Saturday of Saturdays. Relatively active. No, not really. A mellow day, which included a nap, food shopping, dry cleaners and a haircut. Not much motivation. Cold out. Chatted with the usual suckers online. Tired of them fast.

Bill and I saw ‘Capote’ tonight. It was good.
I finally see the resemblance between Phillip Seymour Hoffman and myself.

It was unnerving for me at least. I don’t know that if the tables were turned he’d feel the same way.
Only way to find out is to get my mug on the silver screen.
Christine Keener was good as Harper Lee. Very understated. Phillip Seymour Hoffman played the title character as a predator, as an author, and as someone who falls in love with a murderer, albeit at arm’s length.

Once again I was subjected to the hype. It is a good movie, but for me, when I hear so much about a film, when I finally get around to seeing it, I sometimes, if not most times, feel that it doesn’t live up to the hype. No one’s fault really. Just the PR machine in overdrive. Chris Cooper was quite good also. I enjoy seeing him on screen and glad he’s doing well. I met his wife Marianne Leone back in the day when they lived in Hoboken. Friends with Martha Griffin et al.

Tonight was also the Aids Dance-A-Thon tonight at the Javits Center. I was a celebrity escort/production assistant for a few years running. Nona Hendrix one year, Cyndi Lauper another year and my last year was Rosie Perez. With each passing year more and more drugs found their way up my nose and into my system. Everyone else was doing it, at least the Hoboken crowd I was working with, so why not me?

It was generally a lot of fun to work, and a strong feeling of self importance was a given. Must’ve been the head sets. Well, the headsets and the coke. Coke always makes one feel so important. Sometimes I had gotten so ahead of myself and wired that I had to swipe drinks from wherever possible, or I simply would’ve ground my teeth into nothing put piles of powdered enamel.

Rosie’s entourage were drinking a bit too and I probably kidded myself that they couldn’t possibly know what was going on with me. This was the year Madonna showed up. She finally deigned to make an appearance, and was escorted past the table where Rosie, her entourage and myself sat. I do remember Madonna looking like crap. Shaved eyebrows. Freakish strange Swiss Miss buns on her head. Truly a fright. Also Rosie, who had met her before, introduced herself. Madonna smiled shook her hand and continued on her merry shaved way. I remember Rosie saying to Madonna, “How you are” intending to ask, “How are you”.

I never got to see Madonna do or say whatever it was she was scheduled to do, and I don’t think I cared much to either. The other volunteers were all so psyched to see her. It was the same group of volunteers each year. This was becoming a tradition. It wasn’t supposed to be though. This was supposed to be funding for a cure for AIDS.

But it was turning into an annual thing. At the end of the night, when we were saying good night to each other, I told some of the others, that perhaps we won’t be meeting again, perhaps they’ll find a cure this year, with funding from the Dance-A-Thon. That didn’t go over well. Some were offended.

I was never asked to volunteer again.