Posts Tagged ‘Stacey Nelkin’

And I Felt…Something

Saturday, July 13th, 2019

Let me start this story exactly where it begins.  My best friend Kimberly had been taking a few different acting classes.  I audited them but didn’t spark to any for myself.  They seemed cultish.  As if the whole thing had to do with admiring the teacher.  The students were like followers.  And I didn’t like all the “acting” exercises.

I remember watching Arnold Schwarzenegger do a scene in Eric Morris’s acting class.  Arnold was then just starting out and known only as a body builder.

Kimberly guided me to a class deep in the Valley. Though you could take the same class in Point Dume at the teacher’s house, I chose the Valley.  The class was taught by a famous acting teacher named Jeff Corey. (more…)

Germ Warfare

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

me and the friends that surrounded me, Tracy, Kimberly and Stacey


It is the end of an era. I just found out that Broadway Deli in Santa Monica closed. I wasn’t about to recommend it or anything, it really wasn’t all that exciting. But I’m sort of blown away by the news. It held a lot of sentimental memories for me. When the ex-husband left me for another woman — okay, that wasn’t in the least bit shocking, but it happened — I was shaken. I’d walk up to tables of random people at the Broadway Deli and announce that my husband just left me for another woman and did they happen to know of anyone they could set me up with. Sometimes, friends would point to tables I missed and say, “Oh, look you haven’t told those people over there, or them there.” And so I would march up to complete strangers and do my line.

When the long predicted (by my father) infidelity happened, my friends showered me with support and we often ate dinner at the Broadway Deli. Sometimes also at Remi, next door, but that too closed, ages ago. I didn’t go to Broadway Deli much anymore, but it is where I had my first date with the man that would become my future husband. I love the memory of that date. It’s a part of my history, my story. Our story.

He will tell you I threw myself at him. And I have my version. You can be the judge.

I was having breakfast at Nate ‘n Al’s — basically my father’s commissary. He ate there every day except Sundays when he said “they bused in the gentiles”. This was after the not-so-shocking news about my current husband which my father had predicted for twelve long years. My dad would often say, “He will leave you for a girl he meets in the program”. He meant my husband will find a woman in the PHD program he was enrolled in. And he did exactly that. Hey, it’s all good, in case you think I’m some sort of a victim, which I’m not. It was full speed ahead or in my dad’s philosophy “NEXT!” which is what he would say if a show was cancelled or his movie project fell through. Only, I use it (and even he did) for relationships too. If it ends: NEXT!!! So, in the spirit of Next, I was with him early (which I hate) and dressed nicely, maybe even with a touch of makeup (rare ). At our table was Rodney Dangerfield and Bob Hilliard, a comedy writer who had written for the “Honeymooners.” So, you get the idea, all old Jews and me. (That should be the title of my book, “All old Jews and Me”. I want to remember that. But, I better use it quick or it will be “All old Jews, Including Me.”) (more…)

To Die for Mandel Bread

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

okay, in person it was quite the sight, 1983, pregnant with Oliver

I’m not exaggerating when I say I gained a person during my first pregnancy. Not an eight-pound person, a fifty-pound person. And fifty looks more like a hundred on my tiny frame. I’ll try to track down a picture to prove it.
At the time, I was often seen in the nicest restaurants sporting a leopard print Fiorucci number, a one-piece that was meant to have a big belt cinching it to show off your hot early-eighties bod. But I was dressing “for two” and looked more like a giant spotted pumpkin than the sexy dame I thought I was. Strangers laughed at me when they took in the sight. A real ego booster.
Cedars, where I gave birth, became a huge party where all my friends visited at all hours. I was one of the first of us to have a kid. Okay, Kimme, Sherry and Barbara started a bit before me, but it really seemed like I was hosting a big premiere. Think “The Wizard of Oz” and the moment she wakes from the dream, looks around the room and says to each person “…and you were there, and you were there…. “ Well, all of YOU reading this were probably there — only it wasn’t a dream.
Periodically, everyone would leave my room en masse to visit the nursery to look at my new, perfect, ten-days-late, stunning child with the Mick Jagger lips. And no, I didn’t fuck Mick — though I met him a few months after Oliver was born and told him it WAS his baby. Should I totally digress to that story? Sure, why not. (more…)

Chasing the Dragon (I mean the burger)

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Going on the hunt for the “best-of” meals can be a lot like an addict after a fix.  I remember years ago seeing someone I knew in Ruth’s Chris Steak House.   I watched him from afar as he ordered his steak.   He was well into his fifties at this point, and you just knew his doctor wouldn’t approve.  When it arrived, his eyes were as big as saucers and he even rubbed his hands together before picking up fork & knife.  He dove into it like it was his last meal on Earth.  It was really something to behold, and I have never forgotten it.

I hope I never come off as a “know it all” about food but I feel I do know where to get the best burger in L.A., and for me, sorry folks, but it ain’t the Apple Pan.  It is (or maybe right now I can say was) at the Beverly Hills Hotel coffee shop.

My addiction in life is food, strictly.  There are no crossover addictions.  Facebook for an ex-addict friend of mine became dangerous.  She couldn’t casually walk back to her bedroom without the computer calling to her to “check”.  Then she would get lost in the Facebook world of other people’s comments and photos and all that Facebook has to offer.  Hours later, she would finally drag herself away from her computer and catch a bit of sleep.  She unhooked herself quickly.  I miss her presence on Facebook, but she’s a “real” friend, so I actually see her and talk to her whenever I want.

Yesterday, I was doing my five-minute stroll onto my homepage when I noticed that my childhood friend Joy had said something about the best burger ever.  Well, you can only imagine how that caught me eye.   Joy’s posts often get my attention, but none like yesterday.  Where was this amazing burger? I wanted to know.  Her reply: “Fred Segal in Santa Monica,” not usually known for its gourmet cuisine.

The following morning I had one goal in mind.  But first, I had to find which Santa Monica Fred Segal was serving these rumored Best Burgers in Town.  For anyone venturing out, it’s the original or East side Fred Segal.  The place is called Umami and it’s where that little coffee house once was near the parking lot.  And it’s packed.  Clearly the world had heard about this place before me.  I took my son Barnaby, who, several months ago had sworn off burgers after hearing horrific details about them in the documentary “Food, Inc.”

I found a table and scanned the room for the reactions of people eating, and   I’m not exaggerating too much when I use the word orgasmic.   Were smoking allowed, some would have lit up afterwards.  I got very excited, but needed to order just the right burger to make me happy, and so I did.  A cheeseburger–leave the sundried tomatoes and carmelized onion on the side—but keep that special sauce.

Barnaby couldn’t resist and broke his burger-boycott by ordering exactly what I did.  And we shared onion rings.  Orgasmic – can you use that word when you’re dining with your son?   What the hell.

And, just when I thought lunch and life couldn’t get any better, we ran into one of my best friends’ ex-husbands (just one of many exes of many friends).  So, a big shout-out to Tom who picked up the check!