Crazytown

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

By Gena Oppenheim

Recently, at a dinner party, folks started confessing the most rebellious things they did in high school. While tales of streaking through assemblies and getting high on oregano in the lockeroom were unveiled, my palms began to sweat. The truth is, despite having grown up in New York City…I was a pretty tame teen. My parents, by having no real formal rules or curfews gave me only one real way to rebel: to be as straight laced as possible (way to go reverse psychology.) I’ll never forget one Friday night, when I was home editing my method acting zine, my father came over and put a post-it note in front of me featuring a giant square.

The next day, with the post-it note in my pocket, I decided I was gonna be like those girls on Degrassi High (while properly pronouncing the word, “drama” of course.) I attended a party. I danced (well I at least threw my arms up in the air when “Jump Around” came on.) And then I hung out on a street corner. At 10pm! It was on this said corner that someone saw that age-old teen magnet for mayhem: wet cement. Never mind that it was almost directly in front of our school, this was what John Hughes comedies were made of. Somehow a stick was procured and initials began to be drawn. When it was my turn, I took a deep breath and prepared to not be so square. I gingerly wrote my initials and high-fived my merry band of rebels.

 

That Monday people were chatting about how some kids scrawled their names in front of the church near school. Since it was in front of a place of worship, it seemed serious. I felt like I was going to throw up, so I did the natural rebellious thing: went to the principal, started to cry and before she had a chance to speak wailed, “I did it! I defaced sacrificial ground.” Thinking I was about to be suspended, I bowed down my head and waited for judgment. Instead, however, she looked at me a twinkle in her eye and said, “What are you talking about?

“I wrote my initials in the cement.”

“Where?” she asked gently. She pulled out a picture of the sidewalk. In all the adolescent scribbles one name was missing: mine. “But, I did it! I’m confessing.” She then took my hand, “I’m sure you did. But you only scratched the surface. You have to really dig in for a name to stick.” Needless to say I wasn’t suspended (nor was anyone else…my whole class got a talking to about respecting other people’s property.)

Maybe that’s why I’m a writer, I’m just always trying to dig in and make that square an octagon.

 

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

AKA Sh*t My Mom Says                                                                       By Gena Oppenheim                                  

My mom is a funny lady (especially when she is not trying to be.) In honor of Mother’s Day (a holiday I'm never allowed to celebrate…see #8) I’d like to present my top-ten favorite quotes uttered by my mom:

10. I know rap. I like that guy Jay-X. Or is it Jay-Y?

9. Ganicki is my favorite type of pasta. Potato and tomato sauce? Delish.

8. Don’t call me on a day Hallmark tells you to. Call me for a valid reason. Like, if you know what Victoria Greyson is hiding on Revenge!

7. Today the dog pooped in the Citibank. I think it was his way of showing his continued support for Occupy Wall Street

6. You are exaggerating, I don’t just watch Holocaust movies. Only 8 out of the 10 movies on my Netflix queue are even about the Holocaust.

5. I wonder if people would have cared about the Titanic sinking if the majority of the passengers were Eskimos?

4. I’m just not a baby person. I mean I loved you, but kids are much more fun when you can discuss real things with them.

\3. [Upon moving to Brooklyn] Am I too old to be a hipster?

2. I love dogs because they view my repeating a story multiple times as a sign of affection.

1. (While eating a bagel and cream cheese) There’s nothing like a good schmear in the morning!

 

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

THE DEVIL (AND I) WEAR PRADA

By Gena Oppenheim

One of my favorite "Crazytown" topics is my time working as a stand-in/ extra in a variety of movie and TV shows. You can learn a lot about life being a very well coiffed piece of human furniture. Usually on projects, extras are only used for one scene so as to not become “too recognizable.” However, in The Devil Wears Prada, I not only inhabited the offices of Vogue, but also the center island in Times Square and, most movingly, a never ending line at Starbucks.

    My main memories of the Prada shoot were of a barren craft service table which, instead of the usual plethora of junk food, contained unsalted almonds and dried seaweed (perhaps to encourage us fake Vogue staffers to really get in character) and chatting with Anne Hathaway about how her brother and I suffered through a college summer school class where we created rhymes for Civil War battles to fulfill last minute requirements (Bull Run was really no fun.)

    Recently, the movie has been playing on cable and my Facebook page has been filled with such performance notes as, “Nice job pretending not to care” and “Way to look the other way!” Below observe the piece de la resistance: waiting for that Starbucks order that would never come (I’m the gal in the purple halter who’s not Anne Hathaway.)  I am looking around with an, as I was directed to, “My soy latte is more important then Madonna” air. This grainy, Spanish only clip I found, only adds to the scene’s mystique:

 

 

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

SOAPS COME BACK FROM THE DEAD

One Life, Has Another Life, to Live                                                     By Gena Oppenheim

My love affair with One Life to Live began when a childhood babysitter got me hooked. I was instantly fascinated by the soap opera genre. There seemed to be something profound about knowing, that no matter if I was watching them or not, this world of characters would exist everyday at 2pm. Thanks to an internship in college, for four years I actually got to experience Llanview (the fictional PA town that One Life is set in) first hand. My first day on set, I felt like Alice going through a soapy looking glass. Starting as a production intern, I literally became the intern who couldn't/wouldn't leave...making the rounds through casting, wardrobe, the writers office and publicity. 

Like a truly great soap heroine, One Life to Live (and her fraternal “twin sister” All My Children,) has recently achieved a staple of the genre: coming back from the dead. After being canceled the show was brought back to life in a groundbreaking online deal with the production company Propect Park. Recently, I talked to the other biggest soap fan I know (and Musical Theatre/Crazytown staple) Michael R. Jackson about this resurrection.

G: Hi MJ! How do you feel about One Life to Live and All My Children coming back?

MJ: I am super excited for OLTL and AMC to come back tomorrow, especially after the shabby way they were both canceled in favor of far inferior daytime products. Soaps have been a staple of my life since I was about 5 years old and there's such a rich history there that it's comforting to know that I'll be able to sit down with the characters again.

G: Do you think soap fans will watch online?

 MJ: I think soap fans will watch online because they are the most loyal. I have a theory that even though economics of putting a soap on TV was cited as a major factor of taking OLTL and AMC off the air, the demand for soaps is actually quite high and that given the way the economy has changed, making them available through hulu and itunes will make it so that even MORE people will watch. Because of my work schedule I was DVRing all the time but hulu is even easier and I'm sure that's true for millions of others. And with AMC and OLTL in particular, people are still invested. Having the show come back, it's almost like when a beloved character comes back from the dead, so everyone will be pumped to tune in.

RUSH HOUR CONCERTO

By Gena Oppenheim

On a recent Friday, during rush hour, while traveling uptown on the IRT (I still somehow find it thrilling to call trains by their formal names) I witnessed a microcosmic meeting of worlds that would make Robert Altman proud. 

A church tour group in matching hot pink t-shirts and lime fanny packs were looking at their maps, three teens were selling fruit sacs to “raise funds for their school trip to the Poconos,” and a Park Avenue Norma Desmond look-a-like (complete with turban and bug eyed shades) was highly engrossed in her Kindle that disgused as an old book that wasn’t fooling anyone.

A man suddenly walked into our car and started playing "Amazing Grace" on a saw. After a minute, one of the tourists began singing in a rich Baritone, “How sweet the sound.” Before I knew it, the fruit snack trio was clapping an amazing beat...Even Norma, soon contributed a high pitched vibrato. For one stop everyone onboard then began singing without abandon, in a crazy mixed up harmony that was off-key and, yet, perfect. It was one of those moments like when Dorothy lands in Oz, when a black and white day suddenly bursts into Technicolor. When the train arrived at the next stop, everyone smiled, cheered, and went on their way…forever connected to a car full of people they never could have imagined, by a single melodic moment of pure New York-ness.

 

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

WHAT DOES MY DAD HAVE IN COMMON WITH GEORGE CLOONEY?

Papa Oppenheim Dares to Take the 2nd Socrates Survey                By Gena Oppenheim

Last month I wrote my first Crazytown Socrates Survey, in which a cultural figure (at least to me) is asked a well balanced mix of high/lowbrow questions. Since my mother got the first go, I figured it was only fair that dad have his own shot at Crazytown glory. Below are Joel David Oppenheim’s answers to this highly scientific query:

1. What historical figure would you most want to have dinner with? Albert Einstein, of course.

2. What is your favorite soda? Green River [a lemon-lime green beverage sold in the midwest.]

3. What Mad Men character would you most like to change places with for a day? Don Draper…all the others have absolutely no moral compass.

4. My "Celebrity dopplganger" is: George Clooney (We have the same hair and we both care about refugees.)

5. Who is your favorite literary character and why?
 Gabriel Allon the lead character in Daniel Silva novels. He is the quintessential intellectual action figure involved in present day international events and intrigue (the kind of escapism I need !)

6. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  "Welcome home"

7. Best difference between Brooklyn and Manhattan? One word: Serenity.

8. Favorite member of Obama’s Cabinet?  Ben Bernanke, because he kept the government stable and his middle name is Shalom.

9. Would you rather...your nose change every time you sneeze? Or not be able to tell the difference between a muffin and a baby?                           The sneezing one, because if I can’t tell what a muffin is then that means I can’t smell and who wants that?

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

PERSONAL URBAN LEGENDS

By Gena Oppenheim
Today I’ve been thinking a lot about urban legends. Not ones in the vein of the
babysitter who's getting pranked by a murderer who's upstairs, or the couple
whose dog is actually a giant Mexican rat (Um, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
meant a lot to me as a kid.) No, I was thinking more of my own personal urban
legends. We all have them (family stories that have no photographic proof,
but have been told so many times that words become sufficient
evidence.) Maybe it’s your dad’s streaking in college that caused a campus ban
on mixing pop rocks and caffeine or your brother telling a cop that his name was
Jay and he, in fact, was just walking. Here are my own, favorite
P.U.L.W.N.P.E.s (persona urban legends with no photographic evidence):
-The, until now, answer as to why I couldn't have a pet lizard as a kid: because
my dad had bad memories of the "pet" alligators he kept in his college bathtub.
- My grandfather’s grand tale of how he lost his eye in World War II (I
didn’t learn until recently that his eye was, in fact, taken out when I was
five...nearly forty years POST-WWII.)
- My mother’s insistence that Seinfeld really started off on NBC as “Steinfeld”
and there were promos she REALLY saw that advertised it as such...but
were quickly pulled of the air because, "it all sounded too Jewish."
- My own cloudy tale of talking to Madonna when I was five in a West Village 
shoe shop...then asking my mom if I could be like, “that lady when I grow up."

What are your P.U.L.W.N.P.E.s?


GENA OPPENHEIM: Gena is a 4th generation New Yorker who teaches 2nd grade.
https://twitter.com/genabeans
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BUNNIES, EGGS & SEDERS...OH MY!

By Gena Oppenheim

In anticipation of the upcoming “high holidays” I wanted to share a conversation I recently overheard on the M14 bus. Two eight-year-old kiddos, one wearing a Basquiat adorned tee-shirt and carrying a Chicago Art Institute tote and another in head to-toe black, with only a daisy on her head providing a monochromatic break, were discussing their feelings about these “holiest” of days:

Basquiat Jr.: It’s so annoying we have to go to a Seder for eight hours!

Daisy: What's a Seder?

Basquiat: It's this long dinner where you eat bones and talk about suffering. 

Daisy: We celebrate Easter.

Basquiat: What’s that like?

Daisy: Chocolate bunnies and eggs. Religion is totally not involved.

Basquiat: Lucky.

Daisy: I know, it’s a great holiday.. the only thing you have to do is hunt for those eggs that the bunny has pooped.

And there you go folks...in case someone asks you for a quick 101 on the two holiest of holidays...Passover is a night full of bones and tales of suffering, while Easter is day full of chocolate bunny poop.

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans 

ANOTHER GOODBYE....

By Gena Oppenheim 

Last week my Grandpa died just four days before his 101^st birthday. When he was born, the Titanic was still waiting idly in a shipyard and gas was seven cents a gallon. He was never a grandfather in the traditional sense, usually preferring snarky comments to sage wisdom, but he was a character til the end. Last summer, I interviewed him for this very blog:

GENA: Hi Grandpa! I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions? 

HAROLD: You're like your mother. You'll do it regardless so why bother asking.

GENA: Okay. What are some memories you have of New York when you were a kid?

HAROLD: It was better.

GENA: How?

HAROLD: The mob ran things. They were very organized.

GENA: Did you meet any famous mobsters?

HAROLD: If I did I wouldn’t be talking to you. I’d be in a brick at Ebbets Field.

GENA: Um Ebbots field doesn’t exist anymore.

HAROLD: Exactly.

GENA: You met some cool folks when you were in the army though right?

HAROLD: I gave a a medical examine to Rita Hayworth in Alaska when she came to our base with the USO.

GENA: Wow! What was she like?

HAROLD: Watch one of her movies if you want a play by play.

GENA: Um ok…what historical event stood out the most to you? The moon landing? D-Day?

HAROLD: Getting to examine Rita Hayworth in Alaska.                            

GENA: What about inventions? What was it like to see the radio turn into the TV turn into the internet?

HAROLD: I don’t know what they taught you in those facata schools of yours, but I’ll tell you one thing that I didn’t appreciate the invention of: long distance phone calls [hangs up.] 

This phone call was typical of our conversations with Dr. Harold Rosenberg: brisk, funny and always full of character.  This weekend, however, my mom found something that made me think perhaps he was more sentimental then he might have let on. Last year for his 100th birthday, we took him out to dinner at a "fancy" Italian restuarant at the mall. Throughout dinner he complained about the price of the meal, the canned taste of the tomatos and how taking him out was the worst idea ever. However, while clearing out his things, we found a menu from that very restaurant.

Rest in peace Grandpa. And say hi to Rita for me.

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans

GENA'S FIRST EVER CRAZYTOWN SOCRATES SURVEY

What do a Marxist Theorist, Angelina Jolie and One Direction have in common?                                                                                   By Gena Oppenheim

One of my favorite components of Vanity Fair magazine is their Proust Questionnaire. In this Q & A, cultural figures are asked a well balanced mixture of high and lowbrow questions. While reading the latest example with Robert De Niro, I was inspired to create a questionaire of my own for the lucky person sitting nearest to me: my mom.Here are Susan Francis Rosenberg Oppenheim’s answers to the first ever Crazytown Socrates Survey:

1) Which historical figure would you most want to have dinner with? Rosa Luxembourg 

2) What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  Journalism, but only if I could be an NPR reporter

3) Were you team Angelina or team Jennifer? Angelina because she’s a humanitarian like Rosa, except beautiful.

4) My Celebrity dopplganger is: What is that???? What does that mean? Is it French? You know I am bad with languages.

5) Which talent would you most like to have?
 Something to do with music. Sing or whistle maybe?

6) If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? You have been a great mother. [writer sidenote: She then called back and asked if this made her sound too much like "A mother in a Neil Simon play.]

7) If you could change places with one person for a day, who would it be? Angelina Jolie...she does good and is married to Brad Pitt. Nothing wrong with that.

8) Favorite member of One Direction?  Again....what is that????? Is it a type of food?

9) Would you rather be able to eat anything with no consequence, or be well rested after only three hours of sleep?    Eat of course, what kind of question is that. 

GENA OPPENHEIM Gena is a fourth generation New Yorker who teaches second-grade. She is a graduate of Barnard College, and received her MFA from NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. http://twitter.com/#!/genabeans