Vanity Fairest

Seven months ago, I was in New York City for my big show at Lincoln Center, the culmination of a year’s worth of concerts and hard work. I had a television network coming to my event the next day to film a pilot presentation for their top execs, I had just unequivocally turned down another producer that had been clamoring for our attention, and I was rushing out to meet up with a top producer from a major network, who also wanted my involvement in their upcoming reality show.

Somehow, I failed to realize that 15 minutes was not enough time to get a cab in Midtown during Friday rush hour, even if I was only going 20 blocks.

So what do I do? I get in a freaking rickshaw.

That’s right. I pulled up for my meeting with a television exec in this classy ride, powered by human sweat.

Funny part is, the producer was waiting for me outside the restaurant and saw the whole embarrassing thing. Even funnier, I suppose, is that I ended up turned him down. We had better offers.

Today, I’m grocery shopping for Thanksgiving at the Drive-By Dominick’s (so named for its proximity to the projects) when my phone rings. It’s a New York City area code, and one of my event producers had just called me five minutes earlier from his office line, which has a New York City area code. So, although I am in the habit of screening unidentified numbers, I assume it’s him, pick it up and say, “Heya! What’s up?” (which, admittedly, is not too bad compared with the innumerable other ridiculous and unprofessional things I could have said and indeed have said to this person on the phone in the past).

It is not my event producer. It is the vice president of original programming for yet another television network. She wants to talk to me, while I’m pushing my cart through the kamikaze maze that is the grocery store produce section two days before Thanksgiving, about putting my programs on the teevee.

I think this is why I have a hard time giving myself enough credit for running my own business, or for having chosen an unorthodox career: even when exciting things happen — things that might finally lend some legitimacy to what might otherwise be construed as a whole lot of screwing around, even by me — I somehow inevitably end up taking a Third World mode of transport to an important meeting, or pitching a television concept while knocking down a display of cans of evaporated milk and having to pause the conversation because I can’t hear her over the loudspeaker announcement of a price check on aisle two.

If one of these shows ever takes off and I have to spend any amount of time in Los Angeles, in a city and an industry that is all about appearances, I am going to last about 15 minutes without supervision. My saving grace will be that, from what I can gather, these Hollywood types seem to find my unique brand of unassuming idiocy to be disarming. Or at least charming, in a Midwestern sort of way.

The producer lady today asked, “Do you have a host for your show? Wouldn’t it be great if we could get someone from Glee in to host?” and I’m all immediately with the verbal diarrhea:

“Ya KNOWwwww, I was in show choir in high school with the co-creator of that show. I was Wife #52 to his King in ‘The King and I,’ ha ha ha, though I personally did less acting than I did chasing around the two two-year olds that were supposed to be my children. Last year they hired a veejay to host our finals, and she did an OK job and everything, but it was a weird choice because she was friends with Kim Kardashian and was always on that show and right before our event she got in all kinds of trouble for appearing in some sort of sex video that was all over You Tube. She wore this odd side-boob top for our show, but it really was nothing compared with what everyone there had just seen her doing on the Internet!”

… as if that is of any interest to her at all, let alone help. As if you are ever supposed to talk about your high school acting career or utter the words “side boob” in any professional context whatsoever.

I wizened up shortly thereafter and told her to please call my agent, who fortunately understands the concept of playing it cool.

He was, after all, in a college a cappella group.