Yes Please (23 page)

There was a performance element to the job that I found appealing. Every time a customer was celebrating a birthday, an employee had to bang a drum that hung from the ceiling, and play the kazoo, and encourage the entire restaurant to join him or her in a sing-along. Other employees would ring cowbells and blow noisemakers. I would stand on a chair and loudly announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are so happy to have you at Chadwick’s today, but we are especially happy to have Kevin! Because it’s Kevin’s birthday today! So, at the sound of the drum, please join me in singing Kevin a very happy birthday!”

The appeal didn’t last long. I’m not sure when the worm turned. Maybe it was during one of the many times we announced the BellyBuster. The BellyBuster consisted of mounds of ice cream in a giant silver bowl carried in on a stretcher. The busboys would have to pretend to struggle under the weight of this giant sundae as they lifted it onto the table and handed a giant spoon to the maniac who had ordered it. I would ease my pain by exchanging looks with one busboy who was always slightly drunk and the ex-junkie cook, who was always slightly grouchy. The cook spoke in bumper stickers when describing his disposition: “Of course I’m mean. It’s hard to be happy when you are standing this close to the fire.”

But the teenagers were the worst. Teenage boys, especially. They would file in, Adam’s apples bouncing, and announce it was their birthdays. Since Chadwick’s operated on an honor system, I would have to look into their sweaty, lying faces and smile like a flight attendant. Some of them would order their sundaes while asking me to hold their nuts. I was relieved when I had to leave and head to college. It was time. Besides, I had started forgetting to charge for whipped cream. I was failing to use the ice scoop. A customer told me I was banging the drum “too hard.” She was right. I was angry; I wanted to be gone. It’s important to know when it’s time to turn in your kazoo. The nights would end with the waitstaff in the parking lot, sitting on a car and drinking beer as we counted our tips. The boys would undo their bow ties and suddenly look weary and handsome. I would change into soft jeans and throw pennies at the Dumpster. I was aching for what came next. I felt my whole life stretched out before me like an invisible buffet.

I learned many things banging that drum at Chadwick’s. I learned that a good tip is what a decent person leaves. I learned that how a person treats their waitress is a great indication of their character. I learned that chocolate chip ice cream is a bitch to scoop. I learned almost all the people in a working kitchen are having sex with each other. Except for the Bangladeshi busboys, who are supporting three kids back home and trying not to strangle the awful white teenagers complaining about their summer job.

My next restaurant job was in Boston during college at a place called Papa Razzi. I was immediately drawn to it because it was a step up from ice cream, and also because I LOVE the paparazzi!! I don’t care what anyone says. I think the paparazzi are awesome and they are all great people and I should be allowed to see pictures of anyone I want anytime. Papa Razzi introduced me to the world of bread sticks and olive oil. We wore all white like professionals and talked about “cavatappi pasta.” I had an affair with the bartender and attended wine tastings. I had great abs and listened to The The as we cleaned up. I knew the bartender was fucking someone else at the same time and I DIDN’T CARE. I felt very adult. At Papa Razzi I learned that I was actually a great waitress and it was easy money and everyone was doing cocaine and that maybe I actually
did
care about the bartender fucking someone else.

Carlucci was a joint in Chicago and my first foray into the big leagues. My uniform was a smart burgundy vest and floral tie. I looked like a serious waitress who was also capable of performing some light magic. Fine Italian dining was hitting its peak, and Carlucci was a way for upper-middle-class people to spend their Wall Street money. This place was no ice-cream joint; it catered to businessmen with fat ties and fatter wallets. We had banquet halls and
mise en place
. We had a mean Italian chef who gave seminars on homemade grappa. I opened my first bottle of two-hundred-dollar wine. I catered an off-site party for D’arcy from the Smashing Pumpkins and smoked with James Iha. Billy Corgan sang in D’arcy’s living room and I listened from a closet. Once I heard a familiar voice in the restaurant and I turned to see Oprah at a table with what looked like a gaggle of producers. If my memory serves me correctly, she was giving them presents. I feel like it was diamond earrings. I want that to be true. I feel like Oprah pays all of her employees in diamonds and cashmere pajamas. While I was at Carlucci I learned how to dust a tiramisu and pair cordials. I learned having a pocket filled with cash is a dangerous thing. I learned that I was getting way too good at a job that was not my life’s passion. I learned that I was the only one not doing cocaine.

My last big gig was at a real classy joint called Aquagrill in New York City. It was 1996 and I had just moved to New York. I needed a job so I walked around SoHo looking for “Help Wanted” signs in the windows. I was called a “server” by then and I knew how to navigate the fancier places. I walked into Aquagrill and began my experience of trying to help a new restaurant get off the ground. The owners were talented and lovely, but I felt like an imposter in all of our pre-opening meetings. I wanted to earn a living as an actor, and I wanted to pay off my student loans and maybe get some health insurance. It would be a long time before those things happened, but they felt close enough to see. Aquagrill is a beautiful little place with yellow walls and fresh seafood. I finally learned how to save a little money. I learned how to tell the difference between East Coast and West Coast oysters. I waited on people like Ellen Barkin and David Byrne and Lou Reed. I was getting closer to Lou Reed, one step at a time. I waited on restaurant critic Ruth Reichl. She would come in wearing wigs and using a pseudonym. The restaurant got a great review and she said this:

“In New York City, home of the fabulous, the chic, the loud and the exotic, a nice restaurant is a rare thing. So rare that when I encountered the pleasant staff at Aquagrill I was acutely uncomfortable. Don’t those people ever stop smiling?”

She was uncomfortable with my smiling! I didn’t care. I had made the
New York Times
! The restaurant opened and I left soon after, praying that my bimonthly
Conan
appearances and piecemeal Comedy Central gigs would sustain me. I was out of the restaurant business but I still had my appetite.

I turned toward my future, mouth watering.

treat your career like a bad boyfriend

O
NCE I WAS SLEEPING ON AN AMTRAK TRAIN TO NEW YORK AND WAS STARTLED BY A THUD
.
Someone had dumped a script in my lap as they prepared to get off the train. I woke to a kind-faced businessman smiling at me apologetically. He looked at me like we were friends. I was immediately enraged.

The script was for a movie called
I Don’t Know Because I Threw It Away
. I was angry for a few reasons. I don’t like it when people wake me up. Being a bad sleeper, I have a hard time opening my eyes. I am amazed at people who wake up and talk like normal humans. These are the same people who don’t thrash around when they sleep and have never been told that they snore “like a dragon.” I was also angry because I don’t like to be solicited. My years of living in New York City make me very sensitive to the random encounter. When I walk down the street and someone asks me, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” I immediately put my hand up and firmly say, “No!” No one needs to ask me a question. There is no reason to talk to strangers. I do not want you to hand me your homemade CD or talk to me on an airplane or try to upsell me on drink specials. As I get older I get a real pleasure from maintaining boundaries with strangers. I have come to enjoy telling the cheese guy at the farmers’ market that he does not value my time. I like letting my massage therapist know that she is putting her needs before my own. It may be difficult to tell my family I feel pressure to entertain them, but it’s easy to tell the UPS guy that he needs to respect my personal space.

When someone randomly hands me a script it means I have already disappointed them. I don’t like disappointing people. Some would say this is “codependent behavior,” which I have discovered is a term that explains how most everyone acts all of the time unless one is a sociopath or a Russian computer that plays chess. PLUS, when someone hands me a script it only reminds me of how I should write more scripts and get my shit together and stop sleeping on trains. I don’t care that you add an attached note that says, “My wife and I are lawyers by day but screenwriters by night and we think you could act in/produce/direct/rewrite this with us.” I am not impressed when you assure me the story has “lots of twists and turns.” I doubt it does and how dare you.

See? I am not as nice as you think I am.

Being a working actor whom people recognize sometimes means you occasionally get the young up-and-comer who thinks that meeting you is their chance to break in. The good version of this meeting is when someone tells you they are inspired by you and are hoping to follow in your footsteps. This makes your heart warm. It also gives you just enough of an inflated sense of self to justify eating an entire bag of Doritos later that evening and eventually falling asleep with your hands down your pants. The bad version of this meeting is when someone hands you something. Or asks you to do something for them. Or announces loudly that you better remember their name because they are going to be famous one day.

Good or bad, the reality is most people become “famous” or get “great jobs” after a very, very long tenure shoveling shit and not because they handed their script to someone on the street. People still think they will be discovered in the malt shop, even though no one can tell you what a malt is anymore. Everyone wants to believe they will be the regular guy from Sioux City who becomes a reluctant movie star despite his best attempts to remain a sensitive tattoo artist. People don’t want to hear about the fifteen years of waiting tables and doing small shows with your friends until one of them gets a little more famous and they convince people to hire you and then you get paid and you work hard and spend time getting better and making more connections and friends. Booooring. It’s much more interesting to believe that every person who makes it in show business just wrote a check to their mother when they were eighteen for a million dollars with an instruction to “cash in a year.”

I was never great in auditions. When I was nervous I would often underprepare and act too cool for school. I would try to reject them before they rejected me, which was confusing since I had decided to audition and acted angry to be there. I remember one particular time I auditioned for the Coen brothers. I realized I was doing a pretty shitty job and I overcompensated by also acting like a dick. The Coen brothers were very nice. I think. I have blocked it all out.

It took me awhile to step out of my comfort zone and put my neck out to audition for something. College was filled with small parts in big musical productions. What’s-her-name in
Brigadoon
. Who’s-her-face in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. That lady in that other play. All small and usually comical. All satisfying in their low level of risk. I surfed in a very cool and confident zone and my ego was snuggly and warm in a sleeping bag of safe choices. Then I moved to Chicago and the shit hit the fan.

I started going on cold auditions, the kind where your agent sends you in and you have no idea why. The worst auditions were what we called “bite-and-smiles.” This is when you go in for a Wendy’s spot and have to pretend to eat something and smile. No words, just the simple fact of presenting your face to the camera and hoping someone likes it. I had the presence of mind even then to know I would never book one of these. One, my teeth were kind of jacked up, and that never bodes well in close-ups. Two, I don’t have symmetrical good looks and therefore I like to think that my personality is my currency. I remember the Chicago casting director asking me to pretend to bite into something and then smile. I did my best and was about to leave when the casting director asked me to stay and put something on tape. I got excited. Maybe she saw potential in me. Maybe I would finally get to play the blue-collar white-girl arsonist on my favorite show of all time,
Law & Order
.

Instead, she asked me to sit on a stool and tell her my “most embarrassing moment.” I asked why. She said she just wanted to have some tape of me talking. I asked her if I could talk about something else and she shook her head and said, “Tell me your MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT.” And I said no. She never called me again.

Quick note here: Everybody wants you to share your MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT all the time, and I am here to tell you that you don’t have to. You don’t have to tell it or tweet it or Instagram it. You don’t have to put it in a book or share it with anyone who doesn’t feel safe and protective of your heart.