Observer » ChapStick

George and Hilly

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0400

DR. SELMAN: We saw each other before Christmas, right?

GEORGE: I think we’ve had a relatively stable time. Hilly flew down to North Carolina, and I drove—got to know Hilly’s parents and brother.

HILLY: It was so much fun, for my dad especially, because Georgie showed up and I think they have similar interests. George had this documentary about Toscanini, and my dad was thrilled and we watched it with him, and it featured all these friends of my dad’s that he hadn’t seen in years, and it was so cute watching him. And then, I just knew he would love it, so I said, “Well, Dad, you think you could show George, you know, how you play your bassoon?” He said, “Sure!”

GEORGE: Her mom was wonderful, the best cook, and her brother’s hilarious. I’d gone into this thinking—because I’d heard stories from Hilly saying how “weird” they are—but it turns out that she’s the weird one. They’re totally normal.

HILLY: I’ve never really thought that my dad was weird, but my mom and brother have always thought that he was the weird one.

GEORGE: Hilly’s the nut, but it’s O.K.

HILLY: And then one night we played Trivial Pursuit, and I was so excited because George knew all the answers.

GEORGE: I did all right. Your mom won.

HILLY: I think we let her.

GEORGE: It was just fascinating to me to see a nuclear family that’s together, parents still married.

HILLY: It’s nice, though, isn’t it?

GEORGE: Yeah. Yeah.

DR. SELMAN: A happily married couple.

GEORGE: No kidding! You know the demon inside me, the Ugly Spirit—that’s a William Burroughs term—that part of me has always had thoughts like, I think a perfect arrangement would be like Taki’s. Remember that guy?

[HILLY nods.]

GEORGE: Well, he has his wife—I don’t know if this is still the case—but he was allowed to kind of see young girls. They’d come and go, and he’d always go back to his wife. They had this understanding. What’s your reaction?

HILLY: Sorry, I wasn’t listening.

GEORGE: And the Ugly Spirit says, I wonder if, a hundred years from now, a study will prove that the healthiest arrangement—not just for the man, but for the woman, too—is for the man to be allowed, once a quarter, to have a fling for a day or two. And then the woman would be like, “O.K., it’s June, go for it—but then that’s it for the rest the summer.” Maybe that would keep the relationship together and increase the longevity of the man.

DR. SELMAN: Actually, it’s the other way around, according to a theory, “sperm competition”—that in order for the gene pool to have turned out the way it did, that it was women, over the course of millennia, who were not monogamous.

GEORGE: So how about the man and a woman both be real upfront about it? Don’t women live longer? Maybe that’s what’s going on: They’re cheating and they’re living longer. And that word “cheating”— maybe that’s a misnomer.

HILLY: Wait, all of a sudden you’re Tim Robbins.

GEORGE: What does that mean?

HILLY: That whole theory—aside from your carnal desires—doesn’t make sense with any other values that you have in your life.

GEORGE: Me, personally?

HILLY: Yes.

GEORGE: I don’t get it.

HILLY: I mean, you’re so con-ser-va-tive and you’re anti-ab-or-tion—and so quick to judge other people, to condemn the movie Children of Men—

DR. SELMAN: She does have a certain point.

GEORGE: I tend to agree with you. I’m sort of happy with—we’re having—we’re going to bed together like once or twice a week. You said before that it should be at least once a day, and I really think that if you’re going out with someone for five years—and I’ve done some research into this, talked to some couples—and I never believe those surveys that say the average American man has sex 138 times a year. Maybe if he’s some 22-year-old, or if he’s on Cialis. I just don’t believe that people have that much sex. And I’m fine with it.

DR. SELMAN: So what’s your concern?

GEORGE: Well, the Ugly Spirit makes me have those fantasies!

HILLY: I can tell you right now, if I were married, I would have a lot more sex.

DR. SELMAN: With whom?

HILLY: With George. I’d want to.

GEORGE: Oh, interesting.

DR. SELMAN: And why is that?

HILLY: Or at least, I guess, engaged. Recently, I feel like I’ve been holding back personally—especially since, right before Christmas, I’ve just been in a really negative state of mind, feeling down about myself. And the fact is, I’m at this stage in my life and at an age—despite every other thing that happens every day—when that’s always going to be weighing on my mind. Just yesterday, we were talking about evil spinster bitches—

DR. SELMAN: You’re saying—

HILLY: If I were engaged, I would have a helluva lot more self-confidence.

GEORGE: Can you talk about the evil spinster bitches?

HILLY: I think they couldn’t really get by existing anywhere but New York. It starts around my age—actually, it starts in their late 20’s—and they convince themselves that they are really happy and their job comes first and they have lots of friends and their friends are really special and the problem with guys is that “they just don’t understand that my job is my priority, so I just had to kick that one to the curb! But my friends are just really great.”

GEORGE: And what do they start to look like when they’re around 45?

DR. SELMAN: We’re kind of off on a tangent ….

GEORGE: She’s worried she could end up like this.

HILLY: No, there was a time, yes, when I was concerned, but I don’t think I could ever become that—

GEORGE: Your mom said you’re going to become this crazy cat lady if—

HILLY: —if you were to run off and I would never hear from you again.

GEORGE: Uh-huh.

HILLY: It would be extremely difficult, and I can’t even begin to fathom it, but I would have to move on.

DR. SELMAN: Hilly, are you saying that you’ve been down?

HILLY: Yes, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with Georgie at all—he’s been an angel.

DR. SELMAN: Do you have any symptoms?

HILLY: Yes, my skin has broken out and I’m really fat and irritable.

GEORGE: What are you talking about? Please.

DR. SELMAN: How are you sleeping?

HILLY: I can’t wake up in the morning. I was invited to a Golden Globes party with every single celebrity you could ever imagine and I couldn’t even put my dress on; I was in bed by 9:45. I couldn’t even stay awake for the season premiere of 24.

GEORGE: You were supposed to wait, to watch that with me on DVD next year.

HILLY: That’s another story.

DR. SELMAN: Where are you getting the Prozac?

HILLY: My doctor.

DR. SELMAN: Maybe you need an adjustment or an addition—

HILLY: I just upped my dosage to 40 milligrams.

DR. SELMAN: Would you consider the introduction of a second antidepressant?

HILLY: No.

GEORGE: Yikes!

HILLY: I’ve been down that road, and the bottom line is: I’ve been taking antidepressants for way too long. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve come to rely on Prozac. But I’ve been doing really well on 20 milligrams—down from 80 milligrams a year ago. It’s just different circumstances, a little bit of everything—hormones, the weather—bringing me down.

GEORGE: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t noticed this at all.

HILLY: Oh, George, my God—I walk around like an animal, complaining that I’m fat in my big flannel pants—

GEORGE: You always seem cheerful to me. I’m at my computer and she’s in her room, she’s got this little miniature TV her dad gave her for Christmas, and I hear her cackling watching Will and Grace. Me, I have a flat-out sleeping disorder. I can’t go to bed before 7 a.m. Monday night I was working, and I got this call at 1 a.m.—“Hey, it’s my birthday, come on down to Siberia, yeah whoo!” So I go and get home at 7:15. So I guess that kind of sets my sleeping pattern.

DR. SELMAN: 7:15 in the morning?

GEORGE: Yes. I go to bed at 7 and get up around 1:30 p.m.

DR. SELMAN: Did you ever try the Lamictal?

GEORGE: No, I’m sticking with the Yankee Doodle marijuana. But I’m running out and I might get some Jack Frost. But I yelled at Hilly last night, out of frustration. I wanted her to watch Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with me and she wanted to putter around. And then you were looking for a cord for your TV and I was trying to work, and I just kind of yelled: “You gotta be quiet or I have to get my own apartment!” Sorry about that. My temper in my 20’s was sort of bad. I used to do this thing where if I was walking down the street and a car got too close to me, I would swat at it. One time I was crossing the street and this car got a little too close, so I kicked it, and the guy jumped out, came running after me, leapt up into the air—it was like this slow-motion martial-arts kick—and right before he was about to kick me in the chest, he pulled back. Then he went back to his car and he turned around and said, “Faggot!” And I happened to have a Chapstick in my pocket and I threw it at his head, and he ducked and gave me this funny look. Not like he was impressed, not like, “Well, touché …. ” He was just puzzled: “Chapstick?”

HILLY: I kicked a taxi once after some witch stole it from me. People are just animals. People can just be so downright despicable and just full of sleaze, and that’s what’s depressing.

DR. SELMAN: Well, George, you tell me you’re having insomnia. Maybe there’s something we could do for that. [to HILLY] You’re depressed.

HILLY: I appreciate your opinion, but I feel like I’ve been through similar stages, and I feel like things are about to turn around.

DR. SELMAN: Maybe we could sort of revisit the medication issue. Maybe there are better things out there.

HILLY: I don’t want to try anything else. I really don’t want to.

GEORGE: You don’t want to be a laboratory—

HILLY: And I won’t. It’s like when I was a little girl, when I said, “I’m not going to eat it,” and I would sit there with my mouth sealed shut—and my mom would try to shove the steak into my mouth. I won’t try anything else. I just won’t do it.

GEORGE: I feel the same. That’s why I don’t want to try Lamictal. If I had two months and something to make me feel really good—like a huge financial windfall or opium—then I might experiment with an antidepressant.

DR. SELMAN: Sometimes Prozac kind of loses its effect. It’s called the Prozac poop-out.

HILLY: You and your poop!

GEORGE: We’ve been really upset lately because there are these people in Brooklyn who make little mini-flags of the President and stick them into dog poop on the street, then take pictures of the flags in the poop and put them on the Internet.

HILLY: That’s another fine example of the sleaze that is all over this world. I mean, what a waste of time and thought and … and you made me watch that horrible movie.

GEORGE: Jackass Number Two. Sorry. O.K., we’re going to San Francisco tomorrow. Clang-clang-clang goes the trolley! Right? Guess that was St. Louis.

DR. SELMAN: How long are you going for?

GEORGE: Six days. She’s going for work, and I’m just going to—

HILLY: And my birthday!

GEORGE: And our fifth anniversary. And we’re going to hang out with my friend Bruce, who’s recently divorced, has kids, and has this amazing bachelor pad overlooking something or other—

DR. SELMAN: Where are you staying?

GEORGE: The Palace Hotel and then some fancier hotel. But Bruce has this plan for Saturday: He’s going to rally his friend Tim for a sail around the bay, go by Alcatraz, then go see the freaks on Haight Street. And then walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, see if this girl, Big-Breasted Amy, wants to go out. Cocktails at Specs, a trip down the crooked street at high speed, then he is going to take me to Telegraph Avenue, give me a couple hits of acid, and then we’re going to go to Muir Beach, walk through the Muir woods, hit the Mitchell Brothers porn palace and the Lusty Lady, which is a strip bar with these hipster tattooed—

DR. SELMAN: You’re going to do this all in one day?

GEORGE: I think it might be the weekend.

DR. SELMAN: Are you going to participate?

HILLY: Absolutely not. And I swear to God, if he even comes near George with acid, he’s got another thing coming, because I will not allow that on my birthday weekend. I will not spend my birthday with you sitting in bed and whining and complaining and begging for scratchy and shoulder rubs.

GEORGE: Why would I—

HILLY: You’re going to get up and you’re going to come with me to Neiman-Marcus and we’re going to take trolleys and we’re going to go to Chinatown, and were going to have a fun jolly nice time.

GEORGE: She seems fine, right? You don’t seem like you’re depressed.

DR. SELMAN: She says she’s depressed.

GEORGE: I like the dark side.

DR. SELMAN: You could try Lamictal—

HILLY: No! Stop! You’re like a pusher. I’ve met guys like you, but they don’t have doctors’ licenses.

GEORGE: He’s just trying to get you on something that might work better.

HILLY: I know, but I just—

DR. SELMAN: You might be able to go off Prozac.

HILLY: Listen, I don’t want to take another dose of something else—unless you buy me that really chic weekly pill-decanter thing from Asprey, but it’s like $900. It’s so beautiful.

GEORGE: Do you realize that in two months I’m going to have no money? And you still haven’t paid this month’s rent, your share, and that’s not going to happen, is it?

HILLY [wearily]: I’ll pay it. I don’t care.

[Silence.]

GEORGE: Well, tell about some good times recently.

HILLY: Oh, there’s this really cute thing that George does, we saw it on Conan O’Brien, with this girl from a movie called Hustle and Flow—she does a kind of home-girl cheer, and George has been imitating it.

GEORGE: Conan asked her, “Why are all these female rap songs about how, Oh I got what you want, take a look, here it is, but you’re never gonna get it?” So I do some version of that, and it makes her happy.

DR. SELMAN: Do you want to perform it right now?

[GEORGE performs the routine.]

GEORGE: This is what you want—but you’re never gonna get it ….

DR. SELMAN: You could say that to Hilly about not getting married, and you could actually mean it.

[To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles:

The Piano Man-Boy

Alexandra Jacobs — Mon, 12 Aug 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Say hi to Soheil (pronounced So-hail) Nasseri, a limpid-eyed, cleft-chinned classical pianist trying to make it in New York. His first name means "a star in the sky that appears infrequently." "I think it may be Venus," he said. He lives in a 187-square-foot, sparsely furnished studio without air-conditioning in the Tudor City section of midtown. On a typical day, he practices for about eight hours on his brown Steinway "five-three" (somewhere between a concert piano and a baby grand), a framed picture of Beethoven staring down at him. At 11 p.m. he pauses for dinner: a pre-cooked chicken from Gristede's, perhaps, or a Caesar salad with bottled dressing. After that, he hits the clubs-and then, baby, watch out!

Mr. Nasseri, 23, was sitting in Cipriani downtown the other night, sipping his second Bellini and smelling of YSL Pour Homme cologne. He was dressed in the same loose-fitting white linen shirt and black pants that he'd worn for a concert at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, N.Y., the day before, when he'd played to an adoring audience of mostly senior citizens. "This is Donna Karan," he said, rubbing the shirt between his thumb and forefinger. "And when I put right on my program 'Wardrobe courtesy of Donna Karan of New York,' it says to people in my public: 'This guy's different from the average classical musician, who doesn't care how they look.'"

The restaurant was filled with tanned, drunken Europeans screeching merrily to one another and whipping out cell phones at every opportunity. Mr. Nasseri, who was born to two Persian scientists ("The Blue Danube" was playing in his parents' car on the way home from the hospital), regarded the crowd from his back table with a mixture of awe and amusement. "How seriously do I take it?" he said, meaning the carnival before him. "Not very seriously."

When he arrived here three years ago he was lonely, and made penetrating the "scene" a priority almost on a par with playing the piano. "I need to clear my head after being alone all day," he said. The odyssey for coolness began at McFadden's, an Irish bar down the street from his apartment. "No one would talk to me," he said. He bought the Zagat nightlife guide and bobbed helplessly against velvet ropes. Then he met someone in his building who knew a publicist-"Publicists have all the connections," he said-and got a V.I.P. pass to Chaos. Boom . "At McFadden's, anyone could come in, and therefore you might be Joe Stalker," he said. "Then all of a sudden we go into a V.I.P. room, and it was like … it's pretentious, but the fact that it's selective makes everyone up there trust you a little more. That's how I started meeting people right and left."

Now he's a regular at the Park, Halo-though "I haven't been there in a while, since my friend Kareem sold out of the business," he said-Bungalow 8 and Lotus. " Everybody knows me at Lotus," Mr. Nasseri said. After his concerts this fall, he's planning after-parties at the Hudson Hotel-" celebrity -attended after-parties," he added, with savor. Not content to play to the stuffy conservatory crowd, his ambition is to spread his love of classical music among the city's night-crawlers, like a virus. "Last week, I'm having dinner with Damon Dash-he's a rapper; he doesn't know anything about classical music-and he's like, 'I'm trying to make it to your concert.' And I said, 'We're having after-parties, too, at the Hudson Hotel!' And he said, 'Oh, I'm definitely going to be there for that.' See, the fact that he'll come to my after-party makes it 10 times more likely that he'll come to my concert. Maybe he'll come to the concert and have a profound, enlightening experience!"

He took a bite of his entrée, filet mignon with peppercorns. "Whoa, these are spicy!" he said.

Nightlife has had its disenchantments for Mr. Nasseri. In the beginning, he said, "I was like, 'Oh, this is fantastic, this is great- wow , it's so exciting.' I saw Pauly Shore; I saw this celebrity, that celebrity. I was bumped from Mick Jagger's table: 'Excuse me, this table is for Mick Jagger!' Last time I was here, Harvey Weinstein was sitting over there. That's all wonderful. Then I realized that 90 percent of these people are full of shit."

He invited many of the V.I.P. circle to his New York debut at the Liederkranz Foundation, and was heartbroken when "a very small percentage" showed up. "I was like, 'These are not my friends,'" he said. He's been making progress of a sort, though: Attendees at recent Weill Recital Hall dates include the fallen Morgan Stanley broker Christian Curry and the model Amy Lemons.

The young pianist said he won't rest unless everyone on the planet eats, breathes and sleeps classical music and loves it as much as he does. (He also likes Billy Joel, Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Ice Cube and the Black Crowes.)

Asked who his idols were, he responded, "Arthur Rubenstein for his musicianship, and Liberace for his showmanship.

"The other day, someone who doesn't know me referred to me as an 'entertainer,' and I snapped," he said. "I said, 'I'm not an entertainer-that's a pejorative word. I'm an artist .' I think the difference between an artist and an entertainer is, while you may be quote-unquote entertained with art, you're also enlightened, which rarely happens with pure entertainment. Art, by definition, you must be enlightened for it to have successfully reached you. So you're entertained and enlightened. But part of it is entertainment, and if you want people to come to your concerts and buy your CD's and listen to classical music, let's present it at least like it's entertainment!"

A waiter came to steal a chair for the next table; a promoter from Lotus had arrived with his entourage. "Hey, how's it going?" said Mr. Nasseri to the promoter. "Look, he knows everybody in here." His eyes darted to the new neighbors, who which included a dark-haired beauty sitting with her shirt slashed to the navel. "Verr-ry interesting outfit."

He's dating a fashion stylist– slash–TV-commercial producer that he met at Lotus. She had only recently gone to one of his concerts, and one sensed the relationship is not all it could be. "I'm not even sure if she's my girlfriend!" he said. "She's somewhere between girlfriend and person you sleep with. But her voice is just like the perfect pitch for me. It's such a vibe. I drop off to her voice … she'll just talk into the phone."

His eyes wandered back to the model's cleavage. "I'd like to go out with her once , but I don't see it working," he said. "Women in this city want a lot of money. They find out I'm a pianist, great, and if I had money that would be excellent, I'd have everything made-but even women who adore classical piano and think that I'm the greatest thing on the planet will use their brain and say, 'That guy over there is a multimillionaire, and he invited me to go to Italy on his private jet.' There's not a lot of classy women in this city. There are a lot who are caught up in this ."

The bill came. Mr. Nasseri pushed back his chair and applied some Chapstick.

"I need to get out of the house, because that's the thing I do," he said. "I'm the classical pianist who gets out of the house."

-Alexandra Jacobs