WARNING: Obsessive Compulsive Behavior Ahead






Asking my girlfriends to take a trip with me to Vegas to see Liza Minnelli in concert was a gamble. An honest gamble. When I found the ad in the paper, I was sitting on the couch and a large gasp escaped my mouth. Chrisanne looked at me, hoping I hadn’t stuck my finger into yet another open light socket.

“What? What is it??” she asked eyes wide.

“Liza!!!! She’s Here!” I screamed.

“She’s here? In the living room?”

And then she rolled her eyes.

I knew taking Chrisanne was not an option. So I called the gal pals. Sheila was ecstatic. Over the moon about it. Not quite as insane as I was, but enthusiastic nonetheless. Shannon was happy. Just happy. She knew what most people knew about Liza which was she had been married 900 times, Judy Garland was her Mother, she made a movie called Cabaret, and she recently blew up like an inflated seagull.

I knew better. But I kept silent. I had my pals, and we decided to spend the weekend in Vegas. Just the girls. No spouses, no strings, just 3 chicks on an adventure.

Shannon drove, cleaned her car (in an almost strangely meticulous Felix Unger sort of way), and I brought along a Liza Mix Tape that took me almost 3 days to make. Mix Tapes are extremely important to me when I’m obsessing. It must be right. It must have a coherent through line, dramatic intent, and be sprinkled with comedy and monologues…all in the right place of course. It was a painstaking process finding Liza’s songs, her vocals from age 18 to 60, and peppering it with just the right tempo so as not to kill everyone in the car with too much vibrato. (Please see warning at top of entry)

Chrisanne packed us a huge picnic lunch so we wouldn’t have to snack and eat garbage on dirty truck stops along the way. It was as if we were on our way to Iraq in an old pick up truck with a secret map of the country’s war startegys tucked in the backseat. There was enough food to feed a large African village. It was brilliant.

As a side note, we actually did have to stop at MacDonald’s, only because…well…it’s MacDonald’s.

As we drove closer to Vegas we began to notice the strangest structures any of us had ever seen scattered along the dirt side road. At one time, we all pointed simultaneously to a large Pepto Bismol covered castle with a winding roller coaster swaying above the third tower jutting out in the Nevada dirt.

“What’s with the roller coaster?” Shannon asked.

“Is it running????” Sheila chimed in excitedly.

“That’d be cool!!” I shouted.

I love roller coasters, and after all, we were on our way to Vegas, so it was time to be BAD. Naughty. Misbehave. Do things. Be OUT!

Brilliant.

Sadly, the bizarrely shaped building was merely a mirage. It sat, empty, lifeless and with the wind blowing over the top of it, looked more like a movie set than an actual castle. We still have no idea why it was there in the first place, but we made a Girl Vow that on the way back, we’d conquer it.

We. Were. Determined.

On the way, as the Liza Mix Tape blared, I could tell I was getting more and more excited. I got quiet occasionally. I would stare out the window and think:

“5 more hours to Liza. 4 more hours to Liza. 3 more hours to Liza.”

I had turned into Rain Man.

“You okay?” Shannon would ask.

‘3 MORE HOURS TO LIZA!”

Like I had some sort of strange brain disease.

By no means was the car quiet though. There were very few lags in our conversations and we had many. I was never once worried about Shannon and Sheila getting along. They’re almost identical. Both in the arts, both hilarious. And both really, really smart. We talked about food, love, drugs, booze, men, politics, and with me in the driver’s seat, we always came back around to discussing Liza. Where she was born, what’s happened to her, how is she now. Having seen her in concert since I’ve been 18 years old, I knew almost everything there was to know about the woman. I had much information and was eager to share. At times, as a Liza song was playing. Shannon, keeping her eyes on the narrow and hypnotizing road ahead would wince at an occasional missed note, or what I like to call: “A Liza Screech”.

Then, as a once in a lifetime lull happened in the car, she turned to me and asked very simply:

“Alex. Are you sure you’re going to be okay if…well….if Liza’s…..well….”

She was censoring herself so as to not hurt my feelings. It was so sweet for her to attempt to nurture my complete and utter insanity with such kit gloves, I couldn’t help but smile.

“…if she’s what? A walking disaster?” I finished for her.

“Well….yeah.”

I was okay with that. I was okay with that because I know Liza and I’ve seen her bounce back from everything from a brain crunch, to 2 hips being replaced. I knew she’d be great because she’s a human bulldozer, and I also knew, since neither Shannon nor Sheila had ever seen the woman live, that no matter how feeble or how huge she ballooned, she was not ABOUT to let us down. This is a performer who comes from fairly heavy stock. She doesn’t quit. Never has, and I just had to believe she wouldn’t this time. After all, we had trudged through the desert and passed up the Ghost Castle with the mystery roller coaster. Things HAD to work out.








Shannon had taken care of the hotel reservations and as we drove up, it was like a beacon in the City of Sin and Schmaltz. Every time I go there, I worry about the emotional state of people who actually reside. The houses are all a bit dowdy and brown with raked roofs and no greenery, and in the distance there’s more glitter and sequins than Cher’s bathroom. This strange sense of “HERE’S LAS VEGAS DAMMIT” crept over us as we drove knee deep into the heart of the millions of lights and colored casinos.

I just kept thinking: What do these people do that live here? I mean, how may times can you actually see Wayne Newton? And not want to purchase your own rhinestone belt?

The hotel room Shannon booked for us was cozy and very clean. This made Shannon very happy. I found that Shannon was not only a clean freak; she was a packing freak as well. Sheila and I had thrown 3 or 4 things in bags; Shannon brought her beaming black rolling suitcase complete with matching shoes and a handle with her initials on it. It was kind of fantastic, if not a tad annoying. But that’s Shannon. Fantastic and annoying. All in good ways.

We napped, read, chatted and Sheila thumbed through a Las Vegas magazine (pining for the old days with black and whites and large sprayed hair do’s and Sammy and Dean in their hey day) and I flicked in the large screen TV and dreamt of CNN. And a world without Foley.

After the pow wow was over, and Shannon arose form her cat nap, we primped, changed clothes, and I finally whipped out my Liza Sweatshirt.

In 1979 Liza’s personal assistant wandered into a dump I was playing in somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago, and we struck up a very brief friendship. Once he told me who he was and who his boss was, I saw stars and practically threw myself in his gay little lap. He saw I wasn’t just a fan. I wasn’t just some chick who happened to appreciate Liza’s talent. I had an obsession. Not a dangerous, Glenn Close obsession, but an obsession in the purest sense. I knew where the lines were and I wasn’t about to go pawing through her trash looking for used Frosted Flakes boxes. I admired her from afar and loved her from a safe and legal distance.

But I was obsessed. And he saw it,.

About a month later, he returned to the club, and gave me a present. It was a white sweatshirt with a hand painted copy of Liza’s Warhol face on the front. It was really magnificent, and it was one of a kind. He was not only her assistant he told me, but a budding artist as well. I only wore that shirt when I saw Liza in concert, and I took very good care of it., It followed me through my addictions, through my homelessness, through countless lovers, through my prostitution, through acting classes, through betrayals, and confessions, and beatings and affairs, and through my sobriety, my friend’s deaths and through my marriage and my AIDS diagnosis. It’s a shirt with a massive history. I have nothing else like it hanging in my closet. It’s a true Talisman for me, and no one else on the planet has one.

No one.

So, as we began to get ready for the evening, and as everyone began to wake up and realize why we were there and where exactly we were, I put on my sweat shirt. There they were…Liza’s eyes and her over sized head peeking over my chest. A huge picture with life sized eyeballs that seemed to follow everyone from room to room. Even people who weren’t in the room were being followed. It was scary. It even scared me. I think it might have even scared Liza.

But the girl’s were fine with it. They looked at it for a while, and had a look of utter disbelief…I mean, who could blame them? How many people do you know that have an honest to goodness Liza Minnelli copy of an Andy Warhol sweat shirt from the 70’s tucked away somewhere?

Probably no more than 3. I’m just guessing.

After I explained how and why and what the shirt actually meant, everyone was fine. We were there for one reason and one reason only: To worship Liza. And for Shannon, to see what all the fuss was about.

And then, as we traipsed down to dinner, we began to get lost in maze after maze after maze of slot machines and half baked waitresses and various senior citizens literally glued to their seats and staring bleary eyed at dozes of half blinking lights on a myriad of different machines. All promosing money. Post of it. Gobs of it. Buckets and buckets of money. I didn't see one person win one thing for the 10 hours I was there. And quite frankly, we all wanted some fresh air. There's only so much cigar smoke, and cheap perfume, and moldy shag carpeting you can smell for so long. Then eventually, your nostrils will turn and run screaming from your face. The thing about Vegas is, they really don’t want you to go outside. They don’t want you to leave. They want you IN the casino at ALL TIMES. There’s no windows, there’s no air, and there’s no way out.

We wandered around trying to just get out for a minute to see the sky, and every time we’d pass by a random Vegas-ite with a tray full of drinks, we’d ask the same question in the same tone:

“How do we get outside?”

And ultimately, we’d hear the same answer:

“Go up, and then down.”

That meant, go up the stairs and down into the casino. Hopefully there’ll be a small green troll guarding the magic door that leads to the blue Fairy’s lair where the key that unlocks the chest will be found on the third night of the third day when the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars….then pe-e-ace will guide the plane-e-ets……

I mean, c’mon now. Where are we really going? We have to see Liza, we’ll be right back to spend more money, just tell us where the outside is.

No such luck. You want outside; you’re on your own, pal.

Finally, after wandering around like blind moles, we found our restaurant Shannon had made reservations for, and sat down for an enormous meal and more girl talk. Occasionally we’d glance around the room and notice that were indeed some of the hottest chicks there. Not because any of us are particularly hot (well, okay, we're a TAD on the hot side) but more to the point, the women that were there were ancient and riddled with a suntan that isn’t found in nature. Most everyone was dressed in Bermuda shorts, floral print golf shirts and earth shoes. It was like an old golfer's convention. We were definitely the catch of the night. Everything was going our way.

And to be honest, both Shannon and Sheila were indeed knock outs. Shannon, all tall and lanky with her fabulous shoulder length hair, and draped in her glamorous lime green, cap sleeved top and jeans, and Sheila, creamy skinned, curvy and voluptuous, bouncng and behaving in her low cut black boob top. I was dressed as their nonsensical, lower middle class Liza Phile step sister from the local trailer park. After all, I was the only one in Las Vegas with Liza’s big head on my breasts.

We eventually found our way to the outside where we wandered around for another couple of minutes and smoked and then it began to hit me. Hard and all at once. I was minutes away. The concert itself was minutes away. The thing I had waited almost 8 years for had nearly arrived. My heart began to beat faster, I could feel the blood rushing to my throat, and my palms got sweaty. Maybe Shannon would be right. Maybe Liza was going to, for the first time, be Old. Old and rickety. Not able to walk. Maybe instead of bounding out on stage in front of a packed house, she’d be wheeled out with her two fake hips in a Debbie Reynolds wheelchair drooling and speaking in tongues. Maybe that would happen. What then? What would I do then? Sink in my seat and pretend the face on my chest was David Hassehoff?

As we stood looking up at the night sky, with the glimmers of Vegas surrounding us and the sounds of the casino below us, I begged the girls to run down to the theatre so we could grab the tickets and get into our seats as soon as we could. I couldn’t take it anymore. My breath was running out and I needed to get in. I needed to get in the theatre and experience what I had set out for.

Liza.

I had no idea what I was about to encounter. I thought I was ready. I truly wasn’t. Liza shirt and all.







(To be continued………..)

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