My Saturday Evening Post: Just For The Record...

I've got 36... Barbra Streisand albums...

well, including this one.

Where to start...

I think it must have been some time around late'69 or maybe early'70 that I saw "Funny Girl" for the first time. The first of probably more times than I have her albums. Saw it at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Yes, one of the perks of growing up in Southern California. Seeing first run movies at the famous theatre was simply no big deal. Except for this one.

Imagine me, a young impressionable, actress/singer/dancer wanna-be, with a slightly larger than normal nose. Well, I was instantly hooked and my two year enamorement with one Patty Duke took an instantaneous nose DIVE. (I promise to keep this blog shorter... :)

Anyway, I owe Barbra a bunch.

The BackStory

I'm not sure what most teenagers do during their high school years. Don't get me wrong, I certainly had my share of extracuriculars along with boy crushes and the occassional munchies. I think I went to a "Three Dog Night" concert once as well as "The Moody Blues" and for sure "Joe Cocker." (I just realized that I have a whole lot of other things that I am now itching to write about!)

But one of the things I probably remember the most, at least during my last year of high school, was stalking Barbra Streisand.

301 Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills, CA. That was her address.

Lorna and I had gotten this super secret piece of information from our friend Julie who had gotten it from a friend of hers. (Who would have known there could be so many "losers" in one small town?) But anyway, 301 Carolwood became our weekly Saturday destination.

Most of the time we would just drive by... and then go do the things that most teenagers do on a Saturday evening on Sunset or Hollywood Blvd. Usually it was dinner at Old World, a movie and a stop at Tower Records (thus all the albums.) But we did do some pretty "stalkerish" things as well. I'm not quite sure how many of the things I remember actually happened, like talking to young son Jason through the gate because I realize that sometimes when you embelish a story just once it can all of a sudden become very real in your mind, so I'll try to be honest here and use only my true memory.

We did tote our bikes in the back of my VW station wagon a couple of times so that we could endlessly circle the block.
We did pull a cardboard shipping box out of her trashcan once with the name and address label still attached.
We did follow her yellow Mercedes once, causing her to panic a bit and to cut us off in her quick escape up the freeway ramp.
We did have the police called on us more than once.
And I'm not sure if we ever really took a picnic lunch to eat on a blanket in the vacant lot across from her house or not. Maybe we just thought about doing it. Given the last bullet point though, I highly doubt this ever really happend.

But we did stalk her backstage at the Hilton in Vegas once. Now there's a story.

Julie, Lorna and I had driven to Vegas to see her concert. Actually, my mom had driven the 3 of us along with my sister Jeannie and a friend in tow, but once we got there my friends and I never really saw the rest of the crew.

Prior to the dinner show, which my mom and sis were attending, we somehow snuck backstage through a side door off a service entrance that my friend (of course) knew about. We walked around for a while, acting as if we belonged there. (As if 3 teenage girls would ever have looked like they belonged there!) But somehow we pulled it off. I think the "ah-ha" moment of fooling everyone was finding that bank of pay phones...

And then suddenly, there she was. Walking from her dressing room to the stage accompanied by a female security guard and her little dog Sadie. And she was so much tinier than I had imagined! (Barbra, not Sadie) And then there we were petting her little dog and pretending that we weren't at all interested in the person who was walking her. And that's about it. We left the backstage area eeeeeing and awwwwwwing. Whether or not we left on our own accord is a detail I don't recall. Selective memory being what it is...

At the midnight show, we tipped the host $10 and somehow found ourselves seated at the very front table. Elbows on stage front table! Whether or not she recognized us during the concert we'll never know. If she did, she handled it like a pro.

Harvey Wallbangers were the fare of the evening. Don't they card in Vegas? Or perhaps we all just looked 21 and with the price of the ticket came two free beverages... (By the way, my friend Julie passed away sometime during the early 2000's due to an alcohol related illness, which is one of the reasons I can now remember the details of that night so clearly, sort of in the same way that I can still remember with such clarity the morning of 9/11, even though at the time I had no real reason to remember it.)

Anyway, as soon as the concert ended, Julie (the bravest of us all) hopped up onto the stage and dashed behind the curtain and of course we followed suit. The stage was already in the dark, but not dark enough for us to be able to swipe a type written sheet of "cheat notes" off the stool.

Yes, that really happened. And no, I do not know where that sheet of cheat notes is today but I will probably forever feel a little guilty about it.

And just for the record, Lorna and I DID attend the famous "Live At The Forum" concert with Barbra, Quincy Jones & Carol King. And to be honest I really don't remember doing anything out of the ordinarly foolish that night, except for purchasing the $20 nosebleed seats.

Anyway, I really don't remember how long this whole ~~obsess~~ I mean fandom, lasted. Probably well into my twenties for sure, though you'll notice that any of her current albums are unmistakably missing from my collection. I guess other things just eventually took over... as in career, husband, children, life changes, work and yes perhaps even Clay Aiken..

But if I had to name the top 20 people, things, events or experiences that have had the biggest impact on defining my life, I'm pretty sure she would be right up there.

And I just now remembered that somewhere along the line I somehow acquired THIS one too.

A collection of 94 tracks, 67 of which are previously unreleased. (So I guess I'm at 37 now, except that this one should probably count for a couple more.)