What happened on Friday

It was Friday, I went to the gym at about 6pm, something I had not done for a long time.  I haven't been to the gym for ages because I've been away but I also always try and go at times when it isn't so full, so on Friday I was reminded how self-conscious I am when I do.

There are lots of mirrors in gyms, and something perhaps about the fact that everyone is not interacting as they would normally in a room with people at such close quarters, semi-clad and sweating, makes for a weird combination of, in my experience, uninhibited looking and equally as uninhibited and brazen reporting of what they see to others not there.

Do you get what I mean?  Maybe it's just me and past experience.  Maybe the fact that someone wrote to Gawker.com and told them I was next to them in a boxing class makes me a little leery when I see a boy at the free weights section clock me and do a cartoonish double take in the mirror then immediatley grab his Blackberry and start tapping away. Who is he suddenly writing to I wonder? Is he tweeting that I am sweating away next to him?  Is he texting his friends? Maybe he just suddenly remembered he had to write an email but, as I am sure you get by now, that's hard for me to believe.

I have been in a bar talking to someone, a friend of a friend, and later realised that they has excused themselves, gone to the loo and tweeted about the fact that they were talking to me and that I had bought them a drink!  Last year I in was in a fender bender in L.A. and people very close to me heard about it because someone outside the bar where it happened tweeted about it before I had a chance to tell them. And then of course there's the cameraphones and the videophones and, oh hooray, the new camera that can stream instantly to youtube.

I suppose what I am getting at is this: when people ask me about my life and being recognised and people sometimes freaking out and screaming on the street, I tell them that I understand and accept it for what it is (I certainly prefer that to feigned insousciance and immediate grabbing of an electronic device!) and I just live my life with a huge level of self-consciousness.  And on Friday, I guess I just forgot. I was back home and getting back into a routine and I didn't have all my force fields fully fired.  That's all.

Goldendays

I am at JFK about to get on a plane for Paris and then Edinburgh. I love Air France.

I found this clip of me on a Scottish TV talk show in 1995 talking about Goldeneye, which was about to come out, and also harking back to my Victor and Barry glory days.    Again, ah youth.

I do note more than a little nostalgia this week, as I head back to the Edinburgh fringe.  It's funny because although I have been doing my show all round the world for the last year and a half, taking it to Edinburgh makes me realise how much its content and tone, and also my desire to do it at all, is tied up with the amazing experiences I had as a barely twenty-something performing on the Fringe.  I guess it's true that the apple never falls far from the tree.

It's also weird thatjust yesterday I was shooting scenes for The Good Wife in Harlem, and will be back shooting the end of this episode on Tuesday, and yet in the middle of that I can fly across the Atlantic and take part in the world's biggest arts festival and see laods of old friends, and my mum, do a bunch of press things, see quite a few shows and then return and be all Eli again as though none of it happened.  I love showbiz.

 I am also very happy to read today that the results from various elections yesterday indicate that those Republicans who thought they were going to have it easy in November and take back both houses are in for a bit of a shock.  I can't help but think that the rise of the 24 hour news channels and their need for constant content and speculation, can create a very false impression compared to what real people are experiencing and thinking out there in America.  Media types and for the most part viewers of those types of channels will not be the ones who will be most feeling the affects of the changes this administration is making, I should imagine.

Combing my fringes

I am packing to go to Edinburgh tomorrow. It is quite a funny experience to be going back to perform on the Edinburgh fringe after 19 years!! There are a lot of memories flooding though my mind's sluice gates.

Mostly I have been thinking about how I am coming full circle artistically. I strated off at the Fringe in 1984 doing cabaret, with Victor and Barry.  Over the years we refined and honed our act but we never quite lost the thrilling aspect of often, especially when opening a new show at Edinburgh, going onstage and not being utterly confident of knowing how it ended or even the chords of some of the songs!  That feeling of leaping off a cliff is partly what I wanted to revisit with my own cabaret show.

Of course, Victor and Barry were characters who were very different to Forbes and I, and so now, with the show just being me, me and more me, I feel I am coming back to the style of performance of my roots and also making it even more personal.

But when it comes down to it it's still just a daft boy singing some songs and chatting. To wit, here is a little vid I made in the dressing room of the theater on Fire Island the other week, as I was warming up for the performance...

Ah youth!

I hereby present my professional debut, ladies and gentlemen: Scenes from a UK TV series called Travelling Man, in which I play a young canal boy named Jamie.

I shot this in the summer holidays between my second and third year of drama school. I remember having absolutely no clue what I was doing, and because I had  only ever performed in the theatre until now and had no camera experience whatsoever, I thought it would be best if I remained as still as possible and do absolutely nothing aside from letting the lines slip monotonously from my pert young lips.  As a consequence I look and sound like a rather well-looking corpse with big hair.

But we live and learn, and it's always great to be able to look back and try to remember the person I was in those Daisy Duke shorts all those years ago.

Everything must go!

Tonight I had my annual games giveaway party.  This is where I invite round a bunch of friends, mostly ones who are around about my size, and we play games to determine the order in which people go up to racks of clothes and shoes and other desultory swag and free stuff I have been given that I no longer have room. need or desire for.  It's a very Robin Hood way of redistributing celebrity swag, all with a few drinks and some guacamole.

Tonight was a particularly good one, only a few things left on the racks after the hordes left.  We even give out swag bags to take home the swag in.  It is a very good feeling to a) see lots of friends b) give away things to people who actually like and want them c) be less encumbered with thingsand d) to laugh at how I came about owning certain weird items, like a pair of trousers from a Sylvester Stallone film and a stack of still-wrapped porn. Don't ask.

Also we have a bit of a tradition now at parties in my flat of taking a picture with me and my friends who used to be assistants and my present assistant.  See the vid below.

mailer and wizards

My friend Joe Mantegna (not the actor) has made a documentary about Norman Mailer which I can't wait to see. Luckily I don't have to wait cos a copy of it is sitting on my DVD player as we speak.  But here is the trailer to whet your appetites.

I have known Joe for ages. He first approached me after The Anniversary Party came out and asked me if I would like to direct a commercial. I said sure and so I did one and quickly found that commercials were not really my thing, though I did enjoy the one I did enormously.  I will try and put it up tomorrow. Joe has been a great supporter: of my short-lived theater company The Art Partyand whenever I have a fundraiser for any cause he is always there. I did the voice-over for his last documentary P Town Diaries.

 I am off to a wizard party in Brooklyn. I know, you couldn't make this shit up. I have a cloak and everything.