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The Month That Started It All
 
New York April 1st 2004
 
From the moment that I arrived it was an adventure that was not going to compare to anything that I have been part of in my whole life. I landed in New York on April Fools day 2004. I knew this was going to be a wild and jarring adventure when I was about to get in a taxi with rocky( my cat ) in tow and five pieces of luggage. The cabby got out to help me load the car, grabbed the top bag, and dropped it on the ground. In that instance everything went in slow motion, rocky was in that bag and I screamed that there was a cat in the bag and the cabby screamed I am so sorry, I am so sorry I love cats, I love cats in a Indian accent. Rocky made it to New York in complete luxury, designer sherpa bag and walks in the Airplane bathroom every hour on the hour. I even fed him the free cheese you get on Jet blue as a snack. So who knew he would be the first one to literally land in NY. Well once we were on our way to the new place at 125th and Broadway, everything went smoother. I arrived at about 10pm to the greetings of Jim Burke my new roomy. As I am taken back to my new room, I see a paper with an article on it. Jim hands it to me and as I read it I realize that the character in this newspaper article has the same name as me ( all three mind you ) Gary Wayne Farris 28( not my age but so sweet he thought that ) is charged with felonies of unlawful use of weapons, resisting arrest and numerous traffic violations. What I am aware of is that my new roomy has Googled me on the internet and this is what he found with my name on it.  Up till this day I am not sure if he believes it’s not me. This was my intro to the Big Apple. 

Well things go pretty fast here as I am sure you can all imagine, Thousands of people all trying to get somewhere all in a hurry. I take the Subway everywhere actually everyone takes the subway and they are going 24 hours a day 7 days a week. My plan when I got here was to work for William Sonoma and not to long after I got here I went and filled out the proper applications to get the ball rolling. As you all know I worked for the company in San Francisco Pottery Barn. It was supposed to be an easy job to get for just that reason. I never heard from them again after I filled out the application. Crazy huh, moving to New York thinking that you are going to start working right away and realizing that that’s not what’s going to happen. So I started looking for work running around the city and looking on craigs list. During the first week I was in New York I was wondering when I was gonna run into someone I knew. I know a lot of people and thought it might be possible. April 4th I am walking around Times Square on Broadway, I look into the lobby of a musical called Bombay Dreams, and I see my first known face. Don is a limo driver in San Francisco he has driven almost every famous person who has come to SF. He has seen me on stage and I would see him in my hood on larkin and bush. I ran in and said what the hell are you doing here and he says that he comes to New York all the time to see his family and see Theater. We catch up real quick and he asks me what am I doing the following Wednesday and I say not much so he invites me to Tavern on The Green in Central Park. This is a very famous restaurant and it’s filled with a whole slue of Blue Haired tourist. Dons brother lives in New Jersey and he also came. Don is very loud and loves to name drop and he made sure that all the tables around us could hear about all the celebrity’s he knew and has met during our conversations. Since I was new to the city he paid for my lunch which was about 65$ a person. After that he ran off to a show and I went home. Three days later my friend Mayanne showed up. We met in a film acting class in SF. I met her and her girlfriend at the Plaza Hotel and and we went to dinner at New York’s oldest fine dining establishment called Barbetta on restaurant row. She was on an expense account so she got the bill. It was about 400$ total. After that, we sent her actress friend off and we went to see a musical called AVE Q. imagine muppets on speed and bit xxx rated and a musical to boot. It was a lot of fun. I took her back to the hotel and when home. April 9th I got called into a restaurant called Citarella in Rockefeller Center I had applied in mid town there about two days prior. I sold myself to the two host girls working that day Emily ( she is a virgin and one day she thought she was pregnant so that whole day I thought I was witnessing my first immaculate conception, I have never laughed so hard in my life as I do with this girl, she is my new buddy ) and Samantha ( a beautiful actress that if I was straight I would date in a minute, she recently auditioned for the musical Rent and it was the worst audition she ever did, she said she started to sing and screeched all the way through, she is now doing a show called Smoke on the Mountain and getting paid 3000$ for a months work ) and they said that I should work there and that they could make it happen. These girls had the power and the next day I got a call from the manager Anna Gise. I was hired on the spot. I became a Captain/Waiter to start but thought that it was going to be too much stress for my first New York job, you see when you apply for a waiter job here they want to you to have at least 3 years (New York) experience. I changed into a Host which is less money but way less stress. Well that’s what I thought. I have been there for the last 6 weeks and it is fucken crazy running a four story restaurant. The great part about the job is the people who come into eat. The girl’s of Saturday Night Live Mia Rudolph, Tina Fey, Amy Pollar, Rachel Drech come in every week after working on that weeks show. Jessie Martin from LA Law and Ally Mcbeal, Ziggy Marley, Jason Bateman, Neil Sedaka and the women who helps Donald Trump fire people on the Apprentice Carol Kepcher, and a bunch of TV news people. In my work hood is The Today Show (a block away) CNN NBC studios and a ton more stuff I don’t even know about yet.

 My spiritual life is full here with The Riverside Church a block away, it’s the second biggest church in the nation and then down the street is Saint John The Devine, the biggest church in the nation. I did Easter at Saint Johns it was amazing. I go regularly to Riverside where their religious political views are going to change the world.

One of the weirdest things here is how many people I do know are here. I was sitting in Chelsea market one day and saw a guy I did Corpus Christi with( Ryan Canfield ) and he told me about five other men from that show who were studying here. I have seen three of them in productions here and these men are amazing. One guy is graduating from the Actors studio( you know the show on bravo )(Michael Billingsly) I have seen four shows with him in it and then another two(Michael Beck, David Frank) are acting at Columbia University. We are going to have a Corpus Christi reunion very soon.

Well the reason I came here was to work on my craft and it started fast with Harrys Easton Moutain Retreat Benefit. There were about 25 performers and 250 people in the audience. I sang a Josh Groban song called Your Still You ( it was a hit if I do say so myself. The show was a great success. I got two offers of other projects in the near future from just that one performance. This town is ripe for actors and performers. I also got a small role in an independent film called The Apparadice, it’s my bartenders project at work. I didn’t do a very good job in that tho, I was nervous.  But at least I wasn’t drunk like his lead actor. Never let people drink on the set even if it is a bar scene.  

Last week I went to the Tri Beca Film Festival where I viewed a film shorts program and my best friend from high schools sister Marcy ( I lived with her the first time I moved to New York ) had a short in the lineup. It was called Rest Stop and it was her and one other person talking in a car at a reststop. Long story short she is shot right in the head at the end of the film and killed( and your glad ). It was very intense and it got the second most applause of all the shorts.

The bad parts of this New York thing are a roommate who in unemployed and home 24/7 and talks to me like Ms. Doutfire, you know the lady Robin Williams plays in that movie. He always says hello like she does when she slams the cream pie in her face (heloooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwww) I just relized the other day that he talks to his dog this same way so I am no different to him. Also everything in this place is broken, The toilet is broken, bathtub was plugged when I got here, bathroom light works 20 percent of the time, fridge rots my food in three days or less and yesterday the phone line into the house just died. He is going to school and I thought it was for more job opportunities since he is unemployed and I just found out that it’s a class in Weather and Climate. God Help Me!!! ( and no he is’t becoming a metoroligist) When I tell my New New York Friends about this they all say the same thing ( he’s depressed huh ) I say yeah I found the bottle of prozac. This apartment is his mind on the outside. This has been the hardest part about the move. So I am gonna start looking again this week for a real home.

Well this brings me to this moment of my life May 17th 8:44pm and I miss every one of you. Please call me anytime I really need to hear from you all. I do get sad and stressed and go half out of my mind every once in a while but I am doing all right and am glad I made this major move. Oh before I forget It took 30 days for my stuff to arrive and when it did finally get into the city the men driving the truck came into Manhattan without a map with an 18 wheel truck, they were supposed to be at my home by 5pm but didn’t get to my door till 11 pm. They said that they couldn’t get into the city sooner cause they needed to wash the truck.  It was three Mexican guys who when they finally figured out how the get into the back of the truck ( they didn’t know what key unlocked the side doors ) they could not find my stuff in the truck for about another 30 minutes. When they finally did it was lodged in between someone else’s stuff. They pulled the other person’s stuff out of the truck and then could get to mine. One persons apartment on the ground and me loading my stuff into the house. All the while they kept asking me where they could get some women and dancing and they kept hooting at the women who would walk by on the street. 

What is one Gay boy to do with three horny Mexican men without a map and no women and dancing?  
 
Answer: MOVE TO NEW FREEEKIN YORK      
  
   
Love you all, Gary Freeekin Wayne Farris
UPDATE 2
 
The Night I got into the 31st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards
 
May 21 st 2004 8pm
 
It was a night like any other in New York. Celebrities coming into the restaurant going up to the forth floor private Showtime party. Mare Winingham, Peter Fonda just to name a few. It’s about 8pm and a women comes up to the host stand and tells me that she needs to leave but the person who belongs to the golden ticket in her hand is late and would I give it too him when he arrives. I say yes and then she adds as a side bar if he doesn’t show up I can have the ticket (I barley remember that part).   She leaves with her friend and we start to play with the ticket like it’s some hot property, passing it around and acting like we are going to steal it and go to the show. At this point we start counting down to the 830pm cut off and I figure the guy who’s tickets this is coming any minute. 815pm one of my host (Jamie a girl) says that she knows the man who is coming for the ticket and we should not be pondering using it. 820pm my boss ( Jamie an aussi guy) hands me the ticket and says you heard what she said GO. I go into a panic thinking that I can’t go into the show with someone elses ticket and I start to flip out so my boss takes the ticket away and puts it in his breast pocket of his jacket. I start to panic even more because I realized I wanted to go more then anyone so on the drop of a dime I said GIVE IT BACK TO ME. 828pm the ticket expires at 830pm and I run to clock out from work after working a double and I grab my bag and I can’t believe I am going to do this. I Get to RadioCityMusic Hall at 830pm, they look at my ticket ask to look in my bag wand me for weapons and I am in, yes I am now in the inner circle. As I make my way into the lobby I see a mob of women and girls screaming at incoming daytime tv stars ( Harry Hamlin and his wife were coming in as I was, there not daytime or nighttime stars at this point but they were there). I actually had to push my way through the mob to get to the orchestra level seating area. They would not let me through it was pure chaos. Once I got in I made my way past people groomed to and enth of there lives. I was so nervous I could hardly see my seat number on the ticket. I approach seat DD I see the women who made the hap hazard comment to me about using the ticket. I look at them and I say he didn’t show up and they give a look of why the fuck are you here. I immediately tell them that he didn’t show and that if he was really on his way I would gladly go outside and give it to him. In retro spec I guess I had already had the ticket torn of it’s entry strip but I wasn’t thinking that then. The women who gave me the ticket at the host stand said that she would call here casting agent friend and see if he was on his way. 845pm Dick Clark producer of this event comes out on stage and tells everyone to please turn of your pagers and phones about 5 times to make sure everyone does what he knows they will not do. Would a room full of stars every turn off there phones? I wouldn’t and I didn’t. I turn to the women who holds my fate in her hand and I say is he coming and she says he just called and NO YOU CAN STAY. It was like an echo throughoutRadioCity in my head. I make two phone calls one to my mommy and my buddy tony inSan Franciscoto tell them where I am. Mommy answers and we have a little chat. I also get a call from my buddy Emily and her message that she heard that I got into the emmys and she hoped I was having a good time. 855pm came and Dick Clark for the 3rd time in so many minutes comes out and tells us to please take our seats and please turn your pagers and phones off for the final time. I wouldn’t I didn’t and I had a seat at the 31st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. 859pm and 40 seconds we are about to go live across the county as Dick Clark counts down to airtime. I felt like It was the dropping of the ball in time square, that voice counting down 40, 30, 20, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, PLEASE APPLAUSE EVERYONE and we were on LIVE. All the usual stars were in house DR Phil, Ellen DeGeneres, Emeril Lagasse, Susan Lucci and so many more that I can’t even write them all down. It was a great show the host was nervous Vanessa Marcil, for some reason I thought she might not be, but she got her footing and started reading the teleprompter like a pro. Stars don’t read anything on live tv that hasn’t been written aready. And we were off. I don’t even watch soap operas so I didn’t know who half of these people were but they sure had a million fans by the screams coming from the 2nd 3rd and 4th level seating, the peons I am told by my buddy Emily. Those peons are what made all of those people stars as well as a little talent. The show whet fast and furious and before you knew it it was over and stars had receives statues autograph’s were given and a million photos had been taken from crazed fans. I thanked the women I was with and told them I wanted to send them a gift if I could get there address and they said that they would bring it into the restaurant. I said my goodbyes and made my way out the side entrance where on lookers were waiting for a final star siting. I decided to return to the scene of the crime the restaurant to tell them about my adventure and as I walked Barbra Walters and Star Jones were making there way out of the building and I heard a fan say she looks great ( star jones ) it’s hard to lose all that weight;  said with a black girl twang. I though she looked big as a house in silver lame’ but that’s another story for another day inNew York.