vanillalime

Wow, what a weekend!

PaLEEyFest was an awesome experience I’ll never forget!

WARNING! This recap is ridiculously long and includes an overabundance of details. Sorry in advance if it bores you! But I wanted to document the Oz reunion and the LeeFest and the associated happenings in my own way, so I can remember and reflect on all the amazing and fun and silly stuff for years and years to come!

I’m breaking it all down into 3 sections: the build-up, the actual PaleyFest Oz reunion, and the LeeFest after-party. I’m posting the first 2 sections now, with the events of LeeFest (which is when things got so AMAZINGLY AWESOME that I am still SQUEEING AND FLAILING at this very moment) to come later.

The Build-Up

My husband and I arrived in Manhattan around noon on Friday. The first item on my agenda was to go buy tickets to see a play, but the ticket booth didn’t open for another 3 hours. To pass the time, I suggested we walk to the Paley Center, where the Oz reunion was scheduled to take place Sunday evening at 6:30.

We arrived at the Paley Center, and I got pretty excited when I saw that they had a poster out front advertising the Oz reunion. Which, you know, brought home the point that it was really happening, and that I was really there in NYC, and that we would really be seeing it:

Now, the auditorium where the reunion was being held has a seating capacity of only 200, but I really wanted to be able to get the best seats I could for the event. So I wandered inside the building and asked the woman working the front desk what would be the earliest time I could get there on Sunday to pick up my tickets and take a seat.

She said the staff had to be there about an hour early to set up, so she suggested between 5:45 and 6. She actually sounded really nonchalant about the whole thing, it was more like, "Oh, you know, whenever really, 6 is good, or maybe, I don’t know, 5:45? Somewhere in there." I don’t think she realized how very important this event was to some people, LOL. I was like, "I’ll be here at 5:30!"

Even though we were really busy all weekend doing all kinds of touristy stuff, the upcoming reunion was always in the back of my mind. Lots of little things kept cropping up, reminding me of it, like:

I saw signs for Ozzie Patti Lupone’s latest musical "War Paint" in Times Square.

The O’Lunney’s pub where Lee’s peeps celebrated a previous LeeFest was next to the theatre where we saw a play.

I sat down for a rest at the 9/11 museum next to some women from Battle Creek, Michigan, which was the setting and name for Dean Winters’ short-lived TV show (and, in a small-world coincidence, is right next to the town where I grew up).

When Sunday rolled around, we spent most of the day walking, walking, and walking around Central Park, which was a good idea because it helped work off the nervous energy I had.

After a brief rest in our hotel, we headed back out to the Paley Center, arriving there promptly at 5:30. We picked up our tickets behind a small group of people who’d gotten there before us:

My husband and I walked downstairs and into the auditorium, and the first thing I noticed was that, even though there were people already sitting down, the entire front half of the center section was empty. I moved toward it, and the usher quickly informed us that those were all reserved seats. I asked, "Reserved for who?" The usher explained that they were for guests of the panel and Paley Center members. I thought to myself, "There’s no way they are going to need all those seats!"

The other Lee peeps attending the event were Milti (

miltil), Ashley (

shabby86, who was accompanied by her brother), Anne (

tobyfan), and Leslie (

discreetmadchen). At this point, Milti, sitting a couple of rows back, recognized me and called out, so we went over and introduced ourselves to her and to Ashley and her brother, who were also there, sitting on Milti’s other side. In between, Milti was saving seat for Anne, who wouldn’t be arriving until close to the start time. We sat down in seats next to Milti and waited:

More and more people arrived, including Leslie, but hardly anyone sat down in the reserved section. Finally, at about 6:15 the usher asked the people sitting in front of us if they’d liked to move down, which they promptly did. Then he looks at me and says, "The two of you can move down, too, since you got here so early." And I was like, "Huh?" because while we got there early, it wasn’t THAT early. I think he must have confused me with someone else, but, whatever, I wasn’t going to argue!

So I got up, but my husband said he’d stay put, and that Milti could head down with me instead. But Milti wanted to stay put, because she was saving a seat for Anne. And I was thinking, "C’mon, we have to take advantage of this opportunity!" So I called over to Ashley, "You wanna change seats? You wanna come with me? Let’s go!" I knew we needed to get to the better seats before the usher gave them all out.

So Ashley and I hurried down and got seats in the center of the 4th row with a great close-up view of everything:

We sat there, waiting as patiently as possible, while the start time got closer and closer. I checked Twitter and saw that the Paley Center had posted a short video of Edie Falco taken upstairs on the red carpet. Ozzie in the house! Then I saw Paul Fontana (Tom’s brother) walk down the aisle and take a seat in the front row. An Ozzie by proxy! Squee!

And then, shortly after that, I saw Lee’s wife, Yuko, enter from the side door, and that’s when I got really excited, because if Lee’s wife was there, that meant that LEE MUST BE THERE.

UPDATE: Here is a video of a reporter interviewing each actor (except Terry Kinney) and Tom Fontana on the red carpet:

Finally at 6:30, most of the seats were filled, and it finally started.

PaleyFest Oz Reunion

Some official Paley Center dude started things off by giving the standard blah-blah-blah introduction. I don’t really remember what he said except that he told us we could take pictures. Which, whew! I didn’t have to worry about being sneaky!

They then played a really nice video montage of various scenes from Oz, probably about 8 minutes in length. The clips emphasized the cast members in the reunion and included:

the McManus/Said "brick by hypocritical brick" riot exchange

the scene of Diane telling Said and the Muslims they couldn't wear their religious clothing ("there’s two ways this can go: blood or no blood. I vote no blood")

Ryan killing Patrick Keenan and taking his necklace

the Beecher/Keller laundry room scene, with the declaration of love and subsequent kiss

the entire clip of Beecher and Schillinger singing "The Last Duet" (lots of cheers for this!)

Poet’s "Kidnap the President’s Wife" spoken word from Season 1

The Paley Center dude then introduced moderator David Simon, the co-writer/producer of Homicide and The Wire and Tom Fontana’s good friend. Simon got up on stage and said… something… and then began to introduce the Oz cast.

OMG

I had the presence of mind to take video of the introductions, recording for posterity the moment I first laid eyes on The Man, The Legend… Lee Tergesen:

My train of thought went something like:

He’s really real!

Blue!

Why’s his hair so short?

Beard!

Thin!

Wow!

He’s really real!

(Note: You can click on all the remaining pics to view full-size versions.)

Overall (superficial) impressions of everyone else: They all looked really, really good. Like, amazingly good. Eamonn and Edie in particular looked no older than they were on the show. muMs has lost a lot of weight and looks better now than he did then. Dean… good lord. Some people just have "it," whatever "it" is, and he is one of them. Unbelievable levels of charisma. Tom Fontana seems like he would be the world’s coolest grandfather, and Terry looks like a distinguished professor teaching at a some artsy college (which… he might actually be, I think).

Anyway, here are a bunch of pics:

Overall, the reunion discussion was pretty good. A lot of the things they talked about was stuff I already knew, which I was expecting. I’ve watched and read a lot of stuff about Oz and Tom Fontana over the last couple of years! Heh.

But anytime someone said something new or noteworthy or particularly funny, I tried to type up a quick note on my phone so that I could remember it later. (Although, I used a quick abbreviation method, just enough to trigger my memory later, and my phone autocorrected some of it to things I can’t figure out. Alpha? Cajun? Medieval? Huh?)

I don’t know if the Paley Center will be posting clips to YouTube or not (sometimes they do)*. But in any event, here are some things that stood out:

David Simon asked the cast members if they knew what they were getting themselves into when they filmed the pilot. Lee said he knew about getting the swastika burned into his ass, but he didn’t immediately make the connection that that also meant he was going to be getting fucked in the ass. Tom retorted, "I was just using what you gave me!" That got a big laugh.

Simon asked muMs why he didn’t get any writing credits for the episodes with his spoken word performances (which I’ve wondered about myself!). muMs laughed and said something about using it as "leverage."

They talked about characters getting killed or raped as punishment for bad behavior by the actors portraying them. Specifically, they said a character was "nailed to the gym floor" (presumably, Robert Sippel) because the actor playing him was habitually late.

When they began filming Season 6, Eamonn was busy filming something else in Hawaii. So, at some point, he came back, and they filmed all his Season 6 scenes in one week. (It seemed like they were implying that Said was killed off because Eamonn wasn’t available to film more scenes.)

Terry said that he was irritated at first by the casting of a teen heartthrob (presumably, Luke Perry), wondering "Is this what we’ve come to?" He joked he was glad when the character's face got burned off.

Tom decided to do the musical interludes in the "Variety" episode when he found out that Harold was going to be off busy filming The Matrix 2.

They talked about the relationship between Tim and Diane, and how Tom wished he could have done more with it, but Edie had the great opportunity to go do The Sopranos. Terry grumbled good-naturedly about his role being reduced afterwards to basically leaning over the balcony and yelling, "Hey! What’s going on down there?" Big laugh.

Tom joked that he replaced the Tim/Diane love story with Beecher/Keller.

They talked a little bit about Terry directing some of the episodes. Tom had told him, "I’ll give you everything you need, except time and money." Terry talked about the tight time constrictions on filming, and to never wait until the end of the day when you need to do crane shots.

The tip of Robson’s penis that Beecher spits out was actually a hot dog. The second shot of him spitting another piece out just after he'd been put in the hole wasn’t in the script, but was an idea by the director for the episode (Nick Gomez).

When JK won his Oscar, Lee texted him, "I can’t believe I licked the boots of an Oscar winner." JK replied, "If memory serves, you also shit in the face of an Oscar winner." Huge laugh for this. (I know I read about this somewhere else, the Yahoo 20th anniversary oral history, I think.)

Dean told the story (also in the Yahoo oral history) of being the first person thrown into the hole on the show, and how the show’s prison consultant told him that, in a real prison, people were thrown into the hole naked. So, Dean did the scene naked, meaning every one else subsequently thrown in the hole had to be naked. A few years later, the consultant guy got drunk and told Dean he’d just been joking. Eamonn said he never knew that.

Dean mentioned being approached by an attractive lady on the street after that first nude scene, and "being young and full of myself" he prepared for the compliments he was sure were coming his way. The woman then told him, "You need to do some sit-ups" and walked away, and he was crushed. He told the story in a very self-deprecating way that was absolutely adorable.

muMs talked about the set being like a prison… long days, hot, claustrophobic… and Lee piped in "and plywood dressing rooms!" But Terry acted surprised, said he thought the set was a laugh fest, and everyone agreed with how well they all got along with each despite the circumstances.

*UPDATE: Apparently, the Paley Center is only posting one short clip, but it's better than nothing (and extremely hi-def, too):

There then was a brief audience Q&A, but nothing in particular really stands out:

I do remember one woman told Tom Fontana that the flashback scene in Season 3 when the character played by Treach murdered an entire innocent family with young children was one of the scariest things she had ever seen (something I totally agree with).

Tom then introduced a couple of people sitting in the front row of the audience: Brad Winters and a woman whose name was, I think, Irene, but I totally missed what her connection to the show was (which is a shame, because *teaser* she will play a small role in my LeeFest after-party recap). UPDATE: I have since determined that she was Irene Burns, who was a production manager/co-producer on Oz and several other Fontana shows. Tom also tried to introduce Ivan Fonseca (Oz's first assistant director), but he had apparently already left the auditorium.

Then, right at 8:00, David Simon asked muMs if he would "take us out" by reciting one of his poems. So muMs performed "Cigarettes" from the first episode, which my husband recorded: