COLUMNS
Talk Show 20: with Will Allison, Rebecca Donner, Ron McLarty, & Ben Schrank
/ Jaime Clarke
12.22.08
TALK SHOW 20: Embarrassing Moment
Will Allison’s first novel, What You Have Left, was named a notable book of 2007 by The San Francisco Chronicle and was selected for Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, Borders Original Voices, and Book Sense Picks. Visit Will at www.willallison.com.
Rebecca Donner was born in Canada but spent her formative years growing up in Los Angeles, an experience that inspired her critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace. While enrolled in the MFA program at Columbia University, she was literary director of the renowned KGB Fiction Series and editor of On the Rocks: The KGB Bar Fiction Anthology. Her book reviews, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Bookforum, The Believer, Post Road, and Small Spiral Notebook. In June 2008 DC Comics published her graphic novel, Burnout. Visit Rebecca at www.rebeccadonner.com.
As a novelist, Ron McLarty wrote the bestselling novels The Memory of Running and Traveler. His third novel, Art in America was published in July. As a veteran character actor he is known for his many television appearances as well as his film roles and Broadway credits. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and regionally and he is an acclaimed audio book narrator. He lives in New York City with his wife, actress Kate Skinner. Visit Ron at www.ronmclarty.com.
Ben Schrank is the author of the novels Miracle Man and Consent. He is the Publisher of Razorbill, a children’s imprint at Penguin Young Readers. He is at work on a new novel.
––What would you consider one of your most embarrassing moments?
Allison: I was in grad school. My girlfriend, Melissa, and I lived in Columbus , Ohio, in a little two-bedroom apartment with no AC. In the summer, it used to get so hot that we slept with a box fan at the foot of the bed. One night, she woke me up. “Will? Will? What are you doing?” Apparently, I’d been sleepwalking. I was standing at the foot of the bed, peeing into the back of the fan, spraying her.
Donner: When, at sixteen, I stood barefoot on a cold cement floor wearing a borrowed string bikini, squinting in the glare of a spotlight as a woman flanked by a half-dozen people holding clipboards said, “Your skin, my dear, is unacceptable.” She pointed her pencil eraser at my naked belly. I glanced down, and to my horror saw rivulets of sweat coursing down my bronzed skin, leaving strange, chalk-white trails.
McLarty: As an actor I’ve had plenty of these but the one that stands out and is easily my most discomfiting time in show biz was something that occurred when NBC flew me from NY to LA for a final casting call to play a regular lead in Crossing Jordan. This process is called ‘going to network’ and contracts must already be agreed upon before the biggies can consider you. My agent called and said they must really want you—NBC has offered a fat deal. Congratulations! As soon as he said that I seemed to forget that I still had to audition. When I entered the LA casting studio that was filled with NBC executives, producers and the head of casting, I proceeded to behave like Jack Nicholson after winning an Academy Award. I worked the room. I said things like, “Hey, doll” and “Looking good, pal” and last but not least, “Great to meet you, dude” to the president of the network. I didn’t realize until the middle of the flight back to NY—when I awoke from a pleasant reverie with a start—that for the first time in my career I had behaved like a wooly asshole.
Schrank: After midnight on the day I turned five or six (not sure which and I’m too embarrassed to ask my mother about it), my mother and her friends snuck into my room when I was sleeping and threw confetti everywhere. I woke up at dawn and saw the confetti, climbed out of bed, and began to clean it up. I had a brown shag rug and I took a plastic ice scraper and I dragged it against the shag so that the bits of paper confetti popped in the air. Then I grabbed them in the air and put them in a pile. It didn’t occur to me that our vacuum cleaner could take care of this job, or that I was supposed to enjoy the confetti. No. What I imagined was that must’ve been fun for my mom and her wacky college professor friends, to drunkenly make a mess of my room and use my birthday as an excuse. And I wanted the place clean, immediately.
Three or four hours later, my mom came in and found me down on my knees, wresting the blue and white bits of paper free of the shag, one at a time. The way she looked at me—the shock and awe and disappointment, adding up to the unspoken question: don’t you have any idea how to enjoy yourself at all?
Well, it was embarrassing then and it’s still embarrassing. I’ve been drunk and said the wrong thing and I’ve been teased in both work and school settings, and I’ve gone after the wrong girl and she’s let me know it, many times. But that memory of cleaning up the fun is my most embarrassing moment.
Will Allison’s first novel, What You Have Left, was named a notable book of 2007 by The San Francisco Chronicle and was selected for Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, Borders Original Voices, and Book Sense Picks. Visit Will at www.willallison.com.
Rebecca Donner was born in Canada but spent her formative years growing up in Los Angeles, an experience that inspired her critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace. While enrolled in the MFA program at Columbia University, she was literary director of the renowned KGB Fiction Series and editor of On the Rocks: The KGB Bar Fiction Anthology. Her book reviews, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Bookforum, The Believer, Post Road, and Small Spiral Notebook. In June 2008 DC Comics published her graphic novel, Burnout. Visit Rebecca at www.rebeccadonner.com.
As a novelist, Ron McLarty wrote the bestselling novels The Memory of Running and Traveler. His third novel, Art in America was published in July. As a veteran character actor he is known for his many television appearances as well as his film roles and Broadway credits. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and regionally and he is an acclaimed audio book narrator. He lives in New York City with his wife, actress Kate Skinner. Visit Ron at www.ronmclarty.com.
Ben Schrank is the author of the novels Miracle Man and Consent. He is the Publisher of Razorbill, a children’s imprint at Penguin Young Readers. He is at work on a new novel.
––What would you consider one of your most embarrassing moments?
Allison: I was in grad school. My girlfriend, Melissa, and I lived in Columbus , Ohio, in a little two-bedroom apartment with no AC. In the summer, it used to get so hot that we slept with a box fan at the foot of the bed. One night, she woke me up. “Will? Will? What are you doing?” Apparently, I’d been sleepwalking. I was standing at the foot of the bed, peeing into the back of the fan, spraying her.
Donner: When, at sixteen, I stood barefoot on a cold cement floor wearing a borrowed string bikini, squinting in the glare of a spotlight as a woman flanked by a half-dozen people holding clipboards said, “Your skin, my dear, is unacceptable.” She pointed her pencil eraser at my naked belly. I glanced down, and to my horror saw rivulets of sweat coursing down my bronzed skin, leaving strange, chalk-white trails.
McLarty: As an actor I’ve had plenty of these but the one that stands out and is easily my most discomfiting time in show biz was something that occurred when NBC flew me from NY to LA for a final casting call to play a regular lead in Crossing Jordan. This process is called ‘going to network’ and contracts must already be agreed upon before the biggies can consider you. My agent called and said they must really want you—NBC has offered a fat deal. Congratulations! As soon as he said that I seemed to forget that I still had to audition. When I entered the LA casting studio that was filled with NBC executives, producers and the head of casting, I proceeded to behave like Jack Nicholson after winning an Academy Award. I worked the room. I said things like, “Hey, doll” and “Looking good, pal” and last but not least, “Great to meet you, dude” to the president of the network. I didn’t realize until the middle of the flight back to NY—when I awoke from a pleasant reverie with a start—that for the first time in my career I had behaved like a wooly asshole.
Schrank: After midnight on the day I turned five or six (not sure which and I’m too embarrassed to ask my mother about it), my mother and her friends snuck into my room when I was sleeping and threw confetti everywhere. I woke up at dawn and saw the confetti, climbed out of bed, and began to clean it up. I had a brown shag rug and I took a plastic ice scraper and I dragged it against the shag so that the bits of paper confetti popped in the air. Then I grabbed them in the air and put them in a pile. It didn’t occur to me that our vacuum cleaner could take care of this job, or that I was supposed to enjoy the confetti. No. What I imagined was that must’ve been fun for my mom and her wacky college professor friends, to drunkenly make a mess of my room and use my birthday as an excuse. And I wanted the place clean, immediately.
Three or four hours later, my mom came in and found me down on my knees, wresting the blue and white bits of paper free of the shag, one at a time. The way she looked at me—the shock and awe and disappointment, adding up to the unspoken question: don’t you have any idea how to enjoy yourself at all?
Well, it was embarrassing then and it’s still embarrassing. I’ve been drunk and said the wrong thing and I’ve been teased in both work and school settings, and I’ve gone after the wrong girl and she’s let me know it, many times. But that memory of cleaning up the fun is my most embarrassing moment.
