xtcian

10/21/02 It's an event Tessa

10/21/02

It's an event Tessa and I do every year since we started dating (this is our third) and to be honest, I was dreading it a little. The Project ALS Benefit always seems to be an event where I lose sight of Tessa for three hours, and I get stuck talking to another dum-dum in P.R. who got a free ticket from In Style magazine. So you can imagine our surprise and delight when we got to our little table, and we were sitting next to none other than Christopher Reeve. Needless to say, Tessa and I were glued to the table for two hours, talking about politics (he had just come back from Iowa to campaign for Harkin), the oar-dragging of the Christian Right, cooking (his wife Dana now wants my Thai Chicken Satay recipe), and I even got to be ber-dork and wax romantic about Somewhere in Time.

Christopher Reeve chats with Tessa don't let the screwy colors of the digital camera fool you, he actually looks good

I mentioned that I felt we were at the end of a very dark age in the world, and though the growing pains were going to hurt, it won't be long until dawn breaks: paralysis will be thought of as quaint as polio, multiple sclerosis will be a distant memory for old geezers. The same with cars; we'll tell old saws about how we used to drive with gas, and our grandchildren should we be lucky enough to have them – will think we must have also cured disease with leeches. I said something about living in the final days before the Salk vaccine or the Gutenberg printing press, and Dana Reeve said, "yep, but we just don't know it yet."

Right now, two cells hold the key to the future: stem cells and hydrogen fuel cells. But more on that later.

The benefit was star-studded as always, so I'll continue to name-drop (since this is my blog) Kristen Johnson and Ben Stiller were the hosts, along with appearances from Caroline Rhea, Jerry Stiller, and Edie Falco. Jesse Martin gave the coolest performance of the night, as he read the speech Lou Gehrig made on his last night with the New York Giants. There was a rumor that James Gandolfini was a few tables away, but we never saw him. And of course, the night was capped by an appearance by the mightiest of stars, a megawatt beacon of brilliance. You guessed it: Michael Bolton.

Monsieur Bolton belts out the theme from "Hercules" on stage, and on a giant monitor

Afterwards, we found Liz Mann and hobnobbed with the various folks we knew, who were all going to an after-party that sounded a bit ridiculous (although I would have been there with bells on if I were still 32 and stupid). More importantly, we were allowed back into the special tent where Jenifer Estess herself was sitting, and I was honored to meet her. Tessa made an award-winning film about Jenifer (and, of course, there's the TV movie) but I had never seen her before, and it felt good to connect with someone who had been such a big part of Tessa's life for a while.

Christopher and Dana Reeve are models of smart diplomacy, which is why they appear before Congress and make intelligent deals with people who can change the course of medicine. They even spoke of their political adversaries with respect.

If I'd had their misfortune, however, I would just get maniacally furious at the vacant, chowder-headed maroons currently running the country. That they are allowed to make any decisions about the fate of my own spinal column fills me with horror, and I've had way too good a time tonight to get in that mood again.

nice, um, DRESS, Tessa!