| | Okay, so I was winding down and reading CNN and saw this little article talking about Billy Joel selling his 40,000 square foot home on Oyster Bay for $37.5 million.
Flash back to 1987. I was in the Soviet Union, part of a jazz and ballet troupe that was on a vacation/performing tour. We'd just gotten into Leningrad (okay, Saint Petersburg, but it was Leningrad then and it had been Leningrad as long as I'd been alive), fresh off a few days in Copenhagen where we'd had at least one performance a day as long as we were there. We were staying in the Grand Hotel Europe on Nevsky Prospekt, it was late, and I was really, really tired.
This was all going on at the same time that Billy Joel was in the Soviet Union doing those two concerts he did in June, 1987. I was shuffling off to get some desperately needed sleep, and while I was on the elevator headed up from the lobby to my room, I was vaguely aware of these two Americans behind me who were talking about Billy Joel staying in the hotel, too. The elevator stopped at their floor, and they and someone else moved past me to get out of the elevator. After the door had closed and the elevator was moving again, my good old slow-as-molasses brain figured out that the third person was Billy Joel, albeit a really, really tired, unshaven, needed sleep as much as I did version of Billy Joel who looked about like I probably did right then. I guess the two Americans had been roadies having a little fun with the kid on the elevator.
It turned out that Ted Turner was staying in the hotel, too. He was over there for filming of the "Portrait of the Soviet Union" show that was on WTBS back in 1988. I recognized him, though.
I had a really cool moment later on in that trip, too. On another night where I was just completely dead-on-my-feet tired, I was shambling down the hallway to my room to pass out. Each floor had this woman who would get you things like towels or ice or pillows or whatever if you needed them. The one on our floor was this absolutely quintessential older Russian matron. (Note to self: don't google image search for Russian woman, because it won't come up with what you're trying to convey here.) She was heavy-set, plainly dressed, really jovial, and I wouldn't even begin to guess where in between 40 and 70 years old she was. Anyway, I'd had a hard time communicating with her earlier on, but when I was coming down the hall she said "good night" to me in English, in this thick Russian accent. And I said "спокойной ночи" (sounds pretty much like "spokoinoi nochi") in what barely passed as saying good night in Russian for Idiot Tourists. But anyway, as an American kid in the Soviet Union, and someone who had lived in Oak Ridge (where they do a lot of work on nuclear bombs) during the Cold War, it was a pretty socially significant moment :)
It's weird. Our daughter, and Kieran too for that matter, won't ever really have much of an idea what this was all about...
Okay this has been your random 1987 flashback. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
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| | Posted 9/28/2006 9:59 PM - 80 Views - 10 eProps - 6 comments
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