Paul Martinka
Thanks for a dog’s dinner
Besides what you’ve already been fed about the annual Alfred E. Smith Dinner, it began at the Waldorf which may finish when street carts are on Jupiter. Its reconstruction has taken longer than redoing Dolly Parton’s face.
At this year’s venue, the Hilton, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan sported brand-new just-made first-time-only cardinal clothes.
“Lost 30 pounds,” he told me. “Nothing fit me anymore. We tried but couldn’t take them in that much so these are all brand new. I lost it all with that new drug Ozempic. Was great. No aftereffects. I’m going to lose more.”
Somebody awakened the Secret Service because protection was no secret. Street barriers everywhere. Roadways, entrances barricaded. Sideways parked cop cars.
Dudes with dark blue suits and open jackets everywhere but the ladies’ room. Private roped-off areas depending on your grade and hustle ability. Pols couldn’t even hide behind their donors.
The Hilton’s endless dais — more bodies on it than live in this continent — behind doors. Family members behind one. Friends with relatives not in jail behind another. A dais reception. Cardinal’s reception. Receiving line reception. A who cares reception.
What was everywhere were those bite-size room-temperature hot dogs in their stiff plaster-coated buns. One swallow and it’s straight to Emergency.
Arrival was to be 4:30. Dinner scheduled for 7:30 came and went. After chatting with more faces than I’d ever seen at St. Patrick’s I split to share leftovers with my dog.
Cardinal rule of thirds
To keep the Catholic spirit comes “Conclave.” Saga of electing new pope. Each cardinal with his own agenda.
John Lithgow: “It’s a conflict about faith, ambition and how international is the College of Cardinals. We all stayed in the same hotel. Like the cardinals clubbing together.”
Ralph Fiennes: “Things emerge from shadows. My character wants everything calmly resolved. But we’re all fallible. None of us are saints.”
Stanley Tucci: “I’m brought up Catholic. Never fully put my faith in that faith because logic’s missing. But with the mythology and grandiosity everything in this script was teed up.”
And shorter than the Alfred E. Smith Dinner.
Let it stride
So what makes a great actor? Al Pacino’s “Sonny Boy” memoir says walking helped him step up and develop the Michael Corleone character.
Pacino: “I’d go all the way — 91st to the Village and back — just thinking about my part. Still do. I just walk. Thinking about it gets me through the walk.”
OK by me, but actresses? Whose kid’s piano teacher was Vladimir Horowitz? Whose handcuffs are 14-karat gold? Who has music in their home elevators? I somehow don’t see Jennifer Lawrence hopping across a bus stop.
In wonderful marvelous sin-free Manhattan this guy handed his lady friend a diamond bracelet. Overcome, she asked: “So what’s it worth?” He said: “Oh, maybe five to 10.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.