A while back, I recommended Laraine Newman's autobiography to you, sight unseen. Well actually, it's an audio book so it was more like "hearing unheard" but you know what I mean. It's nine hours, I'm a few minutes into Hour 9 and I'm going to e-mail her and ask that she quickly go record a few more hours so it doesn't end so soon. She's very sweet and I'm sure she'll do that for me.
I recommend it even more now because it's so stunningly honest and naked. You know the old conundrum about how the prettiest girl in your high school class couldn't get a date for the prom? Laraine's book will have you wondering how such a talented lady could be so insecure and, at times, unhired. Her book is called May You Live in Interesting Times and she sure has…surrounded by some of the most interesting people in the entertainment world.
Hearing about them is reason enough to give her nine hours of your life to hear about hers. But the special feature is seeing someone who became so self-aware of what has gone right and wrong for her. It may give you a lot of clues as to why things have gone right or wrong for you.
It has a special resonance for me because so much of it happened in my own world. Laraine and I were born the same day and grew up not far from each other. Long before we met, we knew a lot of the same people and went to a lot of the same places. She drank lemonade at Uncle Bernie's Toy Menagerie on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and so did I. She ate at Nate 'n Al's Delicatessen nearby and so did I. I dated a good friend of hers. There are a couple dozen of these in the book.
Before you think this is proof that there's something to astrology, I'll point out how our lives diverged, especially in the category of drugs. She took a lot of them and I took none of them. Also, she can act and I have enough trouble being convincing as me. This aspect of the book — how two folks born the same day have lived lives that were in some ways parallel but were often so perpendicular to one another — won't mean anything to you. But it's kind of a bonus reason I'm enjoying the book and don't want it to end.
Here's a link. You know what to do with it.