Very Smart Gals Salon

(Pictured, Nancy Coplin, Christy Pipkin, Gloria Black and Jan Soifer)

I knew that the Very Smart Gals Salon in the bar at the Driskill Hotel a couple of weeks ago would be a good one. I just didn’t realize how good.

It was great to see Christy Pipkin again, who arrived looking roguishly adorable in her leather jacket over a hooded, zipper-infested vest - imagine a Tinker Bell Amelia Earhart. As co-founder and executive director of the Nobelity Project, Christy is the backbone of this non-profit seeking to better the lives of children across the globe through filmmaking and action projects.  If you want to be inspired, be sure to check out the website, buy their movies and books, and contribute to their work. You’ll also learn everything you need to know about spitfire Christy. You won’t see her name much, that’s not her style, but you can read between the lines.

Usually when you ask someone what they’ve been up to lately, you get a canned response, “Oh you know, work, blah, blah, blah.” That never happens when I present that question to Very Smart Gals. Sure enough, when I asked Christy, after just a slight pause that clearly read, “Should I tell this?” she said, “Well, believe it or not, I flew to Las Vegas last night,” which is significantly different than saying, “I went to Las Vegas.” Then she went on as the moment demanded, obviously trying to downplay the whole thing. “One of our neighbors, who we’ve been friends with forever, has a jet, and they called to say that another friend of ours was playing a concert in Vegas that night, and asked if Turk and I wanted to go – so we did.” She added that it was totally out of character for her to do something so outrageously spontaneous. Said friends were John Paul and Eloise DeJoria (Paul Mitchell hair care) and Willie Nelson.

Heck of a fun story – however, that conversation didn’t go much further as I looked up to see Gloria Black careening around pods of people in the packed room, pedal to the metal in her mobility scooter. Just as I though she was going to ram our table for kicks, she threw on the brakes and reached up to give me a warm hug. Then, every bit like a seasoned truck driver, she popped the scooter into reverse and backed it into an adjacent nook, and moved smoothly into a chair at our table, never missing a beat in the flow of greetings. I met Gloria when she and I served on the Austin Commission for Women. During which time we compiled the history of Austin women into an exhibit presented to the City of Austin at a ceremony in the Capitol dome in celebration of the city’s 150th birthday. That history is sadly stashed away in the Austin History Center and needs to be excavated, updated and toured at each Austin school, but that’s another story. As a student at Huston-Tillotson College, Gloria worked as a volunteer for Barbara Jordan, and after working on many other democratic campaigns, went on to serve on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women under Carter, Bush and Clinton. She also raised 16 children, all of which, she proudly and deservedly announced, had graduated from college.

Jan Soifer arrived next looking the very serious businesswoman she is. Although I hadn’t seen Jan in 20 years, we ran into each other recently at a fundraiser featuring Arianna Huffington, for The Texas Observer and the Texas Nature Project. Jan is the current Chair of the Travis County Democratic Party and is also a long-time political and legal-community mover and shaker, and an accomplished attorney at her firm O’Connell Soifer for a variety of intriguing causes (i.e., anti-fraud litigation, qui tam and whistle blowers). Jan was very excited about the Jan. 28, 2014, Travis County Democratic Party fundraiser at the Four Seasons honoring Cecile Richards, and at which Wendy Davis will be speaking. Be a good yeller dog and get your tickets here (yes, I did).

Jan mentioned that she had a very roundabout connection to Christy Pipkin through Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whose work on Christy’s Nobelity Project inspired Jan’s daughter to join the “Semester at Sea” program, in which Archbishop Tutu is also involved.

The history of the Driskill came up and each of us shared our most memorable “Driskill Hotel” stories. Jan recalled a court case early in her career in which she was trying to prove her client (a nearby builder igniting dynamite to build an underground parking garage) innocent of causing cracks in the top of the hotel facade. A trip to the Austin History Center to retrieve photos demonstrating the cracks were there long before the dynamiting, won Jan’s case and a good deal of admiration in the eyes of her, at the time, senior partners. Gloria recalled the story of Barbara Jordan, Ernestine Glossbrenner, and Irma Rangel crashing a caucus of male legislators in the “no women allowed” room at the Driskill, declaring the room would never again exclude women. My story wasn’t so lofty as it involved getting a big hug from and getting to hang out with Danny Glover during a promotional event at the Driskill for the then new “Lonesome Dove” movie.

A surprise guest then arrived, better late than never, and what an honor. Nancy Coplin has been in charge of the six live music venues at the Austin Airport for the last 14 years, presenting 23 shows a week. As the Chair of the Austin Commission for Music, Nancy helped build the Stevie Ray Vaughan memorial, and helped establish the Austin moniker, “live music capital of the world.” Nancy has also booked the music for the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar for the last 25 years. This is the short list of Nancy’s accomplishments. Everybody knows Nancy and Nancy knows everybody, including the musician who was playing that night at the Driskill, Tiffany Alana Dodgen, who came over and became an official member of the VSGs. Nancy’s next adventure is Public Space Music, “helping communities bring the finest in music and show to their civic endeavors.” Check it out!

It was a short, but explosive, night full of too much talk and not enough! Thanks to Nancy, Jan, Gloria and Christy for a Very Smart Gals Super Sassy Salon! 

Fosse by Sam Wasson

You would think a book whose time line is a countdown to the dirt nap – Bob Fosse’s death – would be destined for gloom and doom. However, I have to hand it to Sam Wasson, the biographer of famous (and infamous) choreographer and director Bob Fosse (pictured young), for making a death march feel more like a dance number – rhythmic and fun.

Fosse, best known for his unique style of dance choreography, seen most recently (2002) in the film revival of Chicago (staring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, John C. Reilly and Queen Latifah), was also an actor, dancer, screenwriter, and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning for his direction of Cabaret, in 1973, beating out Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather. Fosse is also the only person ever to win, in a single year (1973), a Tony, an Oscar, and an Emmy.

Fosse was also a very hard drinker, drugger and debaucher, bedding practically every woman he ever met. The story goes that Fosse was an incredible lover who learned his sexual skills from the strippers he grew up around. (His mom was in vaudeville.) From Wasson’s account, it is also clear that Fosse’s life was a bottomless pit of insecurity that drove his compulsion to prove himself over and over again in bed and on the stage. And it was that drive that made him so successful – at least until it killed him (he died of heart failure).

The reason I read this book goes back to when I was a child and saw the musical Damn Yankees, which was choreographed by Fosse. I was gaga over Gwen Verdon’s dancing in that movie, and even as a child, I knew I was seeing dancing done very differently. It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned that it was the Fosse-style choreography I was attracted to. Verdon (pictured) eventually became Fosse’s long-suffering wife - knowingly sharing him with a never-ending string of starry-eyed ingénues.

I also loved the movie Cabaret (staring Liza Minnelli, Joel Gray, Michael York) - another fun example of the Fosse dance style. And although I thought All That Jazz (staring Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer and Ann Reinking), Fosse’s semi-biographical film, was a bit too morose, I recommend you see both of these movies (as well as Chicago) to get a feel for the famous Fosse style.

And I recommend you read Fosse if you have any curiosity about the mechanics of Broadway and her disciples. The elaborate and detailed accounts of Fosse’s friendships with Paddy Chayefsky, E. L. Doctorow, Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli and many other Hollywood and New York notables is fascinating and exciting. Wasson’s writing made me feel like I was part of the Broadway lifestyle, sweating through marathon rehearsals, basking in the spotlight of dance perfection and rousing applause, dashing over to the Russian Tea Room to carouse with the stars de jour, staying up all night working on dance steps and scripts – it made me feel young and tired, which is definitely better than old and tired.

100 Things I Want to Tell My Children and Grandchildren: #6

(Me in high school - 1964-ish)

You can be different, and that’s OK.

Not unlike most of life’s lessons, I came to the above realization in a rather round-about way during my brief, but colorful, days of caving.

It all started around 1962-ish, when one of my high school friends, Dee Dee Wright, told me that Opal Hail, wife of the owner of the local Ford dealership in our tiny home town, Iraan, Texas, had offered to take us caving. I was a little surprised, but not totally. Unlike all the other women in town who wore lipstick, dresses and heels, and spent most of their days homemaking, Opal wore blue jeans and work shirts, nary a spot of makeup, and she rode horses and drove an old beat up, open-top jeep. I remember observing her from afar, not really knowing what to think, other than she was just so different.

It was still dark the morning Opal pulled up in front of our house in her jeep, the sun just threatening to peak up over the horizon. She and Dee Dee and I were about to set off on another caving adventure. We’d already been caving a couple of times, nothing big, mostly just a lot of driving to climb in and out of caves we’d heard about. Anywhere you drive out in west Texas is separated by 50 miles or more of nothingness. And more often than not, that nothingness includes a dirt road. I remember driving for what seemed like forever, the wind whipping our hair into straw and our yelled conversations into the dust billowing behind Opal’s jeep. After the examination of a small cave on the Joe Chandler Ranch, we followed the dirt road through a number of bump gates to an old ranch house that just seemed impossibly far from anything.

A tall, lanky cowboy sauntered out of the house screwing on his cowboy hat to greet Opal and us junior cavers, who really just wanted to get on with the cave hunt. After courtesies, we trekked up the steep side of a hill to an outcropping of rock that demarked the top of the mesa. What we found was a cave that looked promising, at least from the outside anyway.

We built a small fire at the mouth of the cave to chase out any Javelina hogs or Rattlesnakes that might have called the place home. Not only did we not rustle up any critters, but when we were able to enter the cave, it was really pretty shallow. We didn’t care. It was all part of the adventure.

On the way back home that day, Opal yelled over the roaring jeep and the wind, “Do you know who that guy was? That was Bud McFadin,  a famous football player.”

It wasn’t until much later in my life I realized just how famous.  Bud McFadin  played football for the University of Texas, was an All-America and a five-time pro bowl player for the Rams, Broncos, and Oilers.

Not too long after that caving trip I became more interested in boys than caves, but I’ve never forgotten the great times Dee Dee, Opal and I had squirming in and out of dirty, dark, muddy holes in the ground. And I’ve never forgotten Opal Hail because she taught me that you don’t have to be the same as the people around you. You can be whatever your heart tells you to be, and as long as you are good to yourself and good to others, that’s OK.

Coreyography by Cory Feldman

OK, let’s get this out of the way right up front.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I bought this book, and even more embarrassed to admit that I liked it, sort of.

Cory Feldman wasn’t an icon of my generation, so I’m not sure why I was even interested in reading his autobiography, but I’d seen a few positive reviews, and I couldn’t seem to get into Khaled Hosseini’s new book And the Mountains Echoed. So I decided to slum it in a “tell all.”

In Coreyography, Feldman tells of a horrible upbringing by a physically and psychologically abusive mother who relied almost exclusively on Feldman’s acting income to support the family. Feldman doesn’t talk as much about his father, but it is apparent that he is mostly absent in every way. The stories about his childhood are so extreme, beatings, no food in the house, mom sleeping almost constantly, etc., that it makes one wonder if Feldman’s acting skills came as a result of his constant need to pretend to be normal.

Thankfully, Feldman balances out his tale with fun details of his early acting career – the making of The Goonies, Lost Boys and Stand By Me. And his rather sweet friendships with Michael Jackson and Steven Spielberg give us that “fly on the wall” sensation. But there’s always the nervous undercurrent of desperation to get another part, to make more money, to “stay in the game.” And when you consider that he was dealing with those very stressful needs at the age of eight, well, you can’t help but say, “Is it any wonder?”

Then there’s the other bad stuff. Feldman dedicates a great deal of the book to the details of his, and his best friend Cory Haim’s, sexual abuse and drug abuse. He claims they were both victimized by men with the power to make them famous (or not), and that all young actors are at risk at the hands of predators in the business of screening children trying to get work in Hollywood. Neither Feldman nor Haim had any kind of protection from a parent, and sadly, their lives were so messed up that neither knew if what was happening to them was right or wrong. So they self-medicated until it nearly killed them – or in Cory Haim’s case, killed him.

Interesting? Yes. True? I don’t know, and that’s what bothered me most about this book. Something about the phrasing of his words, or the pace of the narrative  – I couldn’t shake the feeling that Feldman was playing a part and really, really wanted to win an Oscar.

And the Oscar for best actor goes to….Cory Feldman for Coreyography!

Read it? Sure, but only if you find yourself feeling bored, or if you need reassurance that your life is actually pretty sane.

Very Smart Gals Salon

I had no idea what time it was, but the bartender in the lounge at Ruth’s Chris Steak House did. 

“I’m not going to tell you ladies again. The bar is closed!” he yelled.

We were deep into solving Texas politics, and talking books and a plethora of other pressing and superfluous issues, so we ignored him. 

Then the lights went off and stayed off.  

“Turn the lights back on so I can at least find my freaking purse!” I yelled back at the bartender.

Then I woke up.

(Apologies for the photo - long story - L-R)  

Dean Lofton, Mary Harper, Lynn Meredith, Cathy Casey, Deborah Hamilton-Lynne, Sarah Bird, Suzanne Franks, and I didn’t get thrown out of Ruth’s Chris, but this gaggle of Very Smart Gals virtually torched the place Thursday night with some of the most salon-worthy banter ever, apparently inspiring my crazy dream that same night. It had been a while since I hosted a Very Smart Gals' get-together, so it was high time, and gal-howdy was it a high time. 

Cathy Casey, Vice President, Editorial Licensing and Communications for Texas Monthly magazine was the first to arrive, so we revisited a little of our shared Don’t Mess With Texas and other history and caught up. Cathy is one of the quiet, behind the scenes people responsible for Texas Monthly’s decades of success touting the virtues of Texas. She has also played a significant leadership role in several non-profits' success, including the $10.5M capital campaign for the construction of the Kozmetsky Center for Child Protection.

Next to arrive was Dean Lofton, my publicist and editor, and founder of The Lofton Agency, a boutique PR, media and consulting firm. Dean has lost 90 pounds and looks fab, but she didn’t loose an ounce of brain, and that’s really the source of her fabulous-ness. Dean has the enormous and often-impossible challenge of trying to make sure my writing is free of faux pas. She’s also the head “cat herder” for my Very Smart Gals Salon events, which is no small task!

Next to fly through the door was Sarah Bird, multiple award-winning super-author of eight fabulous novels, including The Gap Year, which was my pick for one of the best books of 2011! I’d contacted her a few weeks before to see if she wanted to attend an event at the Wildflower Center. To which she replied in her typically hilarious manner, “I would love to go anywhere with you. But that is the night before I have to give a big speech, and I'll need to set that time aside to freak. Ha! Sort of kidding. Mostly not.” So I invited her to the Gals Salon. Sarah shared some delicious, top secret details about her spectacularly intriguing new book, which is coming out soon! Stay tuned!

Deborah Hamilton-Lynne, editor in chief of Austin Woman magazine and executive editor of ATX/Austin Man magazine, arrived next looking très chic in her Channel earrings. She said she could only stay a short while though because she was headed to “Big Reds & Bubbles,” The Wine and Food Foundation’s annual fundraiser. Deborah must be the busiest woman in town! She recently spent 13 hours a day downtown for two weeks leading up to and following the Austin Film Festival and Texas Book Festival. Deborah led a rousing discussion with the Very Smart Gals about Wendy Davis's gubernatorial bid and what it will take to get more Texas women to the polls.

Suzanne Franks, who was in my daughter Jolene’s high school graduating class, was by far the youngest attendee, but also one of the most interesting. After earning an M.B.A. at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Suzanne ended up in NYC at Salomon Smith Barney. She recently returned to her Texas roots, however, to establish Vivid Research, Inc., providing financial services too complicated to explain in this post. Hometown girl makes good! So happy to have Suzanne in our circle of Very Smart Gals!

Lynn Meredith never disappoints. The gal is such a fount of info - the Arianna Huffington of Austin! Any topic that came up, that she didn’t know a lot about, which was precious little, she quickly researched on her voice activated, super fast Motorola Android, whipping out online data and trivia faster than a teenager hyped up on Starburst candy. We can thank Lynn and her family for their significant role in many Austin community enhancements, including the about to open Thinkery (Children's Museum), the new Sustainable Food Center, The Blanton Museum, and much more.

  

Mary Harper is my daughter’s sister-in-law, but I call her my daughter-in-law, because I adore her and claim her as a closer relative than she is. After graduating from TCU, dabbling in modeling in NYC and Milan, then real estate in Miami, Mary returned home to manage her family’s assets in San Antonio. One summer weekend when she and a college gal-friend were staying at our house she met her soon-to-be husband, Will Harper, whose family owns Capitol Chevrolet. Now, she and Will are married and have an adorable four-year-old daughter, Flora, and a beautiful newly refurbished home overlooking the Austin skyline.

Ruth’s Chris served up seared ahi tuna, saffron infused veal osso buco ravioli, calamari, spicy lobster and some superior crab cakes, but honestly I was so into the conversations going on around our packed table that I didn’t eat nearly as much as I would have liked.

So, we didn’t get thrown out of the bar, but a super time was had by all, reminding me that when smart women get together, smart things happen! 

Oh, and Deborah is forming a revolution, so let me know if you want to join.

Ciao!  SueAnn

Happy 40th Birthday JoLene!

You are the best of me and the best of your dad, and the best of everything that makes us all believe in the purity of humanity. 

I love you my beautiful, wise little daughter. 

You are my eternity…and the splendid residue of my life.   

Happy Birthday My Precious Girl. 

And thanks to everyone who helped make JoLene's SURPRISE 40th birthday party a warm, fun event!