THE SEARCH FOR MR. ADEQUATE
Part XX
By SUSAN SILVER

This is our 20th column together and there should be some sort of celebration, don’t you think? Well, I’ll drink a glass of champagne and think of you while I’m in Florida. You can do the same, enjoy.

A few random thoughts first. Is it just me or do you think that Con Ed could have a better slogan than the one they’ve chosen for their new commercial: “I’ve got gas!” I swear that’s it. And yes, I do, but it’s soooo rude of them to point it out.

Another thought ... things are really getting bad in the dating game when real men prefer animated women. And I don’t mean “lively.” Did you see the new toilet tissue commercial where a cute guy picks up three animated, that is to say, cartoon women who quilt toilet paper in a bar?

It’s bad enough competing with younger women, but now they go too far. We flawed human women weathered the curves of Jessica Rabbit a few years ago, but this is ridiculous.

So, speaking of animation ... stay with me and you’ll see what I mean ...
Stan called me from California where he was on yet another business trip, having now spent something like 59 hours in the air the last couple of months traversing the globe, poor guy. Aside from the fact that he was exhausted from all the Oscar parties and rubbing shoulders with the stars, again poor guy, he really was collapsing.

To make it worse, since he was working fourteen-hour days, he had no time to sit out at the pool of the hotel, so he went to the spray tan place and was thinking it looked really cool on his now massively buffed body.

Until he got into an elevator at Barney’s and a woman he classified as a
“middle aged blonde” ... watch it buddy ... came up to him and said, “You look just like one of the Incredibles.” (For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, first of all it is animation! Second, the characters are all super heroes who are now old but still kind of v-shaped, if out of shape. And yet, she seemed to think it was a compliment.)

“What did you say to her?” I asked, when I stopped laughing hysterically.
He said that he said, “Well that is a first, madam!” The “madam” part made him feel better as she blanched. But the next time I saw the commercial for the movie with the hero, who is blond and rather pin headed on this enormous superman body, I called to tell him, she obviously was mistaken in that he is not blonde. That didn’t help.

When he got back into town, we went to see an amazing play I have to tell you about. You all have got to run, do not walk, to see it. “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Brilliantly clever, and funny and sweet. And incredible performances ... no, not from incredible animated guys, but extraordinarily talented real people.

And to top it off, my hero Stephen Sondheim was sitting across the aisle from me and laughing his head off. It was amazing for me to watch a genius appreciating other talented people. And, since we know I am not shy, I went up to him afterward. I had once written him a fan letter and he responded with a beautiful note that I actually framed, telling me I’d made his day!

So this made my night and after the theater, Stan took me to Cipriani. I used to eat there a lot, but the chairs are so low that I would get a backache but I solved this as they gave me an extra cushion a little like the Princess and the Pea but it worked. It’s still a good-looking crowd, some Europeans and noisy and fun. However, I guess I’ve reached that stage in life where eating meat at 10 in the evening is not a good idea.

It is now 3:45 a.m. and I haven’t been able to sleep from indigestion so am writing the column. In the background, Public Television is running a fundraising series of music from the 60’, 70’s and 80’s. It is great except I defy anyone to get My Midnight Confessions and Whiter Shade of Pale out of their minds after hearing them sung in the original. I will probably never sleep again!

Continuing on the topic of theater, I’ll put in a plug for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which didn’t get the best reviews, but I went to the opening and loved it. It is fun from beginning to end and I don’t know what critics have against fun. And again, the performances, particularly Norbert Leo Butz, are wonderful.

So I have been out and about a bit but haven’t met, nor even spied a potential Mr. Adequate. Sigh. And yet, life is fun. And Dear Readers, I have a really neat trip coming up next month which I will tell you about soon.

But let’s see what Palm Beach brings first. Lil and Lennie, with whom I’m stay are always great. And of course I will be on The Search. Until next time ...

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