Time Fries! (14 page)
Authors: Fay Jacobs
It's an amazing insight when you realize you've been eating, drinking and suffering along with the Oscar telecast with the same people for almost 40 years. At first revelation you think, “How is this even possible?” Then you go to “Damn, we're old,” and finally you settle into “Isn't this absolutely wonderful.”
So it was on the afternoon of Feb. 26 when I realized I've been “doing the Oscars” since the mid-1970s with my pals Don and Lee. In a stunning example of “The more things change the more they stay the same,” our lives, hometowns and even my sexual orientation changed (okay, revealed itself!) in the interim, but we are still sitting through the Sunday night telecast drinking, laughing and making snarky comments.
Frankly, the tenor and quality of the comments has remained biting and hilarious (at least to us), even though the term snarky wasn't even invented when we started bitching and moaning about the jokes and fashion faux pas. But, as it is now definedâ
snarkâ¢iâ¢ly
\adverb,
Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide
âwe believe our prior performances were plenty snarcastic.
Our run began in 1974 when Nixon left and
Cuckoo's Nest
was Best Picture. Coincidence? That was followed by host Bob Hope (with Farrah Fawcett's gorgeousness leaving a snark free zone), then Johnny Carson hosted through 1981. For reference, that was the year that Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder did “Ebony and Ivory.” When Bonnie joined Don, Lee and me in 1983 (I missed current events that year, as I was besotted with young love!), and our new quartet watched Meryl win her first for
Sophie's Choice
.
We forged ahead in my 40th year, with Cher's strategically placed sequins to discuss in '88 as she won for
Moonstruck
, then '89 with Demi Moore in a bustier and biker shorts. What was she thinking? When was it that Cher wore her black
winged feathered dress? By the mid 90s we were starting to weekend in Rehoboth and sometimes the Oscar parties, hosted on TV by Billy Crystal, were here in our weekend places. Such was '95 with
Forrest Gump
, as host Whoopi tried to curb her raging snark and stay out of trouble. She did not.
It was in 2000, Bonnie and I were Rehoboth full-timers by then, when Angelina showed up all Goth with her blood vial. The next year singer Björk wore that ridiculous swan dress with the dead bird around her neck and the outfit was parodied so brilliantly by Ellen DeGeneres, at her Emmy host job right after. I'm sure we were off the scale on the snarkometer that night.
And so it went, as Don and Lee moved to the beach full-time as well, and we watched a parade of Oscar hosts, more Billy Crystal, some gorgeous superstarsânotably Hilary Swank, Julia Roberts, and Halle Berry looking hot, with George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, and Colin Firth captivating the boys.
Through the years our food and beverage choices changedâunrepentant carbs and comfort food when we were puppies, healthier eating in the mid-years, and now back to comfort food again, but with guilt.
Every year since the beginning we've had ballots and quizzes compliments of Don, and every year we agonize over the same question: Do we select who we think will win, or who we want to win? For years we had prizes, too, but that seems to have stopped since we are all trying to winnow down our clutter.
So here we were again in 2012. Somebody said, “Nothing like a red carpet show to remind us that actors need writers.” And we were glad we weren't hosting since Billy Crystal was looking very, very puffy.
“Don't look in the bathroom mirror,” somebody added.
Then, iPad addicts that we'd become, we discovered we could augment our own snarkiness by logging on to Snark Food, a website for “freeing your inner snark.” Several people posted comments like “Handlers should run with these movie stars like at the
Westminster Dog Show
,” and “Billy may be late
tonight, he's coming all the way from the 80s.” My favorite was “Billy Crystal has had so much work done he's looking like Kim Jong Il.”
Funny, but nobody dared look in the mirror.
The wedding wasn't supposed to be that big a dealâjust a smattering of family and out of town friends to join us for the Jewish wedding we never got to have. What could be so difficult? Now that Delaware had a civil union law, we'd make our 2003 Canadian wedding official here at home.
The escalation began when the rabbi and her soon-to-be-wife sat sipping wine with us, asking a few questions.
“Are you going to have a Ketubah?”
Bonnie, a Jew for a couple of minutes now, knew exactly what that was. Me, a Jew from birth, not so much. A Ketubah is a marriage contract, kind of a pre-nup, without talk of finances, with beautiful artwork and prose, to be signed by the couple, witnesses, and officiant.
“Great, where do I get one, Ketubahs R Us?”
I wasn't far off.
Ketubahs.com
had zillions of pretty pictures, with gooey wording at equally gooey prices. They offered overnight shipping. What? For shotgun weddings?
There actually were two choices of wording for same-sex couples, but neither prose recognized the 30 years Bonnie and I have already been together, which we wanted to note. So, going rogue, we wrote our own words, and had graphic genius Murray Archibald superimpose the copy on a pretty picture we'd taken. Voila! Ketubahs really are us.
Of course, we wanted to have the ceremony at the community room at CAMP Rehoboth, figuring a few hors d'oeuvres, a little bubbly, and music by iPod. Brides plan, friends and wedding planners laugh.
Within a few weeks of the ceremony I had hired a piano player and gotten into a discussion with my step-mom Joan about the kind of flowers we were having.
Joan: “What kind of flowers are you having?”
Me: “Flowers?”
So I called my pal Chris Beagle, the wedding planner, for advice. He discussed so many options my head exploded.
Me: “Okay, Uncle! Will you be my wedding planner and do the flowers?”
Chris: “Sure. We'll need two large arrangements and one at the table with the guest book.”
Me: “Guest Book???”
So I found myself at Michael's Crafts in the Wedding aisle, alongside several size four teenage brides-to-be picking out guest books. They all assumed I was the mother of a bride, or omigod, grandmother of a bride. I haven't felt so out of place since I accidentally wandered onto a softball field.
Chris: “I know Mixx is catering, but who's handling the table cloths?”
Me: “Table cloths?”
That's when I turned it all over to Chrisâcaterer liaison, flower arrangement, and even the construction of the wedding canopy or Chuppahâyou can pronounce it properly by clearing your throat on the “Ch.”
By the day before the wedding, the rabbi reminded me we needed a glass for Bonnie to stomp at the end of the ceremony. I wandered around Pier One, feeling up the glassware to find the most delicate glass to smash. We didn't want Bonnie stomping the thing with her dress shoe and honeymooning at the ER with shards in her instep. I found a perfect cheap champagne flute. The clerk must see this a lot, because he didn't look at me like I had two heads for buying a single glass.
That afternoon I got a phone call from an old friend, about to address our wedding card.
Friend: “After the wedding will you two be hyphenates?”
Me: “No, I think we will still be homosexuals.”
By Monday evening, 24 hours and counting, Bonnie was calm but I was nervous. Not about the marriage. After thirty years, the only nerve-wracking part would be trying to remember our wedding anniversary. Which is why the event was on a Tuesday. Long ago we had deemed March 27 as our
anniversary date and this year, our 30th anniversary, it would also be our big fat Jewish wedding. We are too old to memorize a new date. I was just nervous about logistics. I wanted to get hitched without a hitch.
My sister Gwen: “Are one of you staying at a hotel tonight? You aren't supposed to see the bride before the wedding.”
Me: “Puleeeze.”
On Tuesday morning, my wedding planner called.
Chris: “Do you need anything?”
Me: “Xanax.”
And so it went. Cool cucumber Bonnie even went to work for part of the day, while Bridezilla here anxiously entertained visiting family and friends.
Then, at 5 p.m., after Bonnie and I dressed, we made sure we had the rings in our pockets and the delicate wine glass wrapped in a cloth napkin. That's so we wouldn't have to spend months picking glass shards out of the CAMP carpet.
Zero hour. Bonnie calmly announced she'd get the car from the garage and meet us on the driveway. Exiting the garage she backed right into the side of my stepmom's car. Not nervous?
She ran to the front door, horrified, wondering if she should be the runaway bride. Then we made our first vow of the day, agreeing to keep the incident secret until later. To that end, it was like a sitcom as we hustled Joan and Gwen into the car, shielding their view of Joan's dinged bumper. Get me to the church on time!
The room at CAMP looked gorgeous. Chris got his inner gay boy on, having built the most amazing canopy and making the room look country club elegant and not the least bit Vegas wedding chapel tacky.
The crowd was joyous, happy for us and happy that such a ceremony was legal in Delaware. Bonnie and I felt blessed to be in the company of family and longtime friends who traveled to Rehoboth from the likes of New York, Virginia, DC, and even Nova Scotia, despite it being a Tuesday.
And Rabbi Beth did an incredible job. She invited friends to provide blessings and allowed us to sip Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine instead of Manischewitz since to my mind, nobody should start their next 30 years with wine that tastes like Robitussin. The rabbi quoted from the Bible as well as songwriter Jerry Herman, with his lyrics “The Best of Times is Now.”
Yes it is. Mazel Tov to all the couples who have come before us and all those to follow.
And for the record, Joan's car wasn't badly damaged. We joked that ours was the first Jewish wedding where we smashed a glass and a Prius.