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Because it seems unlikely that my second GMA segment will ever transmit me through airwaves and beam me into your TV boxes, I’ve decided to give those interested and disappointed what I can; a first-hand account of what happened.

On Monday, I had my publicist ask GMA if Cricket and I could dress up like Diane Sawyer as an homage of love– we would wear blond bob wigs, black turtlenecks and fancy lady necklaces.  

On Wednesday, GMA said, “Naaah.”

Cricket and I were flown to NYC on Thursday and because of some rare and lucky foresight on my part, (the GMA studios are in Times Square, aren’t they…oh dear lord, please please please don’t put us in a hotel there.) we stayed at the brand new and already described on this blog Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District (vegan irony not lost on me).

On Friday, GMA called me to ask if Cricket and I could dress alike for the interview. This is not to say that they were willing to buy us matching outfits. “Um, we’re already here…we didn’t pack for twinsies.” Not that that would even be possible. Cricket and I both rock pretty unique senses of fashion– and I’m not so sure there’s a lot of overlap, which is the point, and why I love her so! Beyond that, I had absolutely zero desire to be on international television dressed up like someone else if that someone isn’t Diane, and they said no to that– so I said no to this.

On Sunday, GMA called to ask if it’d be ok if we didn’t do the segment live anymore. “What?! Why?” This was their very convincing argument: If we do the segment live, it will only be three and a half minutes long. Diane loves this story so much, she wants to do a full fifteen minute sit-down interview. So we’ll bring you in later, which means you can sleep longer, and we’ll tape the segment right after the live show ends. This way, you can re-do answers if you mess up or anything, too.

Fifteen minutes on the couch with DS? Who would say no to that? No one. Nobody would say no to that.

With our new plan, GMA tells me to expect a call from a writer to be pre-interviewed. He’s going to ask me the same questions Diane will be asking me, to get a feel for my answers.

The guy calls, he is nice enough, but asks me the same 10 questions everybody has asked me and that I have to keep pretending are brand new to my ears. I can act! These are the same questions that they asked me in the first GMA segment…but in my more typical and not full of luck or foresight fashion, I didn’t really think about it.

My friend Lola, who does PR for up & coming fashion designers came over to the hotel with a bag full of clothes for me to borrow, if I wanted to wear any of them on air. With Cricket and Lola as my jury of peers I tried on Lola’s clothes, I tried on the things I had brought, and with overwhelming response, the verdict was that I needed to NOT dress like me, which the outfits I had brought were classic examples of, and take this opportunity to show off m’bod and dress sexier. More irony, not lost on me, seeing as I plainly stated above that I didn’t want to dress like someone else. Lola left me with a beautiful dress, a decision to make, and the bra off her body as I don’t own a strapless one and the dress required it. That is friendship, people.

Very little sleep was had that night for a whole host of reasons not worth wording out. At the butt-crack of dawn I showered in my open-air, view of the statue of liberty, glossy black tiled shower and then dressed m’self. Two or ten times. Could I be comfortable and still be “me” in Lola’s sexy dress? Yes, yes I could. This is dress up! A game I highly enjoyed as a child and clearly still do. It would be better on all accounts, to present a body-secure, hottest possible version of me to the world.

Cricket and I arrived at GMA and were put in separate make-up rooms. My artist yelled at me for having dark puffy circles under my eyes and not moisturizing. Ahh, I love NY. I told her I specifically DIDN’T moisturize that morning because a previous make-up artist yelled at me FOR moisturizing, saying that it created a sauna like effect under my glasses, causing eye make-up to instantly raccoon-ify. She “hrmpf’d” and then suggested I buy a $100 per 4 oz bottle of eye cream for people with “serious dark circles.” not funny ones. Cricket’s artist, meanwhile, was so inspired by her face-canvas that she created a masterpiece of eye-shadowry that I am truly sorry you won’t get to see. She looked Ah Mazing.

Left to our own devices, Cricket and I wandered down the hall to the green room, where we saw Sam Champion (!) and smelled old breakfast foods that were stomach turning. Our guy quickly found us and escorted us into another abandoned make-up room, told us it’d just be a couple minutes, and then shut the door. This should’ve been tip off number 13 that all was not right, but again, we were too pre-occupied to notice the red flag. Guys came in to mic us, I felt myself up for the gajillionth time, and they left us in there some more. They left us in there for a long time.

Finally, we were collected. It was go time! We were led down the hallway like Dead Men Walking. We walked into the studio and there was the radiant, glowing, blurry Diane, sitting on the couch waiting for us. There were also cameras. A LOT of cameras. Why is there more than one hand-held in addition to the 3 studio floor cameras? I wondered this (red flag! red flag!) and then quickly shoved all thought of cameras down inside so deep that I forgot that they were there at all, on purpose, so as to be able to get words out of my mouth. I shook hands with Diane and told her that it was the most surreal moment ever to have her talk directly to me, ME, through the TV at the end of the first segment, and with that we started the interview.

I was the meat in the GMA couch sandwich, sitting in the middle with Cricket to my left and Diane to my right. She asked us five or six questions that I can remember none of. They weren’t, however, the questions from the pre-interview, and they weren’t particularly good ones. At one point, Cricket struggled to answer one, not seeing the point of it, and it seemed like Diane wasn’t really listening or caring about our answers. It felt really weird, and then it got weirder. Diane turned to me and said, “Okay Andrea, now let’s get personal.”

To which I replied, “Okay, well, I’m single…” with a smile. The bevvy of camera mens laughed, but Diane was not listening. In fact, I could hear a man’s voice talking to her through her earpiece, (red flag! red flag!) but I figured it was the director, in the control room, directing her. She asked, “SO. You were in Othello in high school?”

“Uh…(me trying to remember) yeah, I was.”

“And you kissed Justin Blatnick in that play. How was that?”

“Geez Diane, this is like ‘Andrea Wachner This Is Your Life.’ I did kiss him, and I guess it was good because we won first place in the California Drama Competition.”

“You went to Hebrew School…what was that like?”

“Um, horrible?! Have you ever been to Hebrew School? It’s not fun–”

“But Aaron Rudin, you went to Hebrew School with Aaron Rudin?”

“Yes, and actually, he was at the reunion. He was the first person that Cricket talked to that I knew quite well and it was really different, for me, sitting up in the hotel room, than when she talked to other people–

“I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

Wha?! Diane grabs my hand.

“Come with me, quickly!”

We start running through the studio. Cameras following us. I am terrified that I am going to trip and fall. I am terrified that they have set up a stripper pole somewhere and are going to make me learn some moves with cameras rolling.

We run into the control room and two people stand up– a guy and a lady. Right away I recognize him as one of the twins I went to high school with. One of the identical twins that Cricket was propositioned by at the reunion and who she gave and received an in-lap dance. Which twin? I don’t know.

I have been Punk’d. I touched his shoulder and smiled, “Hey! It’s so nice to see you!” or some such thing. But the point being, I was just nice and friendly and smiley, and totally okay with it. Diane asks them what they thought of my stunt during the reunion. Peter or was it Jamie says he thought it was funny. The lady, whose name I still don’t know, says she was offended. Very offended at the reunion. She used the word ‘offended’ two or three times before I cut in-

“Do I know you? Were we friends in High School? Do we even know each other?”

“No.” pause “But now I think it’s funny, and thank you for bringing me to New York!” or something to that effect. Now I realize that this is the same lady that is in the trailer. She’s the one at the end who accosts Cricket in the hallway and says, “EXCUSE ME, STRIPPER CHICK! You don’t have us fooled, the eyes aren’t the same.” Now she thinks it’s funny cause she’s on TV and got a free trip to NY for her and her husband and kid.

And that was it.

There was no follow-up interview.

She didn’t bring us all back to the couch to talk about it, that was just it.

It wans’t funny. I knew this right away. Nobody laughed. There were no good reactions, I certainly didn’t give them one, or what they wanted, which, I’m not sure what, exactly, that was. They picked two people who barely, if at all, knew me, so the information they provided Diane through her earpiece (which, apparently she had trouble even understanding) just came across as anti-semetic. Hah! I did a better job with my reunion “prank” than Diane Sawyer and all of GMA and its resources. If anything, I thought this will just prove I am a highly capable person, and once again, helps prove what my classmates were like and why I wouldn’t want to reunite.  Apparently the lady from my class was the one who demanded the piece not be live-to-air because she became “afraid how I might react.” I love that she was afraid of me. How ridiculous!

Oh well. I got a free trip, and got to show Cricket NY for the first time. GMA’s still denying that it didn’t turn out, are still saying it will air, and that we’ve just been bumped for breaking news and because it was sweeps, but the same gut that told me to do the Today Show instead knows it won’t. We got bumped for a segment on Doggie Doors. Diane doesn’t look good in it. A segment they won’t even let me see, for “ethical reasons” cause it’s “news.” A segment that could have been good; they could have asked Ashton Kutcher for help and I’m sure he would’ve said yes cause NOBODY SAYS NO TO DIANE SAWYER (who btw, this was apparently all her idea, so clearly sometimes people SHOULD say no to her). Did they even think this through? Clearly not, as they BOOKED US ALL ON THE SAME FLIGHT BACK TO LA that was leaving in three hours. Sigh. And what hotel were they staying at all weekend? ONE IN TIMES SQUARE.

Lesson learned, sexy dress, lesson learned.   

My recent roller-coastery experiences have been more fun than any time I’ve ever spent at an amusement park, but whereas Disneyland instill’d a fear of strollers and assaulted my senses with a new sound and or sugary sweet smell every 15 paces, all the meetings I’ve had recently have taught me a new language: Bizese.

It can be quite difficult trying to communicate with someone when you don’t speak the same language, but it’s confusing when they appear to be speaking the same language and aren’t. Sorta like British English; don’t ever say ‘khaki pants’ across the pond…it does not mean the same thing as it does here.

It’s a pretty simple dialect, so I’m thinking of hiring someone who speaks nerd to create an iPhone Ap — The Bizese Translator.

Here’s how it’d work– you’d either hold your phone up and let it hear whatever nonsense the person is saying a la that magical program that can tell you what song you’re hearing when you can’t name it any amount of notes, and at the end of their spiel a robo-voice will give you the translation:

NO.

Or, you could type in a block of text like on babelfish, which came in handy when I was co-habitating with a French Canadian, hit ‘translate’ and out comes:

NO.

Let’s try it out. You type in “Yes!” hit translate, and out comes:

NO.

It’s painfully ironic that a language where everything means no, doesn’t have a word for it. Sorta like how the word lisp has an ’s’ sound or the word ‘phonetic’ isn’t phonetic at all. But it is sorta perfect when you consider the totally dysfunctional industry whose collective mouths speak it.  

I have just returned from NYC with my better half, where I got her to re-record the outgoing message on my voicemail, be a vegan for 24 hours, and almost crash a party Madonna was throwing in our super swank hotel. We had sunken square bathtubs I swam laps in, all the bellmen were models, and a mini-bar which included $5 condoms. We had such a good time (even though I spent half of it on the phone) on Good Morning America’s dime (excluding the mini-bar. Lesson learned the hard way)!   
On Saturday night at 2 am I got chased down the street, stopped, and asked, “Are you YouTube girl?!” and photo op’d. I don’t have that picture yet– he promised he’d send it to me, even though he didn’t know my name.
We taped our segment bright and early yesterday morning, but they’re saying it ran extra long (Us? Mouthy? SHOCKING) so the earliest they have that much free air space is this coming Monday, May 11th at 8:15 am. I don’t want to spoil it, so I’m not gonna say anything until Monday, May 11th at 8:20 am, at which time I will have words. But in case you think I’m dreaming too, I do have this pic to prove that I really did cuddle on the GMA couch with Diane Sawyer (even though she looks like a hologram)

Oh, I will say this, cause I don’t think the cameras were rolling at this point, I asked her and Mike to make me an adoption offer so I’d seem more in demand to Steve. She laughed. In my language, that’s a “Yes.”

IRA on GMA Monday, May 11th at appx. 8:15 am.

I’m just not sure how this is possible, but yesterday Cricket and I were the number one (#1) most popular story on Reuters.com . Check it out! : We were more popular than a WORLD HEALTH PANDEMIC. We were more popular than Michelle Obama being decidedly beautiful. We had an almost full page spread in the Toronto Globe & Mail, and I’ve heard we’ve been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish and Japanese. People tell me these things, and the information goes in through my ears, gets translated into something like this:

??!#@%??&**!!!!!

And then comes out my mouth as laughter. This is the funnest ride I’ve ever been on.

Just goes to show you, the things you think make you different, or make you feel like an outsider, actually make you just like everybody else.

Jessica Ravitz of CNN.com is looking for other outrageous stories to illustrate the lengths people will go to in attending high school reunions. Crash diets? Last-minute cosmetic surgery? Fake spouses or significant others? Fabricated professions and business cards? Did you arrive in a car that wasn’t yours? Maybe you hired an escort to go with you, or were hired by someone? If you have any stories to share about yourself, or about classmates, please fess up to Jessica at jessica.ravitz@cnn.com or 404-878-2106.

How exciting to actually be getting comments on here! And such ah-mazing ones at that, exclamation point

Here’s some other ways you can find us, iffn you’re interested:

twitter account is irememberandrea

You can be-face me on facebook. I’m fairly certain I’m the only Andrea Wachner in the northern hemisphere.

Become a face-fan. Join the I Remember Andrea film page. And then join the Cricket fan page.

There’s also www.irememberandrea.com with a one-minute trailer I cut all by m’self and pics n junk. I’ll try and put some new stuff up there, or get someone who speaks nerd to put some new stuff up there soon! I know it’s ugly. I made it in an hour on iWeb. I’d love to be able to hire Emily Glaubinger, the incredible artist who did the drawings for the animated section of the movie (there’s an animated section in the movie!) to re-do it. A gal can dream.

In the meanwhilst, there’ve been a lot of factual inaccuracies in the articles (there’s no such thing as fact checking in the new economy) and videos going around, so great questions are filling up my various inboxii. I’ll try and answer some here– if you have others, take full advantage of the comment section built for you and I will answer those too, in addition. Unless they’re mean questions. I won’t be engaging those.

Q: Why are you 31 and having a 10 year reunion? Are you “special”? I know your high school was hard, but did it take you until the age of legality to get your diploma?

A: I shot this in August of ‘05. 3.5+ years ago. It takes time to make a movie all on your own, people. Especially when you up and move across the country in the middle and lose your incredible editor, the estimable Chris Guido in the process. The first six months of post were also a technomologmical nightmare. But the six-minute trailer currently going “viral” like the pig flu has been up on youtube for a long while. I guess I’m just that far ahead of the media! They can’t keep up with me.

Q: Are you and Cricket friends now?

A: No. We are sisters now. She is the coolest, most wonderfulest, awe inspiringest, gymasticiest, leotard owningest woman I know and she is welcome to any organ I have two of.

Q: How can I see/buy the DVD of your movie?

A: Do you own a major or medium-sized motion picture studio, distribution company or television network?  I want to sell it!  I want you to see it! Hopefully I will have great news to this end soon. I am poor and I like to eat appx. one meal a day.

Q: What did you shoot on and how were they hidden?

A: 3 (three!) Panasonic DVX-100a’s. They were hidden full-sized, mounted atop two guy-sized guys’ shoulders aka not hidden.

Q: Why are you meow meow meowing about going to a good, safe, well car’d high school, Crabitha?

A: I’m not. I swear. I actually say, in EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEW, that I would hate for it to come across like I suffered or was tortured, or that I was still holding a grudge after my 4 year sentence served there. I found ways to be happy at PVPHS, just like I always do– I can make anything fun– but that doesn’t mean I liked having to go there. I probably would’ve hated high school no matter where I went, cause high school sucks! For so many reasons! The main two being that you have to wake up while it’s still dark outside and that kids get made fun of for the things that make them different. (With distance and age, you realize those are the very same qualities that make you great and interesting and worth knowing. And just to be clear, I don’t remember ever being made fun of by anyone other than my brothers) This is a pretty universally held belief as witnessed by the wonderful response to my “prank.” Apparently however, this information is not deemed article or spot-worthy.

A without a Q: I am not shy. I am not insecure about who I am now, nor have I ever been. I think it takes a lot of security in your identity to be willing to let someone else portray you, to not care what the results are, to film it, and to let everyone in the world see you “make a mockery” of yourself. And then to go on HD national television unshowered and make-up ignorant. Please enjoy some embarassing pictures of me in my awkward teen years.

Before Chuck E shoved my own sweet 16 birthday cake in my face:  
And after:   

A: Yes, I had my 16th birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Ironically, I am now vegan.

My cousin Kenn texted me with one of the best messages I’ve received thus far, “Wolf Blitzer just acknowledged your existence!”

This is my favorite piece so far. Cricket and I both wore ties for the occasion because we took it REAL serious-like, and I met Larry King in the hallway! If I had been smart, I would’ve brought a camera and taken some pictures to put right HERE. Oops. Thank you, screen grab!
Link for now, will try to figure out how to embed later:

Unshowered at my personal best, this story by PVPHS Alum Christina Caron has helped me take your TV Box by storm!

video here:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7399162

because this has gotten totally B-A-N-A-N-A-S, I’ve sucked it up and become a twit!

Follow along with all our TV & Radio appearances on Twitter (irememberandrea) and on the facebook fan page. 

Yours in immaturity,

A1

Today, while soberly driving (unintoxicated, not solemnly) my car home from Trader Joe’s (I trade them $60 for one bag of food) I listened to NPR (the LA equivalent of reading).

The chunk of air-time I tuned-in for was an exploration of the value of a measure being introduced in California to try and combat drunkard driving. The statistics are horrifying. If I remember them correctly, there are something like 1,500 deaths, 200,000 arrests and a gajillion accidents caused by shit-faced people failing to multi-task (be trashed and drive). And, on average, someone’s first DUI is really their 87th time DUIing. That’s just in California. So said measure would penalize the plastered by putting a breathalyzer in their cars that controls their starters. If they are schnockered, the car won’t start. And even if they have a sober person blow for them (highly illegal, fyi), good luck, cause there are random breath tests along the way.

What followed was a lot of back and forth, point-counterpoint debate as to the benefits and drawbacks of this plan. One guy called-in to say that this solution was too “Big Brother” and that we should just make capitol punishment the penalty for a DUI conviction. Hey, my high school had “random” breathalyzing after lunch, so this is not a new concept, but in what might be my Best Idea Yet, I have devised a brand new alternative.

Let’s face it, people in LA are always going to drink, the city of LA is always going to have no public transportation, so the roads at 2 am will always be spinning. As a Prius owner and lover of the good ol’ HOV lane, I would be willing to offer it up during the 10 o’clock Do You Know Where Your Children Are Hour,  till four or five am, the brief window of no-rush-hour(s). During this time period the freeway’s carpool lane would become a designated Drunk Driving Lane (DDL).

If there’s money for breathalyzers, then why not just build some of those bowling alley style bumpers that could rise up, separate the lane, and let ‘em go crazy in there! And by crazy I mean go 20 mph, cause apparently that makes it okay to drive while sloshed. If they hit each other, serves them right. If they get home, tax them. Then, instead of having police and emergency response teams tied up with all their accident-making, a snow plow can go through and clear out the night’s debris in time for the morning slommute.

Dear Mr. Steve Martin,

My name is Andrea (though you could re-name me anyone you want) and I’m a pretty cute 31 year-old who would like it very much if you would adopt me. Did you know there’s no legal age limit on adoption? I’m not looking for money or a free ride. I don’t need tons of your time or a date to a father daughter dance. I’m a hard working comedy writer who could just use some undeniable good association– like being introduced “around town”** as your daughter. In exchange for adopting me and introducing me “around town”** as said offspring (though if you’d like to let me live in your house, leave me a painting or seven in your will, or take me with you on your next trip to St. Barths, I wouldn’t say no) there are loads of benefits for you:

1. Adoption is totally “in” right now. See: Brangelina, Madonna, the future parents of those octuplets that will eventually get taken away from that cragee (she’s that crazy) lady. You could get a funny piece of the PR action and not have to take care of some parasitic, shit-wearing, crier.

1a. You have worked SO hard and built such an amazing comedy legacy, shouldn’t it live on? Let’s face it, this business runs on nepotism and you have no kids of your own. Shouldn’t someone get to take advantage of the Steve Martin name– and who’s a more deserving funny vegan with no living dad than a me?

1a2. Your dad sounds like a real asshole. If you’d like to “stop the cycle” or repeat it, either way I’m here for you.

1a2.2. Who is gonna take care of you when you’re old? Reeeally old. I totally would. Plus, I met you once (SNL 25th Anniversary episode circa 1999) and made you laugh out loud, so I could prolly do that again, which equals the best medicine.

5. Right now, I could be a pretty amazing dependent-style tax write-off.

F. People use their kids as excuses to get out of stuff all the time and no one can really deny them. You can totally use me as your very own personal scapegoat.

-. Wouldn’t this idea also make for a funny movie? We could write it and then you could star in it with Tina Fey.

VIII. How many presents have you bought for Lorne’s kids? You get 50% (negotiable) of whatever I get.

DD. A whole nother gift giving day just for you in June, and I am a good gifter.

*. When I do something good, you get partial credit, just for being my dad.

*b. When I do something bad, you can blame it on my mom.

71. Unconditional love. Even if you go off your meds. Again.

Think it over. But don’t think too hard. Look at the familial resemblance!

xo,

___________ Martin

p.s. please note that I purposefully did not write this in the style of a Sally Struthers Adopt-a-starving Ethiopian ad for all the reasons that you should be proud of me for.
** “around town” = “Hollywood” = a not geographically specific term referring to the entertainment industry and used by assholes.