Event report
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Let me start by reminding people who might not have read all my posts in this blog that I am mildly autistic. When I am in a crowded environment with lots of sensory stimulation, I get very overwhelmed. My brain goes into slow motion. I gather data that I process slowly over time.
Writing is good for me, because I can do it later, when I'm alone. Things come back to me slowly. I've been writing this particular blog, piecemeal, as I think of things.
I went to the American for Arts Awards, October 15, to see Josh Groban get an award for his work with his Find Your Light Foundation. He wants to focus this foundation on supporting arts education, particularly for kids who don't have the money for private arts lessons.
This award ceremony took place at the Cipriani 42nd St. Here is a link to their website if you want to know more about them.
http://www.cipriani.com/locations/new-york/events/42nd-street.php
They have a slide show to give you the flavor of their facility.
I am not a photographer. I usually don't take pictures.
Now people have asked me a couple of questions that I have been thinking about.
The first question was "Did you have a good time?" I would say no.
I have special foods needs. I called the venue in advance and they assured me that I would not be forced to sit and starve to death while other people ate. They would make sure that I would have enough food.
They totally broke this promise. None of the hors d'ouevres were things I could eat.
I was also making my maiden voyage with evening gloves -- something I never tried before, so I did not want to eat finger food anyway, but I could not have eaten anything they served even if I had wanted to.
Then we sat at the table where there were rolls & bread sticks that I could not eat and I had to demand something that I could eat, which they resisted, because they said the salad was coming in two minutes. This was a bald faced lie, as the salad was not brought for at least half an hour. I insisted they bring me some fruit, which they finally did, reluctantly.
When they did bring me a salad, there was no dressing. So while everyone else was eating cheese (which I cannot eat) and tomatoes, I was sitting there with an essentially non-caloric salad, which was not going to fill me up.
I had to demand dressing and that took a while as well.
Then, when they brought me dinner, I had no sauce at all, which again tremendously reduced the calories of the thing. Fortunately, I made them leave the dressing, so I could put it on the vegetables.
Anyway, so that was unsatisfactory.
Then I had asked for fruit for desert, which took extra time, so I was eating during the young artists' performance. The young artists were way too loud for my sensory integration issues with my ears, so I had to stop eating my late desert to try to fish my ear plugs out of my purse with my gloves -- which was awkward.
I brought a dressy purse. Normally, I have a purse with lots of compartments, so it's easy to find things. This purse was just one compartment, so the ear plugs were under everything else & were hard to get to, especially since I was wearing the gloves, so I had substantial ear pain until I found the ear plugs.
Of course, I had gone there to gawk at Josh, but that gave rise to another problem.
Our table was located in the rear, northwest corner of the dining area. As it turned out, when we got there, it was immediately adjacent to a window in the partition separating the dining area from the VIP schmoozing area.
The people with the Americans for the Arts knew we were Grobanites. I wonder if they knew they had put us at a table so close to where Josh was standing. I should thank them if it was intentional -- though I suspect it was an accident.
Gayle, Josh's manager, was standing at the window, and as soon as she noticed that we were looking at Josh, she accused us of staring, so we sat down.
I'm used to being accused of staring. I've been accused of that all my life. Since I have this slow processing, and poor social antenna, it takes me a lot of time to gather the same information that other people can gather in a quick glance.
These accusations always sort of come as a bolt of lightening out of the blue, as I sort of go into a spaced out state and don't notice what I'm doing, especially in a high stimulation event like that.
But, of course, I *was* staring.
Anyway, people have asked me if Josh had a date. I'm a really poor person to ask that of. I was at the Paul Newman event in the spring, where Josh brought a date openly. I was only a few feet away from her and never really saw her. I look at the videos of Josh outside the venue now and I see that she was there, about four feet in front of me, but I didn't notice.
I guess that is partly because she was short and people were between us, but it was also because that was a crowded situation where I was overstimulated, so I was not observing well.
So, did Josh have a date last night? I don't know. He seemed to have a lot of attractive young women around him. He seemed to be taking turns talking to them. One of them turned her face towards us frequently, but I suspect she was a decoy. The other women tended to keep their backs to us. Trying to keep track of them was, to me, sort of like that shell game that con artists sometimes play in the city. It's very hard to keep track of where the little thing you're trying to follow is, when they keep switching around the shells.
Anyway, I go to this sort of event partly to practice networking & to have new experiences. I feel that it was an educational evening. I got to meet some people. I got to see this very fancy venue. I got to talk to Josh briefly. I got to get all dressed up and try out my new evening gloves. I got to try to improve my social skills, which always need work, given my mild autistic spectrum disorder. I learned more about Americans for the Arts.
I also got to see Brian Stokes Mitchell, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Renee Fleming, all of whom I have seen before only on a screen. I like seeing people in person and comparing how they seem in person to how they seem on the screen.
I am suspicious that the electronic process that creates the illusion of moving pictures on screens is very hypnotic and tends to make people seem more exciting than they really are. It's interesting to compare people in person to people on the screen. I would like to have more opportunities to do that, because I feel that it is educational.
Certainly, after watching Josh on a screen, I find it difficult to reconcile what I see in physical proximity to him with what I see on screen. It's partly that disconnect that makes me stare. I'm trying to process the experience of watching the screen with the experience of seeing the human flesh.
This is one of the things that likely makes me as a mildly autistic person seem odd to ordinary people who are not so interested in this type of observation.
But, did I have fun? No, I wouldn't say that. This is not to say I had a bad time, exactly, but I would say that writing this blog, for instance, is more fun for me.
The parts that I have included below in italics are the parts that I previously posted in several places on the Internet
It was raining quite heavily when I got into Manhattan. Fortunately, Park Avenue has a strange configuration there around Grand Central Terminal, going around the terminal at an elevated level and over 42nd street, before returning to ground level a block farther down. Therefore the crosswalk across 42nd Street at that point is underneath the overpass and I was able to cross without getting wet & then wait again under the overpass to cross eastward toward Cipriani -- leaving only half a block to walk in the rain with my silk dress.
Someone was waiting by the door of Cipriani with an umbrella to shelter people who walked up the steps into the venue, but I did not need that as I already had an umbrella.
As soon as I entered the door, someone came up with a plastic bag to put around my umbrella.
Just past the man with the plastic bags was a line of gentlemen in white jackets to the left who were prepared to take coats, umbrellas and bags to check. To the right was a table with people waiting to give us our tickets with our table numbers in them. The tickets were all in little envelopes with our names on them arranged in alphabetical order. We were at table 34, in the back.
Just to the right of the table with the tickets, was a velvet cord, blocking the VIP entrance. The VIP's got their cocktails behind the table. We turned back to the side with the men who were taking coats and went to a larger area where there were cocktails for the rest of the attendees.
I quickly found the five other fan club members, who were already there. There was an open bar and hors d'oeuvres. These included grape tomatoes on a toothpick with cheese, lox on very thin toast, and tiny quiches. There were glasses of Bellini constantly being passed around. One of my friends had previously explained to me that this beverage, a mixture of champagne and peach, was invented by Cipriani, though it has become a mixed drink that is knowing other places as well, but it remains the house specialty.
I tried to mingle bit with some of the other people, but I am a horrible networker. I was especially curious about several young women who looked to be at least six feet tall and looked like models, but I did not quite get up the courage to talk to them.
We stood around and talked and waited for Josh to come in. We spotted Gayle and his parents before we spotted him. His hair is shorter and he was not wearing his glasses, so it was a bit harder to recognize him.
After he went into the celebrity area, we were able to say hello to his father over the velvet rope and talk to two of his high school teacher who had come from California to attend. One of them told us that he had always felt that Josh would make it big, because he always had an aura about him, though it happened faster than he thought. He talked about Josh's first interview with Rosie O'Donnell & how Josh had to come back to class at the high school the next day after being on Rosie.
Later his mother came out and talked to us and the teachers. Jack at least claimed that he recognized my face from the GFC dinner last fall.
Then we were called to sit down. The other Grobanites in the group had asked to sit together. The organizers apparently knew to put me with them, because they asked me when I called in what was drawing me to the event. I said "Josh Groban." they told me "We love him, too," and apparently decided on their own to seat me with the other 5 Grobanites.
The other two people at our table were two men. One of them was a man who works at Christie's auction house, who had come in with a bunch of other Christie's employees. Apparently, Christies gives millions of dollars to Americans for the Arts. The other man was an employee of Americans for the Arts.
If I understood correctly , Americans for the arts has two main focuses. One is supporting community arts programs and the other is supporting arts education. I might be oversimplifying this, but that's what I understood.
There were several honorees before dinner. There was a speech and a videotape for each. There were two large screens on either side of the stage, so that, even though we were in back, we could see the speakers perfectly clearly.
Then we had dinner. During dinner, they played "Illuminations" over the loudspeaker. I felt a bit for Josh, who has said he does not like to hear himself sing.
Dinner included a tomato mozzarella appetizer, a veal chop, vegetables, and a desert that I did not eat, so someone else will have to tell you what was in it.
After dinner, they had a group of young artists performing. There were vocalists and instrumentalists. They first did February Song and then a couple of jazzier numbers, which were -- if I understood correctly -- related to the other performer being honored, Brian Stokes Mitchell. I thought the February Song cover was good and captured the feeling of the song fairly well, though it was a bit too loud for me & I had to put on ear plugs, but I have very sensitive ears.
After the performance, Renee Fleming gave a speech for Josh. Then there was a video that featured, inter alia, Chris Botti, Angelique Kidjo, Kelly Ripa, and one of the high school teachers we had met. Then Josh spoke.
I saw other Grobanites making videos of Josh's portion of the program, so I think that will be up on YouTube. I made a sound recording. I don't do video. But I don't think I'll have to post the sound recording as others had videos.
Then there were a couple more honorees after Josh, then the program was over.
As were leaving I picked up some discarded programs, which I sent out already to Grobies
Gayle promised after the show to have Josh autograph a copy of the ad that people designed here & put it up on the website. She told us she knew about it, because she reads *everything* on this website. She insisted that she reads absolutely everything on this site.
We all hung around until almost everyone had left. and Josh came out to thank us for supporting him. He posed for a picture with us, which I think will be posted here. He told us that he still has two more songs to record before the album is finished, but he thinks it is almost done.
We also got to talk to Herbie Hancock who said he wants to do something with Josh again.
There was a goodie bag, whose contents I have not yet examined, though I gather it includes a can of coffee, a poster, and a DVD.
Then I added some bits as follows:
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addendum
Oh, yes, once we got to our table, we were not far from Josh, on the other side of the barrier, as he was mingling. Gayle told us to stop staring at him, so we sat back down.
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addendum
Oh, yes, Josh said he thought that the cover of February song was the best he had heard, that they changed a few chords, but he liked it. I did not record that as I was still eating, but maybe someone else did.
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addendum
Oh, the guy from Arts for America said that the room we were in used to be a bank. It had lovely old stonework & tiled floors. We estimated that the ceiling was 3 stories above us. You could see where the tellers had been in the past off at the sides.
There was a wooden barrier about chest height around the dining areas, with the VIP mingling area to the west and the ordinary mingling area to the east.
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addendum
Oh, Josh told us that they had not actually given him the physical award yet. They only had one up front. They're going to send it to him. He said it's very valuable and likely has to be sent by Brinks.
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One more addendum:
Josh's parents said Chris wasn't there because he was busy with projects, which was nice to hear.
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I did this sketch to illustrate the incident where Gayle told us to stop staring
This is not to scale at all. The dining area was much larger. The point was that Gayle was standing in the window that we were looking at Josh through. I did think I had spotted a person of interest just before she told us to stop staring, but I could not be sure. I'm not good at recognizing people from photos, especially people who have faces that angle sharply away from their noses. People with flat faces are easier to recognize from photos.
