I will tell you more about the book as it gets closer to publication, but for now, let me say that the best part of having sold two books is realizing that I have another ten in me! When Hats & Eyeglasses got bought by Tarcher/Penguin, I felt this kind of deep-soul sadness.... what was I going to do now? I felt that I had no more stories in me.

I spent five weeks in utter despair.

And then I had an idea for another memoir, and I started jotting some notes. Then my agent had an idea, and that's the one we sold. Then something happened to a kid in my town, and I started writing about that. Then I started writing an erotic tale of a middle-aged couple. Then a mystery. I'm telling you, I am up to here with book ideas.

So now I am going to take a few weeks and bask in the being done feeling, because these last few months have felt like a sprint that would never end. But now they have and I'm so grateful. I want to bask in that glory. And the minute that feeling has passed, I'm going right back to work.

readings

2009-03-09T17:28:00.000-04:00

When Hats & Eyeglasses first came out, I dreaded doing readings. I was nervous and stiff, and felt that I had to start at the beginning, so I would read the first 8 or 11 pages. When people would laugh, I would pause, purse my lips, and look up like a demented school-marm. That did the trick--- they would stop laughing at once. I can't really explain it-- it was like I felt embarrassed to be laughing at my own jokes, like that made me seem conceited or stuck up.

Then I had the amazing good fortune to read with Laura Shaine Cunningham (Sleeping Arrangements, A Place in the Country). Laura has been reading from those books for over twenty years, and yet she reads as if she has never seen the material before and it is THE funniest thing she ever read. She throws her head back and guffaws, and the audience roars its approval. I marveled at her, and she explained that she is genuinely proud of her work and loves to share it.

So I practiced. I read different parts of Hats & Eyeglasses, and people didn't seem to mind that I wasn't starting on page 1. I tried reading the funny parts, and the parts that made people squirm. And now I LOVE doing readings. It's my favorite part of being an author. I like the questions at the end, and I love connecting with the audience.

GREAT NEWS TIMES TWO!!!!

2009-02-20T12:01:00.006-05:00

STEVE WON THE NY TIMES COLLECTIBLE CAR OF THE YEAR AWARD!!!!!!!!!

And some of you are directly responsible for it. Steve entered his fabulous "Marquis de Soto" in the contest, never expecting to make it to the finals. The car is a collage of pieces that he's been saving for years from twelve different 1950's cars

(including a 1957 de Soto, a 57 Buick, and a 55 Caddy), all grafted onto a 1998 Grand Marquis.

He was selected as one of the 30 finalists on December 1, The rules encouraged us to get as many friends as possible to vote every day for a month. So we went to our email lists and to facebook, and asked all our friends to lend a hand. AND WE DID IT! There were 6400 votes cast in the entire contest--- Steve got over a 1000 of them! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Sorry to those who have been asking us what happened--- the Times was clear that we had to keep it hush-hush and we didn't want to blow it.

Here's the link to the NY Times story and an amazing slide show of Steve and his able assistant, Mike Karpf, and their work.

Friend Steve on facebook if you haven't already--- he wants to thank you himself.

AND THE GORGEOUS PAPERBACK OF HATS & EYEGLASSES JUST HIT THE STORES (With a reading guide and a Q&A with the author).

Hats & Eyeglasses has been called “Intimate, exuberant.”---O, The Oprah Magazine; Fast-paced and amazingly funny.”---the New Orleans Times-Picayune; "You will feel not only as if you have known Martha all your life, but as if you still have one of her sweaters."---the New York Times; “Fearless… powerful, even uplifting and funny.”--- the New York Post; "A heady joyride. Fast, funny and frank."--- USA Today; "Funny and disturbing"--- The Washington Post; and "Frank and unaffected"--- Publisher's weekly

The paperback is cheaper than a latte and a scone! Please buy copies for your friends and family, your reading group, your gambling cousins, your aging aunts. I bet they all find something to like about it... Wait, did I just say "I bet"? There really is no stopping me!

Click here to order

MY COUSIN KEITH

2009-01-19T11:08:00.006-05:00

What can I say about my cousin Keith? My earliest friend, my protector, the person who would kick the shit out of anybody who bothered me. Learned to swim with him, learned to kiss with him, learned to do drugs with him. He grew up to be a wild-haired pirate, a joker, a smuggler, the man who taught me to play poker. I spoke with him every single day of my life, and if he wasn't talking food, he was talking cards. He would call on his way home from the poker room to tell me how he'd done--- if he lost he would tell the truth, which is very rare among gamblers. He would share recipes with a glee that would make Julia Childs jealous. One of the funniest bits in Hats & Eyeglasses is when he calls to tell me about balsamic vinegar. I learned how to make lasagna from him, although mine was never as good.

His real name wasn't Keith, but I changed it in the book because he had been in jail and I didn't want to embarrass him. So what did he do? He had a shirt made that said, I'M KEITH.

I should have known that absolutely nothing could embarrass him.

He was crazy cuckoo wild for his wife, Barbie, and loved that she wore thick makeup and high heels every single day of her life. They were content with each other in a way that's very rare these days, almost a 1950's love story.

Everyone who ever met him remembers his easy laugh. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, he was walking down the street with a friend when he fell over, dead. A massive coronary.

I have been in shock since then, unable to think about it, as if it would go away if I didn't speak it aloud.

Then I dreamed about him all last night. In my dreams he was his hysterical self. I woke today with a feeling of such joy, such love for him, that I felt I could finally say it--- rest in peace my sweet man. The world is a far bleaker place without you.

WHY I LOVE FACEBOK

2009-01-15T11:58:00.007-05:00

Writer Marion Winik is one of my idols. Winik, who is often heard on NPR's All Things Considered, wrote an amazing memoir, First Comes Love. It tells of her marriage to Tony, a fellow junkie, who is also a gay figure skater. Marion and Tony kicked their habits, slipped back, had two sons, fought, reconciled, split up, and then got back together when Tony got sick with AIDS. He came home to commit suicide. The amazing part of First Comes Love is that it's hysterically funny, which is no easy feat. The last book my mother read before she went blind was First Comes Love, and for years afterward she would say things like, "I wonder how Hayes and Vince are doing." When I would ask her who they were, she would sigh and say, "You know, Tony and Marion's boys." It was like they were our favorite cousins, and somehow we had lost touch.

Okay, so I'm on Facebook one day and I see Marion Winik's name. I friend her (why not?), and miraculously, she friends me back. I write and tell her the story about my mother, and Marion sends me back a really gracious note to say that she wishes we were real cousins.

I almost die, because when you email one of your idols, you really don't expect to get back a funny and open note. I tell Marion that I'd like to send her a copy of Hats & Eyeglasses, and she says she would love to see it. A week later, she writes this:

Martha--- I want to talk more about the book but here are just a few random things. The portrait of your mother is absolutely priceless, all your family members, really. Many times the humor reminded me of Anne Lamott. You must know her work. That sweet self-deprecating wisecracking with a touch of hyperbole. It was soothing to my soul. Thanks so much for getting in touch with me and making sure I read the book. If there is something you need -- though you seem to have all the reviews and blurbs a person could possibly want -- let me know. You made me (and everyone else I'm sure) slather to read your next book. Wish i was in woodstock today for a chat xox Mar

I almost fainted. She compared me to Anne Lamott, who is my other favorite writer. Then it gets better- Winik, who I now think of as Mar, writes and says that she is going to teach Hats & Eyeglasses as part of her MFA class in Obsession and Addiction in Literature at the University of Baltimore this semester, and that she wants me to come down there, speak to the MFA class, do a public reading that night, speak to her memoir class the next day, and stay over and play Scrabble.

I'm too embarrassed to tell Mar that I suck at Scrabble, so I'm sitting here with the dictionary, just looking up random words. I'm telling you now, Mar is going to have to evict me, because i will not leave voluntarily!

And for all you haters who say Facebook is a waste of time, well, you never know.

IT'S SNOWING, SO IT'S TIME FOR SPORTS

2009-01-10T12:54:00.003-05:00

Although it wasn't the best sports story of the year, it was the best headline:
METS GET PUTZ. I don't care how he pronounces it, New Yorkers are gonna be all over set-up man JJ Putz (who says his last name rhymes with "foots"). He'd probably be better off if his name was Robert Bigballs. And then the putz admitted to the New York Times that all through high school he didn't even know that his name was a derogatory term! Where had he been living--- Schmuckville? Personally, I can't wait to read the New York Post after his first bad outing. PUTZ BLOWS... well, you get the idea.

CC Sabathia is going to be a great addition to the New York Yankees. But I doubt AJ Burnett will, be unless he finds a Stay Healthy pill that's not illegal. And while I'm not convinced yet that Joba is a starting pitcher, I'm not as pessimistic as the naysayers who think he's risking his life and career by throwing a ball in the first five innings.

Last year, when my memoir Hats & Eyeglasses came out, there was a big hoo-haa on some of the blogs because I had the audacity to question whether some online poker sites were on the up-and-up. Last month 60 Minutes and the Washington Post came out with a big investigative piece about how Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet had cheated some of their players out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It seems a former employee had cracked the software code and knew everyone else's cards at the table, which certainly gives you, oh, like a hundred percent edge. Sheesh, you just never know.

This Week in Sports:
Although the University of Oklahoma Sooner's quarterback Sam Bradford won the Heisman trophy this year, his team was beaten in the NCAA BCS Championship by the Florida Gator's, whose quarterback Tim Tebow who won the Heisman last year…

Pitcher John Smoltz (41), who has played twenty-one years for the Atlanta Braves, was signed by the Boston Red Sox…

Four NFL head-coaches were fired after their teams failed to make the playoffs. They include Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli (his team went 0-16 this year, a league first), Cleveland Browns coach Romeo Crennel, New York Jets coach Eric Mangini and Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. The only one to find a new home is Mangini, who is going to the Cleveland Browns…

The Boston Celtics, the best team in basketball, is on its first losing streak in a long, long while.

CAN WE CHANGE NEW YEAR'S TO MARCH?

2009-01-04T12:19:00.001-05:00

Am I the only one who thinks these holdiays have gone on for what seems like forever? I just took down the Christmas stuff, which I love, although I do have to ask myself again and again what a nice Jewish girl like me is doing with a perfectly trimmed tree that I set up on Thanksgiving Day. Okay, the tree is only three feet high and it's not real, but still... I agonize over which ornaments should go where, I turn the tree on the minute I walk into the house (white lights or colored? I can never decicde, so I switch from year to year) and I move the glass snowman from the left side to the rihgt, this Yankee's snow globe from right to left, from the minute I put it up til I take it down on New Year's Day.

But this year it seemed like the holidays just dragged. Maybe it's because the paperback of Hats & Eyeglasses is coming out in 5 weeks and I feel like there's so much to do.

But then I thought this.... why do Christmas and New Year's have to piggy-back on each other? Why can't we move New Year's to the spring solstice? Wouldn't that give us something to really celebrate? Wouldn't we be in better moods if the New Year really was about a new beginning? If you live in the Northeast like I do, this is the bleakest time possible. But spring... well, New Year's with crocuses popping though the snow would make us all feel so much better.

I'm gonna start a facebook group about this and see if I can get a movement going. Happy New Year to all.

CAN YOU JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER?

2009-01-03T13:35:00.006-05:00

I can't stop wondering if people judge books by their covers.

I know you're not supposed to, and some might be embarrased to say they do, but I'll admit that I am drawn to certain books because they look like fun or because they look sexy.

When I first saw the hardcover jacket for Hats & Eyeglasses. I began fretting that it was too foreboding, too dark, too... well, hats and eyeglassy. I worried that women, who are my target audience, would be put off by it. I started emailing and calling my editor every five minutes to suggest changes. Can't we make the water bluer? Can the hat (which was originally a fedora) be a woman's sunhat instead? Can the glasses be more retro or feminine or 1950's or something? Can we turn the hat around? To say she had it up to here with me is akin to saying the Beatles played a little rock music.

When she called to tell me the paperback was going to have a completely different look, I was ecstatic. But then I started fretting anew. I held off until I could no longer.

I called her a few months ago. "Isn't it getting to be that time when we need to see the new cover?" I asked sweetly.
"Yes," she groaned.
"Do you have it already?" Now I was excited.
"Yes," she admitted.
"So???????"
She was loath to send it to me because we had had such to-do's about the last one.
"Does it have a person on it?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Does it look like fun?"
"Yes."
"Is part of it green?"
Now she hesitated. "Yes," she finally said, "but what would make you ask that?"
"I don't know, but I always thought a little of the cover should be green."
So she sent it. And when I opened the file, I started crying. It was everything I thought it should be and more. And I knew that if I saw it at the bookstore, I would buy it. Because the cover spoke to me. I am so over the moon.

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME?

2008-12-28T15:21:00.011-05:00

Okay, I gotta admit, it started with a crock-pot. I'd always wanted one, or thought I might, but it's so big that you just have to use it and if you don't you have to add on another bedroom for all the appliancesyou once thought you couldn't live without, like the clay pot cooker and the rice maker and the mini deep fry and the small, medium, and extra large George Forman grills. But for Christmas this year, Mike and Marissa (Mike works with Steve and is the most fabulous guy) bought me one. A real Crock Pot, and it looked so cool that I offered to make hot appetizers for Christmas Day. My sister told me all about her Swedish meatballs and kept telling me how easy they were. Lynn Biederman (co-author of the great YA novel, UNRAVELING) told me about these puff pastry/sausage thingys, sort of a fancy pigs in the blanket, and really, who doesn't love a pig in anything?

I got up Christmas morning a little hung over, and I was thinking that I should have had someone go to Sam's Club (I'm not a member and boycott it at all turns) and bought the 48 piece hot hor devours tray. But not me. I got to work shaping those tiny pork and turkey meatballs, which I shaped into perfect little balls, about the size of small Christmas balls. But there were literally hundreds of them. My sister told me I should use grape jelly and chili sauce and just put the whole thing in the crock pot for 8 hours.

But you know me--- if grape jelly is the easy way, then homemade peach jam might be better. And chili sauce from a jar? Wouldn't ketchup, fresh grated horseradish, some lemon juice, and a dash of freshly ground hot peppers be better? We almost had to evacuate because the horseradish and the peppers were so aromatically overwhelming, but after turning on all the fans and opening the doors, things calmed down a bit. No matter that it was 34 degrees.

By the time the meatballs were swimming in the sauce, I was exhausted, every dish in the house was filthy, and I had an attitude as big as Iowa.

But on to the sausage puffs. Lynn told me to buy a package of sausage and a package of puff pastry dough. Oh please. Went to Fleisher's butcher shop and got homemade sage sausage, on to Bread Alone to get fresh puff pastry. Lynn said it took twenty minutes to put together enough for a hundred and fifty pieces. It took me four hours to put together enough for 60 pieces. Then they had to be cut and frozen. By then it was four in the afternoon.

I was furious, and I didn't know who to lash out at. So I just pouted and went to Christmas dinner, itching for a fight. But my friends are nicer than I am and it was lovely. Everyone gushed about the great food I had made.

After two hours, I had to go home because I was too exhausted to stand. There I did another two loads of dishes. I called my sister to complain. "You made the meatballs?" she asked incredulously. "I use frozen."

And right then I got it--- my drive to be perfect made my holiday a nightmare. I could have used grape jelly and the frozen meatballs, and maybe people wouldn't have gushed, but they wouldn't have barfed either.

Why didn't anyone ever tell me what a pukey little control freak I am? Oh right, they probably did, but I stopped talking to them!

I am now a new girl. Next time you need hot appetizers, call me. I'll bring them straight from Sam's Club. I'll just throw them in the crock-pot! And you'll probably never know the difference. Or care.

THE WHITE HOUSE LOVES POKER!

2008-11-06T14:36:00.004-05:00

As if it wasn't just cool enough that Obama got elected (I'm still weeping with joy), the man loves poker! This makes me so happy. We need our president to have nerves of steel, the very first attribute of a good poker player. We need our president to know how to bluff--- think John Kennedy and the Russians in Cuba. We need our president to know how to kick back and relax. Yes, we need Obama, but the thought that he'll have friends over and play poker makes the White House seem like the coolest place to be next year. So I'm sending over a copy of Hats & Eyeglasses the minute the inauguration is over, and waiting for my invitation. Really, Mr President, I'd make a good addition to your game. Really I would.

PSSST, CAN I TELL YOU A SECRET?

2008-04-24T13:43:00.013-04:00

This is what's been going on lately--- everyone wants to tell me their secret. I don't mean little stories that they've been meaning to tell their best friend or their shrink or even their trainer--- those earrings they stole from a local store, or the co-worker they kissed at a holiday party, or the gossip they've been spreading about an office mate.

No, I mean full-on, BIG stories, huge secrets that they have never shared with a soul before. Stories about cheating and binging and lying and more. Stories about bags of stolen money stashed in the basement behind the boiler, or husbands that are secretly gay and having numerous affairs with married men, or obsessions that border on psychosis. Stories that make me blush, which is no easy feat. Stories that I will take to my grave, because that's part of why they're telling me--- because they know I will not tell a soul.

Because I was honest in my memoir, Hats & Eyeglasses, because I let it all hang out, and, most importantly, because I admitted that I had never told anyone about my own problem, people feel that they can share anything with me. So they email and tell me that they are staying up all night for 5 days in a row playing online poker and then walking into the operating room to do surgery, or that they have stolen their kids college fund and put it into a slot machine in the local casino. They stop me at the post office and ask if they can meet me for lunch. I can see the look in their eyes, the furtiveness, the tears welling up. And part of me wants to run away. I'm afraid that their secrets will overwhelm me, that I'll take on their problems as my own. But I listen, because I wish that when I was in trouble--- when I was playing poker online and lying and afraid all the time--- there was someone I could have opened up to. Do I think that would have changed the outcome? No, not at all. But I think that it might have moved things along, and that when people tell me their dirty little (and big) stories, it brings them one step closer to stopping.

At least that's what I tell myself.

QUIT YA BITCHIN'

2008-03-11T09:51:00.009-04:00

Everyone has been emailing me about Aurelia Taveras, a lawyer and TV commentator who started gambling and eventually lost nearly a million dollars in the casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Unfortunately, some of the money belonged to her clients. Now she's suing the casinos that she lost in, saying they should have recognized her addiction and not let her play. She says she would spend days at the tables--- not eating or sleeping, brushing her teeth with disposable wipes so she didn't have to leave her seat. Her little dog was often at her side, and it made me wonder if she made the doggie wear disposable diapers or something. Somehow this is starting to sound like the crazy Astronaut.

People want to know if I think Taveras is in the right, because, as I tell in Hats & Eyeglasses, I also lost huge sums of money playing online poker, although all that money was my own. They've also been telling me about a guy in England who is suing his bookie for taking his bets when he was a constant loser.

What the hell? Why does everyone have to lob off their screw-ups on someone else? I'd like it better if Taveras had said, "Okay, I did this, it felt good at the time, I'm ashamed and mortified that it got so out of control, but there's nobody to blame but myself." If she said that, I'd send her twenty bucks for her defense.

ON TO HARVARD

2008-02-25T07:54:00.005-05:00

What a week this has been. My memoir, Hats and Eyeglasses, was published on February 14th. Since then, I have gotten rave reviews in The New York Post, USA Today, Bloomberg News, The Times Picayune, AP, and half a dozen others. The New York Times ran an amazing piece by Joyce Wadler about me and my house in the Home section, and Tara Parker Pope blogged about Hats & Eyeglasses in her New York Times blog, WELL. I was on the Lenny Lopate show on WNYC, and did a standing-room-only reading at Barnes & Noble in Chelsea. This all seems an embarrassment of riches, but I'm remembering to enjoy the ride and not pooh-pooh the whole thing away.

And now, this college drop-out is heading to Harvard! Yup, leaving for Boston tomorrow for three days of TV (Wednesday morning's Good Morning Boston on Fox TV somewhere between 7:30 and 7:45 AM, and a half hour on BATV's Behind the Pages, which will be broadcast sometime in the next few weeks), taping Here and Now at WBUR, and capping it all off with a reading at the Harvard Coop Wednesday night at 7. So if you know anyone in Boston, tell them to come see me that night and to say hello. I love talking to the people who show up at my readings, and signing their copies of Hats & Eyeglasses.

FOUR DAYS TIL PUBLICATION

2008-02-11T11:47:00.005-05:00

Here it is, four days before my publication date. Things are going great. The New York Times did an unbelievable story about me--- the great Joyce Wadler wrote it for the Home & Garden section, and I must admit that she really got me, AP wrote a really nice review that got picked up by hundreds of papers around the country and in Canada, there have been raves in magazines, from friends, from people I don't even know (all the reviews are on my website, www.marthafrankel.com).

So, why haven't I slept in two weeks? Am I going to become one of those writers who fret and never feel that they've reached their goal? Please, no. I hate that kind of thing. When I was reviewing books in the late 80's for DETAILS magazine, I listened to writers bitch and moan all the time. Either they were annoyed that other writers were getting more attention than they were, or they thought their editors had screwed with the essence of their book, or they were just miserable drunks who couldn't be happy because a cloud of nastiness and sadness hung over them.

A friend asked me last night when I was going to raise the glass of champagne, and I had a million excuses--- not til the book was out, not til my Amazon number broke ten thousand, not til I knew if it was a "Success."

And she laughed. "Isn't writing it, being honest about your addiction, and getting it published the "success"?

That really made me shut my mouth. Which, if you know me or not, is not the usual thing for me. But it did make me think that if I can't enjoy the journey, I'm screwed. This book is the most liberating thing I could have ever hoped to do. I hid my addiction from everyone I knew, and now they all know. And you know what? No one has turned away from me, no one is mad. My family and friends have embraced me in a way that I could never have imagined.

So here it is, four days before pub date, and I'm doing it--- I'm raising that freaking glass and toasting Hats and Eyeglasses. And I hope you will, too.

OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE

2008-01-04T12:52:00.000-05:00

People are getting in touch with me, and with my publicists, because they want to interview me when my memoir, Hats and Eyeglasses, comes out. This is good news, as I worried that no one would even notice when it got published. But Shanta Small and Jen Levy at Tarcher/Penguin are doing a great job and now people are calling and emailing and saying things like, "I can't wait to sit down with you for an interview."

For someone like me, who has spent years behind the tape recorder asking the questions, this is a very scary proposition. Joan Didion said it best (and I paraphrase here), when she remarked that anytime a writer is in the room, it is not to your advantage.

And knowing what I know, which is that I used to do anything I could to make my subjects talk--- well, I'm getting nervous.

I'll give you some examples--- when I interviewed Leonardo DiCaprio, he was a nineteen year old who admitted that he had never had a girlfriend. I told him how I taught myself to French kiss by making a fist and sticking my tongue in between my thumb and pointer finger. I actually showed him my technique, and then he told me the greatest story about his first date and how the girl ate a roast beef sandwich and it creeped him out and he couldn't kiss her. People talked about that interview for years.

Once I told Jeff Bridges this story that I had never told anyone outside my family, about my "cousins" (really children of my parent's friends who I was really close with), and how they all became drug dealers and bookmakers. The next day I went out for dinner with Bridges and his agent, and the agent said something about my degenerate family. I yelled and carried on, and Bridges wound up taking me out again the next night to apologize. I wrote about all of it, and it was one of my most successful stories.

So what's going to stop me from saying things I shouldn't? I don't have a great filter on my brain, and although Hats & Eyeglasses is very revealing about certain things, I'd like to believe that there are other things that I would keep private. I'd REALLY like to believe that. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

STUFF

2007-12-28T15:44:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about stuff--- how for years I couldn't get enough of it, and how now I want to get rid of most of it. For years, whenever I had some cash I would buy local art. Some of it--- the John Ernst's, the Kate McGloughlin's, etc--- are worth some dough now. But a few years ago I started to think that the stuff owned me instead of the other way around. It seems like all I do is dust the stuff, and then it's filthy again in 15 minutes.

And now that my memoir, Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling, is coming out (Tarcher/Penguin February 14, 2008), I've been trying to make my house perfect, if for no other reason than I feel that once the book hits, I won't have a lot of spare time to putter around my house like I usually do.

So I decided we should paint. Anyone who has a house knows this is a total nightmare. Take all the art off the walls, pile it somewhere, figure out good colors for the walls and ceiling, and get someone great in to paint.

Okay, we started a few days after Thanksgiving. The wonderful guy who works for my husband did the entire paint job himself. His name is Mike Karpf and he's a freaking genius painter. He filled in every hole in the wall, painted the ceiling without a drop clothe, painted the brick fireplace white, and then the walls a gorgeous yellow. The amazing thing is, it took him less than two weeks.

But then Steve and I had to decide which art to put back up. Steve wanted to put every single painting back, but I held firm. One wall now has 6 local paintings of the Catskill mountains. Another has a huge painting that we bought in Vieques, Puerto Rico (our second home), from master artist Terry Price. It's of Hurricaine Hugo, which destroyed Vieques in September 1989. Steve wanted to put 6 or 7 other paintings around it, but I made him hold off. And then every single person who came in to the house last week mentioned how fabulous the painting was and asked when we got it. Even Steve had to admit that it must look better, because we've had it for about a dozen years and hardly anyone has ever mentioned it before.

We put back less than half the original art. The rest is under the bed, behind the dressers, in the closet. Steve seems to be getting used to our lighter walls, and I'm absolutely thrilled. Although I must admit that there's a painting I saw the other day that would look so good in the living room...

WHAT DO YOU DO UP THERE IN THE COUNTRY?

2007-10-19T11:59:00.002-04:00

What do you do up there in the country? I just love that question. “Nothing,” I usually answer, because, really, how can I explain that my life goes in warp speed, even if the woods are right outside my door?

So, what have I been doing up there in the country? Well, took a few weeks off from the insanity and excitement of the launch of my memoir, Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling, so I could concentrate on the Woodstock Film Festival. I’ve been involved with this film fest since its inception in 2000, and am one of the Advisory Board members. I never know what an Advisory member is supposed to do, so I pre-screen dozens of films, and then introduce the ones I have an affinity to or talk up the ones I can’t get to introduce. This year they included the amazing documentaries Surfwise, Black, White and Grey, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, and Steal a Pencil for Me; the narrative features Liberty Kid, Dark Matter, and 3 Americas; a myriad of funny shorts including Hunt Me, The Election, and Who You Know, plus the world premiere of the short Night of the Living Jews. NLJ, written and directed by nineteen-year-old Oliver Noble, was produced by my best friend, Valerie Fanarjian (now the activities director at Simon’s Rock College), who swears that she is done with the movie business, but I don’t believe her. She met this great band of young kids about two years ago, and they wheedled and cajoled and generally drove her nuts until she helped them make their movie, but they’re relentless. Coppola probably asked less favors when he made The Godfather. But the premiere was hysterical--- a Hasidic- looking zombie walked around the theater with blood dripping, there was a pig on a leash, don’t ask. Afterward, Heeb Magazine hosted a terrific party (which everyone started referring to as “the Jew party”), where bacon cheeseburgers were served till three in the morning.

The best part, for me, is stumbling into the hospitality suite in the morning and having a cup of coffee with the filmmakers. This year they included one of my heroes, Ron Mann, (who directed the documentaries Go Further, Grass, and Tales of the Rat Fink), and Jonathan Paskowitz, who co-produced the imaginative and glorious documentary about his wacky family, Surfwise.

Woodstock is full of its own amazing people, including music promoter Michael Lang, filmmaker and actor Larry Fessenden (The Last Winter, The Brave One), screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, The Painted Veil), director Leon Gast (who won the Academy Award for When We Were Kings), so there’s always someone really interesting to wake up with. Not that way--- I was thinking more breakfast than sex.
Because this is Woodstock, there are way too many parties. I often think that the tagline of the festival, FIERCELY INDEPENDENT, should be changed to ENTIRELY TOO MUCH FUN. But I ran into lots of my old friends during the weekend, including casting director Ellen Chenoweth, actors Aidan Quinn and Lili Taylor, and my college roommate, Donna Giddins, who pops up in my life from time to time.

On the last day of the festival I host the Actor’s Dialog, an intimate talk between myself and some of the actors who are in Woodstock for the festival. Aidan has been on this panel, and so has Lili, as well as Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Olympia Dukakis, Marcia Gaye Hardin, David Strathairn, Liev Schreiber. This year Patricia Clarkson (Station Agent, Pieces of April) was supposed to be my only guest, and I imagined it as a sort of quiet, sweet chat between film lovers. I had watched probably twenty or so of her films, all of Six Feet Under, and felt well versed in her work. I got to meet her on Friday and spent some time with her. Surprisingly, she was more nervous than I was--- she kept asking me if I was worried that an hour and a half was too long. But I assured her that if all else failed, I could open the questions up to the audience, who are rabid fans and probably knew more about her than I did. Immediately I knew I had said the wrong thing--- she sort of cringed, as if I had said, Wait, this whole town is full of stalkers. You’ll love it.

Then, the next day, we got a call that Steve Guttenberg was going to be in the area, and that he really wanted to do the panel. I jumped on the opportunity--- I interviewed Guttenberg maybe ten years ago for Movieline Magazine, and it still ranks as one of the funniest interviews I ever did. But I’ll admit that I was a bit worried that the chemistry might not be good between my two actors, or that their experiences in the film world were so different that they wouldn’t have any common ground.

I needn’t have worried. Clarkson was witty and full of great stories, and Guttenberg was so self-effacing and hysterical that the hour and a half sped by.

Here’s a great blog about the event.

Woodstock Film Festival

Night of the Living Jews